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Sunday June 18, 2000 "I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty." George Santayana, The Irony of Liberalism
dinner
closet remains |
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closet surfing By the time I struggle out of bed on this rainy Sunday, SuRu has taken Zoey home to wipe her muddy feet after a pit stop outside and unmade the couch. My dad has retrieved the paper and Mom is heating water for a powdered mocha cappuccino she likes. We visit for a while. I send an e-mail for Dad to their neighbor who moved to Germany to work and help him dial his friend for a chat. "No, Dad, you only have to dial seven numbers here, not ten." Mom calls her other friend who is in assisted living. They stay for a few hours and then pack up to go home and get ready to move for real. Forrest and I go over to SuRu's to visit her remodel. He has eaten lunch and I haven't. So SuRu and I go to Ella's. It's OK but the Bloody Mary isn't as good as usual. Eggs Ella are appropriately decadent, though. There are a few fathers dining, but it isn't very crowded. Back at home, SuRu and Zoey give me moral support to do a closet clean so my parents will have more room in the guest room. I decide that the hall closet needs cleaning first so that some of the stuff can go there. The hall closet used to be called the 'sports closet' but the only way this former life is exhibited is by the presence of a few old books on sports, a couple of antique tennis rackets (an old wooden one and a T-2000) kept not to ever play but for collecting and a couple of cans of new tennis balls. There was a time when the closet held softball bats and glove, bowling bowl and tennis rackets. The sports closet may always be called that, but I remove the books to a book shelf and only return the antique tennis rackets. (No, I don't have a collection. Nor any reason to keep them. But in situations like this, you get points for getting rid of anything. The softball and bowling equipment left in a prior garage sale or thrift store run.) Finally the hall closet is stripped and I have piles of things. Mostly now it includes empty boxes, sacks, ribbon, gift sacks for recycling, wrapping paper. I discard a fair amount of stuff into garbage, garage sale, or sacks and packing material piles and make room for stuff from the large guest room closet. Soon the hall closet is refilled in a neat fashion with empty boxes, gifts I've bought but not given (some of these go into the garage sale pile, though), gift sacks, etc. The large guest room closet reveals two paper boxes of National Lampoon magazines. (Forrest votes to save these each time I clean), a Ninja Turtle toy box (which I go through, putting some toys in the garage sale). The toy box makes me think of my young great nephew, my 'adopted son' John's kids and the fact that I want to make it assessible when they visit. I leave a few fun toys in it. I'm ambivalent about the pieces of the crash dummy car and accessories. Temporarily it gets to stay but the garage sale may get it eventually. One box I always keep is crammed with old slides (I might scan them) and old 8MM home movies (I might transfer them to video tape). I abandon the cleaning to do my part in dinner. Forrest is making his version of niηoise salad. He is preparing to sear tuna and has arranged anchoivies, tomatoes, olives and capers over a mixed salad of greens. My job? To soft cook two eggs. He doesn't want them hard-boiled. The Four Seasons uses a soft egg. I use my time-honored technique. Put eggs in water, salt, wait for a light boil. For soft-cooked, immediately remove boiling water and replace over and over with cold. For hard-cooked let the boil get roaring, go a minute and then cut off the heat and leave covered. Cool and peel later, letting them continue cooking easily in the pan. I do hard more often than soft, but Forrest likes the result. (Reminder to self: I need to use a placemat for dinner photos on the white table!) I do a bit more cleaning, WEB surfing and e-mail. Tasks like these closets remind me that most stuff is just in my way. It is not worth the time to sort it nor the effort to think about it. But it gets it anyway. |
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