OVERWHELMED

Totally and utterly today. First and foremost by the sheer amount of stuff two people can collect in 66 years of marriage. Collect and keep and never get rid of. Never want to get rid of.  In this house, this house that at this moment is closing in on me and making me crazy and wanting to hunt for a can of kerosene, holds goods and chattels from, in no particular order:

- the 28 room with 13 outbuildings Fairfield, CT house they moved up here from in 1970
- my mother's Gramercy Park apartment
- her mother's apartment in Rochester, Minnesota
- the house my mother grew up in in Kasson, Minnesota
- the log cabin my great-grandmother grew up in in North Dakota
- my mother's "Ethel and Albert" TV show set
- my father's bedroom in Norway
- my father's cabin in Lenox, Massachusetts
- my Great Aunt Helen's apartment in Fairfield
- my Great Aunt Elise's house in Bronxville, NY
- the island house I lived in in Branford CT before moving to England

And  we are talking furniture here, not just salad plates or trinkets. Sofas, dining tables, lamps, whole kitchen units that say "Property of CBS" on the back, file cabinets, wormy chestnut office desks, paneling, akvavit decanters, rugs, end tables--you can sit down anywhere in this house and have at least five choices as to where to set down your drink. Add to this over 10, 000 scripts (seriously) and the rest of my mother's archive, any prop I have ever made during my theatrical career that Peg refuses to part with (a plumed helmet for the Knight of the Mirrors from Man of La Mancha, a cardboard model of a house made for  The Masterbuilder to name a few), books, books, books and more books, more Norwegian pewter than you've ever seen in your life, a flat screen TV approximately every four feet, and about twelve hundred particle-board bookcases from Staples.

One despairs, is I believe the expression. 
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STAFF ON CALL: Dominick, who along with Tory The Subaru-Owner (who brought me a superb veggie burrito for lunch from Baja Charlie's in Lee) helped me attack a couple of closets and a corner of the attic while Peg was napping and which we then divvied up into DUMP, GOODWILL, and OUTSIDE BOB'S TAG SALE piles, all of which now reside in the upstairs hall and the landing, awaiting their final destination. 

And you know what the sad part is? 

Sure, there's a pile or two to trip over now, but otherwise, despite all our efforts, trucking stuff down from the attic, and sorting and culling and binning six miles of plastic Christmas pine garlands and 6 Christmas trees and stands and about a thousand empty boxes I am sick of saving and giving my Aunt Helen's Singer sewing machine and matching card table to Tory--the house doesn't look one bit different. And this is getting to me. 
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Secondly, am overwhelmed by paperwork (again). First from the lawyer, who I--oh Christ. This is so tedious I don't even think I can write about it. Prudential, with whom Odd had a small life insurance policy, at some point divided or did something stock-like and handed out little bits of Vodophone, Verizon and Comcast to their policy holders. Odd's share was no big deal. Worth about $1000, tops. Lawyer has suggested I either transfer the shares to Peg (so she gets the twelve cents a year in dividends) or sell them, so I don't have to go through the paperwork again when she goes. Fair enough. BUT, now it seems to do this we have to Create an Estate of Odd Knut Ronning and appoint me as executor and open a bank account in this name and then deal with Probate---all because of these stupid 3 stocks. And I am of the opinion that my legal fees for all these transactions are going to be higher than what the stock is worth. My lawyer friend Paul, who was just here for dinner, which he and his wife brought (my kind of friend) said I could just refuse the stocks, i.e. forfeit the money. Which I wouldn't be making anyway what with Virginia's (my real lawyer's) fees of $3000 per millesecond.  So, now, have to look into this and try and make sense of her letters and forms that arrived today and could almost be in another language they're so confusing but am tired by now and if I thought about it hard enough, am sure could have a nice little Poor Me weep. In fact could anyway.
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Thirdly, the Boundary Issue, which I was just about to pat myself on the back over for resolving with everyone coming out happy--I now will have to re-think, after an email from a property developer good friend, family, really, who urges me to find a civil engineer and look into drainage and fuck knows I know nothing about (or care) and Jesus H. Do I need this! One asks. But then, one also asks, do I want to be taken advantage of..? 

My head is all over the place and I think I'm drinking too much, am certainly eating too much, and it's gotten so cold here I need sweaters which I don't have and my black jeans and I wish I'd brought my cowboy boots and Peg wouldn't finish her thank you notes for the condolence cards she's received because her handwriting with the black Flair pen was going off on a slant and I wouldn't get a ruler and pencil in lines for her to write on. What a cruel, cruel daughter. 

A cruel daughter in a bad, overwhelmed mood. Drinking wine. While attacking three kitchen drawers and hopefully getting rid of the ugly stainless fish forks and knives for 20, the front and rear brown ceramic dachshund dog corn holders, the seagull salt and pepper shakers, and a spoon with the initial "G" on it, which must have been stolen from some hotel.  So it's not all doom and gloom here.