The Planets are aligning this week. It's true, but you didn't have to tell me that because I already knew it when Harry announced yesterday morning that he was going to clean one of the back rooms.
You see, I've been putting my dear
lovable, hoarder of a husband on a strict diet of time management scheduling, timed
interval nagging and loving reminders that in order to be happy and healthy and productive that things need to change.
Evidently, my mapped out daily and weekly schedule for him for the next 4 months set up in his psyche, and he saw some wisdom in my madness, and decided to take matters into his own hands.
Always risky, that....but entertaining.
So Harry announced
yestermorn....
"We are going to empty the
cellarway of all the stuff in it, sweep it out and
restack everything out there. I know you want me to clean the office, but I don't have any place for the stuff to go. This is what we are going to do, and while it will make a huge mess, it will be better."
Yes, the planets are aligning.
Or hell has frozen over, but I don't care.
We started at 10:30am and started hauling out box after bag after container of all the incredible treasures that he has been squirreling away back there. We
should've taken pictures, but don't have a way to upload pics to share with you. (i.e. his camera cable to computer is missing)
To preface this, I will tell you that I have NOT been in my cellar for about 4 years. I don't go there anymore, because it upsets me so. But I am undaunted in my list making and had put it on my "schedule" that we were to tackle one room, or back room, or cellar area....one bit at a time over the next few months. I am one brave woman and I have to say that I am PROUD of him.
Although I got very frustrated several times yesterday and had to leave. I left on errands for him, willingly, so as not to tangle with him.
You see, Harry has a plan. The
cellarway is a room that is the shape of an "L".
8 feet from door to north wall...and then another leg of the room that goes down to the basement. An old canal house, stone foundation, and with the ancient dust of the years in your nostrils.
He and I emptied the room in no time, having to squeeze through the mud room door and back door to the deck to spill out its contents all over the deck, the hot tub, the patio.
There is now, outside my back door, a
gargantuan sized disrupted spill of:
sound gear, parts, computer
CPUs, old fax machines, piping, stage skirting, packing materials, a sound man sized collection of paper egg cartons (to be sound baffles), missing parts
of a fog effect that will be used for "Screamers", parts to 2 mixers that will be combined into 1 mixer, a bunch of microphones, heat shrink, some interesting half done projects, assorted plastic sculptures made from 2 liter soda bottles/duct tape and other interesting drunken epiphanies...30 missing 3M brand new
Switchcraft connectors for mic cables (they sell for about $6 a piece), 50 foot of pristine 6-gauge copper wire,
Styrofoam peanuts everywhere, junk, paper, batteries.
I am not immune to the collection. Some of my found treasures were:
a collection of glass bottles (for making Herb vinegar for presents), a collection of 2 sets of Encyclopedias (one is a kids set that I may still use for collage), many old mason canning jars (some with glass lids and bales) a set of jars that I had my girls use as banks for proportioning their allowance when they were little (the girls are now 24 and 26 years old), a broken framed "Beauty & The Beast" picture that was never fixed, and an old broken clock under glass (which I may save for next month's
StoryBook Club's table centerpiece for "Peter Pan").
When I got too frustrated with the carnage
hemorrhaging out of the split seams of the cluttered room, I happily went to the hardware store for parts for Harry to rebuild the funky old metal shelves out there (he needed a torpedo level, some nuts and bolts and wood shims). He took apart the old shelves yesterday and started rebuilding them for strength with metal perforated
pre-punched angle rail.
He even went and found his Shop Vac in the barn.
Once in awhile I would get yelled at when I would cynically say something like, "Where is the "SUPPOSED' "Possible" Junk pile?" with a
definite sneer and all the while holding an armful of crap...
See, he needs to critique EVERYTHING before it gets thrown away. Like plastic bags and broken things. While I admire the spartan and the modest Yankee in him, (I too, am thrifty) I draw the line at saving old mouse traps and empty paint cans.
But surely I digress.
This is when Harry would say, "How about you go get us some lunch?" ( or dinner, or parts or coffee....)
He worked late into the night, fixing one more shelving unit, admiring its beauty before coming to bed at 1am.
Even though the deck and back yard looks horrid....
I think he looks very handsome today :)
Red Roofs, Marc Chagall, 1954
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