January 3, 2014
Dear Everyone:
Happy New Year (of course)!
Five years ago I was still living in my two-story townhouse here in
San
Ramon. It was close to work
(except for a few years when work moved to “Pleasant Hill”), but the
stairs were starting to get to me.
I still had not
replaced the hip yet.
I called my real estate agent and asked her to look for single-storied
places, on the ground floor, with my office at the center of radiating
circles. I also gave her a
price range and told her not to rush, we could start looking the
following weekend.
Two days later she called me at work and said, “We can’t wait until next
weekend.” Evidently places
were coming onto the market and getting snapped up “like hotcakes.”
So we started looking at places, many of them
foreclosures, most of them
in the dark because it was after work for me.
Within a month I had bought my current place.
So by next month I will have owned this place for five years.
Time to buy a new filter for the furnace/air conditioner.
The package said it would last five years if you cleaned it every
month.
This being the New Year and a time for “Resolutions”, I have “resolved”
to get rid of things that I know I’ve had for five years, or more, and
don’t use, or have never really used.
First up: Lots and
lots of clothes in the closet.
Haven’t worn it in five years?
Donate to charity.
That collapsing-plastic-file-box-on-wheels that you never really used?
Dumpster.
The little refrigerator that I used in the bedroom in the townhouse
because it saved me having to go downstairs in the morning…
Actually, I put that “up for adoption” before
Christmas.
Putting something “up for adoption” means placing it in the dumpster
area, but not in the dumpster itself.
This tells passers-by that it might still work if they want to
drag it home and give it a try.
In this case, it would be perfect for keeping beer and soft
drinks cold out on the patio (all patios have an external electrical
outlet and are at least partially covered.)
Sure enough, by the following Monday someone had given it a good
home.
Various lamps that seemed like a good idea once and have been serving
their time on the floor of the “back bedroom” ever since:
Dumpster or adoption.
There are two old, but still serviceable,
TVs, but they’re
CRTs and no
one wants those anymore, except, I understand, hardcore video gamers who
claim they are more responsive than the more prevalent, and popular,
flat-screen LCDs. Those TVs
will go to the electronic waste recycling depot not far from here.
The only catch is that they’re so heavy it will take at least two
people to lug them out to the car.
In the meantime, there are lots of things that I can “purge” all by
myself. In fact, I’ve
cleared a lot of floor space in the back bedroom and hanging room in the
clothes closet. Plus I have
a bumper crop of empty hangers now.
Books? “Jeannie” is forever
on me to “get rid” of all of my books.
This, of course, is pure stuff and nonsense.
Books aren’t “things”.
Books are treasured companions.
True I currently use a
Kindle, because it is so light and
convenient. I’ve even paid
to download an electronic version of a book that I have on a shelf.
Nevertheless, it’s blasphemy to talk of “getting rid” of books.
And even if I did, those bookcases are all of twelve inches deep.
If I emptied them, what would I do with that “saved space”?
The only thing that would fit in there would be (you guessed
it!!!) more books.
Love, as always,
Pete
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