A Fantastic Sunday

Lots going on in the background, but I can't complain when I'm listening to slinky bossa nova style Japanese music with mrguy and looking outside at the city far away. The clouds above it make it resemble the Cascades. 

Check out Chiaki Naomi, people! Super relaxing.

Prior to that we were picking out plane tickets for my solo trip to New York for Thanksgiving. Mrguy was invited but doesn't want to go, nor does any one of my friends. Whatever. I am going to NY to spend gobs of money and do one of my bucket list items. I feel untethered from finance because this is literally something I wanted to do before I die, a dream trip, so I am looking at tasting menus at expensive restaurants and all sorts of things that I would not necessarily want to do. But I'm pretty sure that the people who I am crewing with would not want to do those things, so I'm planning for togetherness on Thanksgiving Day and then fending for myself.

And prior to that, we spent a little time in the garage, doing triage. We loaded up several boxes of random stuff in Tiger Brown for me to take to Goodwill. I said goodbye to my dad's little chest that sat on the side of his favorite chair. It was a deep cherry color, and until it went to live at my mom's house, had zero flaws in its finish. The ring pulls on the upper drawer had a distinctive sound that I can't forget but can't quite describe. The upper drawer held all of the coasters you would need to keep everything in the living room pristine. One lower held sable brushes that I would use to dust the semi-precious stone flowers on the Chinese lacquer screens, and the other held our Christmas stockings through the year. You wonder how I came to be a historian? I can mentally walk through my entire childhood house and tell you what's in almost every drawer, because someone before me told its story.

Oh wow, the indignities that that chest endured in my mom's care in her final years. It sat next to her bed, so its finish was removed in various places by potions prescribed and spit into the air (children's Tylenol, for one), and her nightly water glass and juices. It's almost unimaginable that my mom's furniture would have a water ring on it. At one point she broke part of the chest. I glued it back together, an activity that I found completely satisfying. I polished it with diaper paste as a final tribute on Christmas 2022.

But yesterday? I rolled it to the curb at Goodwill and drove away before they could complain about my bringing them furniture, and I am free. Every one of these moments letting go and then actually jettisoning items carves out a bit more freedom. I memorialize them here, and then *poof* I don't have to feel bad about them.

Then I went to the car wash. Three color foam for nine bucks, as you know. A friend from school says she goes for the cheapest one color wash. I told her I file that nine bucks under "entertainment". The car wash seems so extravagant to me. More extravagant than going to New York.