I vowed I'd never move again. I lied.

When grandson/ward Billy was 16, he and I moved into this 80-year-old family home. After renting for too many years to bother counting, this move was my last on this earth. Not KB's by any means, but mine.

Finally, after eight years, I decided the floors needed attention. Starting with the three bedrooms and hall, Mullins Carpet made quick work of replacing Mom's choice of 'mint julep' to my choice of 'celery'--to match the paneling. I've written already about having to move all the things I could. At the time, I didn't think about 'moving.' I just stashed stuff on the back porch, in the attic, stuffed bureaus full of small things. I liked the spaces it left so much that I was loath to put things back.

Next, I decided these hardwood floors in the three-room, open living area needed refinishing. At some point in this house's history, two sets of French doors had been removed-- hence, the openness. The hinge hardware is still attached to the door frames and the doors are in the attic.
Mullins came out again, measured, calculated when the refinisher might get to the job. July at least, Alvin said.

Good. That would give me time to move a lifetime's worth of books--mine, plus Mom's and Dad's--Fostoria glassware, Avon's Cape Cod ruby glass, a collection of blue glass, bookcases, clip notebooks, journals stored in magazine storage boxes, two 2-drawer filing cabinets, a 5-shelf bookcase sitting on Granddaddy's handmade library table--the list goes on.

And where, pray tell, shall I move them?  There's still room in the attic (the last choice), on the back porch and in the shed (down the steps, across the driveway).

I'll stack and stuff the old breakfast room beyond the kitchen where the cats feed with as much as it will hold. In cabinets and cupboards that still have any room, I'll rearrange and add what I can.

I'm not renting a storage unit. I'm not having a yard sale. I am having overnight guests, but that's no problem since the bedrooms have new carpet. I will have to hang curtains in the back room. Don't want a guest to have to look out on a back porch used mostly for storage.

Speaking of looking out on stuff, the neighbors who built a privacy fence between us left a 12-inch space between our properties. Guess what they are storing BEHIND THEIR FENCE AND IN MY FACE?? White gutter downspouts. Oh, the festering gall. I wonder if they're doing it on purpose?

Placing containered plants in front of the offensive glaring white helped only a little bit. I'm still working on a solution.

The Flight of time -- and its effects

Japonica, Spring 2014 - PL

 

 

                I’m so far keeping to my decision to dust, wash, scrub, throw away or move to another place all those things I took out of the three bedrooms when new carpet was laid. But it is slow going. And there’s so much OTHER stuff around here to get done.

                After pulling one small bookcase full of VHS tapes and books out of collegian Billy’s room, placing it beside its twin, I cleaned (even to steel-wooling the rusty chrome handles) one of the two-shelf rolling carts.

                Next was a plastic, lidless container with newspaper clippings, ideas for my novel, photos of the late Elizabeth Calico and the late tabby Cal. This box was first placed on top of a tall bookshelf in the northwest-corner bedroom. When son Gordon came home last spring, I turned it into a guest room and moved said box under the bureau.

                With a cup of fresh coffee (yes, at 6 p.m.), I sat down beside the coffee table where I placed it so I didn’t have to reach to the floor each time I selected something, put two cube-storage boxes near so I could—with a flick of the wrist—place DO NOT KEEP clippings in one, and the DO KEEP in the other.

                Ya’ll, these things were from 2005! My novel was in the preliminary stages so I’d kept everything that referred to the early 1900s. We still lived in Benton, so they were collected before we moved to Couchwood. Funny, though, in Benton, we lived on Couch Street!

                So I began pitching most of the stuff to the recycle/throwaway cube. I kept columns of Jay Grelen who took Richard Allin and Charles Allbright’s places in the humorous-folksy column of the daily state paper until he was moved (or moved himself) to another area of the organization.

                I kept articles on Donald Harrington, Eudora Welty, Saul Bellow and James Salter, all authors I’d read previously.

                Then came Katrina. Oh, how much newsprint it took to cover that horrendous event of ‘mean ol’ Mother Nature,’ as one homeowner was reported to have said. It went into the recycle box.

                During this sorting time, an evening thunderstorm blew up, but by the time I had filled the throwaway box, the sun was shining. I took that box, plus the week’s papers/cartons/plastics, out to the proper bin.

I never got back to the job. For I had pulled out a piece from a September ’05 PARADE about hoarders. AM I A HOARDER?

Oh, I can walk through this house without stepping over and around things—unless it’s cats—so I don’t think I qualify, but I’ve been in a home where the door wouldn’t open all the way because of the stuff behind it.

Before I’ve gotten all the things put back in the bedrooms, I made arrangements to have the floors refinished in the three front rooms. Oh-my-goodness! I thought the first job was tremendous. It pales beside the task of tearing down and moving out an office, a living room with five full bookshelves, a piano, two sofas and three chairs. Plus, the dining room with a table, buffet, TWO china cabinets chock-full of glassware that must be taken out before being moved.

Don’t call me during July. I’ll be unable to get to the phone. And don't call the police if you see me climbing through a back window from the porch into the house. That'll be my only access to the bathroom and bedroom.

After that, we’ll start on the kitchen floor.

 



Time flies when you’re not paying attention—and even when you are

 

                Recently, we who worked the polls were kept apprised of how much time was left in our long day: “Five hours and 26 minutes,” he’d call out. “Two hours and 14 minutes.” And so on. That was one time I was glad that time never stops.

                Searching my computer files, I found something even more indicative of how time flies: saved-for-later documents. This proves how easily we make plans, how creative our intentions.

 And then living happens.

                I found this: IDEAS from journal entries, July 2012. TWO YEARS AGO! Permit me to use them this week. And perhaps add some commentary.

1. WRITE ABOUT grandson Billy’s comments concerning people having NO manners. Like standing when a female leaves the room; not wearing a hat inside, expecting the date to pay half… “I don’t know; maybe I’m odd, but if I take a woman out, I expect to pay.” He called it “mannerisms” or “manner-something.”

This sweet-grandson-o’-mine was 22 at the time. Makes me proud. I wish he’d come around to my way of thinking about sending actual paper-and-pen-and-stamped-and-addressed thank-you notes when he’s given a gift. He thinks that if you say it to the giver’s face, that that should be enough. Sigh. This grandmother likes to receive written notes. (Oh, I know this is a different time, etc. etc.)

2. At 3 a.m. one night, when Billy opened the door to my room--letting me know he was home-- he reeked of cigar smoke. “I like the smell of a cigar,” he said. And he didn’t even know his great-granddaddy Noah, who in my memory ALWAYS had a stogie in his mouth or his fingers.

3. IN THE NEWS, May, 2012 (going backward through the journal): “Otis M., 23, who is charged in an undercover sting operation in North California that ended in gunfire, has been ordered released on a $150,000 bond on the condition that he spend an hour reading and a half-hour writing each day as he awaits trial on robbery and assault charges. SMART JUDGE! I wonder if it helped.

4. Write a piece from a dad’s viewpoint about finding the book, Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel, while in the attic looking for Where the Wild Things Are. “This book started me on my career,” my near-to-retirement-age son said. “I loved the big machines that moved dirt.” I gave him the book.

5. Funny image: “They (protesters) were closely watched by nearby patrol cars ….” Do cruisers have eyes? If so, where are they located?

6. Tongue twister: Beginner knitter (Heloise).

Another document—this one entered the last day of 2011—is titled COUCHWOOD UPGRADES IN 2012:

* Add 2 overhead lights on front porch—one over the porch swing, one off the south fascia to light the steps/driveway. As of mid-June 2014, NOT done.

* Repair/ replace dining room fan & back bedroom fan & light. NO

*Clean carpets. BETTER: dirty carpets ripped up and new laid down. YES

* Refinish hardwood floors. This is my next project. I’m on Travis’s list for some time during July. However, since it will mean moving and storing three rooms filled with books, glassware that’ll have to be moved from TWO cabinets, writing necessaries . . . .
I have asked the company if he would do one room at a time. If so, I’ll only have to devise a way to get into the bathroom area when he does the dining room.
Maybe I can jury-rig a stile through a window. #

~~

Who remembers shag carpeting?

These blossoms look sort of shaggy - PL

 

 

 

                The “back” bedroom at Couchwood has always been dark. Two double-hung wood-framed windows look out from the rock wall of the house onto the concrete-floored porch. When I was a child, the back porch was wood up so high, and screen to the ceiling. Our youngest brother says he remembers the porch being completely open when he “owned” that room.
               
                At some point, Dad paneled the entire porch cheap-brown, leaving four small, metal-framed windows. After that, the bedroom was dubbed “the dark room.” It was also called “the boys’ room.”
              
               Our eldest brother remembers the room with linoleum nearly to the walls and a worn rug in front of a double bed with an “iron frame mostly rusted and chipped of its original paint.” He surmises it was originally in the house that burned—the reason for building Couchwood. A pull-string bare light bulb was the inadequate lighting at that time.  

         

               Finally--none of us remembers when-- green shag carpet was added, as was a ceiling fan and light. Celery-colored paneling was nailed over the original plaster.  (This is the one thing I truly love about the two back bedrooms and hall. I wonder why the master bedroom didn’t get the same wall treatment.)
 

             At another time, it became the sickroom of our maternal grandmother. Mom was the eldest girl, so she “took care” of Grandma until her death.
 

             Later, Mom decided to carpet (or perhaps re-carpet) the other two bedrooms and the hall. Why she didn’t include the back room is an enigma. The room may have been treated like the crazy-aunt-in-the-attic syndrome: just keep the door closed.
 

             And then Mom died.

 

            Since June of 2006, grandson Billy and I have lived in the old house. He was 16 and I was 70 when we moved in. Guess who got the back room? Not me! I got Mom’s room. Dad’s room—with the half-bath built by taking both the room closet and the linen closet in-- faced both north and west. I called it the guest room/ Billy's bathroom.
 

            The kid got the back room—a perfect fit. He didn’t care about the carpet. A better place to spit popcorn kernels, throw wrappers on the floor, strew clothes and shoes anywhere. Just so there was an air conditioner (we had one installed), cable (we subscribed with resultant holes drilled in the wood), and strip outlets for myriad electronic devices.
 

           To the three dressers from Grandma Flossie’s home, we added cheap book/VHS cases, two rolling carts with two surfaces each, one of which held a lamp and a “face-fan.” KB liked it “cold” when sleeping.
 

          Eight years later, I decided the carpets needed to go. I had to strip all the small things from both the room and the tops of the heavy pieces. I stuck all the wires and cords and remotes into one dresser.
 

         Guess what’s NOT going back into the back room?
 

         By the way, Mullins still sells shag carpeting!