Where I've been
One word: cleaning.
With the memorial service over (If I dare say so myself, the coolest memorial service I've ever been to) and facing the basic choice over falling into a black hole or cleaning, I chose the latter. I started with the office, which contained, amongst many other things, the stagebills of every cultural event my mother had ever attended, half-filled out tax returns from 1987, and three flocks of dust bunnies.
Then Tam arrived from Ann Arbor for 5 days, and upped the pace about 25,000 notches. We sorted, boxed and disposed of the clothes. We sorted the books. We started boxes for the tchotchkes and photos and papers. We took 36 bags of assorted trash to the town dump where her charms and Americanism got us a discount from the nice dump guy. Tam cleaned the kitchen, did laundry, and became friends with my brother. And she spread a whole lot of cheer. We went out for food and shopping trips. She sat through an entire dinner with my crazy family as well as drinks with the wife of my father (whom she insists on calling my stepmother even though she isn't) who is about as shallow as a puddle in the desert and as cold as the cyrotanks of your nearest sperm bank.
One could call her a heaven-sent, but the fact is, she did all of this out of her own volition and organizational powers -finding 5 different babysitters for her kids, rebooking her return flight at the last minute when the airline wanted her to find her own way from Berlin to Amsterdam, and convincing her husband and mother that terrorist attacks or now, she had to be in Berlin for 5 days.
I am so damn lucky.
CLASSIFIEDS
Happy marriage to Rebec and Ryan and happy wedding to Erika and Aaron. What is this marriage business, the next hot thing?!
Thank you for your emails, cards, letters and other expressions of kindness. I will thank you all individually too, but it may take a few days.
With the memorial service over (If I dare say so myself, the coolest memorial service I've ever been to) and facing the basic choice over falling into a black hole or cleaning, I chose the latter. I started with the office, which contained, amongst many other things, the stagebills of every cultural event my mother had ever attended, half-filled out tax returns from 1987, and three flocks of dust bunnies.
Then Tam arrived from Ann Arbor for 5 days, and upped the pace about 25,000 notches. We sorted, boxed and disposed of the clothes. We sorted the books. We started boxes for the tchotchkes and photos and papers. We took 36 bags of assorted trash to the town dump where her charms and Americanism got us a discount from the nice dump guy. Tam cleaned the kitchen, did laundry, and became friends with my brother. And she spread a whole lot of cheer. We went out for food and shopping trips. She sat through an entire dinner with my crazy family as well as drinks with the wife of my father (whom she insists on calling my stepmother even though she isn't) who is about as shallow as a puddle in the desert and as cold as the cyrotanks of your nearest sperm bank.
One could call her a heaven-sent, but the fact is, she did all of this out of her own volition and organizational powers -finding 5 different babysitters for her kids, rebooking her return flight at the last minute when the airline wanted her to find her own way from Berlin to Amsterdam, and convincing her husband and mother that terrorist attacks or now, she had to be in Berlin for 5 days.
I am so damn lucky.
CLASSIFIEDS
Happy marriage to Rebec and Ryan and happy wedding to Erika and Aaron. What is this marriage business, the next hot thing?!
Thank you for your emails, cards, letters and other expressions of kindness. I will thank you all individually too, but it may take a few days.
posted by Ness @ 1:09 PM
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