Room to breathe
Hi, I'm here, I'm okay! Our weather is at last consistently staying above 70F: prior to last week we'd had five whole hours in that range during the year to date. Of course it is hot TODAY, when we were loading the truck for the Rotary auction. (It's 33C/87F right now - all the blinds are down and my herbs are finally happy.)
Yep, kids, it's back: after a three-year hiatus and the accompanying build-up of cruft in people's basements, the Bainbridge Island Rotary Auction and Rummage Sale is back at Woodward Middle School this weekend. I would link you, but the site's gone down under the strain. In a normal year, they shift 150,000 items in the course of the week; with that long of a break? Holy cats, I am going to Preview Night, this is going to be a riot. Neighbour R. got back from dropping the truckful of stuff from our building and said that the campus is already full. They are allegedly accepting items through Wednesday night, but he's got no idea where they're going to put 'em.
We had some things to contribute, an old office chair and the SCOTTeVEST jacket that's now two sizes too big for P., and the projector with all its bits and pieces. Yesterday P. sat on the floor of the office with me, two cardboard boxes I pulled out of the recycling dumpster in the basement and four enormous disc binders, and over the course of an hour we put 730 outdated software DVDs into stacks of 10 (because it made him laugh), and then into the boxes to be posted to GreenDisk and made into something new. (I will privately admit that I did a little dance when I put the paper inserts into the recycling bin.) Two spindles of rewritable CDs remain; he's checking them with the assumption that they've degraded and can't be read - if so, they'll join the others in the boxes, with whatever small bits of worn-out electronics we happen across to fill in the spaces.
P. talked about memory, and how it had kept him from fully engaging with the technology he's currently working with; he brought up seeing the binders on the shelf, thinking "Great, One More Thing to be dealt with" and despairing. He admitted that if we were in a situation where we could set up a projector again that he'd want one with better tech, and realized that he'd always have the memories of a roomful of teenagers laughing while watching a movie, or Youngest Cat attacking something in the video game he was playing, or Dear Friend S.'s son T., around two, watching the Shaun the Sheep Halloween episode, declaring it scary and insisting on sitting in P.'s lap with DS holding his hand. "Let someone else make memories like that with it," P. said, and today it went into the truck with our blessings.
(Also a good memory: one of my elder female neighbours pulled out a full-sized Leatherman when Neighbor R. asked if anyone had a cutting implement; Neighbour M. and I went "OOOOOOOOH" and spoke fondly of Swiss Army knives we'd known and loved, while Neighbour J. walked up bellowing my full name and demanding to know the current location of my hat, as it was obviously not covering my delicate pink scalp. *g* She yelled at everyone else for not being properly mindful of the Orb, insisted on spraying my bare arms with sunblock and generally had a grand time fussing at anyone within range as we hoisted old closet doors and a well-loved dining table and all sorts of other things into the truck.)
And now there is space in the office, and space in a very large bin in the storage cupboard, and space in the bedroom as it's finally warm enough to put the duvets and wool blankets away. I got rid of three pairs of shoes that were worn out and had originally been purchased as a stopgap that never quite suited - "You can afford to buy a pair of Blunnies now; why are these staying, again?" - and there is space on the closet shoe rack for everything. The office closet is still a nightmare, but - it's progress.
Yep, kids, it's back: after a three-year hiatus and the accompanying build-up of cruft in people's basements, the Bainbridge Island Rotary Auction and Rummage Sale is back at Woodward Middle School this weekend. I would link you, but the site's gone down under the strain. In a normal year, they shift 150,000 items in the course of the week; with that long of a break? Holy cats, I am going to Preview Night, this is going to be a riot. Neighbour R. got back from dropping the truckful of stuff from our building and said that the campus is already full. They are allegedly accepting items through Wednesday night, but he's got no idea where they're going to put 'em.
We had some things to contribute, an old office chair and the SCOTTeVEST jacket that's now two sizes too big for P., and the projector with all its bits and pieces. Yesterday P. sat on the floor of the office with me, two cardboard boxes I pulled out of the recycling dumpster in the basement and four enormous disc binders, and over the course of an hour we put 730 outdated software DVDs into stacks of 10 (because it made him laugh), and then into the boxes to be posted to GreenDisk and made into something new. (I will privately admit that I did a little dance when I put the paper inserts into the recycling bin.) Two spindles of rewritable CDs remain; he's checking them with the assumption that they've degraded and can't be read - if so, they'll join the others in the boxes, with whatever small bits of worn-out electronics we happen across to fill in the spaces.
P. talked about memory, and how it had kept him from fully engaging with the technology he's currently working with; he brought up seeing the binders on the shelf, thinking "Great, One More Thing to be dealt with" and despairing. He admitted that if we were in a situation where we could set up a projector again that he'd want one with better tech, and realized that he'd always have the memories of a roomful of teenagers laughing while watching a movie, or Youngest Cat attacking something in the video game he was playing, or Dear Friend S.'s son T., around two, watching the Shaun the Sheep Halloween episode, declaring it scary and insisting on sitting in P.'s lap with DS holding his hand. "Let someone else make memories like that with it," P. said, and today it went into the truck with our blessings.
(Also a good memory: one of my elder female neighbours pulled out a full-sized Leatherman when Neighbor R. asked if anyone had a cutting implement; Neighbour M. and I went "OOOOOOOOH" and spoke fondly of Swiss Army knives we'd known and loved, while Neighbour J. walked up bellowing my full name and demanding to know the current location of my hat, as it was obviously not covering my delicate pink scalp. *g* She yelled at everyone else for not being properly mindful of the Orb, insisted on spraying my bare arms with sunblock and generally had a grand time fussing at anyone within range as we hoisted old closet doors and a well-loved dining table and all sorts of other things into the truck.)
And now there is space in the office, and space in a very large bin in the storage cupboard, and space in the bedroom as it's finally warm enough to put the duvets and wool blankets away. I got rid of three pairs of shoes that were worn out and had originally been purchased as a stopgap that never quite suited - "You can afford to buy a pair of Blunnies now; why are these staying, again?" - and there is space on the closet shoe rack for everything. The office closet is still a nightmare, but - it's progress.