Ah, the vaunted Garage Sale. It's finally here, and we're sequestered in the kitchen, discouraged from interacting with the folks who will be our valuables. The first day of the sale, we took in $1600. Hardly worth the effort, especially since the tag sale people are taking the first $2500. Nevertheless, it was a good exercise in sorting and storing and the absolute lack of importance of stuff.
Why is is, then, that, my stuff is looking better all the time and I get the shudders at the thought of dumpstering it? Maybe I can take some back when John's not looking. I've already had to reclaim three coffee mugs and a serving bowl or two, since everything else is packed away.
There is one garage sale lady, a poor needy soul who follows me around all day and says unnecessary things just prove to herself that she's still here. Nevertheless, she brought a young girl just out of grad school today, a church acquaintance, who needs everything to furnish her new apartment. As I write this, she's buying my couch, coffee table, drapes and a set of dishes.
Yahoo, I've almost paid the garage sale people. Thank god John doesn't know this, or he'd be giving me an "I told you so" and grumping about strange people walking all over his house. Truth be told, I rather enjoy it. It's an opportunity to observe human behavior and the lengths people will go to get a bargain. Like walking up a 150 foot, 45 degree hill, in 85 degree weather.
Ooops, that was a huge thump just over my head. I'm definitely going to investigate this one.
Betty
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Betty on the Bus
This was just sent to me by my great friend and colleague Al Colello, who obviously has too much time on his hands. Thanks, Al. We're planning on parking the bus on your lawn when we get back. XXX B
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The Universe is Laughing
Just when I thought the Universe was done with me, having reminded me of my need to practice humility, I learned another lesson: the Universe is not done with me.
You know, putting 50 pounds of $#@* into a ten pound bag is nothing compared to the job of culling down 6200 feet of living space and 12 years of accumulation and slicing, dicing and sluicing it down to fit into, oh, say, 150 square feet. I don't really know how big the damn mobile monster is, but I do know I can't put a t-shirt folded the usual way in any of the drawers. And anything left out on top of a surface must be velcroed down.
So Thursday, June 19, was my first packing day. Picture this: it's 11:00 in the morning, the piano mover is lost, the furniture movers are busy packing all over the house, their dueling radios turned on full blast to be heard over the sound of the crackling wrapping paper, Fran & Mickey, the garage sale team are giving me my marching orders about how they feel I should move my bed, all 6 million pounds of imported Burmese carving, into the room over the garage to "make a warm setting" ... oh yes, and Alba, my cleaning woman, has escaped to the second floor, there being no possibility of cleaning the kitchen at this point ... and then the lights go out.
Now there is no great need for illumination at 11 in the morning, true, but that also means no garage door can open, no water will be pumped, no washing machine can run, and just incidently, there is no airconditioning.
The best laid plans. Thanks, Universe.
You know, putting 50 pounds of $#@* into a ten pound bag is nothing compared to the job of culling down 6200 feet of living space and 12 years of accumulation and slicing, dicing and sluicing it down to fit into, oh, say, 150 square feet. I don't really know how big the damn mobile monster is, but I do know I can't put a t-shirt folded the usual way in any of the drawers. And anything left out on top of a surface must be velcroed down.
So Thursday, June 19, was my first packing day. Picture this: it's 11:00 in the morning, the piano mover is lost, the furniture movers are busy packing all over the house, their dueling radios turned on full blast to be heard over the sound of the crackling wrapping paper, Fran & Mickey, the garage sale team are giving me my marching orders about how they feel I should move my bed, all 6 million pounds of imported Burmese carving, into the room over the garage to "make a warm setting" ... oh yes, and Alba, my cleaning woman, has escaped to the second floor, there being no possibility of cleaning the kitchen at this point ... and then the lights go out.
Now there is no great need for illumination at 11 in the morning, true, but that also means no garage door can open, no water will be pumped, no washing machine can run, and just incidently, there is no airconditioning.
The best laid plans. Thanks, Universe.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Adventures in the Betty Bus
After an untold number of years working my substantial butt off in the advertising biz, I have acceded to my husband's lifelong desire to retire, sell everything and take off for a grand trip around the USA and, hopefully, points north and south as well.
But I'm a writer, and writers write, so here's an account of my adventures living full time in a monster bus. For a while, anyway. And its proper name is a Class A motor home, but someone I love named it the Betty Bus, so that's what I'm sticking with.
It all begins June 5, 2008. Here goes:
We picked up our big, no huge, no giant, no, mammoth mobile home yesterday. I took one look and felt faint, that's how big it is. We spent a good hour going over all the bells and whistles, then went for a test drive.
John did very well, despite my constant, "Move over, move over, you're going into a ditch!"
Then came my turn. Given that Brian, our instructor, had been directing his comments to John for about two hours, I couldn't wait to show him how terrific a (woman) driver I was. You get my drift.
We stopped for gas and John urged me to get into the driver's seat. By the way, the gas was $500 for a tankful.
Brian suggested I back up and pull wide to make the left. I countered with going forward, reversing wide and then making the left. He suggested I wait until the truck next to us, pulling a shiny red Jet-Ski behind him, finished getting gas. "I can do this!" I crowed, pulling wide and executing a hair-pin, hair-raising left around the pump.
Maybe three seconds later, I heard an awful crunch. I had caught our shiny new behemoth on the trailer, but I couldn't see that, so I kept going. And scraping. And crunching. And as I watched in the mirror, I saw the Jet-Ski teeter, topple and finally, plummet off its perch and land with a thud on the blacktop. Ooops.
Both John and Brian were kind, and the Jet-Ski owner was amazingly so. But hey, I'd just proved that women can't drive a rig. Or for that matter, anything.
Humiliated and embarrassed, I wouldn't take the wheel again. Exactly one hour later, we were sideswiped as John tried to change lanes and a little car tried to scoot past us. John turned to me and said, "Feel any better?" What a guy.
The driver of the other car was young, cute and dressed in rather strange blue serge pants, all the more so, considering it was well into the 80's that day. When I commented on his cool pants with all the pockets, he replied, "Yeah, I'm a New York City cop." Oh Jeez.
But the universe was with us, somewhat, and he was very understanding, too. He didn't want to do the insurance thing either, so we left it that we'd each pay for our own repairs.
We actually made it up the hill that pretends it is our driveway, successfully parking it near our basketball hoop, only to discover the next morning that ten tons of rig was too much for our tar-and-chip and the back wheel had sunk all the way up to the rim, bending the tailpipe and causing one of the back bays to buckle.
Anybody know of a good body shop with at least 1600 feet of turnaround space and a parking lot built on bedrock?
Betty
But I'm a writer, and writers write, so here's an account of my adventures living full time in a monster bus. For a while, anyway. And its proper name is a Class A motor home, but someone I love named it the Betty Bus, so that's what I'm sticking with.
It all begins June 5, 2008. Here goes:
We picked up our big, no huge, no giant, no, mammoth mobile home yesterday. I took one look and felt faint, that's how big it is. We spent a good hour going over all the bells and whistles, then went for a test drive.
John did very well, despite my constant, "Move over, move over, you're going into a ditch!"
Then came my turn. Given that Brian, our instructor, had been directing his comments to John for about two hours, I couldn't wait to show him how terrific a (woman) driver I was. You get my drift.
We stopped for gas and John urged me to get into the driver's seat. By the way, the gas was $500 for a tankful.
Brian suggested I back up and pull wide to make the left. I countered with going forward, reversing wide and then making the left. He suggested I wait until the truck next to us, pulling a shiny red Jet-Ski behind him, finished getting gas. "I can do this!" I crowed, pulling wide and executing a hair-pin, hair-raising left around the pump.
Maybe three seconds later, I heard an awful crunch. I had caught our shiny new behemoth on the trailer, but I couldn't see that, so I kept going. And scraping. And crunching. And as I watched in the mirror, I saw the Jet-Ski teeter, topple and finally, plummet off its perch and land with a thud on the blacktop. Ooops.
Both John and Brian were kind, and the Jet-Ski owner was amazingly so. But hey, I'd just proved that women can't drive a rig. Or for that matter, anything.
Humiliated and embarrassed, I wouldn't take the wheel again. Exactly one hour later, we were sideswiped as John tried to change lanes and a little car tried to scoot past us. John turned to me and said, "Feel any better?" What a guy.
The driver of the other car was young, cute and dressed in rather strange blue serge pants, all the more so, considering it was well into the 80's that day. When I commented on his cool pants with all the pockets, he replied, "Yeah, I'm a New York City cop." Oh Jeez.
But the universe was with us, somewhat, and he was very understanding, too. He didn't want to do the insurance thing either, so we left it that we'd each pay for our own repairs.
We actually made it up the hill that pretends it is our driveway, successfully parking it near our basketball hoop, only to discover the next morning that ten tons of rig was too much for our tar-and-chip and the back wheel had sunk all the way up to the rim, bending the tailpipe and causing one of the back bays to buckle.
Anybody know of a good body shop with at least 1600 feet of turnaround space and a parking lot built on bedrock?
Betty
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