July 24, 1997
Dear Everyone:
Happy Birthday, “Richard” and “Byron”!!!
Cards in the mail any day now.
Or maybe this weekend.
I took two days of vacation last Friday and Monday
to give myself four days to clean my condo before meeting with a
Realtor. While I hadn’t
planned it that way, I discovered that Friday was the ideal day to be
cleaning out closets. This
is because the dumpsters are emptied on Thursday.
So I had lots of dumpsters to choose from.
Clearing out the closets consisted of evaluating an
object and consigning it to one of three categories:
·
Cherished Treasure (keep)
·
Dumpster Material (not worth keeping)
·
Goodwill Material (not worth keeping but
too good to throw away)
I have three large, walk-in closets (which I hope
will be a major selling factor).
They are designated:
The Christmas Closet, The Torture Chamber and The Pantry.
The Christmas Closet is where I store the
Christmas
decorations and wrapping paper.
It is also, I discovered, where less-than-thrilling Christmas
gifts wind up. I’d open a
box and say, “Gosh, how lovely.
I wonder who gave this to me and how long ago?
Goodwill pile.”
The Torture Chamber is where I keep the exercise
equipment. It also has a
metal shelving unit which stays (another selling point) and which is
exactly as wide as the closet. This keeps things like luggage and other
stuff off the floor.
Finally, there’s the
Pantry, which also serves as a
utility closet (ironing board, etc.) and wine cellar.
There’s a wine rack on the floor which would probably look more
impressive if I had more than three bottles in it.
It’s called the Pantry because it’s the closest one to the
kitchen and houses all the appliances that have nowhere else to live.
I made numerous trips to the dumpsters.
(Note: Never fill a
big, green garbage bag to capacity.
You won’t be able to lift it.)
I filled the trunk and back seat of my car for a single trip to
Goodwill. Having greatly
reduced the contents of the closets, I then went to Home Express to buy
new things to put into the
closets to better organize what was left.
A half-filled, well-organized closet looks even bigger than a
full one. I hope.
I also bit the bullet and took seven bags of books
to donate to the county library.
This was to make the second bedroom look larger.
If nothing else, I’ve reduced my material burden and will have a
nice little write-off for next year’s tax return.
And that was only Friday.
On Saturday, “Jeannie” helped me rearrange area rugs and
furniture in the living and dining rooms.
Then on Sunday, after the obligatory trip to the movies, I
started the really down-to-earth, nose-to-the-grindstone, scrubbing-type
cleaning. My rule of thumb
was: If it doesn’t move,
clean it. If it does move,
kill it or at least evict it.
(See cartoon donated by “Jeannie”.)
By noon on Monday, I was ready for the Realtor.
After a brief look around, she went into the “why you should sell
through us” routine and explained all the gory details of selling a home
and why I shouldn’t expect to get as much as I thought I might for a
2-bedroom condo in Concord, where “the market is going up; it’s just not
going up as fast as where you want to move to.”
In other words, the best part of the weekend was
probably the movie:
George of the Jungle. I
know what you’re thinking, but it’s actually quite cute.
Based on the Jay Ward cartoon series, it has many of the
qualities that the cartoons had.
Ward was also the creator of the classic
Rocky and Bullwinkle (dances with squirrels).
Naturally, there were a lot of kids in the audience, but a fair
percentage of the jokes sailed right over their heads.
The premise is that George was lost in the African
jungle as a child where he was raised by kindly apes.
His best friend is a talking ape named, “Ape”.
He has a pet elephant who thinks it’s a dog.
George has a noble heart and a pathetic sense of direction.
He keeps swinging on vines and running into trees.
Of course he runs afoul of modern civilization, ending up in San
Francisco where he encounters “the biggest rope bridge he’s ever seen”
(the suspension span of the
Bay Bridge).
As with all Jay Ward productions, the plot makes
very little sense (it’s not supposed to) and pokes fun at everything it
can. In
Rocky and Bullwinkle, Ward
once made fun of a television celebrity.
When the celebrity threatened to sue, Ward’s response was, “If
you promise to sue me, I promise to pay all the court costs.”
If you’d like to spend some time in a cool, dark
theater, where most of the audience is shorter than you are, go see
George.
As for the condo:
It’s immaculate for now.
I’m currently practicing keeping it clean and leaving the drapes
open while I’m gone in preparation for when tons of strangers will be
traipsing through it. The
next step will be getting pre-approved for a loan.
This will tell me if the net gain on the condo is enough for a
10% down-payment on the new place.
Then I have to start looking for an agent to find a new place and
when will this ever end...?
Love, as always,
Pete
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