Shoelaces and Post-It's

Day 225: Shoelaces and Post-Its

Another example of the invisible obvious: shoelaces and Post-Its. They have been sitting in plain view on our credenza getting dusted for uncounted weeks.

Party Balloons and Crepe Paper

Day 224: Party Balloons and Crepe Paper

These were in the same small basket on the same small shelf with the hefe I got rid of last week. On the one hand, it feels like I'm drained dry: I have nothing left to give. On the other, I have an infinite amount of stuff, so much that unnecessary items - party decorations bought at the Dollar Store years ago for a party long finished - hide in plain view. 

I don't even see them. Invisible. 

Sealed Container

Day 223: Sealed Container

Food packaging. I've always assumed that it is a major contributor to negative environmental outcomes. Often as I unwrap a granola bar, or pour myself a bowl of cereal, or take a piece of bread out of the plastic bag, I imagine Caroline Ingalls and her monthly trip to town. How the flour and sugar and baking soda and pickles and candy were displayed in giant wooden barrels. The grocer would weigh the items on a giant scale and twist them up into pieces of paper, which Caroline would tuck into a woven basket for the long ride home. Even that was too much dependency for Charles, who kept moving them farther and farther into the wilderness, where they had to make do with whatever they brought along, or could grow, build, bake or trade in the new, emptier landscape.

On our kitchen counter, we have rows of sealed glass jars that remind me of those pioneer days. In them: corn meal, white flour, wheat flour, sugar, popcorn, rice, brewer's yeast, pasta, teabags. To some extent, this is a successful effort on our part to minimize waste from food packaging. Partly, it's a decorative choice. But, although our popcorn included less packaging than the microwave variety, it still came in a large plastic jug from Costco, or a small plastic bag from Meijer. Ditto everything else in the jars. We didn't pull the ears from the stalk, hang them to dry over the winter, and enjoy a tasty, fully compostable treat by the fireside come spring.

It turns out that some of the things I thought about packaging are true. Yes, packaging is a large component of the municipal waste stream, compromising about one-third of the total; food packaging alone comprises about 20% of municipal waste. The good news is that the volume and weight of packaging has remained constant since the 1990s despite overall economic growth (with accompanying increases in waste). The EPA has solid regulations the encourage recycling and composting.

The big surprise to me - duh - is that the primary purpose of food packaging is to keep our food safe from contamination. It's not all just a marketing ploy! And guess what? We have one of the safest - perhaps the very safest - food system in the world! So you don't have to feel entirely guilty about those little plastic bags that you repurpose as poop sacks, or the little apple bags you use to carry your lunch, or the cardboard cartons you put in the recycling bin.

I've idealized Charles and Caroline and Mary and Laura and Carrie. I've even imagined my next year's challenge: only whole foods, every day for a year. Nothing prepackaged. No restaurants, no tortillas, no store-bought bread, no Kellogg's or Kraft. No Trader Joe's cheese, no matter how delicious.

Now I'm not so sure. First, eating only whole foods would be a major, major time commitment. A lot of the food would suck, because I haven't had the lifetime of lessons Caroline had to make her food palatable. Let's face it, I'm not the best bread baker in the world. We'd get a lot less variety. Moose Tracks, not. Greek yogurt, not. Gin and tonic, not.

I'm still keeping the sealed containers on the counter (not including this green metal one, which doesn't match). I'm still going to get my milk delivered so Calder Dairy will reuse the bottles. I'm still going to bring my canvas bags to the grocery store, and refrain from putting bananas in a plastic bag, and buy dish soap in larger bottles less often. On the other hand, I'm also going to consider food packaging - and our safe food system - with more appreciation.

Halloween Coloring

Day 222: Halloween Coloring

Sam used to draw the most expressive, comical, appealing faces.
This pumpkin makes me laugh every time I take it out of the box.

I am not one of those mothers who does up the whole house with holiday decorations. I'm more of a just-in-time kind of gal. Which means that I just realized today (Tuesday) that Friday is Halloween. For holiday decorations, the kids have to go to my mom's.

Just recently Sam's English teacher told him he has
talent as a poet. You can see this talent started to
emerge at a young age.

This is the only thing I can actually get rid of.
Nothing original - just colored-in Xerox copies.
Haven't put them up in years.

Nevertheless, I have a whole boxful of holiday stuff that will have to be buried with me in my coffin, because I will never give them up. Never. In the whole big box, I found very, very little that I could bear to part with.

And a whole lot that gives me joy.

Your friendly neighborhood vampire, arriving on time
to suke your blood. Another classic from Emma Jane
that  makes me laugh. Every time.

Skeletons made out of Q-Tips, pumpkins in a patch,
maniacal scarecrows. All keepers.

Curtain Rods

Day 221: Curtain Rods

These ends are a testament to why
keeping stuff around is not a good idea.
How did they get crushed? I don't know.
I hope they're still usable for someone.

The au pair we had in between Nadin and Ina - Nicole - wanted curtains for her attic bedroom. She felt exposed up there, even though it's a floor above any of our neighbors' living spaces, and even though most of the windows are skylights pointing towards the clouds. Nicole had a few other complaints as well. Rich and I drank all the coffee and didn't leave any for her. Her bed was uncomfortable, too soft, not enough support. The kids made her feel "stressy," they didn't mind very well. I bought these rods for her with every intention of acquiring and putting up curtains for her, but it just never happened. In an old house like ours, I'm not a fan of curtains unless they are absolutely necessary for privacy's sake. Every ray of sunshine should be embraced and uplifted. Nothing should diminish the light.

I lived in San Francisco for twelve years, and for a good portion of that time, I had a little apartment in a ten-story building on Alamo Square Park (site of postcard row). I had a beautiful western-facing view of the City: from my window, I could see the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park in the distance, the distant trees a backdrop to the vast sea of apartment buildings, houses, cafes, sidewalks, gas stations, bodegas, bicycles, streets, light poles, cars, passersby, transit lines and on and on and on.

At one point, my father gave me a telescope and I set it up by the window. I think my intentions were pure - I would look at the moon, or the birds, or try to spy the ocean in the far distance.

Naturally, the view a little closer to home was much more interesting. The telescope was a secret peek into slices of my neighbors' lives. The City is so dense, you can live in the building next door to someone for a decade and not recognize her when you pass her on the street. I never saw anything even remotely scintillating through the telescope. Not even a PG-13 kiss. It's not that people had their curtains closed. It's just that they usually do things like watch t.v., or talk on the phone, or read the newspaper. Things that aren't very interesting to watch.

I quickly lost interest in the telescope. Watching ore boats go by on Lake Michigan in the U.P. is much more captivating than watching your neighbors eat a bowl of cereal. But the telescope had the paradoxical effect of diminishing my commitment to window treatments. If someone really wants to watch  me type my blog through a telescope from some neighboring building, let them. What's the harm in watching?

Kids' Music

Day 220: Kids' Music

The shelves upstairs are still yielding little things from past times. A signed version of Teaching Hippopotami to Fly by the Chenille Sisters. Magic School Bus Dinosaurs (oh, how Sam loved dinosaurs!). I Spy. 

No more cross country trips with books on tape played over and over, or the same videotape played over and over, or the Chenille Sisters played over and over. I can still recite the book The White Cat from memory ("You are nothing but a white...cat") and sing all the words to "A You're Adorable," and speak the lines along with James Cromwell in Babe ("That'll do, pig"). The kids listen to their own music now, with headphones. off in the zone.

It doesn't seem long ago that they were toddling along on unsteady feet, with diaper-fat butts and chubby little ankles and shorts that went below their knees, or reaching up to ride the Razor scooter set at the lowest height, or stopping at the street corner because they weren't allowed to cross on their own, or climbing the tree between our house and Barbara's house next door to put letters in the wooden box they'd stowed up in the branches.

I'm guessing that I'll have grandchildren in fewer years than it's been since we last listened to the Magic School Bus. Should I keep these things for them?

Sam, Rich and I spent some time this afternoon filling our street-side compost container with leaves, as we've done every Sunday for several weeks. It's a pleasant task, with the sun shining, the crisp yellow leaves clean and sweet-smelling, and the autumn light soft and clear like champagne bubbles. We spent about 45 minutes at it, and then Sam went back to his homework and NFL game, up in our finished attic, as he has does every week when we are finished with our leaf-clearing chore.

Later, I saw a young mother in her front yard with two pre-school aged kids, raking fallen leaves into piles. Not long ago, we'd rake our own leaves into giant piles, not wasting them in the composter but turning them into an afternoon's entertainment. We'd fling ourselves into the leaf piles, over and over, laughing, throwing leaves into the air so they'd glint in the sun, getting covered from head to foot with crisp little pieces.

Soon enough, winter will be here.

Electronic Yahtzee

Day 219: Electronic Yahtzee

This little thing helped get us through
several 1,000 mile drives to St.
Augustine, back before iPhones

Milk crates. A few weeks ago, about three dozen of them appeared at my neighborhood playground. Black, lime green, red, yellow. The plastic kind that Calder Dairy delivers our milk in once a week. The kind you can buy at Target for $2.99.

I first noticed them because a group of older high school kids were using them to build a tower on the blacktop near the school's kindergarten wing. They were creating a pyramid form, trying to make it stable enough that one of the lighter girls could climb on the top. They would build it, then help her climb. Then it would collapse and they'd try again.

An older woman and I stopped to watch in horrified fascination. She was the kind of woman I hope to be in twenty years, with wrinkles you'd get when you've smiled a lot and a spry walk.

"That looks dangerous," I said.

"Yes," she replied. We paused, watching another collapse. Then she smiled. "But you can't worry about everything."

Every time I've walked past the playground since then, I've noticed the milk crates. They are never in the same place. Today, three boys had set up an obstacle course on the basketball court. They were timing themselves, zigzagging in and among the crates on their fat-tired bikes. Last week, some pre-schoolers were carrying up the play structure steps and pushing them down the slide, over and over. A week before that, some second graders were using them to supplement the jungle gym, stacking them against the walls. I've seen the crates on the swings, spread out on the lawn, stacked against the school wall and arranged in a baseball diamond. They are getting more use than the sandbox or the slides or the bocci court.

I keep waiting for the crates to disappear. Some administrator (someone like me, but who works for the school district) is going to realize that these crates are dangerous. Weak and wobbly. Uncontrolled and unstable. Somebody is going to hurt. There could be tragedy. There could be hell to pay.

We've got a builder's nook in the Gaffield Children's Garden, using all natural materials. The kids love it. Giant logs and long sticks, stones and sand. They build tiny little houses for trolls and fairies, and tipsy tipis to climb in themselves. There's nothing else like it anywhere in town - nothing like it in any other children's gardens I've seen around the country - and I love it. It reminds me of what playing was like when I was a little kid. My brother and sister and I would wander down to the little wetland on Hubbard and Green roads. We'd walk in the muck and pull cattails, separating the rusty sausage-like pods, rubbing the grainy seeds between our fingers and again the palms of our hands. There were pussy willows there; I remember stroking the downy buds against my cheek, careful not to damage the plant. Sometimes we'd wander in the woods behind the playground at our neighborhood park, watching for squirrels and chipmunks, listening to the birds, walking softly, pretending to be Indians.

Time stretched like caramel.

More Dog Stuff

Day 218: More Dog Stuff

Undercoat brush, pinch collar
bone and squeaker

The time has come to get rid of all of Chester's old things.

Ways in which Harpo is different from Chester:

Harpo: Small
Chester: Extra-large

Harpo: Stands on back feet and jumps
Chester: Laid down

Harpo: Scentless
Chester: Stank to high hell

Harpo: Either doesn't care what we want him to do, or is not smart enough to figure out what we want him to do
Chester: Knew what we wanted him to do and did it when we were in the room with him. Smart enough to figure out that when we were not in the room, he could do what he wanted

Harpo: Hair grows continuously, gets matted and must be shaved at the groomer's, making him look like a rat
Chester: Thick undercoat and overcoat, blows out once or twice a year covering furniture, rugs, and clothing

Harpo: High-pitched bark whenever anyone walks by
Chester: Deep loud bark whenever anyone moves around inside the house

Harpo: Alive and well
Chester: Dearly departed

Time to let go.

More Tax Return Documentation

Day 217: More Tax Return Documentation

My fears are realized. Tax return documentation is lurking everywhere. It's on every shelf. In every binder. In every box. It's in the basement. It's near the computer. It's on the bottom shelf in the attic.

On second thought, maybe this is a good thing. 148 days to go. Tax return documentation might just make the goal attainable.

Dead Ponytail Palm

Day 216: Dead Ponytail Palm

Evidence of failure

Is it coincidence that shortly after Connie retired, moved away and (most important) quit her position as bass player for the excellent string band Cluck Ole Hen, this ponytail palm began its decline?

Okay, maybe Cluck Ole Hen can't be accurately described as an excellent string band, but it sure is fun. And having Connie as part of the band meant that we had a professional horticulturalist coming over here every week to remind me to water the plants, most often with the dregs of our beer at the end of rehearsal.

I love plants and gardening, but, except for idiot-proof ornamental grasses, coneflower, milkweed and rudbeckia, I'm pretty much a fail. Especially in the urban farm category. I've got two apple trees, a pear tree, a peach tree, raspberries, asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries, tomato plants and chickens.

My harvest this year: an occasional raspberry, eaten directly from the bush. A few eggs earlier in the summer. One rhubarb, never harvested. One stalk of asparagus, never harvested. I saw quite a few pears and at least one tomato, small and unripe, but they disappeared before ripening. Ditto the strawberries.

The chickens haven't given me a single egg in months. It's probably time to get rid of them, too.

Urban farm, ha.

Kakuro Puzzle Book

Day 215: Kakuro Puzzle Book
Some months ago, I got rid of a Sudoku puzzle book. I kept getting the puzzles wrong and felt anxiety that my mind was beginning to disintegrate. The book was a constant reminder of my stupidity.

Those fears have abated now that I am doing two jobs and running my brain at full capacity all day every day. Nevertheless, I still can't for the life of me figure out how to do a Kakuro puzzle.

I consider myself to be a very logical person. I score well on the analytic portions of standardized tests. I do financial forecasts and calculations at work every day. But I can't get even partway through the simplest of these Kakuro puzzles, which have been likened to the mathematical equivalent of a crossword puzzle. The puzzle was imported from the brilliant Japanese, probably in hopes of giving them a trading edge while all of us here in the U.S. chew our pencil erasers.

Rich gave me this book of Kakuro puzzles many, many years ago. It has gradually been getting yellower and yellower on the shelf all these years, as I tell myself that someday, I will figure it out.

Meanwhile, I've virtually stopped using paper for gaming. I use the word "virtually" with intent: I do my puzzles virtually these days. My latest obsession is setting the Sudoku puzzle app on medium difficulty and attempting to complete the puzzle in under five minutes.

Meanwhile, I seem to be reading less and less and puzzling more and more.

Maybe what I should be getting rid of is the iPad.

Chewbacca Doll, Matchbox Car, Flashlight, Phone Cord and Plastic Box

Day 214: Chewbacca Doll, Matchbox Car, Flashlight, Phone Cord and Plastic Box

I'm starting to notice the tiniest useless things these days. Things that wouldn't have warranted a blog post a hundred days ago. Things tucked away behind books or on top shelves. Unnoticed, forgotten, obsolete.

Yesterday, Rich made me promise that I would not get rid of any photographs. We've got two giant plastic boxes full of them, snapshots from the days before digital cameras. He says people love photographs. He says that if he had a pacemaker, I'd be eyeballing it, complaining that it's too squat and suggesting that someone else might get more value out of it than him.

What is the point of this project, now that I am running out of things to get rid of? I have a rule that says that everyone in the household has the right to refuse to get rid of anything they want. Sam can keep his hand puppets, and his Nerf guns and water pistols, his soccer balls and skim boards. Rich can keep his photographs, and his music gear.

I don't know what the next 152 days have in store. I may be just a little sorry for those heady days, months ago, when I gave away entire wheelbarrows full of electronics and cartons full of bedsheets. But I'm determined not to give up. I've already invested 213 days.

The funny thing is, though, that scraping the barrel is starting to make a difference in my daily life in a way that wheelbarrows never did. I ridiculed myself for the lameness of the KitchenAid owner's manual last week, but getting rid of that owner's manual has actually created more order than getting rid of the stack of owner's manual from the owner's manual file box in the more distant past. The KitchenAid owner's manual is so insignificant, I haven't really seen it since I placed it on that shelf. But now that it's gone, that little shelf is more orderly. It's easier to find the stuff I'm really looking for. When I reach into that shelf now, I get a little feeling of satisfaction. Yesterday, I framed a couple of lithographs, moved my mystery writer's teapot to the spot they'd been occupying, and made room on the little bookshelf below my mirror for lipstick and foundation. This morning when I put on my make-up, it was easy to see it, easy to apply it, easy to feel a frisson of pride for the work that went into making that little space more functional.

I liken it to getting your teeth cleaned at the dentist. Every day, you're brushing and flossing, freshening your breath and getting rid of the crumbs between your teeth. But at the dentist, they use  picks to scrape away the invisible tartar. It's a little uncomfortable, but at the end, your teeth feel clean. Really clean.

So that's what I'm doing now. Scraping tartar off my cupboards and shelves. I don't know if there are 153 more items to be scraped and cleaned away, and I'm resolved not to scrape away any enamel just for the sake of writing about it. But I'm eagerly awaiting that day when the entire property is clean, fresh and free of tartar. After that, who knows?

Picture and Mat

Day 213: Picture and Mat

My housekeeper folded this
lithograph of an attic, which
my high school art teacher made

I always liked this picture
but it had water damage.

Often, repurposing old stuff costs more than buying new stuff. Cost in dollars, of course, not environmental costs. This unfortunate truth is perhaps one reason we keep buying more and more.

Case in point. Today, I decided to solve two problems at once, by getting rid of an old water damaged lithograph and putting some lithographs by my high school art teacher into the frame. The mat completely disintegrated when I took the picture out, so I had to make a run to Michael's to get a new mat cut. As long as I was going to Michael's, I decided to purchase a frame for a second litho (also by my high school art teacher).

You've probably already guessed the end of the story: the new frame - double matted - cost $10 less than having a mat cut for the frame I already owned.

I thought about just buying two new frames, but the old one is pleasantly aged. I like it. It has some sentimental value, too. It belonged to my Uncle Sherlock, a hoarder who, now that I think of it, is worthy of at least one blog post.

More Tax Records and Bank Statements

Day 212: More Tax Records and Bank Statements

These tax records and bank statements were in a big binder labeled "Pierce Sale and Shadford Purchase." That meant to me that the binder was full of documents about selling our flat in San Francisco and buying our first place in Ann Arbor, over sixteen years ago. I was surprised to find the binder. It was part of barrel scraping, reaching to the back of low shelves that haven't entered my consciousness in years. It seemed like a jackpot. There can be no need for documents about a house we haven't lived in for decades.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened it up and found a whole bunch more tax statements, including a handwritten individual 1040 of Rich's from 1995, the year we met, the last year we prepared individual tax statements. The last year that he prepared a tax statement at all.

There were seven years worth of tax statements in the big binder, including all the back-up documents. My father assured me that it is okay to throw away the back-up documentation and retain only the tax returns themselves, except for the previous three years.

He must be right.

He's a tax attorney.

Still, it was scary, putting all those back-up documents in the shredder pile. Bank statements, charitable gift receipts, medical receipts, interest statements and everything else. All in a box, ready for shredding.

Now that I'm 50, and getting age spots and cellulite and wrinkles and just generally getting that thin-skin look, I'm thinking a lot about growing older. In the words of my old neighbor, Barb Blue, the days crawl, the years fly. A cliche perhaps, but the years do fly. Suddenly, I'm more than middle-aged. I completely understand now what I never did before: when Papa (my father-in-law Bill) would tell me, as he often did, that he felt surprised when he looked in the mirror. That he felt just the same on the inside as he did when he was 30 years old.

Looking at that 1040 in Rich's hand, that individual tax statement from the year before we were married, and then that stack of eighteen tax returns, gave me that same feeling of surprised. I'm getting old! I've completed so many tax returns, I'm losing track of them! I've filed our taxes so many times now, it's easy!

Well, these things were easy to get rid of, too. One more day down, 154 to go. I think I saw another binder or two on that same shelf.

Instrument of Dog Torture

Day 211: Instrument of Dog Torture
Sometimes when you get rid of something - or someone - she comes back. What a great day that is! I was so glad to lay eyes on Emma Jane, have dinner with her friend Kelsey and then have three hours with her all to myself on the drive home. We talked ourselves hoarse.

Harpo finds this torturous, although Chester loved it.
I'll probably keep finding little Chester things around.
And keep finding it hard to get rid of them.

Harpo, on the other hand, did not enjoy the ride to Ball State and back. He stood up and panted the entire way there, jumping from the back to the front seat, looking for a comfortable spot. They were so glad to see each other, it was almost worth it. But only almost. Next time, he stays home.

Today, she's taking me to the gym to teach me about weight lifting and strength training. She says that women's fitness information overemphasizes cardio in service of losing weight or creating the idealized body. Strength training is about strength. Power.

Looking forward to four more days and three more nights with my girl.

Stand Mixer User's Manual

Day 210: Stand Mixer User's Manual

You may be thinking that this is the lamest of the things I've gotten rid of. You would be right. In my defense, it is 10.30 at night. I've just gotten back from a Chris Thile/Edgar Meyer concert (yes, they are indeed virtuosos). Tomorrow I work half a day and drive to Muncie and back (can't wait to see my baby). So this is all it's gonna be. 

I have a feeling user's manuals may be like bedsheets: an endless supply, popping up in strange places. I've used the stand mixer a hundred times. The user's manual? Never. 

Twenty-Four Single Earrings

Day 209: Twenty-Four Single Earrings

For the life of me, I cannot keep track of objects. Keys, purses, reading glasses. Books, shoes, to-do lists. Socks, cell phones, sunglasses. I am constantly looking for lost things.

A few years ago, my sister gave me the gift of a dozen sets of dangling bead earrings. She made them herself. I use the word "set" intentionally. These were not pairs of earrings, but sets of three.

A special gift, for many reasons. Not least, because the sets of three were a signal: she sees me. She knows me.

She won't take it personally when the earrings begin to go missing.

Oh, I've set up systems. I've tried mindfulness training. I've tried getting duplicates (a pair of reading glasses on every end table!). I've tried having only one (with only one, perhaps I'll value it enough to know where it is!). I've tried racks and hooks and boxes.

Nothing works.

The trouble is, once an object has lost its immediate usefulness, my mind immediately turns to the next thing. Once the door is unlocked, the key has become completely irrelevant. Forgotten.

Rich tells me there are multiple intelligences. I believe I'm lacking in the intelligence category that allows a person to keep track of objects. No matter how hard I try, I just don't get it. I've got new sympathy for people who can't do math.

I'm sure you've figured out the end of this story: earrings in sets of three are thoughtful and touching, but for an object idiot, the outcome is inevitable. Delayed, but inevitable: single earrings. And if you love your earrings, it's hard to get rid of them.

The good news is, I've made a little progress as I've grown older, and stayed in the same house for over a decade. My purse is almost always hanging from the kitchen doorknob, a few steps from the side door where I usually enter. If it's not there, most likely I came in by a different door, near which I'll find it. My keys are most always in my purse, where I drop them reflexively when the door is unlocked. My eyeglasses are bright orange, so I can usually spot them from a distance, even if I don't have them on. My cell phone rings if you call it.

And, best of all, I've discovered that you can buy 200 plastic earring backs from Michael's for only $2.99. This has at least slowed the attrition rate for dangling earrings, by reducing the likelihood that they fall off unnoticed during the day. Now I just have to remember to hang them on the little earring rack that Sam made for me in eighth grade shop class.

Progress.

Shower Rack

Day 208: Shower Rack

I remember this item, vaguely, but I was surprised to see it at the back of the bathroom cupboard yesterday when I was scouting around, looking for toilet paper. It's another example of how stuff begets stuff.

Stuff requires storage.

In our last house, the 1920's bathtub had a small built-in shelf, just large enough for a cake of soap and a bottle of shampoo. Such modest storage is inadequate for razors, shaving cream, conditioner, facial wash, my shampoo (for fine hair), his shampoo (for thick hair), and... and...

You get the idea.

This little shelf wasn't up to the task, either. The suction cups don't really work, so the shelf was constantly falling off the wall and spilling the beauty products. I can see now that it wasn't built to last eighty years. It's already a bit rusted. Still, maybe somebody else with a 1927 house and too many products will give it a try. It's clean, cheap and ready.

Hefe und Vanillinzucker

Day 207: Hefe und Vanillinzucker

When someone dies - someone whom you wanted to know better, someone you liked and respected, someone about your age - it's a sad thing. Sad because of everything that person might have accomplished. Sad for that person's family, her spouse, her friends and co-workers. Sad because it reminds you that you are dying too.

When someone dies, it's a time to sit outdoors on a warm autumn evening. Time to watch the bats fly at dusk. Time to listen to the crickets and the tree frogs. Time to count the stars as they emerge. It's a time to feel the rain in the air and smell the leaves as they turn.

It's a time to appreciate your husband, and your daughter, and your son. Your parents, your siblings, your friends, your co-workers. Even your dog, who greets you cheerfully, day in and day out, without fail.  It's a time to appreciate your house, and your neighborhood, and your garden. To be thankful for clean water gushing from the tap, for central heat, for vaccinations and food on the table. 

To say, I love you.

Goodbye, hefe, vanillinzucker, gelatin and backpulver. I'm not exactly sure what you are, and you probably aren't active anyway. You've been in the cupboard for fifteen years. Nicole Hinkel, au pair #2, baked with you, and I couldn't bring myself to throw you away. You are food, after all.

Blessings upon this household, where we have enough vanilla extract, baking powder, baking soda and Knox gelatin, to make understanding these foreign baking goods unnecessary.

Blessings upon us all, as we step carefully along the short path from birth to death.

Cheesecake and Shortbread Pans

Day 206: Cheesecake and Shortbread Pans

I grew up with many little Scottish aunts - Aunt May, Aunt Nettie, Aunt Bessie, Aunt Maisie, to name a few - all of whom baked shortbread. I have an old shortbread recipe - I believe it belonged to my mother's mother - typewritten on an index card with handwritten notes on the margins. I used to use it when I made my own shortbread, but now I have the recipe memorized.

This lovely stoneware shortbread pan was a gift from my mother. It is pleasing to the senses, with a nice heft and simple beauty. It's exactly the kind of thing that's very hard to get rid of, evoking history as it does. Yet, I haven't used it in many years. It isn't really a family heirloom: perhaps it came from Crate & Barrell or Williams Sonoma, a corporate buyer's concept of the Platonic ideal of a shortbread pan. The shortbread I've made in it isn't quite right. It's a skosh too thin, a skosh too brown, a skosh too dry. The pattern is pretty, but I can't get the shortbread to come out of the pan intact. 

I prefer a simple square glass baking pan, poking the uncooked dough with a fork to conduct air and heat, so that the shortbread comes out with that perfect combination of chewyness and crumbles. I imagine that my grandmother baked with such a pan, in her real Scotch kitchen.

I thought about hanging the shortbread pan on the wall, but wall-mounted pans aren't really my thing. I can imagine a lot of dust getting caught up in the pattern of the scotch thistle (which ye mauna tromple, lassie, as you would know if you grew up Scotch).

The cheesecake pan is a by-product of greed - or perhaps more accurately, the seductiveness of free stuff - combined with the stuff project itself, which has inspired some of my friends to get rid of really great stuff. Thanks, Joe, but given that I didn't bake with this cheesecake pan for Emma's graduation cake (as I had planned to do), it's pretty clear that I'll never use it.

Although both of these pans are intrinsically very nice, the problem is the size of my cupboard. I have one shelf for cake and loaf pans, and these two items push that shelf over the tipping point from organized to overcrowded, with the result that when I want to bake a cake, I run the risk of a clattering disaster as all the pans threaten to fall out of the cupboard. Hopefully my brother or sister will take these from me at family dinner tonight. Somehow, it's easier to get rid of good stuff if someone you know and love promises to give it a good home.

Wondering why I'm thinking about cake pans yet again? It's Rich's birthday today!

Happy birthday, sweetheart. I am baking your favorite old-fashioned yellow cake with chocolate frosting right now, in the same old Bake-King cake pans that I've always used, with the fantastic cutter to separate the cake from the pan. 

May they last forever.

Maps

Day 205: Maps

Remember when we actually relied on maps to help us get from one place to another? You'd keep a map of the town you lived in in the driver's door pocket, so if you had to find your way to an unknown address, you could whip out your map and look it up in the index. Sometimes you'd get a little frustrated, because you'd be looking in quadrant C-9, and you just wouldn't be able to see Easy Street. Or you wouldn't realize that Easy Street was one-way until you got all turned around, and you were running late anyway, and there were no cell phones in those days to call and let them know you were circling the neighborhood.

Remember when you were planning a big trip, and you'd go to AAA and pick up maps of every state along the way, and a regional map and a triptych for safe measure, and you'd pour over them, planning the route, cross-referencing with The Lonely Planet to make sure you captured the best scenery or the best little brewery or the best Native American ruins? Or maybe you were heading to Europe, or Africa, or Mexico, so you'd have to go to A Clean Well-Lighted Place or Nicola's or Cody's and buy a map from their travel section, so you could do the same thing? 

After a while, all the pockets in your car, and the glove-compartment too, would get filled up with maps, and when it got to be too much and you couldn't find the map of your own town, you'd move the extra maps into the shoe box where you kept them - because you can never throw away old maps - but before you'd put them away, you'd open them up on the kitchen table and reminisce? Every once in a while, when you ran out of wrapping paper, you'd poke around in the shoe box to find the most colorful and interesting map that you knew you'd never use again, because what a thrill it is to get a birthday present wrapped up in a map.

I don't remember when I last used a map to find my way. GPS rocks, of course. The anxiety of trying to drive and navigate at the same time is gone. Wrong turn? No problem. Recalculating. Traffic ahead? GPS knows all; she'll reroute you.

But there's something fundamentally unsatisfying about scrabbling around with the "Overview" setting on a 2"x2" electronic screen. GPS is an act of faith: in 400 feet, turn right. Then, turn left. Don't worry. I'll get you there. You just relax.

Nine square feet of the big picture, laid out in full color with a legend, scale and index, now that's a powerful tool. If you don't know the big picture - if you don't know the destination and the available paths to get there - how do you make good decisions?

Well, good tools or not, these maps have been in a plastic box in the basement for over a decade, and my new car has no maps in it. My brother Karl texted me to ask if I have any maps for his classroom. It's nice to know these beautiful maps - the culmination of centuries of art and science - will go to good use. 

Clothes

Day 204: Clothes

Every spring and fall, I go through my clothes and get rid of anything I haven't worn in a year or more. There are always things I can't bring myself to get rid of. Like the beautiful purple silk dress I wore to my sister's wedding, approaching 20 years ago. I've only worn it once. I think it's time to let it go.

Here's the haul, and it's amazing how much there was. 

6 blouses

3 dresses

7 t-shirts

2 sweaters

1 jackets

3 pairs athletic shorts 

3 pairs dress pants

1 pair light summer pants

2 pairs sweat pants

1 pair dress jeans

1 pair Levi's

1 partridge in a pear tree

 I did keep the dress I got married in. 

Floor Sprinkles

Day 203: Floor Sprinkles

It's damned lucky that I noticed this baggie of leftover sprinkles on the stairway windowsill as I was heading to the basement to put something away just now. If I hadn't, today would have been the day that I would have had to cry wolf. Today was the day the Wootenwoods Music & Nature Camp commitment and deposit was due from the Community High Jazz Band kids. I am the treasurer and responsible for collecting the forms and deposits. Oh, Sam dropped jazz band, but I didn't want to leave the director in the lurch. Did I mention that I also had eight hours of meetings today (and yesterday, and Tuesday, and Monday) and have been pinging between two organizations, one in a fever pitch of excitement over strategic planning and the other in grief?

I'm exhausted.

That's all.

Statements

Day 202: Statements

I've been working at the Bentley Historical Library for a couple months now, a place full of professionals with graduate degrees and decades of experience making decisions about which documents are worth keeping and which are not. I've learned that there are two broad categories of documents - archives, which have historical value, and records, which have business or operational value. If I work there another ten or twenty years, I may gain a deeper understanding of what I should and shouldn't be keeping from amongst the thousands of pieces of paper stuffed in boxes and file cabinets in my basement.

I'm not, by nature, a hoarder. My instinct is to get rid of everything. To dump the entire box in the recycling bin without even reviewing the content. But that would be unwise, and so I spent a couple hours going through the file cabinets and pulling out a few key records that I thought might be necessary someday.

I have not looked at anything within this box for any real world reason for over ten years. Everything that made the cut is a record of some fact from my life and which I believe may be needed at some point in the future. Our estate plan and living wills, of course. Tax returns. Home purchase documents from the house we live in now. Release of liens. Birth certificates.

What got culled: bank statements. Expired insurance policies. Old credit card statements. Social security statements. Other retirement account statements. College saving plan statements. Statements and statements. Ten years worth of statements.

So many statements that Rich had to take them to work in a garbage bag. He's been feeding them into the shredders in small batches all week.

With all the negatives about electronics, this is one positive: ream upon ream of paper, no longer necessary, because all these statements are now available on-line.

The bad news: the one document I do really need - an appraisal of our house from a few years ago, when we refinanced - was not in the box. Another example of the Case of the Purloined Letter: the snowstorm of paper hides the single flake.

More Office Supplies

Day 201: More Office Supplies

Office supplies come out of the woodwork like bedsheets. Every box, every drawer, every shelf has unused or unnecessary supplies. When put together in one place, the number of binders, folders, notebooks, pens, pencils, compasses, highlighters, erasers, index cards, post-it's, bookmarks, calculators, separators, thumb tacks, envelopes, scotch tapes, Wite-Out, glue sticks, labels, stickers and Magic Markers is stunning. 

In my heavy box of musty files, for example, I found a big fat black padded binder with gold-embossed script on the cover ("Homeowner's Records"), filled with separately labelled envelopes that said things like, "Mortgage," "Inspections," "Title Insurance," and "Closing Documents." The envelopes were empty and the fancy Real Estate One pen, never used, was completely dried out. The binder was full of Tom the Realtor's Real Estate One business cards, Tom of the upswept blond locks, sincere smile and anxious solicitousness, evident even in the tiny 1"X1" photos on the cards. Tom would fit right in on the set of "Best in Show." In fact, I think Christopher Guest's next mockumentary should be titled "Recently Sold!"

Is this preponderance of papers etc. particular to us - a manifestation of Emma's love for office supplies - or is it a common side effect of being a dual career, dual student family?

Karl's Nostalgic Papers

Day 200: Karl's Nostalgic Papers

Pictures of Karl with Senga Carroll,
whose name is almost the opposite of his

I found an envelope full of my brother Karl's nostalgic papers in the same box as my own, equally musty and yellow. I considered depositing them directly into the recycling bin, thereby saving him the pangs (and asthma attack) of going through it himself. In the end, though, I decided that it's just not right to get rid of somebody else's stuff.

I couldn't resist taking a peek through it. Amazing how much more fun it is to look at your brother's memorabilia than it is to look at your own. My favorite was a stack of pictures of himself with Senga Carroll, the girl with the opposite name. If they had married, she might have been Senga Sikkenga. Or, he could have been Karl Carroll. 

Even these few snapshots are so seventies. The wide ties. The Farrah Fawcett 'do. My brother is hardly recognizable, with his slight build, smooth cheeks and full head of hair.  And yet, of course it's him.

His commencement booklet is modest compared to the one Emma got at the same school, 28 years later. Part of the escalation of acquisition that results in so much waste. No full page spread for each kid, just a long list with a few asterisks and footnotes to show who's on the honor roll and who got a varsity letter. A couple newspaper articles about his soccer team that make me nostalgic for the old Ann arbor News, back when it was a small town rag.

Here's hoping Karl has a happy walk down memory lane. I sure enjoyed it.

Report Cards and Transcripts

Day 199: Report Cards and Transcripts

Right view and intention, right speech, action, and livelihood, right concentration, mindfulness, and effort. Little as I understand these concepts, I know enough to see that going through old report cards and transcripts makes it easy to stray from the eightfold path.

These old report cards take me back to a time when my self-esteem was low and my self-absorption was high, with the result that I didn't have a fun afternoon. The funny thing is, my grades were great and my scores were high. The folders were stuffed with stories I'd published, newspaper articles about me, blue ribbons for music competitions, diplomas and commencement programs, and varsity letters. Yet I remember distinctly feeling that I wasn't very smart, or very accomplished. No wonder I found it slightly depressing.

I hate report cards. The "A's" and "Outstandings" are practically invisible to me. My eyes go directly to the lowest measure. Why I was only "Developing" long division skills in third grade, when the rest of my math measures "Exceed Expectation"? I still battle the tendency to gloss over the positive and see only the negative when I look at a report card - nowadays, my childrens' instead of my own - and unfortunately I believe I often fall short on recognizing the good in them.

I think I understand why report cards are issued - they are a means to understand and track on which skills kids need to develop - but it's unfortunate that we formalize judging and labeling kids just when their self-image is most vulnerable. Once you leave school, you may get an annual performance evaluation, but at least you can kiss pop quizzes goodbye.

I couldn't yet bring myself to throw away my published stories and articles. Even 35 years later, I felt a small rush of pride over those 200 words in Seventeen Magazine with my byline. And yet, it's bittersweet. I haven't published anything in 15 years, except this blog. All that potential, and the realization, as I age, that the most optimistic disposition of this Rubbermade box - the collected memorabilia of a lifetime - will come to nothing more than a sentimental sorting exercise by my son and daughter, someday after I'm gone.

There's something about looking at the stuff I had as a teenager that makes me think like the teenager I was, which is exactly the kind of wrong view, wrong speech, and wrong action that made sorting these old boxes a right mindfulness challenge. What's so is, this afternoon, I sorted a big box of papers. The papers were yellow and musty. The Rubbermade box was heavy. I kept some of the papers, either for sentimental reasons, or because they are legal records. As a result of these efforts, there is less unneeded stuff in our basement, less dust, less mold. 

Perhaps what these records document the most is the love and pride of my parents, who kept all this in a file, labeled in my father's hand. Just my name.

Warranties and Instruction Manuals

Day 198: Warranties and Instruction Manuals

Looking through our warranty and instruction manual box is a walk down Memory Lane. It's also another one of those moments where I must confront the discrepancy between my self-image - not acquisitive - and my inventory, which is still large, even on day 198.

I just read a very interesting article about refrigerators. Americans have much largers ones than Europeans. They use a lot of energy - more than any other appliance, because they run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If you fill them up, they require less energy, which means spending more at places like Costco, which (what do you know?) means eating more. Replacing your refrigerator with a smaller model strikes me as even more radical than replacing your car with a bicycle. Where would you even buy a small refrigerator? Would you have to remodel your kitchen, because don't most cupboards have a standard (very large) refrigerator opening?

Our warranties and instruction manuals are a guide to every appliance we own now or have owned in the past sixteen years, except for the warranties and manuals I undoubtedly lost before I created this box. In the "get rid of" category are: two manuals for electric ranges (I don't recall ever purchasing an electric range) and one for a Whirlpool double-over gas range that exploded within weeks of our buying it; a CuisinArt toaster manual; a GE manual for a sound system that came with this house, which I just got rid of a few weeks ago (too bad I didn't know I had the manual or I would have included it); a cordless telephone user's guide (remind me, what is a cordless telephone again?); an instruction manual for an Ibanez electric bass (no, it doesn't teach you how to be a musician); two Bosch dishwasher instruction manuals (we've had to replace our dishwashers every couple of years - we blame the kids); an alarm clock portable speaker for iPod limited warranty (did we ever own one of those? we don't now); caution warnings for an Easy-Bake Oven; installation guide for an Anderson storm door; a manual for Alesis Studio Electronics (what the hell is that?); the Glyph GCR Series Quickstart Manual (ditto); a Farberware coffee percolator use & care instructions (sorry, it's already busted); owner's manuals for two TVs that we no longer own.

Taken all together, it's a pretty depressing list. All that stuff, bought, used and forgotten, parked in a junkyard most likely. Next time, perhaps I'll just wash the dishes by hand, or make my own music. But let's face it, I'm not going to eat my food raw.

Boy Coat

Day 197: Boy Coat

A single boy's coat may not seem like much, but this one represents the cleaning and organizing of our entire coat rack. It's still incredible to me that, among the two or three dozen coats on the rack, only this outgrown winter coat of Sam's is extra.

The Minimalists are my new role models. I watched a video of them showing what they pack on road trips. It all fit into a very small carry-on, really more of a knapsack. You can imagine the contents: three pairs of underwear, one pair of shorts, one pair of black jeans, two shirts. A toothbrush. 

You get the idea. 

Our coat rack isn't exactly like that. It's got lots of coats on it, more than the Minimalists, more than an average family of four, circa 1947. More than a family on state aid. More than we need, probably. 

But Michigan winters are harsh, and none of our coats are exactly alike. Yes, I have two of boiled wool, but one is dressy black, knee-length, suitable for a professional setting, and one is a short Patagonia jacket, suitable for a brisk walk on a cool day. Rain jackets, one lined, one not. Very warm down for the worst winter day, light down for day-to-day comfort. A pea coat. Leather to stay safe and warm on my scooter (Eddie Bauer for $20 at a garage sale!). A down vest for late fall, not too hot, not too cold. 

So finding one unneeded coat on the rack, and organizing the rest for easy access, was the best I could do, at least for today. Because I'm determined not to get rid of anything I would want to replace in six months, when day 365 is behind me. 

Right now, I can still hear crickets and frogs singing on this early fall evening, outside my bedroom window. But I can feel it in the cool winter nights. I can see it in the soft light of noon. Winter is coming. 

Bring it on. I've got the wardrobe. 

Unmailed Thank You Note

Day 196: Farmer's Almanac, Unmailed Thank You Note and User Guides

Remember how I said I don't miss birthday parties? I found some actual physical evidence of one reason why: a goofy thank you note from Sam to Dylan, along with a $.41 stamped addressed envelope (which in case you're wondering, was the rate in 2007, the year Sam turned nine).  The note gives no clue as to what the gift was. Is it a form letter? It certainly reads that way, although I can't believe I would have permitted that.  I'm pretty sure I didn't actually compose the note, although the envelope was addressed in my hand. 

When Sam was nine, he was allowed to have nine buddies at his birthday party. Nine friends, plus three sets of grandparents, plus eleven aunts and uncles and twelve cousins, equals a lot of thank you notes. Sam's birthday is June 13, often the last day of school. (Mine is June 9 and I truly once believed that all the partying, celebration and release were in my honor.) As far as thank you notes are concerned, a June 13 birthday is ideal because the notes do not compete with homework, school days, soccer, basketball or anything else. No reason a nice little word-processed thank you note shouldn't be tucked right into the envelope and off to the mailbox.

Ah, well.  Of mice and men.

Also on the same shelf in the attic, where I am taking another pass at finding more to get rid of: ancient Adobe user manuals and a 2006 Farmer's Almanac. 

Needlepoint Frame

Day 195: Needlepoint Frame

Near misses. Another category of stuff that's hard to get rid of. Stuff you could really use, if only it worked a little better, or fit a little better, or looked a little better. If it ran more smoothly. If it didn't scratch the countertop. If it didn't smell a little strange. If it didn't show the dirt. If it hadn't cost so much.

I love to do needlepoint, especially pieces that I design myself. A good needlepoint frame - an old one, made from slow growth hardwoods, dark and smooth, shaped by a craftsman who took care with cutting and fitting the pieces, such that the hardware is hardly necessary - a frame like that can really enhance the experience of creating the piece. It holds the canvas taut, allowing you to imagine more fully the finished piece. It makes it easier to see where to place your stitches. It's a pleasure to hold in your hands. 

Not so this $12.99 pine frame, which I purchased at JoAnn's. I'm not blaming JoAnn. Needlepoint is out of fashion now, and JoAnn's is the only place that carries any supplies whatsoever. But this frame just doesn't work. The rods won't stay in place; they spin, and the canvas loosens, and the ugly aluminum hardware catches the yarn. Every time I've used it, I've cast it away in frustration and returned to working the canvas freehand.

But how great it would be to have a really good needlepoint frame. And so I've kept this one in our bedroom, leaning against a wall, next to a little bag of needlepoint yarn. Mind you, the piece I'm working on is downstairs, in a different bag, next to my Edith chair. I guess I've been hoping this pine frame would age gracefully, suddenly turning into a useful tool the way water magically turns to ice. Even in the midst of the stuff project, I never noticed that this has been actually physically in our way in the bedroom for over two years. This morning, Rich tripped on it, and grumbled, and asked, why do we still have this thing?

Close only counts in horseshoes and pinochle. And needlework is no game.