Boxing Day, The Sequel

It is amazing how much junk you can collect in a relatively short period of time! Well, I guess I should take that back. As the daughter of a Hellacious Hoarder, some of that junk gene had to have seeped into my DNA. A few years before she died, Miss Eloise had packed the house so full of rummage sale tchotchkes, jimcracks and hoo-hahs, there was barely enough of a pathway to get from one room to another.

It's clear she wasn't predisposed to maintaining a safe harbor for too many of her grown-assed children, OR having to raise grandkids, because the 3 upstairs bedrooms were packed to the ceiling with what Fred Sanford would have aptly referred to as "gobbage." A coupla times, several of my siblings had to do "interventions" where they virtually shoveled crap out of the house. It took days to even see the surface of the dining room table, during which time Mama pouted and sulked and accused them of stealing from her. The house would remain uncluttered for about a few weeks before Miss Eloise made a defiant return to the Flea Market Follies, where every 75-cent purse and gaudy crack-a-lack vase sang its siren song just for her.

Well, as I spend this weekend prepping to move from my bare-bones short-term rental at the Liza(rd) Apartments to a brand new complex a mile away next Tuesday, I'm pleased to say that my clutter proclivities are nowhere NEAR the epic proportions of Mama's. Granted, I've acknowledged my OCD plenty of times in this blog, so I gotta confess to having more Maasai beadwork jewelry than I will ever wear if I live to be 347 years old. And there are 8 months' worth of flyers and leaflets and newspapers and other diddly crap that I'll be spending most of this weekend trashing.

But I can't wait to get to my new digs! Wait till you see the front door of my apartment...it'll blow your mind!! That's all I'll say for now...except for this. The new place has a second bedroom. Now, I know the Global Economy is totally f--ked, but I need at least one of my road-dawgs, galpals for LIFE, and assorted family members to come visit me while I'm still in Kenya!

(Oh, I guess I've buried the lede in the posting....I've agreed to stay in Kenya for another year. That means July 2010 is my new exit date. I think.)