I only held the title for one year. Even I didn't vote for myself this year. The two young granddaughters of some friends won this year. Not only did they perfect their skills at bargaining, I was amazed by the number of free items they received from generous sellers. When I was voting for them I noted, "I've gone to the Fox Island Garage Sale for years, and no one has ever given me anything for free!" Their grandfather--and good friend of ours--piped up, "That's because you aren't cute like they are!" Enough said on that subject.
Fox Island is a beautiful place. We have met some beautiful people there through the annual garage sale. Case in point: the woman whose crib I bought last year at her beautiful home. I also bought some clothes there for my grandsons, so that was one place I wanted to return. It was fun to see that young mother again, and this year I got to meet her two close friends who were doing the sale together. A delightful friend of hers was manning the cash box, and the third young woman was walking around with her baby in a front pack. The three of them were laughing together, talking back and forth, and it was quite obvious to me that they had a special closeness between them, something akin to the BVGs..
As I went to pay for my new treasures, I asked the woman at the cash box, "Are you the one who sold me your crib last year?" She said no and pointed to her friend and said, "She's the homeowner, you bought her crib." At this point the homeowner joined the conversation, and she was obviously thrilled to hear my story of how I bought the crib last September without knowing that in October my son would come from Hawaii for job interviews and that in November he moved his wife and 16-month-old son to Seattle from Hawaii. It turned out to be a very good thing that I had that crib for the week that they stayed with us before moving into their home in Seattle, and it is used so much for overnights at Grandma's now, for both of my grandsons and other grandchildren to come.
But this is not where our conversation ended, and it's not even the reason for this blog post. These three women--I'm going to call them the Fox Island Girls (FIGs)--it turns out have been friends for 12 years. They became friends when their husbands started working together, and they just hit it off. Now they are all raising their children together.
Of course I had to tell them about the Bethel Valley Girls. I also told them about the Route 66 Party I just had for my husband, and the Jack Benny Party 27 years ago. I told them, "We raised our children together, and now we are grandparents together." I told them how nice it is to be at this stage of life and look back and realize how much fun we've all had DOING LIFE TOGETHER.
I like that, DOING LIFE TOGETHER. We have marked the passage of time with flair, if I do say so myself. And I wouldn't want it any other way. The FIGs are "twelve years into it," as they put it. They told me they will look for me next September and will want to hear more of the escapades we have with our friends as we continue DOING LIFE TOGETHER.
Next year I'll tell them it's time to start their own FIG blog.
Scenes from Fox Island
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