Not my cat but I've got one who would do this......if she could.....

Sometimes getting a piece of the puzzle is not all it's cracked up to be.....

With 98% of my parent's stuff finally organized, I can't help but sigh over all the work and time I've put into this project.

I don't know how many times I've poised the question to my hub..."Why didn't they organize or go through this stuff?  Why didn't they work on it when they were feeling well....when they were in the 70's or early 80's?  How could they just ignore the hundreds of boxes in the basement or the cabinets that runneth over with items?"

And then last week...I was talking to my daughter on the phone and poised these questions to her. 

"Oh Mama (what she called my mom) mentioned a couple of times...why they didn't tackle any of the stuff."

"She did????"

"Yeah....first of all she said there was too much stuff to go through and they were old and then she said since you were an only child and inheriting everything....you could do the work."

I was speechless.  My daughter thought we got disconnected.  "Mom?? Mom?...you there?"

"Yeah"  With all my might, I tried to focus on some new topic she had started but my head was swimming in thick fog.

When I hung up, I plopped into a chair.  My mother actually wanted me to work very hard and spends lots of time on the mountain of stuff they had accumulated over the years. She didn't want me to inherit the house, what was left of their money plus all this stuff without effort.

I sat a long time.  It seemed such a strange thought.  If I think of my own demise....and think of leaving things to my children....I never think about leaving things ...conditionally...that is....my children must work for or somehow prove themselves in order to receive whatever I have accumulated in life.  

In my mind, they inherit whatever I have because they are simply my children...and I love them...why do I want them to suffer...work...worry....use up mountains of their time to prove they are worthy of my belongings?

It was at this point....I made decision.....I would give myself only one week to ponder what my mother said to my daughter.  One Week.  And then....it was best to let it go....treat it as a brief footnote...a mere  interesting point to add to the experience. 

 Otherwise I might wallow in it....think negative things...very negative things about my mother....her psyche....her knack for manipulation..her desire to inflict hardship even beyond the grave.

These are toxic thoughts....and it's a pool I best not wallow in....yes...I take a short week long dip....but then I've got to get out.

 Sometimes people can inflict terrible wounds on you....but you have to clean the wound out...stop poking at it....let it be....and move on.  If you pick at it....keep poking your finger in it.....you just cause it to weep and never heal.  Of course you gaze back upon your wounds...you look at your scars....and remember...but there's a difference in remembering and still being freshly hurt over and over again.

Well...what can I say? This certainly is an interesting piece to the puzzle....it may even finish a particular section of the puzzle...but it is what it is....and it's best to move to on to other sections or even start a new puzzle. 
   

Turbo-Charged

Top of the Hill

I was thinking about this picture this morning...actually...I was thinking about the feel of the picture.  I'm standing here at the top of a hill/mountain in the Negev desert in  southern Israel...looking out over an immense valley.

I was on top of a hill literally and emotionally. The wind was blowing so hard...you had to chuckle while walking against it.  But it was a strange wind....a forceful hot wind sandblasted you clean rather than dirtied you.

I got that same feeling this morning when I packed up about 50lbs of scrap metal in my car for the recycling center. It's the last of the garage crap.....remnants of stuff from my parents, discarded appliances and other junk that along with my parent's stuff was hiding in the garage.

When I removed it from the garage.....all I have to do is fold a table up....sweep a little......and we have a normal garage again....clean...organized...my parents stuff packed neatly into piles of garage sale, sell, and 12 take-your-time-complex-boxes.  Phew.  

I feel like doing a little jig.....I wish I can say I'm totally done with their stuff but I have about 12 boxes upstairs in stashed in my son's closet...but still.......the first floor of my house is back.  I've got a plan....I've made it.....Hooray.

I feel so relieved...just like that hot wind sandblasted me...I feel like some heaviness dropped right off me when I slammed that hatched door closed.  Stuff is a responsibility......and I'm not sure a lot of it is worth it....in fact....I KNOW a lot of it isn't worth it.  

Today my house and me are at a pinnacle of possessions.....a pinnacle of stuff stashed and stored.....and from this point on.....it's downhill.....down sizing....re-organizing and simplifying.  

Simplifying.... it really feels good....

Cute

A Lemony Snicket/Series of Unfortunate Events End of the Year.....

 Two lane roads reduced to one slick side with trees down on each side.

The two lane road in back of my house.....same thing...down to one lane...with numerous trees down.

Well....what a couple of weeks....I was diligently working on all my parents stuff in that PODS unit on the driveway....and gettin' a little crazy with dealing day in and day out with stuff....WHEN....we had rain that turned to ice which turned to snow.  

That's a big no no in the South....we aren't equipped....most folks don't know how to drive on it....and our trees and vegetation aren't suited to this type of abuse...and they get their revenge on us by falling over and talking out the power.

Which is exactly what happened.  Xmas day....we were lucky....we ate a nice warm breakfast....but the snow piling up outside and the weatherman shouting about "historic" snowfall gave everyone a bad feeling. ( We actually thought of starting a drinking game based on the idea that every time the weatherman said it was a "historic" snowfall we had to chug a lug.)

 Little by little....the TV was filled with local broadcasts of trees falling down and transformers blowing up.  Since we live in a relatively new development in our city down South our utilities are underground.  This has saved us during many a weather crisis.  But by evening of Xmas day.....our lights started blinking.  We ate dinner early....to make sure we could have a warm dinner.....and watched a DVD....but each time the power blinked....our first thought was "Oh No....are we next?"

Shortly after midnight...with the power and heat still on....we saw a bluish flash outside.....There's a huge transformer station about a mile away....and pooof!  there went the power.  Geez...it gets cold quickly....outside temps were about 25 degrees and the heat didn't stay around too long.   

But hub and I didn't get to freeze in the house too long...because by morning I got sick....very sick.....and said to my hub....."I think I need to go to the ER".....which was, of course, not an easy task....since there was about 8 inches of snow/ice on very iffy roads....plus we live on top of a small hill in a hilly area of town.  

But....we bravely hopped into the Subaru....and made it to the ER....where after an 9 hour wait...I was given three shots plus antibiotics to go home on.  By now it was dark.....everything had frozen over again....so we had a rather slow and wild ride home.  But we were able to get up our hill....and I immediately crashed into bed.  Fortunately our power came back on...I think if I had to stay in a frozen house....we would have had to pack up and head a couple hours out of town to find a hotel (they were all packed in the city) so I could keep warm. 

As the ice somewhat melted over the next few days....we could see the damage to our own leafy environment.....one massive pine tree down which fortunately fell onto the street versus the house....two beautiful evergreens split in half...and several other trees in need of help.  Sad....I love the greenness of our landscape and the abundance of plants but they really took a hit.

So New Years Eve...found me with a toe mending from a break....a serious infection finally waning....a broken landscape....boxes that I couldn't attend to sitting in my kitchen.....and a prohibition against alcohol... till I'm off my antibiotics .....that's a lot of Snickety events in a few short weeks.

But it could have been worse...I have friends that have gone with power for 6 days....(and almost lost their minds).....I see other homes where tree damage is worse.....I wasn't hospitalized....the kids are okay......the dogs settled down (they went berserk during the ice and snow storm for some reason)...and in the next day or two...we will send out our holiday cards....I'll start my resolutions a little later.....and I'll make myself a BIG drink to toast the December of Unfortunate Events....now all ...thankfully.....gone.

   
 

Getting there.....

Well...the photo is a little fuzzy...but that's the inside of my PODS unit on the driveway.  21 days into this work of going through all the boxes in my garage from my parents.....and I'm down to about 30 smallish boxes.  The miracle of actually getting through a whole PODS of stuff was not lost on the universe....since the low hanging sun of winter even shined in the unit last night.  

I feel a sense of accomplishment and order....I've given away lots to Goodwill...threw some stuff out....and sorted things for garage sale and selling online.  Last night....I opened a box of beautiful vintage blazers and a few dresses from my mom.  They were gorgeous and as you would expect of classic quality clothes...have held up well even in storage.  I know nothing about selling things online but will start next fall.  As I patted the sleeve of one blazer with amazing buttons and crisp pipping...I thought of how happy some woman might be to own such a fashionable quality item...at least that is what I'm thinking right now.

Funny, in my life....my mother was always dominant...she did the finances....she was uncontested leader of the family....and architect of our life. But as I go through this boxes with so many many interesting things....collectables...vintage items....antiques....it was my father that saved all of this.  I have virtually nothing from my mother....she destroyed her own records so I wouldn't find out her real age...there are no school photos...diplomas...no paper trail.  Everything in these boxes are items my dad found interesting and I did too....because I saved them from the Estate Sale.  Sometimes, I scold myself and say...."You should have let them sell this"...but most of these things that are left are what I have found unique from their life too....and hope to pass on to the kids and even to the other folks once I learn how to do that.

Interesting....the only papers I have found are in my dad's collections of papers...in the hundreds of binders he kept with news articles and magazine photography ....stuck somewhere in the binder I have come across prizes...my grandparents marriage license....pictures of my parents wedding....or the personal papers of my dad.  I have often wondered why he hid such interesting papers, documents and photos in these binders of articles.  If you don't search these binders page by page you would never find them!

Yesterday as I found an interesting note from my grandfather to a tenant.... and the thought suddenly hit me... was he actually hiding these artifacts from my mother?  She was known to go through stuff and toss everything away...she thought everything old was "junk".  Consequently...I have no documents from my maternal grandparents...no legal documents...no business documents...nothing.  Whereas my dad, squirreled away hundreds of things.  I wondered if he hid these documents in his binders because my mother wouldn't find them there...she wouldn't be able to tear them up and toss them out.  

Of course the risk for dad, was that maybe I wouldn't find them either (I'm an only child so there was no one else to discover them).  Perhaps he planned to tell me they were there at a later time.  Of course, when he had his stroke, he couldn't talk or write....and he was soo soo frustrated.  He tried so hard to talk to me...sometimes I look back and wonder if he wanted to tell me where all this stuff was....if he wanted to tell me to search through each binder for papers and family mementos....look through the napkins on the bar for the cash he hid....look underneath the stairs in the crawl space to find some silver coins.  I didn't know these things when I started dismantling their house...but I quickly learned ...that dad had obviously hidden things away from my mother...and I learned to search every nook and cranny of the house as well as innocuous things like his stash of innocent binders.  

I guess that's why this process has taken so long....my dad hid things and the times it takes for discovery is huge. 

Busy busy busy since the Pod landed

Well....what was I thinking a couple of months ago?  

I guess something like this....Hmmmmm renting a POD for a month would be a great idea.  I could empty out ALL the boxes I've stored in my garage from my parent's house, clean out the garage, go through the boxes....and finally deal with them.  Wonderful idea Gina.  Now, let me go online and fill in the boxes and put my credit card info in and let them deliver it to me on DEC 1st.

Now...I am thinking...what the hell was I thinking getting a POD delivered on DEC 1st?  I mean there's winter, Chanukah, Xmas parties and New Year's....things to do, places to go.

Well....whatever....the PODS unit arrived on DEC. 1st and hub and I got down and dirty and emptied all the boxes into it and then cleaned the garage perimeter. Then I made some rules...I will pull out at least 6 boxes a day....(cause 6 x30 =180 boxes) and I will go through the box and put the stuff in three piles....Goodwill/ garage sale/sell.

I set up a folding buffet table smack dab in the center of the garage...with tape, screwdrivers, box openers, magnifying glass, string, etc all the necessities I could need for opening and sorting things....plus my IPAD for looking up stuff.

Then asked the men folks to start hauling them in.  Well, I had the right stuff to open boxes....but within 24 hours I quickly ran into a problem....tubs and/or boxes that could not be examined in an hour or two.  

 I opened at least two boxes filled to the top with my dad's papers....World War II papers....pamphlets....notes.....letters... pictures.....etc. etc.  Well you just can't go through something like that in an hour or two.  So I had to invent a new category.....Too Complicated to Deal with NOW.  So far I have 6 boxes in this category stacked in a corner of the garage.  I'm trying to keep this pile small.....but the fact remains after this round of culling things....there will still be stuff to go through.  I'm disappointed but realistic.

I've been surprised with the contents of some boxes....they show how nutty I was....or tired....or too much in grief to think.  

I opened one small box and it contained an old beach towel, two of my dad's used t-shirts and about ten pairs of his old socks.  That's it.....I looked at the contents and thought what was I thinking???  The beach towel was old with no memories attached to it....and the socks and t-shirts were just socks and t-shirts.  I placed them in the Goodwill bag and was happy I could get through that box in less than 10 minutes.

There are some big big plastic storage tubs in the PODS unit.... I bravely pulled out one of them last night. I had NO IDEA what was in it...I didn't mark it....I don't remember it....but I was nervous...a big tub means lots of stuff...and I really don't want to deal with lots of stuff.  I don't want more stuff in my house (after all.... all these boxes lived outside of my house and I didn't need a thing from any of them) and I didn't want to find complex things...and I didn't want to puzzled by valuable things I don't know what to do with.  So I took a deep breath.....and opened the lid.  

HOOORAY!   So easy....in this tub there was a new frying pan....(okay I could use that) some rags....(Okay these were soft ones I could put in the rag bucket) and about 24 double rolls of Bounty paper towels.  

Man...I was crazy.....why did I pack all these paper towels??? What was I thinking?? The only explanation I could dream up was... I discovered these paper towels in my dad's garage or basement....probably a Sam's Club purchase....I used some of them to clean the house....I probably thought the tub was a nice storage container to take home so I packed the paper towels in the tub along with a few items I could actually use.   Phew.  Dodged the bullet on that one.

I got so brave I pulled another big tub out tonight for tomorrow's work.  I peeked.....ugh.

Xmas stuff....piles and piles of Xmas stuff....obviously something I packed before the estate sale.  Maybe I wanted the kids to have some stuff?  Maybe I thought they were valuable? Boy...I shut that sucker tight and took a deep breath and will face whatever the hell it is ....tomorrow.

Tomorrow.  Day 12.... half way through...

may the remaining boxes and tubs be kind to me.   

The Pod

Tits as weapons

 

In some ways....tits have always been used as weapons.  

I'm reminded of my time spent at the country club pool when my kids were little...trophy or simply very narcissistic wives would wear unbelievably skimpy bra bikinis to show off their assets and advertise to each other.  The advertisement went something like this:  mine are bigger ...firmer...rounder than yours which means I'm better than  you in catching rich gullible men prone to liking this type of arsenal.  (Meow.)

Of course women have used tits as weapons against men forever....flashing them at vulnerable men....and making them shake with desire.  In this case, they are more like Nerf guns....they mimic something dangerous but they're actually soft and fun.

It seems, however, a woman has actually used her breasts as an actual weapon ....instead of teasing a man into submission ....she tried to suffocate him with 36DD's.

 "Franziska Hansen, 33, is reportedly charged with “attempted murder with a weapon” after her lawyer boyfriend claimed she tried to smother him while pretending it was a sex game."

"(The Lawyer) told a court in Germany that the couple had been having sex in May this year when Ms Hansen suddenly grabbed his head and pushed it between her breasts with all her force.

He is quoted as saying: “I couldn't breathe any more, I must have turned blue. I couldn't tear myself free and I thought I was going to die.”

Mr Schmidt, who weighs 13 stone (182 lbs), claims he managed to wriggle free and fled naked to a neighbour, who raised the alarm.

He told the court that the couple’s four-year relationship had been strained after they moved to the town of Unna, where his career as a lawyer took off and she struggled to hold a job.

I  told this story to my hub.....and he said really? and then just laughed.

By the way....I think they have the facts wrong in the story....if these are actually the weapons (story taken from the Huffington Post) I would say they are more like 36 DDD.  I think you would need more than two D's to do some serious damage.

Sorry...had to remove picture...it was toxic and leaving snippets of text in other blogs.....but you can google the story and google the weapons.