Sunday, July 5, 2015

On schedule for the packing, mostly.



Well, the husband and I are on schedule with the packing for the move, mostly.  When packing for a move you have to be careful that you don't pack too much too soon or you'll find yourself unpacking what you have packed because you need something.

Nothing worse than needing something important, only you can't find it so you start unpacking what you just packed.  Or WORSE, and you go buy what you can't find, then you have two items when you only need one.

Yesterday was basement day, and I'll say that about 80% of the basement is packed and ready to go, more or less.  We did some culling - emphasis on "some".

Today was the garage.  Since the new house doesn't have a garage, but it does has a very large shed, a lot of what is in the garage that isn't garage stuff, is going to the new basement, which can absorb it, no problem.

We were a bit more ruthless in the garage.  My junior high school art projects went into the trash heap.  The pile of antiquated and broken yard tools joined the art projects.  The mummified squirrel who go itself trapped in the garage when we sealed up the big ass holes up by the soffit?  He too is in a better place and has joined my art work and the broken tools.

The husband wanted to bury it, but I pointed out that the new owners wouldn't visit his little grave as they never knew him as we did - a moldering carcass in the corner that cause two adult men in their fifties squeal like two teenage girls.

I will have you know that I was the one who put on the Big Girl Panties (this is figurative, mind you, not literal) and scooped up said mummified squirrel (with a shovel, of course) and dropped him in the contractor bag.

For those of you who have never seen a contractor bag, it's like a black plastic garbage bag, only heavier, but not like a body bag that Quincy* would unzip and look at a victim and then zip back up and solve the crime.  So it was fitting that squirrel went into it.

Then I became appalled, because my ancestors ate squirrel.  My mother remembers eating squirrel during the depression, until my great grandmother found out.  Great grandma was a farm wife, and they were mostly broke, too.  Then my great grandfather died and my great grandmother's cousin in Columbus introduced her to one of her husband's lodge friends and that man married great grandmother.  He had money, even in the depression, so when great grandmother found out that the family had been covering and eating squirrel, she sent her driver (yes, in the Depression) up home with weekly veal shipments.  Yes!  Veal!

Why?

Because in the depression, veal was less expensive than chicken.  And get this - my grandmother would make something out of veal called "City Chicken", which was veal cubed up to look like chicken.

Now look what I have done - gone and made myself hungry for veal.

Don't look at me that way.  Eating veal is the sacrifice we make so that children can get all that milk that they drink.  Besides, I only eat free range veal.  I am a meat eater because it tastes good.  But I won't eat veal if if it was raised in cage.  I am not a monster.  Well, not that often, at least.

Anyway, my point was when I started was to tell you that we are on schedule for the move.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go and pack some more.


* For those of you too young to remember, Quincy was the proto-Medical Examiner who also solved crimes.   Before their was CSI, their was Quincy, who looked and sounded like Jack Klugman, who was married to the absolutely divine and foul mouthed Brett Sommers.  Don't believe me?  Well fuck you and the horse you rode in on, then. 

13 comments:

  1. Well, you know you have my sympathy and endless empathy when it comes to moving.

    And I haven't thought about city chicken in a month of Sundays - it was a staple of Mother Muscato's kitchen; she served it in cream sauce on skewers; in more recent times, I've thought of them as WASPkebabs.

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  2. Quincy always seemed to have WAY too much time on his hands. The M.E.s on the Law & Order franchise seem to have it more in check.

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  4. From basements to garages to squirrels to Quincy to veal to the depression and back again.
    That was quite the travelogue!

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  5. why would you think your readers wouldn't believe you?

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  6. Names I often get mixed up:
    Brett Somers, Elke Sommer, Britt Ekland

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    1. names i often get mixed up:
      mj, the mistress, monica jo

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    2. she may be a nun on, "call the midwife" or a lush at infomaniac;
      it's so hard to keep everyone straight these days.

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  7. Eichhörnchen in Sahnesauce. Mit breiten Nudeln.

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  8. Look at it this way, on a dairy farm there is nothing more useless then a BOY calf. They become veal and thus serve a purpose in their little lives. So sayth the farm girl LOL

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    1. Exactly. At least they are tasty. Besides, as Temple Granden pointed out, cows have no sense of the future.

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