Sock it to Me

I haven’t been able to close my sock drawer. Not easily, anyway. Not without forcibly shoving socks down and back and further into the space. It's a mess that needs to be emptied and reorganized, but that ranks pretty low on the fun meter, even with my rock-bottom standards, so it hasn’t been done. 

Instead, I regularly paw through the jumble of socks bought for special activities like hiking, skiing, and roller derby; for winter warmth and summer sweat; for dress pumps and oxfords and booties and gym shoes. I rifle through socks that are stretched out, too small, or too grungy, in search of the missing mate to that favorite pair that is perfect for those specific shoes that will complete whatever outfit was chosen for the day.  

Once upon another lifetime, in a different dwelling with different furniture, the sock drawer was a different story.  It was a tale of socks neatly rolled and arranged by color to provide a pleasing appearance when the drawer glided open. I imagined myself a shopkeeper in a tiny boutique with a lovely sock display ready for my imaginary customers to marvel at. It felt artistic. It was probably more the case that I was strung a bit too tight that I cared so deeply and entertained such delusions over the contents of a private space that no one would ever see unless they were really doing some snooping. I mean, I certainly didn’t invite guests in to see my sock drawer.  

In any event, it’s quite different now. 

Somewhere along the twisting and turning path of life, my sense of sock drawer design decorum was lost. The drawer no longer serves as a creative outlet. It probably doesn’t help that I sold that particular piece of furniture with the wonderful deep and inspirational drawers before I moved from Tennessee back to Massachusetts. 

The departure from caring about my sock drawer was roughly around the same time as a tragic loss of sense of humor and interest in once pleasurable aspects of life like creating stained glass, sewing, photography, baking, and social contact with other humans. Maybe it’s a case of some of these things being abandoned by me rather than “lost,” which seems to imply it was more the result of chance than my own neglect (apologies to my former friends and social contacts for the disappearing act). Hard to say. Maybe it’s just a solid six-year run of ennui or depression or “don’t give a shit-itus.” 

In any event, the current overcrowded sock conditions have recently been compounded by a strange desire for more socks. I’m not saying I shop with the intent of buying (ok, hoarding) socks, but when out to restock dog biscuits, granola bars, ramen, and makeup remover wipes, there is often a trip down the sock aisle of Family Dollar, Ocean State Job Lot, or Dollar Buy (I’m a very fancy shopper) to see what is available.

There is rarely disappointment, especially at Ocean State Job Lot, which boasts a full wall of socks, tights, and leggings and where a nine pack of Nine West low-cut socks was recently bought. NINE PACK!! For $4.99. That’s just 55.4 cents per pair! These beauties were in a range of neutral tones including light gray, blush, tan, tan and blush, tan and gray, and of course, the obligatory one pair of white. C’mon, how do you pass that up? I surely couldn’t, especially after running the usual calculations and evaluations including “how long do I have to work to pay for this,” (about 12 minutes), “do I really need this” (well, maybe not really, but the colors are nice), and “how will this improve my life” (more socks means fewer times doing laundry just for clean socks!).

Since arriving home, the nine-pack of low-cut socks has languished atop the dresser, still bound in the manufacturer’s wrapper for at least one, and likely closer to two or three months (but really, who is counting?). They don’t fit in the drawer already in need of reorganizing. And apparently, I didn’t need them that much, or even at all. Not right this minute, anyway. But when the sock shortage that will define a generation happens (and we know it’s coming, probably precipitated by a trade war) I will be ready (for a while) with my still new nine-pack of low-cut socks, and all the other socks for every occasion and shoe style.  

Vacation Day

It’s a Friday morning in June and I‘m sitting in my quiet house drinking coffee. It’s been more than three hours parked in the living room on the futon acquired as a temporary solution to seating/guest sleeping. “Temporary” was initially envisioned as "a few months" while I sorted out the guest room, at which time the futon would move upstairs to the guest room/office and be replaced by a proper sofa in the living room. “Temporary” has extended to nearly three years now, and feels tragically permanent.  

The comfortable and hospitable guest room/office of my imagination is still hostile territory, full of relics of my former, more interesting self – piles and boxes of photos, binders stuffed with negatives, fabric, jewelry-making supplies, roller derby gear, various dance and Halloween costumes, plus two vacuums – one functional and a broken one I have no idea of how to dispose. It’s a total shit show. Anyone who thinks I am a fully-formed adult with my life together is being misled by my apparently improving acting skills and careful manipulation of social media posts. That, and the fact they’ve not been to my house. 

There are various reasons for the haphazard guest room and less than comfortable living room. The primary factor is the basement, which, when the hydrostatic conditions are just right, takes on the features of a water park/splash pad in all areas except the corner where the sump pump is installed. There has been water shooting out from between concrete foundation blocks, a puddle as large as a wading pool, and a fountain forcefully arcing up and over from where the floor and wall meet. 

This, of course, means the basement is not practical for storage. The house is a bungalow, with minimal attic storage under the eaves, one side of which is accessible only by emptying half the closet and prying open a door, the other side is not accessible at all. It hurts to have so much unusable square footage (and a room wasted and  full of stuff). For a mere $6,000 (to start) I can have a French drain system installed to contain and expel the periodic basement water intake, but the cost (firstly) and the idea of enduring a week of concrete jack hammering (secondly) have this plan on pause. I have an idea for storage drawers to be built into the guest room wall to use the dead space between the wall and the roofline, but I don’t have a carpenter in my life, and then there is the still unknown expense. And no, I’m not going to try and do it myself, as I lack the tools for the job, both actual and mental. 

Back to the coffee. Sort of. 

I’m on a vacation day, scheduled two days prior after receiving word from HR that I have approximately a million vacation hours accrued and am in danger of losing a chunk of it if I don’t use it by the end of the year. This includes a mandatory week out of the office which was also haphazardly scheduled two days earlier to get something on the calendar before the summer is over with me wondering where it went, like I did last year. 

Unlike my colleagues who lead actual, grownup lives and have recently traveled to, or have plans for exciting junkets to Hawaii, Spain, Italy, Paris, Las Vegas, and Montreal, there are no solid travel plans on my horizon. The reasons (excuses) are plentiful, but most boil down to money. There is the expense of canine care, coupled with competition for my funds by various home improvement projects such as the imminent closure of the basement water park, replacement of the front yard fence destroyed after some unidentified driver backed into it in January, the need for a new mattress set, my desire for a proper sofa, etc.). Don’t even get me started on the single traveler penalty where it costs significantly more to not be part of a double occupancy package deal. As if being solo in this world isn’t punishment enough. 

Anyway, it was approaching three hours into my vacation day with me in my pajamas (or, as an ex called them, “sleeping clothes”), parked cross-legged on the futon drinking increasingly cold coffee and reading the news and emails and playing Scrabble online with various total strangers. There was a snoring dog bumped up against each of my legs. The load of doggy diapers had finished tumbling in the dryer and the house was as close to silent as a house gets. Mostly. I could hear the ticking of the wall clock in the adjoining kitchen. 

Suddenly, there was a notable, random exception to the blissful silence in the form of a weird noise in the house. And by "in" I mean literally IN the house. There was a tapping noise that sounded like it was coming from within the interior wall to my right, the ceiling over my head, and from the electrical outlet under the window in the exterior wall to my left. It moved around in no paticular pattern.

There I sat, head pivoting right, up, left, with each noise, wondering what the source could be. It lasted long enough to start freaking me out. Is an unidentified squatter living in my house – a ghost? A rodent? Giant killer insects soon to be featured in a Netflix Original movie?  Does the house always make this noise and I just don’t hear it through the usual soundtrack of the neighbors’ cars and motorcycles, my own TV, and whatever noise is going on inside my head (thanks tinnitus!)? Should I dig out the sage and start smudging? Should I just get the hell out? 

And then it stopped. Not a peep for the next hour. The dogs, of course, slept through it all, which is probably better than having to hear them run around and bark at the walls. Maybe I imagined it. It’s likely I’ll be on high alert waiting for it to happen again, for a while anyway. Add this to the lists of "reasons why I might actually be insane," and "damn, I need a proper vacation."

Knock Knock

The evening began like most others. I arrived home from work, let the dogs out to the back yard to do their business, then back inside to eat. I went upstairs to change into my favorite couch potato fleece pants -- the ones with reindeers wearing sweaters. While hanging my skirt in the closet, I saw all the other stuff hanging there--a mile of stuff, most of which I love, and most of which doesn't fit anymore. I remembered my favorite store was having a one day only, 40 per cent off dress sale and put my skirt back on. It was time to break routine and not sit on the couch eating all night, which is the reason most of my extensive wardrobe doesn't fit.

The new evening plan meant the need for a quick supper.  As I was standing in my blissfully quiet kitchen, dining in a rather unrefined manner on a freshly poured  bowl of cereal with orange juice, there was a knock on the front door. This really was going to be a different kind of night. In seven months, not once has anybody who was not already  expected knocked on the door.

The dogs immediately launched into protector mode, barking and running to the door. When I'm expecting someone, the dogs go into the kitchen behind the gate to prevent the battle charge.

Through the most hated feature of the front door I can't wait to replace I could see a figure. Thanks to the center glass panel, I knew my unexpected visitor could also see me, leaving no graceful way to not answer the door. Dang, I hate that freeking door. My vertically challenged visitor was wearing an orange parka with the hood up, and my first thought was that Kenny from South Park had come for a visit.

I opened the door and tried to calm the dogs. Meanwhile, the young face in the center of the orange hood says "Are you our new neighbor?" I said "I've been here since September ..." And he says, "I've never seen you before."

Then he turns his back to me, walks across the enclosed porch, opens the door, which the dogs immediately try to exit, and he leaves, while I'm stammering, "Don't let the dogs out."

Once outside, lookalike Kenny, whose name I don't know, takes a right, walks across the poop splattered front lawn (poop pick up tool broke), and climbs between the rails of my fence to my driveway where his two buddies are standing.

And I'm standing there wondering what the whole interaction was about. It was more of an abbreviated interrogation than an introduction. The best I can come up with is that maybe I'm the new neighborhood dare -- the house with the weird older lady, and the bigger boys dared lookalike Kenny to come into porch and knock on the door.

"New, solid front door with peephole" just launched itself to the top of the home "to do" list. Right behind "buy some dresses."

Still Procrastinating

It's been fewer than 48 hours since a conscious decision to return to dance classes and even fewer since seeing an email reminder that a group I used to dance with meets on Mondays at 3:15.

I was available on Monday and had every intention of attending. All the way up until I didn't.

The morning included exploring options for the day -- a drive to the beach to visit the ocean; shopping to use Kohl's cash earned on Christmas shopping; hunting for the six foot tall bookcase I decided last week that I need; putting the third coat of polyurethane on the floor in the kitchen nook (requiring a trip to buy more polyurethane); and of course, dance group.

If you know me very well you know I like the beach a lot, but not so much on the shopping, and usually overthink things until it's too late to do any of them. You can probably even guess what I did. 

Yup. It was my favorite multiple choice selection by default: None of the above.

After lunching on cheesy hot pepper ramen and disposing of the remnants in the sink, I flipped the switch for the disposal. There was a groaning sound and not much else. I peered into the hole in the sink and saw cheesy ramen noodles, a metal Christmas ornament hook, and the tiny face of Abraham Lincoln.

Lacking a handyperson in the inner circle of my life or even on the most remote periphery, it was obvious what needed to happen. 

A flashlight, rubber gloves, and utensils were located. Using a large spoon, noodles and other mystery muck were scooped out. A fork and the spoon were used to wrangle out the ornament hook and more mucky goo.  Deft work with a knife and fork loosened the penny, removed by a glove-clad hand. Further peering and flashlight shining revealed a second penny, also removed using the aforementioned utensils accompanied by a certain level of colorful cuss words. And now it felt too late for the beach option.

In a normal, child-free home, it might be a mystery how two pennies landed in the disposal. Not at my house.

Last week, while walking into work, near a part of a car on the ground at the entrance to a parking lot, was a pile of coins. It's pretty common to find a couple pennies or dimes in the gutter or on the sidewalk, but this was significantly larger -- 61 pennies and a dime -- clearly the largest bounty of coins on the streets of Lowell so far. At the time, it felt like a gift from the universe.

I gathered up the coins, wondering if anyone passing by would think I was a reasonably well dressed street person, and also wishing I knew binary code for the series of ones and zeros making the message from the universe that certainly must be embedded in the pile. The coins were dumped in my bag.

After work, coins were fished out, many of which were stuck together. They were soaked in a bowl, and when the water was poured out, some pennies fell into the drain. I plucked out two, hoping that was all of them.

Today's issue indicated that clearly more then two pennies had landed in the drain, and perhaps my message from the universe was that maybe I shouldn't pick up every coin I come across, now the world was messing with me, and 71 cents definitely isn't enough for a plumber. 

But Yankee ingenuity, Finnish sisu, a fork, knife, and spoon prevailed. And the real mysteries remaining were how the hook got into the sink, and why I constantly procrastinate and bail on promises to myself.

New Starts

Another New Year, another fresh start.

New day planner, new journal. Newly minted list of resolutions and goals still bearing a resemblance to those of years past, but I imagine as long as I live and breathe I'll want to travel more, write more, and manage my money better. At least I hope that's the case, so it's okay.

It's not always fun to review the year just finished and the wreckage of shattered hopes, unattained goals, and unmet resolutions, but looking back on 2016 provided a certain level of satisfaction.

Two major life goals met with success in 2016 after camping out on the list for a couple years too long. Finding a better job and buying a house prompted a liberating advancement up Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

The best part about resolving the not so tiny life issues of liveable income, retirement savings, and shelter is that there is now space in the cranium and on this year's list for slightly more extravagant, yet still important goals like "use at least one entire week of my vacation time on a trip to someplace more than 100 miles from home" and "return to dance class."

It also means I can stop uttering boring phrases like "no, I can't commit to a trip out of town in three weeks because I may need to look at houses / be closing on my house / be moving." So far, the hours no longer spent scouring real estate listings and visiting houses have been replaced with the satisfying act of settling into my recently acquired house. I fully plan to shift some of that time, attention, and budget allocation to travel. It's on this year's list of goals.

I'm liking the looks of this new year a lot already.