Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Putting It Together

Started off the morning with a phone call from Rose. She, Craig, and Khai wanted to bring over the rest of my stuff this morning. Sure! I didn't have too many other plans for today besides continuing to organize the apartment. I'd barely finished eating breakfast when they arrived.

There's really not much left in the apartment I needed. It was mainly the remaining crates of records, one crate of books, the bins of holiday decorations, and the rug covering the linoleum rectangle between the living room and the bedroom. At least the apartment was much cooler than I assumed it would be after being locked with the air conditioner and fan turned off for three days. Anything remaining is either cleaning supplies or things I don't want.

Rose wants me to go through that stuff I don't want and clear out what can be trashed and what can go to Goodwill. I think all of it should go to Goodwill (except the giant wardrobes that are too big and the broken bed and loveseat), but they're being picky about what they take due to the pandemic. She wants to make use of the bins, too. Jodie's going through the garage and basement and has no room for any of my stuff besides the bike and its accessories in the garage.

She joined in to help the rest of us get the crates and bins in. Just as I'd suspected, the bins take up way too much room. Rose admonished me to move all of the decorations into smaller bins and crates and get rid of the larger ones.

Stacked the remaining record crates in the living room closet and next to the entertainment center. I'll reorganize them after a boring day at work next month. The decorations proved to be tougher. Manged to get everything but the Valentine's Day and Christmas items into the smaller crates and bins...and they still largely didn't fit in the hall closet. Since I had them out, I figured I might as well put up the general summer decorations, too. Better late than never!

Rose suggested buying long, narrow bins for some things. I wanted to get one for the Christmas tree, but those long rolling bins are expensive. Maybe I'll just pick up a long bin for the tree and the small bins for the seasonal decorations and cover the Christmas bins with tablecloths during other times of the year.

Had a quick smoothie lunch while Classic Concentration was on, then went into organizing mode.  Unloaded all of the dolls and stuffed animals but the American Girls and remaining Star Wars toys. The porcelain dolls and collectible Effanbee hard plastic dolls went on top of my dresser, the floppy rag dolls are on one of the long Ikea shelves next to my bed, and the bears and some smaller stuffed toys went on the table next to the door. The journals are on the other long Ikea shelf.

Ended up getting rid of the rug. Like the green rug from Dad and Jodie's basement, it was too stained and dirty to use. I also decided against keeping my big soft chair. It was pretty battered when I rescued it from a trash pile in Wildwood over 15 years ago, and time hasn't been kind to it. Not to mention, it's too big for this small apartment and took up a big chunk of the bedroom. Moved the American Girls' bench in its place.

Worked on writing for a while after I finished with the dolls. Mostly went back and edited some early passages. Charles encourages the others to get while the getting is good, but the door is blocked by trolls who are a lot less friendly than Orson. Help is coming, though, from the least-expected source...

Dragged the pile of trash to the curb around 6:30, then had leftovers for dinner while watching Patty Duke and Patti Deustch give some very creative answers on Match Game. The sweet female contestant on Sale of the Century just barely lost in the speed round to a smart lady who also won big on Password Plus a decade before.

Jodie came over briefly during Sale of the Century. Dad's coming home tomorrow and will be sleeping in the den. He's not going to last much longer, and he (understandably) wants to die with his loved ones there. She got to briefly check out the apartment and see everything I've done there so far. She also warned me that Rose wasn't happy about my getting rid of the chair. Her main concern was it being too heavy to lift with my bad arm. That's not a problem. That chair is light as a feather. I got it up the steps to my apartment in Wildwood alone, and they were even steeper than the steps going up to the Manor Avenue apartment.

Let Concentration run while I experimented with lemon custard no-bake cookies. I think I overdid the lemon juice or the milk. The cookies came out a lot wetter than my previous batches, though they tasted pretty good when I was making them.

Finished the night with Dirty Dancing at Hulu. I go more into this smash hit 1987 exploration of a teenage girl's coming-of-age at a Catskills resort in the early 60's at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

Dirty Dancing

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