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Thursday, November 10, 2005

With the signing of a lease, we now had a destination and our packing could begin in earnest.

When I lived at home, I didn't have alot of clothing to fill the extremely large walk-in closet in my back bedroom. However, I did need a workspace for my electronics work, so I put up a shelf on one side and used it as a work room. It also served as a practice room when I was a promising high school saxophonist and tubist...don't ask.

As with every other unfilled space in that house, after I moved away, my mother began using the walk-in-closet for storage of old clothes. Much of this was clothing that was hopelessly outdated or worn, but she refused to throw anything away unless absolutely forced to. When I moved from Dallas to New York in 1991, I added to the problem by moving alot of my own stuff into that closet. Since I only took two trunks of material to New York, this constituted the bulk of my earthly possessions.

Thursday was devoted to cleaning out the closet. I made an effort to fold everything neatly, not so much to preserve the clothes as to reduce the space needed to carry them. I also marked this and other boxes that contained essentially unneeded materials as "Long Term" so that when I have to do the cleanout of my parent's final house, I will know which boxes should never have been packed, have never been opened and can go straight to the dumpster.

As promised the FEMA contractors came back for another load. Supposedly, they were paid by the cubic yard, so they were delighted to haul as much stuff away as needed...no questions asked.

The folks retired to the reservation...I to my bedroom.

Next: Friday, November 11, 2005