Now I need my sewing machine and a sledge hammer.

[thanate]

This weekend is the reunion for my mother's family, and we're having it at my grandparents' house with the understanding that this is a working reunion. People (online) have been talking about "Hoarders"... this would be them. In some part they are entitled-- they both grew up in depression era Kansas, with my grandfather rural and my grandmother raised mainly by her widowed grandmother and divorcee mother in the days before child support-- and then a great deal of the clutter is because they donate large amounts of money to the kinds of charities that share mailing lists with people who send out envelopes with spare change taped into them or pairs of little boys' underwear that you're supposed to send back so they can donate them to needy children in Africa. And when the stack of mail coming in every day is three or four inches thick and every piece of it needs to be opened and examined, you're over eighty and still traveling a lot, there's a tendency to get behind. And that was quite some time ago.

When my aunt moved back in with them a few years ago (and took over things like driving, not a moment too soon) there were person-wide paths to get through the family room and the foyer in their house, surrounded by tall piles of stacked paper grocery bags, filled with unopened mail. The situation is no longer quite so dire, but this means that we're getting to things like disposing of dead lawnmowers and ancient armchairs, and (joyous task) replacing the collapsed drainage pipe that leads away from the foundation of the house. I have sharpened my shovels.

The projected turn-out for this year is 12 and a half people (the half being about three and a half years old) and supplying food is going to be a communal effort; I have been par-baking and freezing bread to take with us all this week. Coincidentally, it has also been the first week of the year to break 90 degrees out-- last year it waited to get unpleasantly hot until we were trying to get married. This year, it is the week I spend large amounts of time running the oven. And despite my care, I suspect there will be trace amounts of something at least someone is allergic to in every loaf; this is the family that spent years serving beef, peas, and irish potatoes for family dinners because there wasn't anything else that everyone could safely eat. (I am grateful that my mother wasn't much part of this, and all I seem to have gotten was my grandmother's tobacco allergy.)

Fortunately, the heat has broken and we're having lovely cold-front-arriving breezes. The cat, who has been lying lazily sprawled across the floor all day, has been running around pleading with us to let him out and hunt birds. If I could extract a promise from him only to stalk sparrows and starlings, I'd consider it, but as it is his pleas are falling on alternately deaf and irritated ears.

Comments

[thanate.livejournal.com]

My grandparents have over two acres of woods; I'd expect the raccoons to stay a bit farther out from the house. I think getting to dig six feet down at the base of the house will be the most er, "excitement" we'll have; if I don't chop through any more unsuspecting worm snakes with my shovel I'll be satisfied.