July 29. Beware of questions like "Where’s my bread basket?" I stop and cock my head and think… pursing my lips… and I ask, "Does it move?" This is from a joke of Chuck’s whenever I’m about to set out on house beautification…. "If it doesn’t move, paint it, and if it moves, kiss it and then paint it." Mom says, "Whaaaaatttt? does it move? it’s a bread basket !!" I answer with finality, "Well Mom, if it doesn’t move; it gets packed." … So the packing continues. We now have no bread basket that we can find. Two little girls had a birthday last week and Mom went looking for some coloring books she had purchased. "I want to wrap those coloring books," she murmured… "Wrap?" I demured, "The gift wrap is packed. There is Christmas gift wrap in that box and occasional gift wrap in that box and I think the coloring books are in there…." I point to boxes in a tall pile of boxes poised periously close to the ceiling in the guest room. No guest is going to sleep in the guest bed as it is covered with video tapes, ice buckets, blankets, pillows, and boxes at this time. We’re taking the day off today as Mom’s blood pressure peaked when I made her go through her nursing books and papers. We deep-sixed notes and grading reports from classes she taught in the early ’80s and she almost wept. I emptied a 4 drawer filing cabinet down to one drawer. We all have file drawers full of string and old phone cords don’t we? Tomorrow we hit the Corning Ware cabinet in the kitchen.
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