The Lion's Club hosts a flea market every other Saturday, right next door to the grocery store. We've never been despite living here three years and passing it frequently. So this morning the girls and I headed out to do some grocery shopping with the cunning plan of stopping off at the flea market first.

The very first stall had a lovely black cotton and lace short-sleeved dress with an eight-gore skirt. It caught Spike's eye but was obviously way too big for her. I liked it too; I once had a green dress in the same style that I wore until it literally fell apart. Unfortunately it looked too small for me.

We moved on and Amber got what will very likely be the best find of the year--a lawn goose. Remember that eighties fad of dressing up a plastic goose and setting it out on your lawn? Yeah, she found one of those. For five dollars, but it came complete with a giant ziplock bag of goosey couture--an outfit for every holiday, including two different Easter outfits, one in pink and one in baby blue; a Santa suit; a St. Patrick's day get-up; a graduation gown; a tuxedo complete with tophat; even a goose bikini! My parents' next-door neighbor used to have a lawn goose and the kids always wanted one when they were little. Now her childhood dream has come true.

The same vendor who unloaded the lawn goose on us also had a bunch of clothes in Spike and Amber's size. Amber wasn't interested but Spike got a pink tank top, white cropped sweater, and best of all a green satin strapless top. It has sort of a corset-ey kind of look to it, with a ruched panel on the front and three 'diamond' buttons. She can wear it over a sheer black blouse for a faux-pseudo-steampunk look.

Another vendor caught Amber's attention with a Chinese folding fan stuck in the top of a big bag of fabric. I started looking through the bag, thinking perhaps they were scarves. In fact, I asked the girl, "Are these scarves?" Her response was less than enthusiastic.

"Um, yeah... kind of." Turns out she had three sets of shalwar kameez stuffed in the bag. One fantastically hideous orange set, one nondescript off-white and grey, and one tan and burgundy tie-dyed set.

"Spike! Look at this tie-dyed shalwar kameez! It's got a matching dupatta too. You have got to try this on!" The vendor was surprised that we knew what they were, even more surprised that we wanted to buy one. She wanted $1.50 for the tunic, pants, and scarf, which I thought was insane. I gave her two bucks and told her to keep the change, so she insisted Amber take the Chinese folding fan for free.

Finally we'd checked out all the booths and were heading out. I picked up the black lace dress for two dollars--figuring, since it was still there, God surely must have meant for me to buy it. My intention was to give it to a friend. Got home, couldn't resist trying it on, and amazingly, it fit!