i just don't get it...

how can someone so brilliant be such a packrat? i'm referring to my mom, the once child prodigy who skipped grades in China and went to college at the age of 14...

what gives?

for the past week, susie and i have been at the house, rummaging through piles of stuff that she has bought, forgotten about, and bought again. a small list of items:

28 mugs
seven boxes of envelopes...totaling 670 that she won't use in this lifetime
three or four dozen photo albums...all unused
a dozen assorted picture frames
ten boxes (150 ct.) of sandwich bags
eighteen rolls of aluminum foil
120 cassette tapes of Chinese operas that haven't been touched in 15 years
taxes from 1982
letters that were forwarded from 1722 Lafayette, where they lived until 1963

after assessing the situation, susie and i decided to move some stuff into the garage, which lacks the space to fit their car anymore because of:

400 canned goods...bomb shelter anyone?
eighty rolls of paper towels
at least 200 rolls of t-paper
30 boxes of laundry detergent
another dozen rolls of aluminum foil and plastic wrap
fifteen boxes of garbage bags (at least we'll be using those up ;)

i think you get the idea...

i'm not here to air any dirty laundry, but geez...it just blows yer mind after awhile. funny that even though i'm not in field, cleaning my parents' house is like excavating without the elements and dirt. nothing old enough to date with carbon samples :) or worthwhile for soil samples, but i still can do some stratigraphic studies as well as seriation (a relative dating method derived from cultural regularities of style or frequency...knowledge of sizes and styles of automobiles over the years is a good use of seriation).

so far, i believe we have filled about 20 lawn size trash bags in the past week - about average. over the past 15 years, susie and i would always look for a window of opportunity to clean...usually when mom & dad were out of town. it was always easier to do it on the sly than fighting with mom about why she utterly has no use for up to 100 long, styrofoam chinese takeout boxes. unless you have a new found passion for sculpture or public art, these stacks gotta go - NOW!

i forgot to mention that, in the process of the demolition, i came across some nostalgia of my own...the ninth grade photo used in my '84-'85 yearbook...a cassette tape from the early 80's with some music that i recorded off the radio (Pop Muzic by M, Twilight Zone by the Manhattan Transfer, Andy Gibb's Shadow Dancing, Coming Up by Paul McCartney and Wings, Heaven on the 7th Floor by Paul Nicholas, Sister Sledge's He's the Greatest Dancer, This Is It by Kenny Loggins, and even Answering Machine be Rupert Holmes (the guy who did Escape [aka, the Piña Colada Song], yep...THAT guy.

i also found one of my old cintas, a cassette tape that we had to make on a weekly(?) basis for two years when i took Spanish 4 and AP with Ana Garcia. oh god...i hadn't thought of those stupid things in 15 years!!! of course, these monstrous creations covered topics of the day or fantasy things. in fact, this tape was the 'Si yo fuera un animal en el parque zoológico...' (If I were an animal at the zoo...). after fifteen years, i can honestly say that my spanish has vastly improved, especially its diction and cadence. man, i sound like a freakin' robot on this tape LOL

catharsis...i guess that's all what it comes down to...the house needs to be less cluttered for my dad when he gets out of the rehab facility next tuesday...mom has to simplify and figure out that more is not always better, even though it exemplifies the 'American way'...susie has to stress less about dad's condition...and i am so damn glad to have found that stinkin' Spanish tape because i will relish stomping on it heh