TheBanyanTree: Clean-Up

[Margaret R. Kramer]

4/17/07
Hi love:
 
    When you come tonight, please bring my razor from the bathroom &the
"comb" adaptor.
Bring my camera and a couple batteries. Ok?
 See you tonight, got news to tell you! Love you
 Ray

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*********

My week long, plus one day vacation continues.  We missed the 90 degree
temps they had in the Cities while we were basking in relative coolness on
the North Shore.  We brought the cooler temperatures with us when we came
home.  

It was a dry heat and my little flowers and tomatoes suffered a bit.  I’ve
been watering them since being home and they’re gradually coming back to
life.

Now that I work two jobs, I really appreciate free time.  And I don’t spend
it watching TV or sitting around.  While I’m flying from one job to another,
I think about all the projects I don’t get to in order to economize on my
time.

It’s so nice to wake up and not have to go anywhere at any particular time.
I took advantage of this on Friday.  I went to work out, after being a slug
for a few days, eating at will and doing very little physical activity.  I
went to tanning; I’m still trying to get this white pasty looking skin to
turn brown.  

I went to Target and bought some cheese and a new coffee maker.  Poor old
Mr. Coffee was brewing slower and slower, a certain sign of imminent death,
so I put him out of his misery and bought a new perkier Mr. Coffee.

After I got home, I became the ultimate Martha Stewart type.  I moved my
plants that summer outdoors, outdoors.  I repotted my weeping fig tree,
which is about 30 years old, into a bigger pot and fresh soil and put it in
its place in the sun.

Then I flipped my closet, which means I moved my winter clothes into storage
and my summer clothes into my bedroom closet.  I threw out clothes which
were stained or ripped and put into a donation bag clothes that are in good
shape, but I don’t wear anymore.  Fortunately, I haven’t changed size, so I
didn’t need to get rid of clothes that are too big or too small.  

I went through my sock drawer and threw out any sock that didn’t have a
mate.  Widowed socks were not excluded from this process.

Then I went through my “junk” cupboard.  I have three “junk” drawers, too,
but my “junk” cupboard was truly a mess.  I threw out Styrofoam cups, old
candles, broken dishes, baby mugs, and all kinds of junk.  Now, it’s clean
and organized.

I fixed a shelf which slipped out its pegs in a lower cupboard.  Ray added
shelves to some of the cupboards and this one had slipped out quite some
ago, in fact, way before he died.  I guess it’s about that I fixed it, huh?

I got rid of any storage container that didn’t have a matching lid and vice
versa.

We had a “junk” basket on the counter.  I hadn’t gone through it, because it
had stuff of Ray’s in it, but he wasn’t going to use any of that stuff
anymore, like the 2007 Veterans’ Affairs Benefits Handbook, so off it went
into the trash.  I think I’ve sucked all the benefits I could get out of the
VA, which wasn’t much, believe me.  Kind of like the whopping $255 I got for
Ray’s death from Social Security.

In between all that activity, I even managed to have a cup of coffee on the
deck and read the newspaper.

My next door neighbor must be in a cleaning mood, too.  His garage is
rotting away.  He mentioned to me last summer that he wanted to replace it.
What was stopping him is that he’s a major packrat.  That little garage was
stuff to the rafters with stuff.


He started moving out the stuff yesterday.  His daughter came over today,
and she’s a lot like me, “let’s get this job DONE!”  He stood in the middle
of the yard, while she began digging stuff out of the garage and organizing
it into piles.  

I know it’s killing him.  Packrats don’t like to give up their stuff, and
I’m sure once he gets his new garage, he’ll fill it up with all new stuff.
But that’s OK.  At least, the new garage won’t fall on his head.

Axel showed up by the deck yesterday gnawing on a baby squirrel.  I think
Shadow killed the baby and left it for Axel to dispose of.

He had the thing in his mouth and we couldn’t get him to drop it.  You could
hear him crunching bones.  Then he would try to swallow it and then it would
regurgitate right back up.  It was all bloody and covered with saliva.  It
was so gross.

Quincy got this thing from the garage that Ray had bought.  You squeeze a
handle at one end and it grabs stuff at the other end.  He used that to
finally pry the squirrel out of Axel’s mouth.  He dropped it into a garbage
bag I was holding and I threw it in the trash, trying not to look at the
half-eaten squirrel.  Ewwwww!

Today has been less eventful and more of paper catch up.  I paid bills,
counted my meager amount of money, and I’m watering my parched lawn.

Later on this evening, I’m going to the cemetery and placing Memorial Day
flowers and flags on Ray’s and my grandparents’ graves.  It should be
spectacular with all the flags flying proudly in the cemetery.  Many of the
people in the cemetery didn’t die in battle, but they, at some point,
sacrificed their lives in terms of service to our country, and I recognize
all of them.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com
www.polarispublications.com

Gone - flitted away,
Taken the stars from the night and the sun
>From the day!
Gone, and a cloud in my heart. 
-Alfred Tennyson