We’re doing very little going-out, but we did shovel the drive to get the car out to head to Swinging Doors to have a story conference. There’s something comfy about one’s chosen dark sports bar/watering hole that promotes better thinking—none of the chores waiting for us to distract us.
We got more done in two hours than we could have done in a day of puttering around at home, in terms of idea-trading, and we’ve got story developing, which is a great feeling.
Now more snow is coming and so long as the power doesn’t go out, we’re good. OTOH, having been through LAST year, we own a generator. And really, we don’t look for this to be as much snow, but it may be colder. Our house windows are in great shape now—used to have cracked glass, non-functional storm windows, and heat leakage; and now we’re just comfy. Was a huge hit on the pocketbook, but if we hadn’t fixed that front window, we’d have seen some more serious damage. Not to mention the mold source.
So we face a year in which we are going to be cleaning out the (shudder) basement and garage. Jane’s determined on a garage sale, and I’ve sworn to the same. Moves from WA to OK, with 2 houses, then OK to here with two apartments and a house, have seen us outfit a new place and then have to re-outfit, and do it all again just way too many times. At one point, here in WA, we had 3 storage units because we just couldn’t figure what to let go of. THIS year, we swear we’re going to clear the decks and have what we actually need rather than what we might need someday.
And we’re going to get a lot of writing done.
I keep looking at the kitchen counters, at the dining room table (I found a really nice suite for 6 from a guy who was going through a divorce), the room where I keep my computer, and the “library”, and I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the stuff that’s in those places needs to go….It took me almost a year and a half to clean out the garage so I could park my car inside. My problem is I tend to hoard certain items, such as books, but I also tend to accumulate magazines and newspapers, and hold on to them for weeks or months. I read through them, but then don’t put them into the recycling bin, just toss them over to the end of the couch, and eventually, that stuff piles up.
Dishes are another falling-down point. I have a dishwasher in the house, it’s a piece of crap because the dishes come out dirtier than they went in. Use the hottest water they recommend, a high-quality detergent, and they still don’t get clean. Mostly, it’s a film that easily wipes off (so why doesn’t it rinse off as easily?), but it’s still not sanitary.
The basement is another disaster area, old clothes that I’m never going to wear again, my closets are full of shirts that I no longer wear….yes, there are plenty of consignment and charity shops in town – it’s getting off my backside and taking those things.
I’ve got a ’67 Sunbeam Alpine (think James Bond in Dr. No) that’s been an undrivable garage queen for the last 20 years that I need to sell! “Real soon, now.”
I’m thinking we’re going to limit our travel this year and just shovel hard. I understand both those things, and I’d like to go through various areas and just haul out ‘stuff’ to tables in the front yard. Jane says ‘garage sale this spring,’ and I say, maybe summer, because our springs are rainy, but our summers aren’t, and I’d like to be sure we move it. There’s stuff for projects that aren’t going to happen, like pour-forms for a garden path that’s now gravel; and lots and lots of crafty things we’re not likely to use; and old garden tools that have rusted beyond use…bags of fertilizer that have become a chemical experiment—books we’re going to send off to charity: clothes that date back to love beads; and pieces of furniture that worked in the apartments that don’t, now. I think this is our cleanup year. I really hope so.
The ‘Captain’s Cabin’ is full of stuff that needs to go, including a YuDu shirt printing machine that has been there being stored for a friend for 2 years. The biggest pile of cruft can’t really go anywhere; it’s the Pergo flooring for when we replace the ratty old carpet, which we are tentatively going to do after the cats pass on and we won’t terrorize anyone. We had a yard sale last summer which moved out our old beloved but unused telescope, and more things have gone via Craigslist. I had the room largely emptied after the yard sale, but it’s filling again 🙁
I have a storage unit full of boxes (and some furniture) that I need to thin. Back in September I got a visiting friend to help with moving the one piece of furniture that was on top of the boxes I haven’t been able to get at. Which is the one with most of the books. (I know I have multiple copies of at least three cookbooks, because of that.)
I hope I can thin it this year.
I got tired of paying rent on the storage unit, so moved everything from there to the garage. Including a washing machine that (we) bought in 1984, and I finally got IT out to the curb. There is a 1974 Honda CB550K and a 1980 Suzuki GS750ET in the garage, a 29-gallon aquarium, my table saw, a chipper/shredder, the lawn mower, a generator, the snow blower, a ladder, my kayak (hanging up on the wall on hooks), my workbench (which I haven’t been able to use in over 4 years) and a large cabinet that I got at a government auction and which holds my chemicals and other items. Eventually, I’m sure I can get the stuff that’s not needed out of there and into the trash or to some place that can use those things. The question is, how soon is “eventual”?
I know what you mean. I had about 5 garage sales in the months leading up to the move from the old duplex to the apartment, and downsized mightily during that move. I’ve probably still got too much stuff — some small pieces of furniture, lamps, a couple of area rugs (the apartment only had carpeting in the bedrooms) that kind of thing I know I’m going to be getting rid of. I’ve pared down my books to five shelves’ worth — very strict about only keeping books I know I’ll read again. The Friends of the Library in my town have made out like bandits. I’ve donated a truckload of books to them over the years — boxes and boxes, a lot of them nice hardbacks.
Dishes are my weakness. I have service for 12! in my Churchill blue willow dishes, plus service for 8 in flow blue dessert plates, cups, saucers and cup lids, plus another tea set with service for four. When I got the blue willow ware in the early 1980’s, I deliberately got service for 12 because they were my “forever dishes” and I wanted to allow for attrition over the years. I have the whole schmear — coffee pot, teapot, cream, sugar, covered butter dish for stick butter, gravy boat, S&P. a couple of covered casserole dishes, serving bowls, cups and saucers, — the whole nine yards. That was on top of the service for 12 of pottery that I got when I married in 79, with 8 goblets that match. Finally got rid of those this year. Mom bought them from me and gave them to a couple in the church who were getting married and wouldn’t be able to afford nice stuff for quite a while. Since I moved from the apartment to this duplex, I have gotten rid of a huge TV armoire and TV which were replaced by a flat screen which sits atop a sideboard that won’t fit in my dining area. I could use a smaller dining room table (mine seats six), and I have this huge china cabinet jam crammed with stuff, including the aforementioned Tea set.
What’s really going to be fun to deal with is my mom’s 3 BR house which is packed with a lifetime’s worth of stuff (she’s 92) and things like three closets full of her clothes, Waterford crystal, Royal Dalton china, Lalique objets d’art, and whatnot that she’s collected from her many travels. She’s been really good about listing who gets what — things relatives have asked for or she’s promised them they could have, but still it’s going to be a massive undertaking to clear out that house and put it up for sale. I don’t even want to think about how much work that’s going to be.
CJ — a priority mail envelope is headed your way, mail carrier deliverable. It was mailed Thurs and should be there early next week. Contents should be helpful with the weather you’re having.
Off topic, but this is a really interesting article:
http://nautil.us/issue/5/fame/fame-for-23-words-is-15000-years-overdue and a fascinating premise.
Interesting article, and I think their premise is quite likely. After all, if they’ve tracked our mitochondria back to one “mitochondrial Eve”, it seems clear the population of proto-humans started out quite small and localised, so why not expect the same for the start of language.
Especially if you take into account not just the most-used words, but also the first baby-words which necessarily are limited to easy-to-say sounds like mama and papa/dada.
But in their list of 23 little-changed root words there are 2 which haven’t been conserved in Dutch, which seems rather a lot out of only 23, if these 23 are this important.
To pull is “trek/trekken” in Dutch; a short sharp pull would be a “ruk” (rukken); it’s “tirer” in French which seems related to he Dutch word rather than the English one. The word “pul” exists in Dutch, for a small chicken, a chick.
Black in Dutch would be “zwart” (or “noir” in French, which seems unrelated to either); the word “bleek” exists in Dutch but means pale, the opposite of black.
With the other 21 words I can see that they are related, though not identical, but how these two ended up in that set baffles me.
A theory old when I was in linguistic studies held that mother and father are quite old, and the particles are ma and fa (the most ‘open’ of pronunciations.) Hence Latin pater, Russian patz, Sanskrit pitar, Germanic vater, Old High Norse and English father and Chinese fu. Also papa, da, (p, d, and f are actually transitional forms of each other, the front of mouth sounds) —and then you get to mother, ma, mama, Latin mater, Russian matz, Sanskrit mater, German mutter, English mother, Chinese mu… etc.
Zwart would be a Germanic-branch word for dark: swart or swarthy in English (antique and rare) schwartz in German. But Latin went another route: it has a number of words for black depending on reflectivity, but few other words for color—fulvus, eg, is just a lion-color, we call tawny; but aureus, golden; ceruleus–blue; rufus—reddish; sanguineus—bloody red; purpureus–actually a violet; and alba—white; candida—shiny white. Nero is flat black; ater (atrocious comes from it) is gloomy or filmy black; niger is dark, hence the Niger river; and viridis—green. But that’s about as far as color distinction went, and ancient Greek is even poorer in color designations: Homer’s wine-dark sea is a reach after a dark and troubled sea.
WOL, that sounds like the exact problem we will have with both of our mothers respective houses. Both moms have large good collections, and in both instances we will probably need to hire an auction company to move out anything the children or other relatives can’t take. I already took some less valuable oriental rugs from my mother’s place to use as area rugs when we put down the Pergo; they’re in a closet until needed.
@ Hanneke & CJ
“Pullet”: a young female chicken between the ages of “chick” to “hen”.
Can you help me remember the ‘s Law in linguistics that posits sounds in derivative languages “soften” from ancestral forms, e.g. Portugese from Spanish. Whose? It’s bugging me I can’t remember.
@Paul, around here “een pulletje” or ‘a little pullet’ is mostly used for baby waterfowl. That might be because we see a lot more of those in all the waterways around here, lots of ducks and geese and several pairs of loons and other little mostly-black waterhens (2 kinds) that I don’t know the English names for.
I don’t know the name of the linguistic law either, sorry.
Happy New Year for everybody – I’m getting some sleep before the loudest fireworks noise starts (the neighborhood boys have been setting some off all day and evening, but except for the occasional really loud boom when one of them sets off something illegal it’s not too bad yet). I hope everyone makes it past the fireworks and into the new year with all limbs and eyes intact, and that the new year may bring more good things than you expect from it now.
We don’t use pullet for waterfowl. I think you’re thinking of “coots”, grey body, black head and neck, white above the nostrils, unwebbed feet?
Yes, coots and moorhens/marshhens are the two little dark waterbirds that nest in our ditches and canals. The other ones I’ve now looked up too, and they are great crested grebes, not loons (I got that one wrong, sorry).
The big blue herons are a common sight too, but I haven’t seen them with chicks in all my decades of seeing them standing fishing at the edge of the ditches (or sometimes beside the anglers on the fishing docks): that’s strange, now I realize it!
@Hanneke: There are two kinds of birds: “precocial” that lay large eggs and chicks hatch at an advanced stage of development and [very nearly] can fend for themselves, e.g. fowl, and “atricial” that lay smaller eggs and hatch less developed babies that need a long time in the nest to complete development, e.g. pigeons, pelicans, raptors, and herons. By the time you’ll see herons out and about the young will look like their parents. Find a rookery to see heron chicks.
Oops! That was supposed to be “[somebody]’s Law”.
Spouse finally made up his mind to sell his mother’s house still full of her stuff after 20 years sitting empty (he hoards things, as did she). We’ve had a buyer patiently waiting so I called her & contract was signed. He can’t leave the house any more except by ambulance so I called an auction company to take everything that was salable; a lot of the rest to go to Goodwill and a used book emporium for credit on future purchases. The only things I wanted was the Doulton china she used for every day and the cedar chest. The dining room table, solid mahogany, had been rescued from the attic of the plantation in Montgomery; it seats 20. We won’t get what things are worth but the house is no longer his and I’m doing a happy dance.
Have you considered clearing out larger items by sending them to auction?
If you have structural items for building or working appliances or tools or the like, Habitat for Humanity in our area will send a truck for them—and it goes to a good cause. They run a little store where a working though old electric range they say will be gone in an hour.
Habitat for Humanity is my first stop when I am either doing home improvement, or when I need to move out old unused tools and hardware. The only thing I regret having gotten rid of is a cat’s paw nail puller; the curved and pointed end can get into more tight areas than a flat crowbar. I wish they were open on a more convenient schedule for me, which would be Mondays, but they only take donations then, not sell. They also are the local e-cycling center, and we have disposed of several truckloads of deceased computer equipment through them.
This isn’t the first thing an Aspie thinks of doing, but Happy New Year to all our associated salads! I rather think we’ll need all the spells we can have cast!
Yes, Happy New Year to all the associates!
The year Written by George R.R. Martin is over. Let’s have a year written by C. J. Cherryh please?
Diverse characters with rich stories and plenty of adventure, action, intrigue and hope for a better future.
Happy New Year!
It’s almost 23:30 here and the neighborhood delinquents are firing off illegal fireworks scaring the dog into a cowering mess. Happy New Year to all our associates.
Went to the New Year’s Eve dance that my instructors held tonight. Dance started at 9:00 EST, ended at 12:00 AM, NO alcohol involved, as we’re at a teen center, on city property. Tore down the tables, chairs, lights, got everything packed and into their car and left the building around 12:45. I decided that since it’s a prime night for drunk drivers, I would take the interstate, so I’d have more “wiggle room” in case I encountered an impaired driver. Besides, the state police tend to be out on the interstate in greater force than on the back roads I normally take. I pulled into my driveway about 1:15 AM, parked my car in my garage, and I’m home for the next few hours until I get up to go buy a newspaper for my father, then go and change the bandage on his leg.
The dance was fine, except I was the only “stag”, and I really don’t care to be “stag” at these things. Most of the dancers are advanced beyond my experienced, so it can also be intimidating to dance with someone who’s been dancing for many more years than I have. (I’m coming up on 4 years in March.) I did dance, mostly with my instructor (and of course, the inevitable lesson on the floor, which is VERY helpful), and my former partner when her boyfriend didn’t know that particular dance.
Well, I’m home, nobody is shooting fireworks (or firearms), and I’ve still got some guitar practice I need to do to make up for yesterday. I got lazy and didn’t practice when I had the time.
Yes, Happy New Year to all associated salads
New Year’s Eve came and went without incident. We had the usual gang of friends over for a spate of tabletop gaming and potluck, but everyone left before midnight. It drizzled off and on all day and into the night, which kept any fireworks from setting unauthorized fires and probably put a damper on the larger illicit explosions. One hopes that 2017 will be superior to 2016 in most respects.
I haven’t gone out on New Year’s Eve for many years. I’m usually asleep by midnight! 🙂
This year was different because my dear great niece got married on Hew Year’s Eve. It was a delightful and romantic event! And I was still home well before midnight. Surprisingly the driving was fine although I did pass what looked like one bad accident at a major exit on Rt.95.
Here’s to health, joy and hope in 2017!
And a Happy New Year to all!
I just submitted grades for the two courses (Geology and Art History) which I taught this past semester and now have a few, non-holiday freneticness weeks free to focus on my own writing…oh yes, and some prepping of next semester’s courses (Social History of Food and, if hopefully it gets the enrollment, my own main academic focus field, Intro to Cultural Anthropology).