Although the day did not in fact start out promising. I flew out of bed at the sound of the alarm at 7:20, had been in a dead sleep since 11 PM. No pill, for once, and a heavy heavy sleep, the kind I haven't had in awhile. Which is not to say I could have done with a few hours more but, as I said, hopped to it, exercise, shower, hair, make-up, doors unlocked, to be able to greet Outside Bob inside, at 8 AM, looking like I'd been up since 5 being productive. All went well, except Bob didn't show. So thought I had the day wrong. Or he decided not to come. Or had gone via LP Adams hardware to buy stuff we need I've forgotten about or the mixture of gas and ethanol (?) for the leaf blower I'm scared to use.
Meanwhile I've got the Hillbillie Cleaner-Clearer- Carpet-Taker-Uppers due at 9, but only if the dumpster had arrived by then, which it hadn't. Just as I'm writing Laurie in Ohio saying what a crap day this has been so far, Bob walks in. He had to take his son to the school bus; said he'd told me. He probably had. Then Sharon at Valley Dumpster calls to say she's re-routed her guys and they're bringing it out now, not late afternoon, hooray, so I leave a message at the HBs, in fact two messages.
1 PM they ring me back with some story about a truck axle and Russel, which is either a place or a person, and which in any event I understood not word one of, the end result being that they will come tomorrow at noon, not today. They then rang me back three times (just as I got seated across the kitchen, one day I plan to work near a phone, honest) to ask if I like peaches, because they have two trees full of them, and will bring me some. Hillbillies bearing peaches is fine with me, so said yes, then, as I said, rang back twice more to discuss this upcoming event. First Don, then the other. They sounded pissed. Maybe guzzling fermented peach juice.
Bob excelled himself today:
- painted the den, touched up nail holes in upstairs dressing room, upstairs bathroom where ugly Peg medicine chest had been hung (upside down for some reason) and then touched up marks from all removed carpets along baseboards. And filled 20,000 nail holes in kitchen.
- removed large TV from kitchen and placed in the back seat of his car (he worked it off last month: $200), then hooked up DVD and video player to TV in den, eliminating 6 miles of cords through walls in the process, and the cozy area by the fireplace in the kitchen now has a Stickley rocking chair in it and table with lamp instead of looking like a corner of a recording studio.
-showed me how the new digital/video arrangement was hooked up, told me to write it down and make a diagram, which I did, which I have already lost.
-replaced 7 dodgy fluorescent lights in kitchen so now I can see something.
- started painting the two little rooms off the living room, formerly known as Odd's bedroom and Peg's closet.
I, meanwhile, have got to grips with the personal paper portion of Peg's Archive, and instead of a foot high slippery pile on the dining room table of plastic sleeves full of Peg stuff, labelled "Letters from Peg to inlaws in Norway 1949", "Things that made Peg laugh", "Letters/faxes to Astrid 1994 - 1996", "Peg: on Writing", "Letters from Peg's father, 1917-1918" and so on and so on---I reconfigured the whole mess out on the porch, commandeering all furniture and the floor, putting like with like and then boxing and labeling and... Anyhow. The diningroom table is now clear, in preparation to do the same thing for her business stuff. Then when that's done, I move on to pictures. Then scripts. I emptied the two big cupboards in the den where I've carefully stored All Things Archive for the past 5 years and where Peg periodically hauled out the couch or chair and dug in to screw things up, I was very close to buying a crossbar and padlocks, I swear. Anyhow it's not as packed solid in there as I remembered. Do-able. Scripts--well. Possibly a thousand still to scan. But considering she wrote over 11,000--not too bad.
In any event, I have MADE A START. And 4 big boxes ready now in the living room to send to Oregon. All I need now is for someone to show me how to load the nifty packing tape dispenser so you go zap RIP, zap RIP, zap, RIP like those people in the Amazon warehouse and presto, box all taped shut, rather than have the stuff twirl and twist and stick to your pants and the scissors just out of reach and having to yell well fuck this! every two seconds.
Leftover breaded shrimp from Price Chopper for dinner and a waffle, in honor of Peg. The more you empty the freezer the more interesting combos you get.
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