Progress Report- Week 7... I think...

Today I rediscovered the mattress. Progress.

Sept. 13th

Oct. 2nd

Oct.  30th

 

Moving out: 2 and 1/2 bags of trash (the 2 full ones are all stuffed animals), 1 box of partially useful crap for the transfer station swap table, and a small bag of burnables for the woodstove.

Last one of the night, I swear

Here are the highlights of the rest of today's cleaning:

 What's even cooler than getting a trophy for band? Getting one that implies, "You used to really suck. Now, not so much."

I remember I literally pried my closet door off it's hinges to make room for these beads. I talk a lot in this blog about things my mother didn't care for. Pretty sure this one Dad was less than pleased about. But hey, those green ones glow in the dark. It's all about priorities.

My brother gave me this for my birthday the first year he moved to New York. It has never actually been used on a light fixture before.

Lastly, Truth or Dare Jenga. We had a lot of fun with this one in high school. There were blank spaces where you could write in your own suggestions. That "fun" becomes just a string of awkward moments when your elementary school cousins come over and want to play and ask what everything means.  (As a side note; There would have been a time when I would have shaken my head and muttered, "Shame on us" for some of the things that got penciled in to this. However, I've known enough high school students at this point to understand that any game with a fill-in the blank component is not safe around anyone from this age group. Lock that stuff away with the liquor when your kids come of age. You will thank me.)

Awwwwwwww....

After all my "tough talk" earlier tonight about the easy with which I was throwing out toys, this made me come to a stop.

Family friends of my parents gave this to me when I was born. I remember winding it up and playing it over and over and over again when I was little, especially at bedtime.  It sounded exactly like this:

The music box on the bottom has been broken for years. After being wound up, it just rushes through every note. Probably a spring missing somewhere...  Every other part of this is broken as well. Nothing is attached anymore. Both the figures and the plate they are sitting on where placed on the base for this photo.  Everything shows evidence of being glued together multiple times. The base itself has a large crack running down the middle. It was clearly split in two at one point, but I can't remember when. At any rate, it's a great piece, but its time has come and gone.

Harold

Photos for this blog have been done entirely with my iPhone or my Mom's digital camera. I haven't been much of a shutterbug since college. In high school, however, it was a TOTALLY different story. I have at least a dozen photograph albums from those years, due largely in part to this fellow:

We called him Harold.

The "Funky Monkey" camera (as it was referred to in the catalog my friends and I found it in) was made for children 3 and up. The plastic was sturdy enough to survive being dropped over and over again. You had to use a special "key" to wind the film. It was perfect for both my klutziness and my type of photography- quick shots of friends and family hanging out. Nothing fancy or even framed well. In the days just before digital cameras were big, if you had to use a point-and-click camera anyway, why not go for the one with the giant monkey on it? At big events when everyone was taking photos (prom, graduation, plays, etc) there was never a question as to which camera was mine.

Harold got put into retirement when his flash bulb broke. I brought him to the Peterborough camera shop. The guy working there said I might have just as well brought him a disposable camera to fix, this one wasn't worth it. I was crushed.

I haven't owned another camera since.

Here go the rest

After all of Thursday's cathartic whining over five stuffed animals, bagging up the rest was surprisingly easy. I figure I basically expended all the emotional energy I had lamenting the loss of that small group, thus making it a snap to do away with the rest (there's a creepy metaphor in there about man's susceptibility to evil, but I neither choose to pursue it, nor do I actually believe that toys are living things, despite all this week's hubbub).

I had more of an emotional attachment to some of these dolls and animals than others. Some of them I barely recognize. Some, you'll notice, are both simultaneously covered in dust AND still have tags on them. Five of the following were granted pardons from my parents, and now take up residence in their room. I will leave you to guess which.

 

I believe I called this one Mr. Moo. He mooed when you squeezed him. I was always bursting with originality. 

 

Pretty sure this guy originally belong to someone else. Probably ended up in my care after losing that ear. "Give me your tired, your poor, your dismembered masses..."

There are wires in the legs of this cat, making her somewhat posable, but just enough to decide if she would be sitting or standing. Still, I thought this was the coolest thing when I got her. I remember taking her to kindergarten a lot. 

Another kindergarten companion.

 

I believe we called this one Norman Bates. I think I got him in high school. When you squeezed him, he would grunt a little then go "Ahhhh... That was a great hug!" then 5 seconds would pass and he would say, "Hug me again" then another awkward pause before, "Come on! Hug me AGAIN!" Kind of psycho... get it?

 

These are my and Bethany's Kid Sister Dolls. They are historically significant for two reasons. One, the doll on the right was mine; one of the only times Beth and I got the same Christmas gift and I got the superior model (I say that because she's the one featured in the commercial, not because she is blond). Two, we rarely got toys popular enough to be attached to an actual ad campaign. I can still sing this jingle:

 Sam the lobster. He came from a field trip to Plymouth Plantation.

 This one I named Flipper. See above note on my creativity.

 

This guy used to have overalls and boots. I had vaguely remembered him being one of a broader mass-marketed collection. A little research tells me he was a Furskin bear. Anybody? 

 This one used to have a pink bow... or something. I recall that I cut a lot of the accessories off my bears; not because I didn't like them, I think I just wanted the option to take them off or put them back on. In reality, that translates to, "take them off or set them on top of their heads... or loose them behind the couch."

 Peter Rabbit doll. Most likely from my Grandma Warren. Wonder where his blue coat went?

This is Rosie's  doppelganger.  This bear belong to Beth and yet somehow I ended up with her. We had a multitude of Christmases when we got matching presents from our Uncle Marty. 

 

I won this guy out of the claw machine at the Peterborough Friendy's. It was a high school hot spot that sadly no longer exists. 

 One of the three of us made this in Consumer Family Science at Great Brook. Since it was in my room, let's pretend we know for sure it was me.

I have no idea where the following came from.

 

I feel like these were somehow "fancy" Happy Meal toys or were somehow purchased at McDonald's. I also want to say they were Muppet Christmas Movie promotional items, but I'm 90% sure I'm making that up.  

This was a 18th birthday gift from a couple high school friends. I remember thinking, even then, "Great. Another stuffed animal to take up space."  Then proceeded to hang on to it for 11 years. 

  I distinctly remember starting to like things ironically in middle school, though I didn't know at the time that that is what it was called. I was committed. I watched Blue's Clues everyday during the summer between 7th and 8th grade.  While it was probably a waste of my time, it did make me fully appreciate this presentation from The Moth:

This guy was a going away gift from my college roommate Laura when I went to study abroad. She knew I would miss my dog Skippy. 

 

Believe it or not, this was one of those, "Mom, can I have that doll? Please... please? PLEASE? I neeeeeeeed it!" type of toys. I think I first saw her in a catalog. The magic didn't last long once she actually got here. We soon discovered that all her limbs and her head detached easily from her body and could simply be popped back on later. We laid her out in pieces on the grill one year as a Halloween decoration. Mom did not care for that.

Accidentally left this guy off the original version of this post. I believe he was some sort of Cabbage Patch Pet...?

Precious Moments indeed

I am not going to pretend that it is hard to make me cry.  It is, in fact, obnoxiously easy. Long distance calling plan commercials, books I already know the end to, Camp Takodah Sunday songs, being asked how many ears of corn I want with dinner before I'm ready to think about it, the Mother's Day episode of Rugrats (that one got me two years in a row); these are all things that I have sat through or walked away from in tears. It should come as no surprise then, that in this process that could be read as me getting rid of my childhood (we English majors are great at finding subtext in anything), I may get a little misty.  Here are the first items to get me:

Let me make one thing clear- these weren't even my "good" toys. These are the ones that I rarely played with and are currently in the worst shape. But they are a start. Have you noticed that no matter how much progress is made, the pile on the bed always remains? That is because the whole bottom layer of "stuff" is stuffed. (See what I tried to do there? Didn't quite pull it off, did I?)  I had an unhealthy attachment to my plush and plastic pals before. Seeing Toy Story 3 last summer did not help.

SPOILER ALERT! If you were planning on seeing this movie, but have some how avoided it for the past two years, do not hit the Play button. Also, it is time to fish or cut bait with your Netflix account. It really isn't cost effective, Mom, if you've paying a monthly fee for the one movie that will sit on your coffee table for 6 weeks at a time.

I may have had to splash a little cold water on my face after I did this.


Did I mention that I just turned 29 a couple weekends back?

Colors

I almost saved this bag full of nail polish. I just recently started painting my nails again, though somewhat sporadically. I have just been switching off between two nearly identical shades of purple-ish red. This bag could have opened up a whole new realm of possibilities. Sparkles, metalics, neons, blues, greens, pinks, blacks, golds, glow-in-the-dark. You name it, I had it. Some of it even still goes on smooth. Other bottles, however, are so separated they look like mini lava laps.

 I stopped painting my nails sometime around high school or college. Then I found the polishes' true usefulness- as decorative paint. The entire outside of my first CD player is covered in nail polish swirls and designs. I wanted to post a picture of it, though I can't seem to find it. Interesting that I can find small things like a bottle of nail polish or a receipt for a tattoo, and yet an entire boom box is still mysteriously missing.

Current soundtrack

I went down to New York a few weekends back. I grabbed three "new" cassette tapes to take along in the car; the Bodyguard soundtrack, The Jackson 5's Greatest Hits, and EnVogue's Funky Divas. I quickly got bored with the first one. I bought it for one song and one song only, and don't remember ever getting into any of the rest of the album. Let's reminisce on that one first- both to get it out of the way and because you know you love it:

Moving on....


I don't remember exactly when I started listening to The Jackson 5, but they were certainly one of my favorite groups when I was in middle school- a scant 20 years after their first album. If I remember right, I heard an EnVogue cover of "Who's Loving You". Once I heard the original though, I was hooked.

I always used to bop around to "ABC" and "I'll Be There". But as I was driving, playing this cassette back after at least a solid decade of it being tucked away, I could still sing along with songs like, "Mama's Peal", "Never Can Say Goodbye" and, one of my all time favorites, "I'm Going Back to Indiana". In the grand scheme of things, these songs are obviously not that obscure since they are on the Greatest Hits album. However, I would guess that for people in my age bracket or younger, they are generally not that well known.


And finally....

Again, I could still sing along to every song. I got this album when it came out in 1992. I would have been about 10. Listening to it as an adult, I anticipated humming along and laughing at an overly cheesy pop group. There were the voice over interludes, almost skits, between tracks; a hallmark of R&B at the time. However, I was as impressed now as I probably was then with the overall vocal quality and complex harmonies (though I probably wouldn't have put it in those words then).

The only thing I found mildly disturbing was that this was my favorite album when I was in 4th grade. 4th. Did you just watch the video above? Would you like another classic hit to see where I am going with this?

The thing I distinctly remember about watching this video as a kid was that there was no ambiguity for me as to what this song was about. This kind of stuff is peppered throughout the whole album. And there I was, thinking myself to be so hip and savvy because I could sing along.  When I was a kid, MTV and VH1 were the main venues for "PG 13" material like this. Now, it is far more prevalent and ratcheted up a notch. I shutter to think about the level of understanding the kids I work with have about the media they consume.

As I mutter to myself about, "kids these days..." I'll just slip into my waist high mom jeans and make sure my walker is ready for when I need it.


I had a conversation with my Dad the other day about my student loans. I explained that when I first applied for them, the grown up version of myself who would have to pay them off was just some random adult that I hadn't met yet, so screw that lady.  The same detachment sometimes applies when going through my old stuff. The person who procured these items sometimes reminds me more of the kids I have worked with and less like the individual I am. I sometimes worry about this kid.

Flowers

 I used to dry all the flowers anyone gave me, primarily from high school. At the time, I probably thought it was nice to have these mementos (typically my train of thought- pretty much how this whole thing got out of control in the first place). In reality, their unique shapes mean they collect more dust than most items. Colors all fade to muted tones and various shades of brown. Petals and leaves fall off pretty easily leaving behind nearly naked stems. They are not as pretty as you would hope. I actually got rid of a much larger collection years ago. Here are the ones that still lingered.

Junior year prom corsage

(That Sprite bottle that it rests on looks so fancy because it is from Europe. Yes, THE Europe. I went there twice in high school. You know you are cultured when you travel 3000 miles to drink the same soda you have at home, except now it is measured out using the metric system. You are extra classy if instead of throwing away your trash, you bring it all the way home and put it on display for 12 years.)

Senior year corsage.

These ones were my favorites:

These are the roses I got from my high school boyfriend Mike for our 6 month anniversary. Kind of a big deal when you are 16. See what I mean about them loosing a little of their luster over time? What did keep it's color where the ribbons and tags he attached to each one. Each one is labeled for a specific month we were together. Pretty smooth for a Junior who had never had a girlfriend.

These photos were taken last week. These flowers have long been lost to the wood stove.