A Rainy Day Contemplating BLUE

Nothing like rain and thunderstorms to motivate you on a summer's day to stay home and tackle all jobs that were put off while I laid in the sun and sipped lime melonade, a new wine cooler that's out. It's been Stay-cation week here.
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The big INSIDE paint job will be tackled soon, and the worst part is putting all the stuff away. This had led to many rabbit holes I've gone down as I sifted through boxes and found old letters, or mulled over books to donate. (yes, can't believe after giving away most of my books in THE BIG MOVE that there are still books that could GO.) I'm taking down stuff from the walls, putting away stuff from curios and shadow boxes. Breakables. Stuff on shelves. It is endless.
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Can't believe all the paint colors and the strange names for them. I've chosen Churchill Hotel Vanilla instead of Malted Milk for the living room. My bedroom will be blue. Not just any blue. I wanted the color of the beautiful blue sky Tuesday, but pointing to the sky outside of Lowe's won't necessarily help the cause. I found Summer Sky, but ironically Rain Dance is prettier.

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The painter, a long ago boyfriend who agreed to help me out, talked me into a white ceiling. Old fashioned. In the old days everyone had white ceilings, no matter what the other walls were. That's just how it was. Except here. Our bathroom has white walls with a blue ceiling.

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Back to work boxing stuff up again. I swear I need to immerse myself in that non attachment stuff again. I need to pare down more. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

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Back to work.

Awaiting Junk Day

A lot of work to do. And as luck would have it, the township is planning a junk day once again, if they can figure out a way to pay for it. Roughly two thousand families in the township, and the bid was 27 thousand dollars for a hauler to pick up the junk. That's a lot of money.

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I'd gladly pitch in money to help defray the cost of junk day. It is a wonderful thing to be able to box up junk, walk it to the curb and it is gone. I equate it to the luxury of having a giant "black hole" to just toss stuff in and never see it again.

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I contemplated a dumpster but I don't think I'll need it. Plus it's around two hundred bucks. I figure between donating things, burning crap, and Junk Day, the word FREE sounds a little better.

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Almost Valentine's Day

Going through my piles of things during The Big Move, I came upon a heart shaped vase with "I love you" written in many foreign languages. So sweet. But I've never used the vase. Not since that long ago Valentine's Day when I was in high school, when things went very wrong.

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Oh puppy love. When the doorbell rang and I saw the vase filled with flowers my heart soared! You see I had a crush on this guy and I just knew he wouldn't forget me for Valentine's Day! It was exciting to think he spent all this money to buy me flowers! I tore open the card expecting to see some sentimental little phrase and his signature. But NOOOOO. What was this? A joke? I didn't even recognize the name for a few seconds. Sheesh... it couldn't be.

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It was from ANOTHER guy. One I didn't really know well, and never really wanted to know well. I thought he was strange, or older, or...something. I can't even remember now, but his face came rushing back to my brain when I picked up that silly vase. A pretty vase really. I love you...in all those languages. And I still have it. And I never saw him ever again.

Nobody Home

On a list of phone calls you never want to get, pretty high on the list would be one from the police saying someone may be breaking into your apartment when you are not home. Under normal circumstances that would send waves of emotions: Anger, fear, frustration, helplessness, each grounded in some kind of violation and loss.

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Under normal circumstances.

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But right now, I'm ten days from being completely moved out and am literally ready to give away my bedroom suite and livingroom couch and chair to whoever can haul it because I can't sell it. So my first thought was... Hell, I hope they take the furniture and be done with it. There is nothing else in there!

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Called the neighbor upstairs. Yup, he thinks someone is down there. And he ain't going to go look. Scared. I'm not there, so he called the police. Police called me.

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Hmmph. I strapped on my set of... I mean, I put on my coat and out I went into the cold night, to go up and see that was going on.

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Buy the time I got there the police were "on the scene" as they say. No footprints around, checked the sides of the house.

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Went in and looked around. Nothing.

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No one around. Don't know what the neighbor heard.

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Couch intact.

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Sigh. I guess it's a happy ending.

The Sunday Morning Muse, January 2, 2011

I'm selling my furniture. This is not an easy task during Christmas. Who wants to spend their Christmas money on used, I mean pre-owned, furniture?
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I never liked to sell anything,even when I was a kid selling candy for band. But I can't focus on this neurosis now. I have to build the hype. Just got a call. Really. Right now. Lady wants a bedroom set for an 11 year old girl. "Perfect" I said, with a smile. "It's perfect for her. I'll make ya a good deal." It would be. It's this creme polished looking furniture with gold trim. It is not mannish in anyway. Men would cringe.Big mirror on dresser...armoire.
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She's to call back.
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We'll see. Please call back.
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As for the kitchen table and chairs? Another deal. May even come with a free bottle of Gorilla glue for the one broken spindle. Fix it like new.
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Anyone want a gold leaf patterned couch and chair? Anyone? Buehler?

Reflecting on Things

With Christmas here and all, plus the moving thing, plus the sickness thing, it seems a good time to sit a spell and reflect a bit.

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One thing all of the above have in common is "things." You see, Christmas is about giving and getting things, MOVING is about getting rid of things or moving your things, and being SICK,

is about realizing that "things" in and of themselves are not all that important.

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I laid on the couch sick with a bug of some sort on Christmas and watched an episode of Hoarders. Hmm.. I guess you could say I was a sick person who is sick of dealing with "things" (moving them, selling things, giving away things, just tired of dealing with things... ) watching a TV show about a "sickness" about collecting too many things.

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Maybe I'm still sick. I'm not really following all this. I forgot my own point.

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I'm going to go eat more Pizzelles.

Not Getting Rich on Bruce Springsteen

A big step today in clearing out the former apartment. My friend the junkman came to see what he could take and "scrap."

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He noticed a precariously stacked bunch of 45 rpm records on a desk and told me in not to just get rid of them. "They could be worth something. Especially in good condition."

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Most of my records aren't worth the space they take up in the closet honestly. Many are scratched from years of wear and tear, not to mention bad needles with pennies on them.

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But the one that fell out of the stack today and got my hopes up was Bruce Springsteen's My Hometown with Santa Claus is Coming to Town on the flip side. The Santa version was from 1975. And the record itself looked like it had never been played. The record was "made" in 1981. And I had the sleeve pictured above and all.

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Hmmm.. Ebay here I come.

Travelling hopefully is always better than arriving. The end of my "search" revealed several of these records. Damn. Worth maybe 5 bucks. Ain't worth it even to ship it. And I can't give it away.

When someone dies a house gets cleaned out and everything in it scatters to the winds like leaves off of an old tree. Of course the furniture gets snatched up or auctioned off. But the little things, the bits of paper inside drawers, or momentos put in little cupboards, etc. Now that is where the true remainders of a person's life are to be found.
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Or in this case, remainders of deaths.
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I have a box of prayer cards of Aunt Millie's. The funeral home cards you get at the door before you sign in and go view the body. She kept dozens and dozens of them in an old transitor radio box. Why it didn't get thrown away all those years ago, I'll never know. But I have cards that go back a good 60 or more years. Each a remembrance of a relative or neighbor of Millie's and mine... since I never really left the neighborhood.
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By now you are wondering how Kennedy got in there. I sure did. So I called up Bo, my friend in the funeral business and he said that when Kennedy died, local funeral directors put out these prayer cards. 1963. I wasn't even born yet.
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Of course I checked EBAY and laughed when I saw some imbecile who wanted $89.99 plus $14.50 shipping for one. Then I searched again and saw normal auctions where the card went for under 5 bucks.
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I wonder who will get the prayer box when I die. Maybe the Kennedy card will be worth more by then. Hopefully a long time from now.

The Happy Place

It's Black Friday. No I'm not out buying TVs or IPads or any other electronic thing. Instead, I am continuing down this unexpected path I found myself on, trying to get rid of things rather than buy more stuff. On my way home from dropping off two (out of nine) Christmas Cactuses (Cacti?) that I now share a home with (don't ask why) at a friend's house, I spotted The Happy Place. It's a consignment shop. The Happy Place? (conjure up sing along from the 70's...hap hap hap happy place...)

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Hmmm. A potential good place to sell some coats and scarves and maybe a few trinkets. An oil lamp or two.... or four. A trip home and a car load later and the slow trickle of stuff leaving my life continues.

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