happiness abounds

today is full of happy moments. thrift shopping, peanut butter ice cream, restocking my library loans (including some serious heavy weight authors), and returning crap to lowe's. the most rewarding, as silly as it may sound, is the moment i stood at the counter of my most cherished neighborhood thrift store in xenia holding the above sunglasses in hand and asking "how much?".

"oh, i'd say about 50 cents..." said the sweet elderly cashier.

i hid my excitement and said "please add them to my fare." i thought... "did she just say 50 CENTS??????"

for in my hands and for the most meager sum of 50 cents i held a pristine pair of vintage tortoise shell ray ban wayfarers. it took every ounce of energy to not reveal this fact to my seller and to calmly thank them and walk out of the store without laughing and jumping up and down.

50 cents. i am so shocked. these are not cheap (new ones go from 180-300 or more) these are THE glasses of my generation not to mention of every subsequent generation since 1937. and they are definitely vintage. perhaps from the 80's. they do not have a ray ban logo on the lens or the arm but the inside of the arm states very clearly the brand and style. they are the real deal. heavy and solid with just the right shade of lens and angle in the frame. that gentle lean forward from the face. the logo on both lens is a tiny b&l. i researched that detail and it's legit (b&l of course standing for bausch & lomb). in fact it wouls seem that the ray ban logo is a newer design and that my glasses are form the 70's or 80's! online these exact glasses go for 180 on a vintage sunglasses site and 225 on ebay. 50 cents. yes. 50 goddamn cents. considering i have wanted these glasses for several hundred years you can see why i am so excited. my mom always wore ray bans though her style has mostly been the malcom x style (club master style). awesome to say the least.

this is as satisfying a triumph as the 5 days of painting that makes our house look very very cute.