Month: August 2006

August 10. The Blessed Mother and the angels are waiting in the closet. They’ll be there for a day or two because mom caught me preparing to wrap the treasures in blankets in anticipation of their move to the new apartment… "Wait! you have to wash the blankets!" I froze. Mom had sneaked up on me and found me with (oh awful thought) "unwashed blankets" in my hands. Mother insists that all linens must be washed in the big washers downstairs in the laundry room (the laundry process is a sweaty story best not told) and THEN I can pack the clean things. Caught so guilty, I left the Blessed Mother (a precious stature that our Aunt Rose bought in Lourdes when she and Mom visited a few years before Aunt Rose died) and the angels (hand made by our brother) in the closet until I can get to the laundry room to wash the packing blankets. With Mary and the angels dressed in clean blankets, I will lovingly settle them into a box marked "very delicate" and send them on their way to places of honor in "the new apartment."

August 4. What’s today’s date?… I’m accustomed to checking the calendar. Woops. All the calendars have been taken down along with everything else on the walls! All nails removed and just holes left! Take a look at your walls and try to decide what it will be like with everything off and just paint. For one thing… noises echo! And paintings! Whoever decided they should be so big? I wrapped and boxed the little stuff, but now I’m dealing with the big pictures. My brothers are going to be balancing some big open boxes with delicate glass covered beauties. I do have a solution though. Rather than try to bag the blankets; I’ll wrap the paintings in blankets. All cozy and warm in August heat, Mom’s beauties will get to the new apartment for my brother to hang them back on the new walls. Yesterday was tough. Mom has assumed Jack’s desk to do all her bills and paperwork, but the desk and file cabinet are "going out." So I sat at the rejected desk and began to open drawers. We did a lot of "what’s this?" and "I don’t knows." Index cards, rubber bands, paper clips, discarded glasses. "What did you do with the glasses from the filing cabinet?" Mom asked. I stared at the filing cabinet, emptied a week ago… "I don’t know?" my stock answer. "Well you have to find those old glasses, I give them to the church." Visions of plowing through the garbage shute dance in my head and I duck my head and continue to separate pens that work from pens that don’t work… Mom found me laughing in the kitchen last night. I was looking for the big lid for the frying pan!