Catching Up

Hummm.....where to start?

An elderly neighbor who lived three doors down passed away on the 17th. Her son Junior took the few things he wanted and gave Janie (her across-the-street neighbor) and I carte blanche to use our womanly sense to go through the house and toss or donate things appropriately. Stuff was heaped head high throughout the house. We worked all last weekend clearing things out.

Most of it was pure-dee trash: bags and bags and bags of plastic bags, boxes of empty boxes, utility bills from the 1960s and 1970s, unopened junk mail from the past decade, crappy plastic knick-knacks. What is it with little old ladies and the hoarding of plastic bags, empty boxes and plastic butter tubs??? It made me want to come home and throw away everything in my house but the furniture. Junior still has lots to go through but at least the trash is gone so he can see what's there.

I took a few things: a T-shirt, a new leather purse, a couple of books, and a few handkerchiefs. They had that little old lady smell to them and sat on my porch all last week airing out. The books are still out there.

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I drew some McCain political cartoons here, and dabbled with my first attempt at watercolors here.

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I spent Monday and Tuesday designing and drawing two logos for Our Town. The tourism promotion board folks are having a logo contest to update the look of their promotional material. The winner gets $1,000, second place $500. What the hey, I can draw. I sent them in. We could use the money.

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Wednesday we went to the funeral of my brother-in-law's father. It hacked me off severely. The man was a well-loved major figure in the little town where he lived. He achieved some major accomplishments in his lifetime. He was an active member of the little church where the funeral was held.

With all the people that knew him, with all that he had done, the only time he was mentioned during the funeral was when the preacher read the obit from the program. The remaining time was the preacher practicing his Sunday sermon. Not even a humorous fishing story.

Could they find no one to stand up and eulogize this poor guy? Dang. I ended up doodling a sketch of the preacher on the back of the program and scribbling snide comments about the sermon. Sigh. There's an hour of my life I'll never get back.

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Thursday I looked for more lost alums.

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Friday I had a Brian Wilson day. I locked myself in the bedroom and told Hubby and the cats they were under threat of death if they bothered me. I watched a marathon of CSI: New York and tried to get a little alone time.

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Saturday the particulate count in the house got toooooo high. I had to clean. I pulled apart every room in the house except the kitchen and cleaned things like they ain't never been cleaned before. Stuff got washed, scrubbed, waxed, polished, detailed, bleached, scoured, repaired, whatever. House is much happier. My hands and back not so much.

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Sunday I rested and napped...and blogged.

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I realized tonight that I forgot my sissy's birthday last week. All she ever wants for her birthday is acknowledgement of the day...a phone call or a card. I did neither. Crap.

She always remembers mine.

I feel lower than snake poo.