Estate Sale

I went to an estate sale today.  They differ from garage and yard sales in that their venue is the owner’s home and  the sellers are people other than the owners of the merchandise.   The owners have generally moved to a retirement/elder care situation or are recently deceased, and the home is no longer occupied……at least, not at the time of the estate sale…. 

Some of the merchandise may be put on particular display, but much is left where it was in closets, cupboards, drawers, garages, even barns.  Soap is in the soap dish by the sink, shampoo is in the shower, cinnamon is in the spice rack. 

I don’t think of myself as a sleuth, but as I go through the various items that meant something to someone at sometime, I find myself trying to discover the person behind the manual type-writer, the books written in French, the  canvas rucksack packed with all the essentials:  fishing line, sterile dressing, extra socks, toilet paper in a baggy.  Where were the women’s clothes?  Where were the pictures?  There were hints like the new baby blanket in a bag, a drawer of linen napkins and tablecloths, a box of tired Christmas ornaments, some Hummels.  But the closets were sparsely populated with serviceable jackets and sweaters, and the feminine touch was a distant aroma, more of a memory than than anything else. 

The cramped and elderly  two story house was crowded with things that only the owner could have understood or wanted.  It was also crowded with people, hoping for the ‘find’.  One after another picked through every frame in a box, every family album on a shelf, every shirt  in every closet, every whisk or spatula or in every drawer.  And the accumulations of the owner, things with which he was unwilling to part, were quickly dispersed with no thought, no sentiment, no hope for the future. 

I could tell he must have been born in the late 20’s or early 30’s.   I think his wife must have died before he left this house–a house he probably called home for decades– and here was his frazzled son, selling his worldly goods at a moment’s notice with no prices and no help.  And here were all of we consumers, accruing things for our children to go through and dispose of down the road.  Vultures. 

At least, that’s how it felt.  I didn’t want his stuff, afterall.  I wanted him to be able to still be at home with his loving wife, having his children over for Saturday evening dinner and taking a long, peaceful nap on Sunday afternoon.  I wished he were there to put on his barn coat and go work in his garage in the late fall, knowing that on his return, the house would be filled with the smells of vegetable soup and an apple pie; the sight of his laughing wife, hair out of place and rosy cheeked.

I understood better why Jesus said that death is the final enemy.  Final is the operative word.  No more reading about tying flies.  No more sitting in the chair by the fireplace.  No more need for the phone or the cutting board or the barn coat.  No more beloved voices.

But we do not grieve as those who have no hope.  Death, afterall, is swallowed up in victory–the victory we have through our Lord Jesus Christ, who tasted death for us all.  And Christ Himself is the Door.   Death is the beginning for Christians.

This comforts me more and more, the older I get.  I feel melancholy at estate sales, but I know whom I’ve believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. 

I think I’ll go clean out a drawer.

Police Blotter

Wednesday

 9:02am–
A male hitchhiker was arrested for having a sword in his backpack in Colfax.

9:23am–
A man reported his truck stolen at Granite Point. The truck was later located in Lewiston and the man did not want police to investigate the incident.

9:55am–                                                                                                                                       A woman who works at the Food Quality Building and records commercials about the benefits of milk reportedly received threatening e-mails about her commercials.

2:50pm–
A man was spotted walking down Northeast Stadium Way with a pistol. The man did not commit a crime.

Hercule Poirot could put these together and solve a murder in Peoria.  Miss Lemon could make new files.

WC’s Around the World

Leavenworth, WA

Under His Puppet

From an editorial in The Independent, Gallup, NM (June 6, 2009):

“This wouldn’t be happening if we had a city manager who knew the law, knew his job and wasn’t under the mayor’s puppet.”

Police Blotter

Friday

7:52am–A semi-truck reportedly knocked down a stop sign at intersection of A Street and North Line Street.

11:20–A car was reportedly driven into a ditch in Moscow.

11:25– A coyote was reportedly seen on Southeast Klemgard Avenue.

12:26–A woman reported that garbage was dumped on her car on E Street.

4:38–A coyote was reportedly seen at Krugel Park.

6:36–A coyote was reportedly seen on Southeast Sunnymead Way.

10:31–A couch was reportedly set on fire on A Street.

Saturday

6:17am–Tie-down ratchet tent straps were reported stolen on Seventh Street.

10:59–One parking sign was reported stolen and another three were damaged on Third Street.

Sunday

Pretty quiet until 11:56pm–Two men were reported running down Main Street naked.

No citations were issued.

Birthday Shoes

birthday shoes

I keep clicking them together and saying, “There’s no place like home.   There’s no place like home.”  And when I open my eyes, I’m still standing in my own living room on my own carpet.  Guess I’m home.  But I sure do miss all those munchkins in TOP (that other place).  The shoes sure LOOKED magical.  Thanks Wannie!

Comely

             Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright!  Psalm 33:1

     Comely.  No longer in common use, this word nevertheless immediately conjures up the image of a woman.  A beautiful woman.  A gracious and lovely woman.  A woman with head held high–but not her nose.  A woman whose words are gracious, seasoned with salt.  A woman clothed to attract admiration, to bring honor to her body and her God.  A woman who understands authority.  A woman walking hand in hand with her husband.  A woman honoring him and respecting him and even submitting her own desires to his.  A woman setting chores for her children and laughing with them as they wash dishes together.  A woman who quietly and quickly and firmly brings her children to cheerful obedience.  A woman who raises her children as their God-given authority.  A woman whose home is warm, well-ordered, interesting and welcoming.  A woman who sets a beautiful table and fragrant meals before guests, making them feel at home in her presence.  A woman who brings aid and succor to those in need, but never to the neglect of her husband and children.  A woman who gives her anxieties to her God, and leaves them there.  A woman who reads and listens and ponders, and submits every thought to the scrutiny of the Word of God.  A woman who loves being home and ‘making’ home. 

That’s it.  Comely:  (Strong’s 5000) Beautiful, pleasant, suitable and fitting.  From a primary root (4998):     at home!

Let us Rejoice!

WC’s Around the World

berlin

The Shot Put Incident

If it’s too early for Christmas stories, sue me.    This is my blog and this is a Christmas story.  (Heh, heh.  Got a little defensive there.  Maybe even I think it’s too early. ) (No, wait–I never think that.)

It was not our fault.  John’s sport, afterall, was shot put.  What were we to do, relegated as we were, to the upper story?  And on Christmas Eve!  Let the reader judge. 

From the time we were very young–too young to really know that we were being raised by Santa Claus–we’d rise long before dawn on Christmas morning to sights and sounds that would cause any child’s vision to dance with sugar plums!  I can’t say I remember this, but I half wonder if we weren’t roused out of sleep,  before we were old enough to ‘get it’.  There were some people in the house for whom Christmas would have lost it’s luster if it had begun in daylight.   ‘Some people’ would be our father.

Mr. and Mrs. Santa would have Christmas carols playing on the hi-fi, ‘big’ presents open in front of the tree (which was already half-hidden behind the heaps and mounds of  wrapped presents!), only the tree lights on and the smell of coffee completing the scene.  In our peripheral vision, we sensed a table heavily loaded with sweet things and savory–but we were fairly single-minded.  This scene usually included lots of frenetic motion and squealing (on my part).  For this reason, I have no idea how John handled it all.  He probably sauntered in, nodding his head approvingly and thinking to himself, “Someday, I’ll be Santa Claus and this’ll all be mine.”  I can’t say because I don’t know.  I was too busy making noise.

What I do know is that he relished the early hour as much as anyone.  I was ‘anyone’.  That made us perfect partners for childhood crime.  If we ever actually slept on Christmas Eve, I’ve also forgotten.  The year that sealed my parents’ fate as Christmas morning push-overs, John and I checked our clocks–I was in second grade so, naturally, I had a good grip on reading timepieces–and decided it was TIME.  We just walked down the hall to the folks’ room and announced that Christmas morning had arrived.  Dad-Claus also looked at his clock and told us to go back to our rooms.  He DIDN’T tell us to go back to sleep.  He never did.  He is the funnest, cheeriest guy in the world, just for your information, dear reader.  And our jolly mother is his perfect foil!  As I told you:  Mr. and Mrs. Santa.  Christmas comes when it comes.  One doesn’t  postpone the inevitable.

They rolled out of bed, started the coffee, plugged in the tree lights, turned on the music and called my aunt and uncle, who had foolishly asked to join us for the festivities.  When Aunt Patty answered the phone, she responded to the announcement, “It’s time!”, with a long silence.  When she finally mustered the strength to speak, she asked,  ”Jimmy, do you have any idea what time it is?”   Hahahahaha!  Of course he didn’t!  Who can read anything, much less a clock, at 3:30 in the morning?   They came.  Christmas began at 3:45 am, that most auspicious of years.

We grew older and wiser–this does not translate to sleeping in on Christmas morning.  Duh.  It translated to having to use our wits when we were READY for Christmas.  We were probably twelve and fifteen, at the time of ‘the incident’, and our bedrooms were on the second floor.  Ordinarily, that presented no problems.  We could see the rides at Broomfield Days.  We could see the park.  We could get out on the garage roof, if we saw the necessity.  I’m guessing John may have seen the necessity.  He can set me straight later.  But it really put a crimp in our Christmas ’style’.  We were UP.  Christmas had arrived!  How to get the news to the Claus’s….

Where our parents had made their large mistake was in only carpetting our particular rooms.  They left the hallway NAKED, and therefore subject to NOISE.  Should we jump and stomp and pound on the hall floor?  Oh, please.  Any neanderthal could do that.  We wanted something subtle.  Something smooth.  We wanted to make a statement about our combined brilliance.  So, naturally, we decided to roll John’s shot put back and forth along that perfectly unadorned hall for as long as it took.  Wouldn’t you?   What would Mozart have done?  Or Ronald Reagen?  It was the only possible road.  How else were the S. Claus’s to know? 

By the way, it didn’t take long at all.

Newbie Doobie Doo

     Here’s my first try at a blog.  I mean, why not?  Everyone else does it and jumping off a bridge looked too scary…..   So, now I’m running with the crowd.  I’m feeling a little breathless.  All that keeps going through my mind is, “How do I….?” and “How does this work?” and, “What if I completely screw this up?”  My Chanel watch is making the coolest sort of white halo with web-like rays out each side, and it’s bouncing around on the monitor, distracting me.  That SHOULD have been my theme…..distraction…..  But about the picture at the top:  I’ll put up a personal one before too long, but the default one is so ME.  So there it stays, rooted to the spot…..for now……until I get distracted…….

Duh

I just realized I should have checked ’stick this post to the front of the page’ when I wrote the last post, which will look instead like the THIRD post.  All clear, so far?  This is going to be an interactive site, in that it’s going to demand some mental gymnastics to find anything.  Only the truly dedicated will persevere.  I honor you.

Torn

I know the house of representatives is about to sign on to the four hundred page ‘bailout’ of their own government boondoggle.  I know that hidden in those pages are even more ways of spending my money–ways that have nothing whatsoever to do with bailing anything out.  More bridges to nowhere.  Hundreds of bridges to nowhere.  When I don’t feel outraged and livid (there aren’t really strong enough words), I feel tired and hopeless.  The United States I knew as a child is functionally gone.  I grieve that loss deeply.

Then I look around.  When I woke up, I looked into my favorite face on earth.  Later, I found new e-mails full of the smiling faces of all the people I love most in this world.  I ate homemade granola with a perfect peach from last week’s farmer’s market with a dollop of thick, creamy yogurt.  I looked out the window and watched as two squirrels chased each other up and down a tree trunk.  Even a prisoner in a jail yard can appreciate the early sun on his jumpsuit and the song of a lark. 

I’m not a prisoner in a jail yard. 

 Yet, I have the possibility of becoming a prisoner of my own anger and fear every moment.  With my eyes on the government, I lose all ability to take joy in the steady and cheerful tick-tock, tick-tock of my Paris clock.  I forget that I CAN breathe, and see, and read, and take a walk with my husband in the autumn leaves.  I can pick up the phone and hear beloved  voices in a matter of seconds.  What is it that I want so badly that the government can take away from me?   What is it that I want so badly that I’ll fight for it and allow myself to be dominated with thoughts of it?   They only plan to take my money, right now.   Maybe it’ll get worse.  If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

Come my people, Enter thou into thy chambers, shut thy doors about thee, hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

Wish You Were Here

It’s a drizzly Saturday morning.  The locals are driving around with their lights on and their windows up.  They don’t seem to be in any hurry.  Stalwarts have made their way to the farmer’s market in their jeans and hooded jackets,….. cloth bags slung over their shoulders, laden with new crop apples, red chilis, striped squashes.  Woodsmoke from the barbecued ribs and frying empanadas, making their tacit appeals.  And the pavement, littered with tiny gold leaves, all wet and vaguely reflective.  Cheerful conversations between dripping hoods and under black umbrellas, while their dogs look around with quiet disinterest, also dripping.  Garlic braids with dried flowers, huge sunflowers lolling on their stems, bins and bins of squash and pumpkins, green and white striped, sagey, brilliant orange red against the doleful background.   Then to coffee at Bucer’s….

I can’t deny that it’ll break my heart to leave here….if I ever do.  Wish you were here.

Personal/Not

This is a personal note to someone I don’t know.  So I guess it’s not technically “personal”.  On the first day of my blog, you kindly greeted me and wished me well.  I freaked out because I didn’t recognize your user name (included “jim”), so I got rid of you without thinking.  Now, I’m getting used to being sort of public, and I regret pushing you off the cliff.  I don’t know if there’s any way to get you back….or if you’re even reading this at all!  But I’ve asked WordPress.  And I’m issuing an apology for leaping before I looked, to coin a phrase.  Well, that’s a lie.  It wasn’t really a phrase.  It was a whole sentence.  SVO, prepositional phrase, prep phr. And I guess I didn’t really coin it…..      Why would you even WANT to read this drivel?

Strange Juxtaposition

So, the Love of my life was reading to me from one of the online investment sites for which he pays large subscriptions and I was knitting.  Purl three, knit two, purl two, c2b, purl three….   We were sitting in our well-lighted, warm and cheerful living room, well fed and listening to Evening Classical on NPR.  I was hearing more about why the stock exchange had tanked that day, and why stock exchanges around the world were tanking, and why banks won’t lend to each other and the consequences of that, immediate and long term, and how the treasury secretary had become the U.S. Supreme Banker in just a few short days.  There was so much more I only vaguely understood, but it sounded dire.  It probably is.

Then, I realized something else.  There was something  happening in another corner of my mind that didn’t seem to have anything to do with economic reality.  It had  to do with reality, though.  I was thoroughly enjoying the patterns that were emerging all along the bamboo needles.  I ran my fingers along the chunky blue wool and happily anticipated the outcome.

And there were other things.    I was remembering one segment of Mutts from last summer, where, in Frame one,  Earl and Mooch are lying under a tree on a sunny day.  Frame two:  Mooch purrs and Earl’s tail gives a little wag.  Frame three:  Earl says, “Summer breeze.” 

I was sensing the smell of cedar wood smoke.  And remembering a tiny boy telling me, “I’m not funny.  You’re funny!”  I was thinking about my sister-in-law’s serendipitous parakeets, Granny and Pippin.  I saw Iz’s intense brown orbs peeking out of that knit cap.  I saw Grandad’s eyes.  I thought about the miracle of KRoo’s recovering health.  And laughing again about an unusually good forward I’d gotten before I’d gone to work.  Like happening on a parade with a marching band and a Chinese dragon, my mind was playing it’s own version of “My Favorite Things”.  I laughed out loud!

Then I had to explain that laugh in the middle of an explanation of “deriviative meltdown”……   Some things are just inexplicable.

WC’s Around the World

Notre Dame

Planning for hard times

Tomorrow is an open house in Beanspore, WA.  You should all come.  I’m thinking, with the economy the way it is, and given the location, it’s very likely NO ONE will come.  Ordinarily, the Love of my life would be hosting the year’s big event, but he has to show houses, so I’ve been elected.  I don’t remember running.  I tried to run, when I learned I’d been elected.  Didn’t work. 

So, the next thing I did was start the mental list:  Things to Take to Mitigate a Mind-numbing Three Hours.  I ruled out wine, just in case someone DID come.  I also ruled out the dog, since I left him in the Southwest along with my heart.  So, here’s my absolute minimum list:

Book (Patrick O’Brian, The Yellow Admiral),  notebook and pen, knitting project, camera.

I don’t know if I like that order.  That probably indicates that  I COULD actually do without one or more of those absolute necessities.  I don’t like to think of it that way.   I just like to make lists and rearrange them.  And I like to plan for hard times.  Fill up water jugs, buy dried food, amass wool and needles.  You have your ideas of hard times and I have mine. 

Maybe I should take some Evian and a baggy of trail mix.  I’ll let you know if I make it through.

WC’s Around the World

hostel in Vienna

End of Summer

Ok, the leaves are falling right this very minute.  The rowan trees have turned their bronzy green, rust and gold beneath their red berry ornaments and the maples are ablaze.  But summer actually didn’t end until today, October 23.  I filled a bowl with homemade granola, spooned on the Mountain High yogurt and sliced the last peach–that would be the last juicy, succulant, fuzzy, sweeter than honey peach!–on top.  I ate it reverently, savoring every crunchy, slurpy bite.  Summer went out a winner!

Police Blotter

If anyone ever wonders if they’ve moved to a small town, they have only to open to page three of the local Daily News and Planet and check out the police blotter.  Here are some of my favorites from the last week:

Thursday

12:38  Two cups of yogurt were thrown at a patrol car from Gannon Hall.

3:58  A deputy responded to a malicious mischief report on Belsby Road.  A lock was allegedly cut and cows were able to run free.

4:27  Benches were reported stolen on Elm Street.

5:20  A woman reported a group of teenagers ripped apart a teddy bear and left the stuffing lying around on East D Street.

Friday

11:54  Men seen urinating in public on Pintail Lane were counseled by police.

2:27  A man reported he was bitten on the thumb by a stray dog while walking his dog on East 7th Street.  The injury was not severe.

7:02  A woman reported she drove by her residence and found all her belongings in the front yard next to a “free” sign.

Will the madness never end?  Can our country be saved?  Stay tuned.

Superficial reflections

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!  I feel like I just passed through a door and heard the lock on the other side.  And I’m not in Narnia.  No.  Not in Narnia.  But here’s what I’d like to say about the events of the last two days:  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahah!  Oops.  More maniacal laughter.  My husband likes to read economic news letters to which he subscribes, and the words of one particularly erudite contributor keep coming to my mind:  “We’re freakin’ doomed!”  The funny thing is, I was feeling this way back when John McCain became the Republican candidate.   I have no candidate.  I have no party.  Doomed.

That was the first time it really came home.  Then we were treated to the fantastic transformation of a complete neophyte dark horse (no pun intended.  really.) in the democrat party by a tsunami of personality cult.  I haven’t seen anything like it since the advent of the Beatles.  Bowing.  Scraping.  Palm fronds….  How else did a man with so little real life experience in governing get to this place?  How else did a man who says everything with his nose in the air ever become so popular with people who have nothing? And how, by the way, did the Republican party misread their constituents so perfectly?  Their noses were in the air, too. 

Add Joe Biden, contradicting Obama on a regular basis, and Sarah Palin who could see Russia from her house, and Barnum & Bailey just never stood a chance.  Their shows paled by comparison. 

Barak Hussein Obama isn’t our doom.  McCain wouldn’t have been our doom.  No.  The empty suit church is killing the country.  The tolerant church is spreading the death knell.   The gospel of ‘everyone happy’ is digging the grave.  If the church doesn’t repent……we’re freakin’ doomed.

On the other hand,  our new president may be very instrumental in causing the church to rethink a few things…..   Nebuchadnezzar was pretty effective…..

WC’s Around the World

moab, utah

Police Blotter

Thursday, 3:18 — A woman on West Palouse River Drive reported she received fraudulent prize offers in the mail.

Thursday, 6:36 — A woman reported she was bitten by her dog on Anna Street.  The dog was taken to the Humane Society for quarantine at the owner’s request.

Thursday, 10:03 p.m.– An intoxicated white male ran naked through Zeppoz.  Police are investigating to indentify the man and possibly charge him with indecent exposure.

Obviously, one should think twice about living here.