Kivrin

THINGS DISCOVERED IN MY GRANDMOTHER'S ESCRITOIRE, a partial listing

- Checkers set, circa 1930s, slightly moldy
- Parcheesi set, circa 1930s
- Diary with 1934-5 calendar in front and handwriting suggesting it was used sporadically over about five years.
- 1944 BS in Home Economics diploma
- Family Christmas letters in mimeo for 1964-1967
- carbon paper
- mimeo paper
- several boxes of paper clips
- a box of labels for specific types of pickles and preserves
- engraved invitations to a church reception
- small cards engraved with "Mrs. [Kivrin's Grandfather]" which I can only imagine are visiting cards.
- a massive cache of notecards of all sorts and vintages, neatly sorted into boxes of Christmas, birthday, sympathy/get well, and other.
- Drafts of my grandparents' will, circa 1961
- Report card for one of my uncles, for the 1958-1959 school year
- Birthday and valentine cards sent from my grandfather to my grandmother
- a notebook containing my grandmother's lesson plans for teaching Home Ec in the 1970s
- three envelopes of photos from my uncle's first wedding. (The quality of nearly all the pictures is poor. This was, perhaps, a sign.)
- a bundle of newspaper that turned out to be a pattern for a jacket and skirt.
- two cardboard discs printed THESE COASTERS ARE SAMPLES COMPLIMENTS OF THE CHAMPLAIN CARDBOARD COMPANY
- the bill from the florist for my parents' wedding ceremony.


In other news, it is possible that a pack of feral Benedictines have moved in around the corner from us. At least, one of the row houses there now has ALL WHO ENTER HERE ARE WELCOMED AS CHRIST painted over the door, and I've seen definite prayer posture on the porch. I surmise that they're feral because one evening, shortly before the unRapture, I heard from their open door the strains of "Abide With Me" sung, poorly, to the accompaniment of a guitar and a bongo drum. I believe structured formation would eliminate such infelicities. (Also, I'd think it would be more useful to have the "welcome visitors as Christ" sign on the inside of the door, but perhaps that's just me.

Five Things I Hope To Accomplish This Weekend

1. Clean the fridge and freezer. Before the wild pile o' stuff in the freezer falls out and kills one of us. Cleaning the fridge will probably violate the Prime Directive, but I won't tell if you won't.

2. Heat-seal the last window in the living room.

3. Get all the clothing off my rocking chair and into drawers or the closet.

4. Make all the drawers in my room closeable. This will involve discarding the orphan socks, deciding how to separate my shirts, and working some miracle with my yarn stash and craft tools.

5. Write a thousand words of something.


Five Other Things I Will Probably Do This Weekend

1. Finish Marque and Reprisal, the second book in Elizabeth Moon's non!FamiliasRegnant series of space operas. Moon is still hitting my primal pleasure center of Women Of All Ages Kicking Ass (Albeit Sometimes With Deus-Ex-Machin-y-Assistance-From-Powerful-Friends).

2. Read Long May She Reign, the new addition to Ellen Emerson White's President's Daughter series. I have a feeling I might consume it in a few dizzying hours like I did The Road Home, her book about a (very tempermentally similar) woman coming home after a tour in Vietnam as a nurse.

3. Watch the end of s2 of New Who.

4. Watch the beginning of s3 of New Who.

5. Eat. A lot.