Morning all. The coffee is staining the air as it brews and I am very much wanting a cup. But let’s see if we can get a prompt out before the coffee is poured. So Timers up and lets get going.
Huh. Not quite sure where this is going, but I find it interesting in a vague slice of life way.
Wednesday, March 20th: The room was getting warmer.
The room was getting warmer. Alice held her hands over the vent with gratitude for the warm air now starting to blow through them. Her fingers felt like blocks of ice, but at least the heater was now starting to warm things up. She held her hands in the warm stream of air trying to warm them, as she looked around the room.
There was still so much to do. Most of today had been spent scurrying through rooms, trying to make certain nothing was blocking the vents before she turned the heat on. Each room featured boxes and bags, suitcases and trunks of things. When the movers took the furniture, they shifted everything to the side to simply clear a path. As they were moving and the day was substantially warmer than it was today, no attention was given to the vents.
Alice was worried about something potentially catching fire and didn’t want to risk it until she knew the vents were clear. Her great Aunt May hadn’t been a hoarder but she lived a long time in a house that had been occupied by previous generations of her family for a number of years. Things piled up. While it looked neat and orderly when May was living here and everything, including the heater and ducts were well maintained, once the dismantling process began, things rapidly became chaotic.
May’s will was partially to blame. She was very specific about the items in her possession. Alice went through with May’s will and pulled each and every item that was officially designated for a specific someone. As it seemed prudent to do that before things were shuffled around, it was one of the first tasks completed. Each item was checked off by the helpful lawyer and sent on its way to it’s designated heir.
Then came the furniture and that was where chaos descended. While the furniture was designated for others, everything else from the house to all the remaining items was to go to Alice. And so each drawer, cubbie hole, nook and cranny had to be emptied before it could be transported. And so Alice had done so. All of May’s suitcases and overnight bags were full. Even her purses had items in them. So Alice first made use of the reusable shopping bags filling them up with the detritus from the drawers so they could be sorted later. Then she collected cardboard boxes from any source she could find, filling them. In the end she even had to rope in a few plastic garbage bags for some of the items. Most of those were blankets and other bedding stored in the hope chests.
While the trunks were to go to Alice, the hope chests were specifically designated and needed clearing.
Alice sighed as she looked around. Once she sorted through things, she had the feeling she would be donating a lot of blankets to a local charity. Luckily, through sheer coincidence, she had an industrial washer and dryer at her disposal.
‘Although Colin would claim it is more than coincidence,’ she reminder herself as she rubbed her warming hands together.
Ten til Midnight 