Marie Kondo Would Throw up a Kitten if She Saw me Downsizing

My recent computer meltdown freaked me out because it made me realize---again---how fragile the whole process of downsizing is, how interdependent each step is to another. At least the way I do it which is so not the KonMari way. Add to the computer malfunction was the fact that I couldn’t get a hold of the-son-I-wish-had who is slated to help me get my house ready to sell next summer and physically move my stuff when the time finally comes to do it. Last summer he hauled stuff off to the auction house, and I have another big batch ready to go—maybe the last, but I said that once before. By mutual agreement we didn’t have anything planned until March but he’s good at settling my nerves when I start obsessing about getting my downsizing done in time. I called but his voice mail was full for two days and I felt cut off from the emotional support I needed. Being old school, it didn't occur to me to text him a SOS. If something, God forbid, happens to Tim I’d be in a world of trouble. I need a backup plan just in case. It’s never good to have all your eggs in one basket.

Downsizing Saga Chapter Five, if anyone is counting: My husband collected cigarette lighters and amassed nearly 400 of them. Lighters are small and you wouldn’t think they’d take up a lot of room but they actually did because they were all stored in black, velvet lined boxes especially made for that purpose. His collection covered all the decades in the twentieth century including WW I and II trench lighters and tons of new old stock commemoratives put out by Zippo. In addition to old lighters he'd find at flea markets and estate sales, Don had befriended a Zippo district salesman and was buying stuff wholesale to keep for investment. Yup, the guy’s version of collecting Beanie Babies only they did actually turn out to be decent money makers. Over half of his collection sold on e-Bay for $50 to $125 each, many others went in the $35 range and six sold for $250 to $410 each. Now I’m down to the lesser quality ones that I’m selling in lots of five to ten.

Prepping lighters for e-Bay sales has not been easy because they are so shiny it’s hard to get good photos of them. The Far East and Mid-Eastern buyers who are big-time into collecting lighters bid higher when you have good photos of all sides of the lighters, their boxes and their guts. I finally, just this week, took my last photos and wrote up my last listing descriptions of the last forty lighters and I have them all boxed up ready to list and ship as they sell! Then I have all the collector display boxes to list but those will go in three large lots without a lot of fuss. I also have a shoe box full of empty lighter boxes. Believe it or not that will go for around $50. All of Don's lighters had been separated from their original boxes so they could go in the display boxes. You should have seen my dining room table when I tackled the Great Box-Matching Project and try as I might I just couldn't match up that last dab of boxes with their proper mate---an important goal with any collectible because it increases its value.

I did set aside two lighters for sentimental reasons and I’m trying to talk myself into letting go of one them go. Marie would tell me to toss both since I don't smoke and she is not fluid in speaking Sentimental Attachments. One of the lighters I bought for my husband on a trip out West. It’s a one-of-a-kind with a silver inlay added by a silversmith after leaving the Zippo factory and my husband loved it. He carried it when he was all dressed up for special occasions. The other one would have been another $300-ish sale if Don hadn't had it engraved with his full name. He carried it daily so I'm trying to gauge how I'll feel if I put it up for auction and it goes for peanuts. Military lighters don't seem to lose value if they're engraved but Military collectors are coming at the hobby from a whole different prospective than others do. Decisions, decisions. No matter what I decide to do, I’m absolutely ecstatic to be so close to ending the lighter saga and if you're still reading this I'll bet you're as sick of 'lighter talk' as I am.

Now I can move on to downsizing something else like my collection of fifty spaghetti poodles from the ‘50s. I will probably take a bath on those because the market has dropped so much I doubt I’ll even be able to sell them, but I’ve gotta give it a try. I might be crying my way all the way to Goodwill to donate them. I have a small, tabletop Zippo showcase that could hold six poodles and I’m desperately trying to figure out a place in my new unit where I could put that showcase. I am too sentimental for my own good. I’d keep all fifty poodles if I could. I like poodles. I had a poodle skirt back in the ‘50s and I didn’t talk to my mom for a full week after she gave it to my cousin. It didn’t matter that I out grew it, I would still have that skirt today if she hadn’t snatched it out of my closet. Mom was evil like that, but she sure made my younger cousin happy. At every family reunion my cousin reminds me of how much she loved getting my hand-me-downs. Her favorites were my favorites and she can describe them in detail---the pink circle skirt with black poodles dancing around the bottom, the forest green velvet dress with the lavender ribbon belt and nosegay of violets at the waist, the chiffon, summer white wonder that made us both feel like we were a walking cloud.

My cousin is the most saintly human being I’ve ever known and I've never told her about rift those hand-me-downs caused between my mom and my adolescent self. It would make her feel bad and then she'd offer a sincere apology and give me a hug that would make me feel bad for being a petty kid who decades later still wishes I at least had a photo of me wearing that poodle skirt. Big sigh here. Poodle "adoptions" start in March. Stay tuned...and Cindy (my niece) if you are reading this you need one to go with your mid-century decor. The pick of the litter is yours if you want it. ©

This is the lighter I bought my husband out West on the day I label the happiness day of my life. It would not be an acceptable photo for e-Bay because of the reflections but I like the arty-farty look they create.

Irons, Tea Cups and Teddy Bears

I don’t read a lot of Dean Koontz books but I’m glad I read his Seize the Night simply because I was able to get one of my favorite quotes from that book:

“My mother’s favorite things were not my mother---they were merely her ‘things’---yet, though we like to believe that memories are as permanent as engravings in steel, even memories of love and great kindness are in fact frighteningly ephemeral in their details, and we remember best those that are linked to places and things; memory embeds in the form and weight and texture of real objects, and there it endures to be brought forth vividly with a touch.”

That quote gives me permission to be sentimental about objects that I enjoy having in the house. For example, I have a child’s size electric iron---about five inches long---that actually works plus the ironing board that goes with it. Can you image giving a child a toy like that today? It was mine when I was a kid and my parents can thank the gods of good luck that I didn’t burn the house down while ironing clothes for my paper dolls. Back when I was a kid girls were around nine-ten when we graduated to ironing with our mother’s irons doing pillow cases, handkerchiefs and other flats. The bigger I got, the more ironing became my responsibility and back then everything needed ironing. There was no such thing as iron free or wrinkle resistant cloth. When I was older and became a “career woman” I took all my ironing to a widow woman who pressed it perfectly while I was at work and I’d pick it back up on my way home. I hated ironing, still do and I base my whole wardrobe around that fact.

I’ve always credited the grandmother of my best friend growing up for my love of old objects. She had such beautiful tea cups and other things and each came with a story. My grandparents were all dead by the time I was two so my friend’s grandmother became the prototype, in my mind, for what all grandmothers should be. Now I’m the old woman with interesting objects that all have stories. Generation teaching generation. When Mrs. K. passed away after having had dementia for several years the person who did the eulogy said something I’ve never forgotten. He said that even after she lost her memory she was still of service to her family because her illness taught so many lessons in unconditional love. Those of us who’ve cared for a relative with dementia can relate to that.

I was Don’s caregiver for over twelve years and in those years I learned a lot about myself---my strengths, my weaknesses, what I valve, what I don’t as well as what Don valued and the depth of his character. I’d always known he was strong and determined but it was never so apparent than in those post-stroke years. He fought so hard for his limited recovery and he did it without complaint or the bitterness you see in so many other people who’ve had life changing disabilities. But there was another side to Don as well, a sweetly sentimental side that I remember every time I see his childhood teddy bear sitting on its shelf. Its form and weight and texture, like Dean Koontz said, brings back so many memories. Like the day Don got mad at the dog for playing with his teddy bear. It was the only time in all 42 years that I knew him that he ever raised his voice to any of the dogs we ever had. He was always the big, strong macho guy who carried my little dogs around every where we went and openly showered them with affection. But Sarah, Jason, Cooper and now Levi never got a chance to play with Don’s teddy bear again after Sarah’s first transgression. And this memory leads to another, of my mother telling us: “That dog as legs. Let him use them!" ©