Wednesday, June 13, 2007

History is written by...

...the cleaners. :(

Our sainted mother has been hiding things for quite a while. It might have begun back in the day when she caught one of our babysitters stealing from her. Who knows? In any case, one reason this clearing is so exhausting is that I can't just pile up the boxes that are already closed and mark them as good to go. OSM may have hidden treasures in a box that appears to be filled with only yarn.

Into the fray I go, unpacking and repacking everything. Mind you, it would just be the easiest thing ever to simply hand over everything as-is to Salvation Army (who are coming with a truck on Thursday). But I wouldn't feel right about it. After all, this is my mother's history I'm dealing with, and after having sent her off without much chance of a say-so, I feel obliged to bring her back some of her trinkets and mementoes.

There's too much of it to bring back, though, without getting expensive. I've whittled down most of the items, but I still have an overflowing pile to deal with before the truck comes to haul things away.

On the bright side, I hope to put these things into a corner somewhere so that I can mull them over after Salvation Army has left. I'm renting a car for the last few days I'm here to enable me to drop things off at a donation station.

The editing process means that I hold the keys to OSM's memories in my hands. She'd already begun giving some of her things away (including, it seems, her sewing school graduation sampler, which I had been hoping to find), which has somewhat lessened the amount of choices I have to make. But I keep turning up things that make me wonder, would she really miss this item if I don't send it to California? And how on earth can I get a lacquer stand and vase back without it costing a fortune?

Barb's former slave Luke is coming over tomorrow to heft down some boxes for me. I think he was alarmed by my phone message yesterday ("Luke, I need a man..."). Just as I was tapping a text to Barb to ask her about him, her other former slave Mahea called to see how I'm doing, and she handed the phone to Luke. Bwahahahaha!

My physical needs will be taken care of, and I can go back to pondering the piles of history.

7 comments:

  1. The great thing about Luke is, no matter how you "wanted" him, he'd find a way to be as verbally accomodating as possible even if he were to otherwise turn you down. The kind of guy who would reply, "Well, okay, if you insist, but it's gonna cost ya..."

    When he was still interning with us, I insisted he run out during a concert and grab me a frapp, but immediately hollered at him about some small, unfinished item. He didn't even miss a beat - "Then get them legs going and get your own damned frapp, lady!" I knew he was a keeper.

    I positively, absolutely, and whole-heartedly love and miss my team =(

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  2. Um...physical needs?

    Laugh!

    The steak man.

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  3. Perhaps I should amend that to say, "some" of my physical needs ;)

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  4. Wow - that's straight out of porn movies! The hot mover shows up to help 'move your couch'... uh-huh...

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  5. Hehehe! He's really cute, too (Barb, link to a photo of him somewhere pls) ;)

    He showed up, moved boxes for me and carried out some lumber to the dumpster.

    I showed him Barb's angelic graduation photo and then mine. He goes, "Wow!" and double-takes.

    Which means to me he's thinking, "What the hell happened to you since then!?" :D :D :D

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  6. This is Luke.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninjadoll/81948579/

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  7. And another one, cuz I have always liked it. Luke struck a pose shortly before he and Rick dumped this piece of junk off the 2nd floor balcony of our office building. Hehe. It was a fab moment!

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninjadoll/14671835/

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