ON THE MOVE

 I’m moving again.

 I always knew this current place would be a temporary stop. The last two places that I lived before this place? Combined twenty-five years. It’s the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere. Yet, in the last two years, I’ve been itching for my more transient lifestyle.

 So, I am downsizing again on my way to either a cabin in the woods or a van on the road. Not sure which one yet. I have to live to retirement to find out.

 In the meantime, I was stellar at dumping stuff during my last move. This time I am working on things that are precious to me: Do I really need those rare books? Do I really need those spare bookcases? Am I ever really going to sew those masks now that it’s easy to buy the paper ones again and Covid-19 is down 78%?

 I’m still having a hard time parting with games, though. I must’ve been having a super-hard time with it during the last move because I have two complete sets of Scrabble; the 3-D board that actually rotates from player to player.

As you know from previous blogs and social media rants, no one wants anything. People literally cannot give stuff away. So, for two weeks, the extra Scrabble game has been sitting here, waiting for me to try and find it a home. But, I’m not crazy. I won’t fall for that “free” shit on social media marketplace ever, ever again.

 I may be a moron, but I’m no fool.

 I suppose if Covid-19 ever ends, I could use the Scrabble game at school. Yeah, I guess that’s what I will do. I’ll bring it to school to go with the Apples to Apples game and the other games and toys I have stashed away waiting for normalcy to return.

 Hopefully this stupid virus, much like my house-hopping, will only be temporary. Who knows? Like Covid-19, I’m rather unpredictable, too. That’s really not for me to worry about right now.

 Right now I have to pack boxes. I’m on the road again, and it feels lighter.

 

SHROVE TUESDAY SHENANIGANS

I am not an overly religious person. The amount of praying I do usually involves some dire circumstance, and I often refer to God or Jesus in a four-letter context. Sometimes I throw Mary and Joseph in for emphasis. I’ll even use Jesus’s full name, with a few colorful nicknames for clarity.

I don’t begrudge anyone’s religion nor do I deny it. Hey, I’m a borderline agnostic, but atheism is downright heathen to me. I view religion with a splash of Johnny Cash: I walk the line.

But, you had better believe that Shrove Tuesday is celebrated in this house. That’s right: Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday. The day before Ash Wednesday. The day when it was originally meant to use up all of the animal products in the house, including meat, cheese, milk, butter, eggs, etc. At one time, I’m reasonably certain that meat wasn’t eaten at all during Lent, not just on Fridays. I can’t imagine subsisting on veggies and fruit for an entire forty days, so maybe that’s why the masses eased up on the restrictions.

What do I know? My first best friend was Schwartz next door, a Jewish boy who taught me to sing “Burn Little Candle” at Hanukkah. I’d never even heard of Lent until five years after I moved to a village in New Hampshire and became buddies with a Catholic girl next door, one of the few Catholic families in an otherwise tight Protestant town – again, of which I knew nothing since my parents weren’t religious.

Oh, sure, we’d been to church once, but we got thrown out. I tried to toss a kid out the second story window of the Sunday school nursery when I was four. That probably puts me in the column of the damned and unsalvageable.

I know, I know. I’m told I have to give up something I covet for Lent. Honestly, I’m giving up answering parent and student emails on weeknights and weekends. It may not sound very appropriate, but, believe me, it has become an addiction, and it needs to stop. You know how some of you are addicted to your phones and can’t go ten minutes without checking your email or social media? That’s me with my work email.

It’s a vicious circle. A circle. Like a pancake. That’s a circle.

And it was Shrove Tuesday, and it is Lent, and I did make flapjacks (the true and real word for pancakes, and I will fight you to the death over it, and, no, flapjacks are NOT made with oats here in America – we earned the right to separate from that label in 1776). So, here’s to circles and flapjacks and Mardi Gras and getting fat on Fat Tuesday and eating the Shrove Tuesday traditional meal with Vermont maple syrup.

Yes, Vermont syrup. But that is an argument for another day. If you want to debate the best varieties of New England maple syrups, email me at work – since it’s Lent, I might answer you never.

IT'S FREEEEEEEEEE!

 I have just had my first and possibly last encounter with Facebook Marketplace.

A little background for you: My friend Jessi and I used to be the queens of free furniture. For real.  She has an eagle-eye for free stuff left at curbs, and she has an amazing talent for refinishing things. Once on the way to the beach, we encountered a lawn sign that said “FREE,” so we banged a u-ey (that’s New England speak for “turning around”) and perused. We didn’t come out with anything, but we were Johnny-on-the-spot, just the same.

In other words, if something says “FREE,” don’t waste time texting, calling, or knocking on doors. There’s no haggling with “free.” You get there first and you take it. That’s how gold medals are won in the sport of freebies.

I’m moving. Downsizing again, and this could be a good thing or a bad thing. I have some furniture that I’m willing to part with, but one piece, a futon, just won’t make it down the curved stairs, so I take it apart and will be putting it into the dumpster later.

However, a black storage ottoman in decent shape and an old wooden desk that needs a paint job are FREE. I put them on the curb, BUT then I have a panic attack. It’s supposed to snow overnight. I can’t haul those things back into my house. I’ve already mentally and physically parted with them.

So, I do what any other blithering idiot would do: I post them for FREE on Facebook Marketplace.

I put in the description some quick information about the shape they’re in, and where to pick them up … at the curb. Any mentally capable person would figure out that FREE + ADDRESS WITH MAP means the green flag has been waved. Start your engines. The race is on. First come, first served.

But, no. No, no, no. The texts start coming in. What does the desk look like? (It looks like the two pictures I posted and the description.) Does the ottoman work? (I don’t know. I posted a picture of it shut and open. What the hell do YOU think?) Can you hold it for me? (No. It’s frigging FREE. FREE. Come and GET it. It’s FREEEEEEEEEEEE.)

The ottoman went within ninety minutes. The desk, which I thought would go first and am still having second thoughts about letting go, is still there. Oh, there have been tons of inquiries and several “I’ll be riiiiiiight there” messages. Poor baby. The desk is still sitting out there at the curb, looking dejected. I’ve had that desk, my first “big girl” furniture, since I was seven years old. It breaks my heart to see it left behind like that. I’ve written some amazing stories and done massive amounts of homework from that desk. All last spring I taught school during remote learning from that desk. It’s a good desk, a decent desk, a desk that has been loved and cherished.

Oh, well. I hope it goes to a good home and not into the dumpster. I don’t have any great love for the dumpster-slated futon, but it would truly bust my gut to have to put the desk into the metal receptacle.

Please someone. Come and get the desk. After all:  It’s FREE.

BLACK ICE BALLET

Watch out for black ice!

Or, so my phone tells me. I try to be careful, but black ice is basically invisible, so it’s a little difficult. You’d think by now, though, after decades of living with and around black ice, that perhaps I would know how to behave with it.

This morning, before the sun has done its job, my front stairs are covered in a clear coating of icy horror. My son-in-law carries a package from my house, a box with some loose-leaf notebook paper for my daughter, who is taking some classes online.

Suddenly, and with a loud exclamation of “Oh, SHIT,” my son-in-law flies down all the ice-covered steps on his butt and back, sending the paper flying.

I hustle to his rescue, realize he might be hurt, pick up the box of paper so I don’t pollute the neighborhood with the wind blowing paper everywhere, and run to get my daughter to help.

That’s when I hit the patch of black ice in the driveway.

Again the box of paper catapults through the air as I gracelessly perform the two-step-slip-and-slide. My legs go to the right and I fall to the left, directly on my hip.

I can’t get up.

No, I haven’t busted anything, at least not to my immediate knowledge. I can’t get up because I am laughing too hard. I cannot believe what it must look like: My son-in-law sitting on the bottom step rubbing his lower back, and me, flopping around in the driveway like a fish out of water, notebook paper flipping around between us.

He is left with a bruised back and rear-end. I have a bruise on my hip, small cut on my knee, and road-rash on my left palm. No real harm done between us. However, we did entertain the neighborhood for a couple of minutes with our ice dancing fiasco.