Hi, 95

Traffic streaks by in the rain on Interstate 95

 

I finished binge-watching Schitt's Creek tonight. What a show. 

Nope. Football didn't inspire me today. We had some lousy games to watch.

Oh, I also did laundry and some long-overdue decorating as well.

Also, with Sean's help, we finally got one of our air conditioners into the attic. I'd be thrilled to leave it up there but we'll deal with that when warm weather comes back.

But it was time to clean up the bookcase in the living room.

Things had been kind of a hodgepodge while I decided what I wanted to do.

In the end, I took two bins of ephemera and put them in the attic for now. I can always revisit it at another time.

Instead, I set up some of the various goodies I've been given and acquired over the years. Plus I did a shelf of pictures.

That includes the 1986 Mahopac Towing baseball team -- a group that still means so much to me. We were also champions for what it's worth. I realize that's very "Uncle Rico" from Napoleon Dynamite or Al Bundy but so be it.

I put a couple of pictures of Sean up dating back to when he was probably five and his smile was absolutely electric.

A picture of our old cat, Fred, is up as well. He crawled inside a bag and was playing in it. His pupils are fully, hysterically, dilated.

The picture of Mom that I named the "Neighborhood Sad Clown" is on the shelf. She was just sitting in a camping chair as we moved my niece's family out of their house. She "supervised," holding balloons that my great-nieces were playing with on a warm April morning in North Carolina. The site struck me and I took the picture.

I'm sure I've written about the picture before but, after she passed, Dave Torromeo gave me a frame to remember her. That picture was the perfect thing to put in there.

Sean and I decided we always needed to keep it displayed. I fixed that today.

Oh, my circa 1955 portable radio is also on that shelf.

Below that is a printer (I have nowhere else for it) and my model of the gate of old Yankee Stadium (it lights up!). A copy of Susan's book of poetry, Skipping Rocks, is there as is a binder with meaningful baseball and football cards.

There's also a shelf of bobbleheads, statues, and other Yankees and Steelers items.

On top of the bookcase, I added an old Holiday Inn sign from a Playskool set that I had when I was seven. The rest of the toy was finally tossed back when we moved as multiple generations had played with it.

Behind that -- near the chiming clock that I still need to get repaired that my father told me I could have when I was probably 16 -- is a picture of my family. Taken in Aug 1987, it was the last time all five of us were photographed together. Dad, of course, would be gone in Mar 1989.

The picture -- and life -- have changed a lot since then. But, regardless of whatever, I decided to display it up there.

I watched traffic slow up on I-95 as Sean made his way back home from this evening. He was up at 5 a.m. and, of course, so was I. It was shocking to hear anyone other than me awake that early but he was out the door by six and came home roughly 12 hours later.

I continue to feel awful that he has to make that kind of trip every weekend but I tell myself to worry about what I can control. I have no impact on that.

Laundry got done.

Floors got washed.

Meals got consumed.

A Sunday ends.

A new week dawns.