Oy. It's been a little scary how okay I've been. I've cried a little bit, but I haven't yet (knock wood) had any of those days where even the air seems to press you down. I'm more tired than I should be for the amount of sleep I'm getting, but I'm functioning pretty well, surprisingly. I got the stuff taken care of with the lawyer, who's doing all the paperwork, got most of the house cleaned out except for the good stuff, even got rid of the old mattress. Jenny came over and did some cleaning, but we'll do a thorough scrub this spring before I list it. I'm still waiting for Keith to do the painting and Kenny to do the roof, so hopefully that'll happen before I leave. I've just got the back room and miscellaneous kitchen stuff that I need while I'm in the house to clear out. The unopened food is going to an Oscoda food bank and a lot of the kitchenwares to the women's shelter up in Alpena, courtesy of Sally. The rest of the stuff will be either distributed, auctioned on Ebay or sold off in an estate sale. Barb McGarry—who's the daughter of Margaret Barker, a neighbor I used to visit as a kid—has already said she wants the two recliners and Ron wants the Crate & Barrel mission chairs and table in the back room, which is fine with me. The quicker and easier I can get rid of stuff I don't want, the better.
Sally ran me around to the bank, the funeral home, and shopping on Wednesday and then back to hers and Ron's house for dinner: beer can chicken with fresh rosemary, roasted new potatoes, hot bread, fresh garden tomatoes and mozzarella. Ron gave me some venison too, to take home. I'm looking forward to that. Paul sent me some Sanders chocolates too, which are majorly yummy. I gave Barb 3 dozen of Dad's 4 dozen eggs and she came back with a big chunk of lovely bundt cake for me, which was totally unnecessary but very kind. Tonight Mel's coming to get me so I can do a couple loads of laundry at her house. I've got such good pals.
One hilarious moment yesterday: I went out to the dumpster and caught one of the little kittens who are living under the deck, the one that looks a little Siamese, strutting around with a dead black squirrel in her mouth, growling like a tiger. Apparently Ma Cat had brought back a kill that morning (I saw her off hunting with one of the teenage black kittens) and this particular hairball decided it was hers. She was really funny because the squirrel was almost as big as she and she kept tripping over the tail, which was dragging behind her between her legs. That was good for a momentary laugh.
Otherwise, I think the shock is wearing off bit by bit and that started with getting Dad's ashes back. I've still got Mom's sitting in my apartment in New York, but Dad loved it up here so much I want to leave him up here, and that's going to be hard. I'm just as glad there's no ceremony because I can kind of make my own then. Not that it will be much of one, but it'll be hard enough to say goodbye without having to do it in public.
While going through all his Air Force papers, I ran across a bunch of commendation letters which basically give the lie to everything Mom ever said about Dad's work habits. Apparently, he was a hell of a hard worker and a butt-kicking supervisor. According to Mom, he was lazy. But then, she thought everybody who didn't work the way she thought they should was lazy . She thought I was lazy too when I went freelance instead of jumping right into another 9-5 after AIP moved to Maryland. She never forgave Dad for not taking the job he was offered out west after he got out of the Air Force. She seemed to think he was going to become some Lockheed executive and he said it was nothing but a dead-end floor-management job. I think he'd had enough of being a supervisor too, after running 125 guys and an entire flight line. I think he liked fixing cars and airplanes more than he liked being a paper pusher and that's why he went back into civil service. And that was never good enough for Mom. Nothing was ever good enough for her.
The other surprise I ran across yesterday was in an old keepsake box of mine that Mom had commandeered when I left home. It was an old appointment diary from 1956 with several pages of poetry Mom had written. I haven't had the heart to read it yet, but I think it explains why she always preferred my poetry to my fiction. If she couldn't share the activity with me, then it wasn't worth my doing. She also kept all of my letters to her, but none of Dad's. Or at least I haven't found any of them yet. And that doesn't surprise me at all.
All in all, I'm starting to get a little worried at how numb I am. I'm worried I'm going to crash and burn when I get back to New York, which is when I can least afford it. I'm also losing momentum in cleaning up the house. I've just got that back room left to do, and right now it's full of boxes and bags of groceries which makes it hard to sort through stuff. I'm using that as an excuse not to do it, but it really needs to get done before the guys get here on the 6th. I know I've still got a week to do it, but there's really a lot of stuff back there. Instead, I've been doing little things like going through the photographs and putting them in acid free envelopes and boxes I've ordered. I ordered a museum quilt storage box and archival tissue too for the unfinished log cabin quilt that's hanging in the back closet. That'll get boxed up and sent back to the Bronx. Depending on how pretty it is, that might get Ebayed too. The next project is to photograph the Hummels. Maybe I'll do that today. It's nice and low-key.
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