If it isn't attached, it's outta here! Purge Time!!!

Oh, goddesses of the blogs...deliver me from my own purgative cleaning of the house to give words and pictures to some of this joy.  I'm in the middle of that fantabulous New Year ritual of trying to get rid of everything in the house that isn't nailed, stapled, glued or sewed on.  Good luck, you say? Well, sure, it's a tall task, but when it's sunny outside and bitter, bitter, cold, what's a gal to do but load up on highly caffeinated beverages and sift through every piece of arcana that she can lay her eyes on.  Closets, drawers, cabinets, basements, cupboards, fridges, floors, bathrooms, bedrooms, it's all fair game.  If we don't use it anymore and the emotional significance can be touched by another similar object (OK, don't touch the Barbie Camper!), it's on the short list for outta here! Enough is enough, and every single visit to my dear Mother, in her completely ordered universe, automatically provokes a cleaning/purging excursion upon my return to this place.  Halfway through day two and I can see the light...if only the adolescent lets me into her room I'll be really happy.

But it's lunchtime and I'm hungry!!! I swam about  7 hours ago and it's time to stop the insanity.  Cook up some brown rice soaked in a chicken broth that I made the other day, plus fried greens, I'm happy as a Camper!  I take a moment to channel my Dad, who, on some afternoons back in the day, on a day when he was home, working around the yard, usually.  He'd take a beer out and drink it with lunch.

And then she sat down and ate lunch, alone & in the sunshine!

Sometimes, into retirement, Mom would harumph or grumble or something if he did this.  That memory made me laugh today, like, my Dad had my silly mother judging when he might have a beer with a meal.  I feel that I have the judgement of the whole culture upon me... "It's a Friday at 2:00 beer?"  Oh, hell, of course!  Hearty meal plus beer/wine equals complete feast.  So I popped open a Sierra Nevada and enjoyed the first alone weekday in my home that I've experienced in a long long time.

Unencumbered, Indeed!

But actually, I didn't even sit down! I stood at the dining room table and rifled through more files, papers, photos, cards.  I even found a few gift cards for Ashby that amounted to nearly fifty bucks!!!! Are we really those people? We don't have time to count our money, we just collect things and lose them...arg!!!!

Something that Jack Steward would Never have done.  Here's another thing he would not have done: beer instead of wine at lunch.  He would always drink a glass of wine if we opened a bottle for dinner, but lunchtime, and evening, beer all the way.  He wasn't so sure about our fancy brews, but he basically approved.  Mom, on the other hand, was always a martini and cocktail lady.  She told me the story of her first meeting with the Stewards.  They went on a picnic (of course), and, according to Mom, it was required that she drink beer.  Never a beer drinker (then or now) her detailing of this outing tells the hidden tale of an incredibly earnest, respectful woman.  As Mom got older, we didn't always see these sorts of outward approvals of Dad's (or his family's) ways, but it was always there.  Firm, stable, loyal, loving, a model of companionship that carries me forward in this bumpy road that is relational life.

So there we have it!  A great day. Rejuvenated, energized, sunny.  Lucky, awake, and eager for more.