A few Saturdays ago, I stood in line at a local church awaiting the opening of the doors for its annual thrift sale. I was excited to go rummaging! It was 9:15, and the sale didn’t start until 10:00. I was advised to go early, and I’m glad I did. The line formed down the church parking lot to the sidewalk and around the block. This was no ordinary sale. This was a community party.
A lot can happen in 45 minutes, and I was lucky that day. I met two groovy women who recently opened an antique shop in Tarrytown. Our conversation began with small talk about the sale but quickly moved into a discussion about art. I learned that Mercedes plays several instruments (guitar, banjo, ukulele, upright bass, and mandolin), and Katy has acted in Shakespearean plays with such roles as Viola in “Twelfth Night.” Impressive! The sisters are from North Carolina, and it was comforting to hear a familiar, pretty Southern lilt in their voices. By the end of the conversation, Mercedes said, “I think we’re gonna be friends,” and Katy said, “ Yeah. We like people who think.”
I agreed, so I decided to call my new friends the following week. I invited them to the poetry reading, and to my pleasant surprise, Mercedes made it! Yay! Katy would have come, but she was feeling a bit under the weather. I know she will attend one eventually, and it is my not-so-secret hope that she will do some sort of dramatic reading…oh, how I’d love to hear the bard in that venue! And maybe Mercedes will play a little music there too. She enjoyed the reading and was even able to network with some other musicians afterwards, so who knows? I sense some future reverie!
The day after the reading, Benjamin and I visited the The Thrifty Squirrel. What a fun place! It’s above an iconic vintage shop called Hank’s Alley (another very fun place to peruse) on Kaldenberg Place, just down from the Tarrytown Music Hall. Mercedes and Katy started their business recently, this past February, so it’s still growing, and I am confident that it will flourish. The sisters have a great collection of lovely jewelry, tea cups, knick knacks, handkerchiefs, buttons, accessories, etc. I scored a pale pink bud vase, a sugar bowl and creamer set, and a 1920s long, beaded necklace. I will definitely be going back for more treasures and more conversation.
Thanks to The Thrifty Squirrel, I’m slowly getting the stuff I need to form my artists’ tea party salons. Thanks to the groovy sisters, I am readying my flapper costume for my friends’ wedding, my literary field trips with Joce, and my candle lit walks through cemeteries or haunted writers’ houses. Thanks to Mercedes and Katy, I have made new friends in my new home.
