Wednesday, 9 September 2026

 

Someone got rid of a full Rubbermaid tub of glass bottles. Although each of them had been wrapped in clean newspaper, they hadn't all been cleaned out, unfortunately--nothing too nasty inside save for one of them (which went into the pit at the transfer station), but it's weird that so much effort was put into wrapping them up when they still had residue and dead bugs in them. There are only about twelve of them with soda or beer company names on them, a few with other "spirit" names, and most are blank and of various sizes, so I cleaned those out, listed some, and put them in the bedroom. The tub is still sitting in the driveway, which will have to be dealt with. If I don't feel like washing everything, it's possible to just box some up and call it "Halloween apothecary" auction.

Otherwise, the only other thing of interest at the dump turned out to be a blue "dry bag" used in camping and hiking. I found a brand-new, larger, yellow one a few months ago that I ended up donating somewhere, since it wouldn't sell for a decent price. It closed at the top and looked like it would be an awkward carry, particularly if it had some weight to it. This blue one has backpack handles, so I'll keep this in the car for emergency purposes.

The black nylon American Tourister bag from the car, that I had been storing some just-in-case items in, tore under the top zipper, so I replaced it with an L.L. Bean model. This one is smaller but newer, and seems more durable. I've still got to pare down the amount of stuff in there. Extra items are kind of squashed around my spare tire at the moment, which I don't like because in the event of a car accident, I don't want to clean anything out. I want to just pull out a bag of stuff and be done with it--no need to return to the car for a post-accident cleanout, as we had to do with Mother's Enclave.

Ideally, there's got to be a durable, narrow-height product on the market that I can hide in the back cargo area under the Weathertech mat, one that'll allow me to store all my stuff in one place. The experiment with the Sterilite drawers and the extra floor panel proved that it can be done, but the containers need to be only a few inches tall and take up the length and width of the space for better balance, and also need to be more substantial than plastic. Anything bigger and it'll be clear to anyone looking in the windows that there's something back there.

I've been going through some sleep deprivation lately. Between Mother and Buddy, I'm catching sleep in one-to-three-hour sessions. It's irritating, having to sleep with earplugs in all the time, but they definitely do help. It's also mentally taxing and sanity-threatening. Today worked out better on the sleep scale than usual, though, so I managed to get some things accomplished at the old school. I pulled up the artificial flowers and U.S. flags that I'd put down for Labor Day, bagged up almost all of the flowers (save for some in a flower pot, which serve to block off a section of the front porch--from which, a large plywood panel has recently fallen off the ceiling--and took them to the dump.

I also got rid of the hand sanitizer bottles that I'd tried to sell out front. There are still boxes and an entire Lane cedar chest in the back of the school full of the bottles, which are technically a flammable product that shouldn't be on the property, but since The Guy hasn't paid me in a few months and a new owner is working out a contract to buy the building, I don't see how it's my problem anymore. The only things that I feel responsible for are the items that I placed out front, like the flowers and the sawhorses, which need new "CAUTION" tape on them now. I've got a large bag of Fall-colored flowers inside the old school that I'll be putting over the old flagpole location, but once that's done, the whole flower decorating business is done. All the fake flowers that used to be hidden out back in a 4' apple crate are gone, faded and thrown away, and this last batch will be the last of the outdoor floral decorating.