My New Favourite Place.

When we were at the cottage a couple of weeks ago, my friends Kelly and Anne Marie took the girls and I out for the afternoon. (Kelly and Anne Marie are sisters. They live by the lake very near to where we rent our cottage, and they know every miscreant, odd-ball and ne'er-do-well within 50 miles. They are excellent company.)

They took us to a store (for lack of a better word) that was so magnificently wonderful I doubt mere words can do it justice. It was more of a "retail experience" than a store....I would have happily spent the rest of my vacation at this place. It was sort of like Disneyworld: wildly entertaining, thoroughly enchanting, and you were exhausted at the end. It had every possible thing ever created, and then some. I cannot tell you how awesome it was. Here is a a picture of it from the outside:

You may notice that it is impossible to see the entrance, what with all the flotsom and jetsom on the outside. I was very happy I had guides, or I might still be floundering around trying to find my way in or out. This is just the parking lot.

There were all manner of wonderful things, including: Home made snowshoes

A death-trap of a high-chair.

This clock caught my eye, mostly because it was so creepy I couldn't believe it. The pictures on either side of the clock are those ones that change as you move around. The one on the bottom is Jesus, and it weeps and looks even sadder, if that is possible. The other picture is the Last Supper and the Crucifixtion, depending on your perspective. Sadly, it was left out in the elements too long, and had gotten all wonky, so that neither image was entirely gone from it's companion. (It made the Last Supper look a bit like a particularly bad wedding reception I once went to.) Otherwise, I'd have snatched that baby right up. By the way, nothing in the place had a price tag on it, you just had to guess at what it was worth when you went up to the cash register. I thought that system was a little iffy, since "worth" was entirely relative in such a place. Thing 1 was told her purchase was going to cost four dollars, but she only had three, so the guy took that.

The merchandise was very loosely organized, and I do mean "very loosely". The glasses and dishware were in one section of the store, the books and such in another, but really, it was a free-for-all, as if someone had just said "oh, it's all junk" and just left it at that. I found these specimens in with the dishes and stuff. They were salt and pepper shakers. I can't imagine how awful it would be to eat dinner with these staring at me the whole time. They were seriously disconcerting, especially with the holes in their heads.

The book section was spectacular. I loved it whole-heartedly. I found this gem, which should come in mighty handy if the hairdressing thing doesn't work out. (Always good to have a back-up plan.) There were all manner of books, from chemistry text books from the 60's to phone books to paperback novels. (Sad, really, how many of them I had read, and remembered, that ended up there.) There was a curiously large number of books about Boy George. I bought a marvelous cookbook, "The Joy of Scandanavian Cooking", which, as you can imagine, is a very slim volume, full of lurid photos of repellant food. And, I was thrilled to find a 1975 Eaton's Catalogue, which is so dazzlingly splendid, it deserves it's own blog entry. Maybe two or three. Anyway, it kept me entirely entertained until the end of our week. And it was only two dollars.

The only thing is, I now know where Kelly buys all my Christmas presents.