Done

And I am done. This is how we started out, after the work I did yesterday:

My nephew came to help. 

Mostly we were using luggage movers to convey items from the apartment, through the memory care neighborhood, and often past people in bulky wheelchairs who were doing an activity. Every trip involved asking someone to let us out (it's a locked community) and let us back in. Anything can set the residents  off, so there's a weight that comes with every trip through the activity room. One bright spot was that there was a woman who I hadn't previously met, who wandered into the apartment and began saying in French that she was cold. I got to use a few vocabulary words that I still had available to me.

The neph took two giant truckloads of stuff to our house. And got to see his uncle, who is doing great on his chemo.

Then he took apart the big sofa for the guys (who still hadn't arrived). Late in the game I remembered that someone in the community had offered a different kind of dolly. This was a game changer. After we loaded the bed onto this thing for the guys, the neph took a truckload of stuff to our house and dropped it in the driveway for us, and went off.

The guys still hadn't arrived. They were looking for hand truck rentals, and it's the end of the month. I shared the happy news of the floor dolly, and they made it back to the apartment. It took two shakes after the prep we did.

Then I was alone. I had a date with filth, soaking more dried food puddles off of the ground and splatters off the baseboards. Then I managed to get every single thing onto the luggage mover, including a bag with all of the brooms, toilet brushes, plungers, etc. I duct taped that thing closed.

It now looked like this:

I ran into the person who signed us up at this joint. Gave her the keys. We walked out to the elevator together, and she reminded me that I had one more item in the apartment -- a toilet riser. Gross! She gave me the keys back. I put them in my purse.

I got downstairs, got everything into Tiger Brown, and was just about to take the last load to the dumpster when this roll of paper towels escaped. I was ridiculously tired. Had to clean it up, go to the apartment and -- have someone let me into her apartment because my purse was in the car. Did the walk of shame with the toilet riser through the activity room full of people who were being wheeled in to dinner. Out to the dumpster again, turned in the keys and finally I got to drive home. Almost there, I pulled over and bought some Guatemalan grape soda. Mrguy helped me load the stuff into the garage (I could barely walk by this point) and I flopped on the sofa. Wrote my sisters a text: "It's all done. Even whatever you want to ask me about? I did that."

I keep waking up and asking myself what horrible task I have to accomplish today and the answer is NOTHING. I kinda can't believe it.

And We're Out?

Today is supposed to be the day we exit my mom's apartment. It's oddly stressful, but it's almost over. On Tuesday and Wednesday our main caregiver and I cleaned out closets and made bags of trash and bags for Goodwill. A dear friend whose mom lives next door to mine also helped us the other day, clearing out Mom's clothes and taking 5 bags to Goodwill. We encouraged her to take anything for her mom.

Yesterday was gross. I listened to an audiobook about the Chinese men who were on the Titanic (soothing, but wonky) while soaking grime off the closet floor (super disgustoid -- a combination of "fruit of the past" and dust). Behind the antique dresser I found evidence of mom's behavior -- the missing drawer pulls that she took off the dresser repeatedly, and broken ceramic triangles. These were pieces of soup bowls, brightly coated with dried butternut squash soup. She broke things when she was upset, and I swept up many shards of discontent yesterday.

And finally yesterday there was a visit to the mortuary to settle up our accounts. But along with the bad, there was the sweet moment of seeing a photo of our friend and her mother, with her mother looking cute in one of my mom's cozy sweaters. It was her birthday.

Today our caregiver's son is helping extract the big sofa and bed, but I think he's not very experienced in this. He is bringing his cousin and some workers from Home Depot. My nephew is coming to help me get the smaller stuff over to our house. I have a feeling that he's going to end up helping oversee.

I should have paid for movers for them. 

So worried.

But we're getting out of there somehow today. 

And then the next chapter of my life begins.

Fingers crossed

Storage Peace

As opposed to Storage Wars.

Oldest nephew and I have been tackling the job of emptying my mom's storage space and trying to get other people to take things. It's a nice excuse to hang out and I could not do this without him. It has to be done.

Storage spaces are a rip. I know that many of the items in the space are valuable, but I estimate that we have spent 7 grand on the space since we moved mom two years ago. That's real money. And by now those items, even if sold, could not make up for it. Plus I'd have to do the work. No way, man.

So far we have met once at the house to look at items and add numbers to the boxes and boxes to the spreadsheet. We met twice to look into every box and add numbers to boxes that didn't have them. And yesterday we met to go over the last boxes and take stuff to Goodwill and the dump. The taking and dumping is being done by my nephew, not me.

Everything on the left and the right in this photo is now permanently dealt with. 

And as luck would have it, friends from work are outfitting their rental and need some house stuff. They were able to come take a look at everything. In the photo above, they're walking in with my nephew. Why? Because I got distracted while looking for photos on my laptop and noticed that I'd entered my mom's name incorrectly in her cremation order (which she still does not need) and I was correcting that mistake on the phone while waiting for our friends to get there, so neph went downstairs to retrieve them. Note that I decided to remove the people in this photo without reading the instructions on how to use Photoshop's content-aware tool. 

I was left with something more like Nudes Descending a Staircase With Disembodied Arm Held Aloft in Greeting. I kinda like it.

The friends walked out with a bunch of kitchen stuff, a vintage hamper, my grandmother's art deco stew pot, a big old television -- and let me know that they have people who will take the linens if we need someone to. Muuuch appreciated.

Several big loads down the quirky elevator later, the neph's enormous Honda Pilot was filled with boxes. Only one thing was rejected by the dump -- his stepdad's desktop copy machine. Considering, this is fabulous. Things are seeming so much more manageable, and it's only the 8th of September. Other relatives are planning a pilgrimage for later in the month in which they will come take what they like.

Banana Bread

Last Friday someone at work posted a meme about brown bananas.

Like many other people in the world who saw the meme over the last year, I felt impugned and made banana bread immediately. Did I mention that my chest freezer REEKS of frozen bananas? 

The resulting banana bread was one of the most beautiful of my life. I told mrguy to please let it cool and let me take a photo before diving in.

He did, but then forgot to cover the pan, which should not be a problem in a right and just world. However worst-cat-in-the-world-boy-kitten quickly located the bread and ate the best part of it (the top). It did not agree with him. He got violently ill and pooped everywhere at 4am. I thought I'd cleaned it up. Got back in bed, rolled over and put my hand in a puddle of cat glop on the duvet. So gross. I had to wash the rug, all of the linen, myself and the cat. 

But the banana bread was gorgeous, right?

A Better Day

Yesterday was a better day. After last weekend's fighting with siblings about mom, and revealing the true depth of my sorrow and anger, there was an agreement to some sort of family mediation. I can get therapy for myself, but the source of much of my angst is the conflict between my sister and the rest of us siblings. So if that scenario is still the deal, it's pointless to seek help.

As always, my caveat is that my sister works harder at this than all of us. But I don't think that my mom had to be taken to the Midwest, come back, quarantine until her Covid test came back negative and then have my sister take care of her solo for a week or more in order for things to be where they are right now. I am grateful and not grateful, I guess. Mom's now off all of her psych medications and taking Benadryl to make her sleepy.

Yesterday I got to hang out with both the sister and mom for a few hours in a park. It was relatively pleasant. No barbs were thrown. I socially distanced, but mom didn't wear a mask, and we sat by a path where lots of people passed by. It was fine. I made a flower arrangement for mom and she seemed to like it.

Having done that, today feels like a better day. Boy Kitten is feisty, having waged a successful battle against Rainbow String.

I cleaned his room and washed all of his bedding in hot water and bleach, gave him flea bath, killed a bunch of fleas, and tomorrow he will get a flea treatment.

Our friend, the hardest working man in Hawaiian show business delivered both mussel and limu poke today, and we are having it large.

Mrguy bought lots of potting soil yesterday, and we fixed up the dozens of succulent pots on the upper deck. I gave fertilizer (worm castings) to our plants.

A little more kitten play-time, some Indian food and Hamilton! I admit that things go so fast that I caught the lyrics on my laptop, and we stopped about a third in, because it was so interesting. The desire to sleuth about all of these people who you read about in school was too strong.

The desire to sleuth means that this is a better day.

I'm Sorry, Old Boy

Mrguy and I have been joking for a while that our oldest boy is "post grooming". At *almost* 21 years old he spends a lot of his time in his heated cat bed, and he doesn't wash a lot. 

 
He has arthritis, and needs motivation to go most places. He's mostly deaf and calls to us when he can see us from his heated cat bed. On occasion, he'll wander out to the kitchen, get halfway to where we're sitting in the kitchen den, meow at us once, loudly, turn around and go back to the cat bed, which is in the bedroom. Actually there are four cat beds in the bedroom, and he moves to a new one every few hours during the afternoon, always in a clockwise manner.

This morning he actually joined us in the living room, which requires him to come downstairs (with great effort). But it was sunny by the window and he wanted to bask in the sun. Then he started grooming! Old habits die hard, I guess. He even got around to his posterior, which probably hadn't been visited in quite a while. He kinda got stuck there with his leg in the air, but managed to get his back leg under control again eventually. It seemed a shame to do what I was going to do, but I'd already told him that he had delights in store later today.

By which I meant I was going to put him in the sink and wash him. Poor boy. So undeserving, but his feet were really filthy and his tummy fur was matted, and after a while it probably isn't very comfortable to be unwashed, even if you're a cat. 

So I did this:

An amazing amount of fur was caught by the little sieve I put in the drain. Thank you Daiso for that clever little item!
 
And then I fed the old boy some Mon Petit Crispy Kiss which is an imported delight from Japan that the cats are INSANE for. I think I bought it at the 1000 Yen store or Lawsons or something and brought it home for them in September. When I ran out in December I panicked, but a friend going home to Okinawa for Christmas hooked me up. Thank goodness for Mon Petit Crispy Kiss (which, of course, I had just bought for the name) and my friend.

After a bit more afternoon drama he calmed down, and now is pretty soft. Tummy fur still needs a trim, but in general things are ship-shape.

GM Time

That's grand mammoo time.

She's no longer a multitasker. She's even a slow monotasker. Last Sunday I thought she'd be here at noon and she arrived at 2:30. Today at 11am she said she'd be here in a half an hour and it's 1:15.
 
Oh well. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.

Which is washing microfiber cloths using Orvus paste.

Despite the difference in lighting between the dining room and kitchen, the results were quite nice.

And now other laundry for the archives at work. So satisfying. 

I finally broke down and ate a piece of pizza. Too bad, mama. If there's any left, you can eat a second lunch, as you sometimes do.

Take That, Punks!

I'm taking the day off from Mom duty to rest, celebrate our oldest boy's 20th birthday, and play in the middle of the street. While I was there, I realized that people have been tagging our street signs. The magic combination of acetone, baking soda and soap made it all better.

Front before:

Front after:

Back before:

Back after:

So satisfying.

Book Purge

Yesterday was the day of reckoning for books. We have 6+ giant book cases and not all of those books are coming with us.

F*** your books

Comes a time when you realize that there are not enough hours in your future to read all of the books that you own now, much less the books that you keep buying. For this reason it makes sense to get rid of at least some of them. We had many of those conversations last night, as well as the one about how mrguy feels oppressed by seeing all of the books immediately when you walk in the door. I went to library school, so I think it's cozy.

The Lady Room will, therefore, be the book repository :)

It's kinda fun to go through all of the books. It feels less crazy to me when I touch them all. And then there are the annoying ones. Books that we've kept for weird reasons -- like the 15 year old resume guide that I had to be encouraged to let go of. The author was a friend of a friend who died young. Working on this as a team really helped.

Today I seal the concrete floor in the future cat room.

TCB

Tis the weekend to:

Figure out the vocal arrangement for "Freedom"

And then

Make that necklace for a wee one
And finish two necklaces for the precious ones

While

Watching the cool documentary that a friend lent us so long ago

And starting those two books that have been lent to us

And remembering that turkey carcass for a friend

Much better!

Oskah -- Morning Pre-Show

Oskah! is ladies' day, according to mrguy. In preparation he has repainted the bathroom cabinets, recaulked the bathroom, repainted the fireplace, and I know I'm missing other important elements of beautification he's undertaken. He's a man on a mission of loveliness.

I, on the other hand, am on a mission of health. I have been laying low, but yesterday I came out of my lair like Punxsatawney Phil to speak to a class at my alma mater, then we procured items for today, and I went back to my burrow.

One of my favorite finds at the fish store was the pre-wrapped rice ball nori. Now I can make my own rice ball. That's awesome. While buying snacks, mrguy deliberated about whether to get regular or Men's Pocky. He concluded there should be "no dude Pocky for Oskah!"

After my long rest, it's time to get crackin' so we can commence to snackin'

And prepare my five dollars for its journey home with Tiny But Mighty.

Cruft

I opened the dryer the other day only to have my entire youth spill out. All of the shirts with groovy patterns, the shirtwaist dresses, the schmattes with brand names like "Step n Go," were all getting a final wash before being sold. Mr Guy is cleaning the garage.

Every day there is a new pronouncement about the progress. Today I joined in, and pitched boxes and boxes and boxes of belongings that went with rooms we no longer occupy and people we no longer are. Mr Guy took the clothes to the place where I bought many of them twenty years ago and miraculously most were bought back. He's on a roll.