Honest Scavenging, etc.

I confess, I am a hopeless scavenger - it's very hard for me to leave perfectly good stuff in or by the trash! And this week, there have been some pickings:

• Sunday up in Calabasas, an upper class neighborhood where I work - Hubby & I found a set of 3 brown metal folding chairs out for the trash.  Now - these were slightly rusted & not for inside - but I keep on trying to furnish my apartment with OUTSIDE chairs - & these are good enough for that - & not so good that anybody will STEAL them! And if they do, they were FREE, so who cares?  Washed them off & fixing the broken plastic on the seats with duct tape....
• Also found some items out by the trash when I went to get the chairs from the garage - a Pier !-type box/side table, a corner rattan stand & a chrome garbage bin.  They are used, of course, - but not hopeless.  I think I am going to try to leave the box outside as a side table & the corner stand could either go outside for plants, or inside the apartment in the corner...& perhaps hubby will approve of the garbage bin.  (If not, we can always take them up to Venturat to sell at  the Boaters Swap Meet on 3/25.) Hmm,.what else can I sell???

My neighbors, heaven help them, are prone to leaving good stuff out by the trash bin.  Stuff that I would have dragged off to Out of the Closet, but as Armenians, they don't seem to have gotten into the swing of things there.  They actually were embarrassed the few times I have had yard sales here - as they don't get it that it's an old American custom & doesn't mean to advertise that we are as poor as some of the Mexican ladies who hold perpetual yard sales on corners around here! Just thrifty!

I have an old oil painting that I rescued from the trash when an old neighbor lady died - I just washed it off & touched it up & hung it in my bathroom.  And you know, similar ones go for $20+ at some thriftshops  - & it even has a nice frame.  Who cares what the steam from the showers & baths do to it!

Oh, & I found hubby wearing one of the free tshirts I got over the internet for him. 

Another idea - I have found internet freebies offers that you can share with your friends - & I am signing up my acting agent and other friends to get those.  The one I could even personalize with a Happy Birthday greeting to my agent! & voila! a GRATIS present.....

I also had sent off for a FREE 3-day Metro pass - which I am giving to my neighbor, who is quite poor.  Hope it can help a bit.  She is our charity.  We give at HOME.(But we did donate to the American Red Cross for the disaster in Japan.)

NOTE:  I do find all this radiation threat from Japan very worrisome - & find myself looking up radiation exposure charts on the internet to see if the news media is being frank with us.  Not that there is much one can do besides cover oneself up & wash yourself off when you come inside & stay inside.  (Thank heaven I avoid xray exposure.  The last thing one needs is extra radiation....)

We did not go to the boat last weekend due to tsunami warnings - as there was an advisory & who knew what could happen? I assuage my fears by always thinking of an escapt route to take if necessary - altho I think the Channel Islands do protect us somewhat....And when I get scared, I always stock up on more disaster supplies - water & so on....helped me in the Northridge quake.

I bet you Midwesterners fell better than we do out here in California.  Keep the faith.

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We scavenge?