Time out for a post

This whole packing things reminds me a little bit of the frenzy I whipped myself into when my apartment got inspected a couple of years ago. Especially the bit about the socks. Crikey, do I have socks. What do I think I am, a centipede? Who needs that many socks?

I'm finding other people's stuff in here as well. A dinner plate of the Chief Loon's (I think). After one of our game nights, she handed me a whole plate of teeny tiny cupcakes. Looks like I never gave the plate back. I also found some books people loaned me eons ago. One of 'em I thought I'd lost, seriously, irretrievably lost, and bought a replacement copy to give back to the lender. Found the replacement copy, too. Sent the better-looking of the two back to the lender via one of her cousins, with whom I work. Found Christmas presents I thought I mailed. Uh-oh. Found about a dollar and a half in pennies--not all at the same time, mind you. More like, "hey look, another penny!" Found so many knitting needles and crochet hooks of varying sizes that they have their own packing box now. I think I'm going to have to do that with scissors, too. And a small one for pens. If I had the time, I'd check each pen to see if it works first. But I don't have time. I'll do that when I unpack. Sure I will.

And Holy Mani/Pedi, Batman! I have tons of nail polish. Most of it was given to me as gifts--stocking stuffers, Easter basket filler. I think I probably bought the bottle of clear nail polish myself, and that was probably to do with a beading project where I was trying to secure a knot.

Lilah has tired of climbing on all the boxes after I close them up. Good. I was worried she'd knock something over. I've taken down the posters and framed pictures. I'm saving the framed embroidery for last. I am ruthlessly ditching stuff that I haven't used and/or don't really like and/or is getting a bit shabby. There's a sort of unwritten protocol to throwing things out in apartment complexes: anything that is probably still usable (in your opinion) you put next to the dumpster for someone to salvage who thinks he can use it. Yesterday morning I put out a framed picture of a black-and-white print that someone gave me a decade ago when they were clearing out, and when I came out again half an hour later with a bag of true trash, someone had already adopted it, and put a beat-up old computer monitor in its place. Came out half an hour after that, and the monitor was gone, too.

That reminds me of a story an ex-coworker told me about clearing out her apartment when she and her life-partner moved here from Alabama. They had a bunch of bookcases that they didn't want to take with them and that were too good to just throw out. So they put them by the dumpster at their apartment complex. After they put the first one out and walked back, they saw a young couple go over and take it to their place. Same couple took the second. And the third. Dee finally walked over to their apartment and offered to bring the two remaining bookcases right to them saving them both time and energy. They accepted, and came back to Dee's to carry one while she and Em brought the other one. She said the look on the guy's face was priceless when he opened the door to find her standing there. Surprised and guilty, like he thought she was going to yell at him for trash-picking.

Well, that's enough of a break. Time to go put some more of my apartment into small boxes.