Friday, March 20, 2020

Journal of the Plague Year 3-19-2020

Getting cabin fever. And I am a homebody. I see a walk in my future tomorrow. It’s supposed to be nice tomorrow, although cold and windy. Our local playground has a paved path around the edge of the baseball field. It’s a quarter mile long and wide open, so walkers can see potential virus carriers coming.

Today, I made some progress in the decluttering department and managed to weed out all the old, frayed and unmatched sheets and towels. I kept four sets of sheets—two good ones that I like and two sets to use as backup. That left approximately seven unmatched top sheets—bottom sheets wear out faster. Some I remember purchasing many, many years ago.

I did the same with towels. I was ruthless. There were some still nice extra-large bath towels that don’t even fit on my current towel racks. Gone! There were some strange colored hand towels that I don’t remember buying and don’t match any past décor that I can recall. Out! 

Sheets and towels will go to an animal shelter, once I can find one that is open and accepting donations. In the meantime, they are going into a mesh laundry bag that one of my sons took to camp about 20 years ago. He no longer needs or wants it, so that’s part of the discard pile. 

The exercise left me with an empty 19th century dresser that I can’t bear to get rid of, even though it is falling apart. It will go into the basement once OLGS finishes cleaning down there and our son can help him move it. The dresser will live with the four Scandinavian caned chairs that no longer have intact seats. Once the crisis has passed (see how optimistic I am), it will go to a furniture repair shop, wonderfully named Strippers. After six months or so, it will emerge in like-new condition. What do I do with it then? 

In other news, our mailman has started wearing shorts, a sure sign of spring even if the temp is around freezing and it’s drizzling. We watched three episodes of Keepers, a harrowing true crime story about the 1969 murder of a nun in Baltimore. OLGS baked bread. Son delivered groceries, although he included Pop Tarts in the delivery, something I neither asked for nor have eaten in 40 years. Maybe he was planning on removing them and eating them himself but forgot. A handyman came by to check out a possible job. He kept his distance. In other words, a quiet day in the Land of 10,000 Swamps.

3 comments:

LeslieM said...

We are doing something similar! We finally finished unpacking clothes to put into the newly constructed cedar closet. I found a whole bag of top sheets, which mice had found first. They also managed to get into the linen closet and up on the 4th shelf, from whence they burrowed into new towels and chewed big holes.

Your writer said...

Your new house clearly needs a cat.

LeslieM said...

Zanzibar has retired from mouse catching. They could walk right in front of her and she would just yawn and go back to sleep.