Grease Spot on the L&N

It was all yellow...

I’ve been uncomfortably and excruciatingly manic for the past week, every since I found out that the second half of my income is disappearing. Right now I’m down to 8 hours of work a week. That’s not much of a paycheck. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, since almost the entire month of July was short by half.

I’m gearing up for a massive yard sale this weekend. At least, that’s the plan. I’ve yanked stuff ruthlessly from corners, cupboards and closets, with the mentality of getting rid of as much as possible just in case I need to leave here in a hurry with nowhere to go.

I ask the question: If I was in a fire and had to grab something from this area to save, what would it be? And then I make myself purge the rest of the stuff.

But its exhausting and in a lot of ways, heartbreaking work. I am fond of my things. I am attached to the things that I’ve accumulated out of love and life. My things give me a lot of happiness on a daily basis. But I also realize that my life will be perfectly fine without STUFF. And I also realize I’ve got enough to go around: in other words, enough stuff to be gotten rid of and enough stuff to be kept.

That which is essential is invisible to the eye.

Yesterday, Obee, a fellow caregiver, asked me to go to her house and then to the Galt Flea Market. It’s held on a Tuesday so it’s kind of neat, as those things are always on weekends. It gives an extra day for the vendors to make money and for folks to shop instead of having to cram it all in on the weekends.

Of course, walking through the aisles in the blistering sun looking at giant tubs and bins of cheap plastic hair clips, tube socks and car parts, I just had to laugh: Here I am in the midst of getting rid of stuff and my idea of a good day is to go wander around the stalls and look for cheap shower shoes!

I bought a nice plum colored nail polish for a dollar. So that was fun.

Afterwards we ate at her house in her back garden surrounded by sunflowers and tomato plants. She sent me home jars of peach jam, strawberry preserves, fresh peaches the size of a baby's head and a sack of tomatoes. Ah, summer!

Last night at work I was explaining to Miss Biddy that she couldn't ride in the car with me: It's over 100 degrees out and it's a safety issue. My car has black interior, and she has no body weight at all. Dehydration could take effect within moments and I'd be driving a corpse around.

"It's even dangerous for me," I told her, "with all my body fat! I could fry like a turkey once my body fat heats up to boiling temperature! I could melt into nothing sitting right behind the steering wheel!"

She laughed, thought a moment and replied, "You'd be nothing but a grease spot on the L&N"