Buried alive

I'm going through one of my semi-regular phases right now: My house scares me.
Not the studs, wires or concrete. It's taken five years, but Supportive Partner Man (wielder of many tools!) - with the occasional able assistance of our versatile local handyman, Rob - has gotten a decent handle on the physical plant of Chez T, which was in wide disrepair the day we moved in.
No, it's the stuff in my house that has me shaking in my slippers.
A former coworker of mine always says, "You can never have too much stuff." I beg to differ. I like my stuff, but there is way too much of it.
I always start with the best of intentions, aiming to keep things tidy, but there's a good reason SPM's mother describes me to her friends as "housekeeping challenged." Right now, I am bogged down with multiple issues. Work, extracurricular activities, family. All take their toll, time-wise. (As an aside, I'm proud to say that I'm multitasking as I type this - I'm pulling in CDs to make a playlist for The Old Man and Saint Joan's class reunion picnic on Saturday.)
Now I have another deadline looming, though, and it's kicked my yearning for a Dumpster and a blowtorch into high gear.
The Dreaded Yard Sale is nigh.
On June 9, our development is staging its annual fevered festival of garage-based commerce. We'll get lots of Amish and Mennonite customers mixed in with the "English." Traffic will be nuts. Hopefully we'll be able to pare down our stuff. First, though, I need to force myself into going through the closets and bookshelves and cabinets. And that is a scary, scary thought.
Take the clothes closet in the master bedroom. (No, seriously, take it. Please.) To say it looks as though a bomb went off in there is too simple.
The carnage is devastating.
I've got T-shirts melting into each other and bubbling, dripping off their shelves. I've got a ravening horde of dress pants from three sizes and two decades ago whimpering to be unstuffed from their dusty hangers and set free to someone who might love them. Sweaters are threatening to break out of their overstuffed cubbyhole. Shoes on the side rack are choking to death on the killer dust bunnies, and holding SPM's ties hostage in the corner.
There are ball caps and afghans and sheets and a sleeping bag all clamoring for attention.
The din is overwhelming, and I'm wishing that the "organization" code in my family DNA hadn't skipped me.
I go through this every year. I'll pull together several items, sell a bunch, donate what's left to Goodwill or some other charity. And then, the next year, there's more. The stuff ... leave it alone in the dark and it multiplies.
At least the June 9 sale isn't the only crack I'll have at getting it right this year. We also have an annual gathering at my cousin's Route 222-adjacent abode the Saturday after the Fourth of July, at which several branches of the family convene to hang out for a day and sell, sell, sell.
In the meantime, though, I must make myself clean and organize. I have a week. I can do this, can't I?
You're laughing at me, aren't you?

A reader's gold mine

I'm coming off one of my favorite occasional indulgences.
At this point, if you know me, you're probably wondering where the "food porn" is. ... Yes, I do love a good meal, and frequently tweet or FB photos of my gustatorial conquests. I am not yet as over the top about it as one of our beloved Geek princes, Neil Patrick Harris, who has created a whole separate Twitter feed for his food ravings, but I do tend to crow about really fab eats.
Just not today.
Today is for books. (Well, in reality, Monday and Tuesday of this week were for books ... I simply haven't had a chance to write about it until now.)
Our local Lancaster Public Library system has just concluded its yearly gargantuan used book sale, and I -- and Supportive Partner Man (hefter of filled book bags!), and The Lovely Cousin Jody, for that matter -- am replete with new-to-me tomes.
We came, we saw, we shopped. And did the Granny Alesi Bargain Dance in celebration.
So, how big is this sale? Well, for three days each May, it takes over the Franklin & Marshall Alumni Center gym, which is not tiny. The morning of Day One, SPM and I went over after a doctor's appointment and were turned away from the overflowing parking lot. We ran a few other errands, then  went back and won the parking lottery. Once inside, it was like Woodstock for book fiends, wall-to-wall people jostling for position to pick through long tables jammed full of books, records (remember those?) or videos. The checkout line ran the width of the gym floor, took a left and ran about a third of the length. There were people buying four or five books, and many others loaded down with handtrucks or pushcarts.

And this is only part of the field of battle.

 As I was hovering over a sci-fi table, I texted Jody a photo of the mayhem. The next thing I knew, my cell was ringing, and she was giving me a list of five Patricia Cornwell books to look for in hardcover. We found four of them in the space of about 10 minutes, then realized we should brave the checkout line if we wanted to make it to our respective jobs on time.
I would have much rather stayed at the sale, but practicality won the day ... and I knew I was coming back the next morning.
Day Two was a lot more relaxed. The huge crowds were gone, and there weren't as many handtrucks. Joined by Jody and her husband John, SPM and I settled in for a more considered look at the tables, not to mention the patrons.
People go about their browsing in different ways that I find highly entertaining. I myself have a certain pattern. As with reading a book, I find I can only peruse the tables from left to right. If I go in the opposite direction, I actually get dizzy. I also like to touch the books as I wander -- usually I skim lightly over the spines with two or three fingertips. The books talk to me better that way, I think.

Careful which way you're perusing.

Some drag the whole hand, and one older gentleman thumped the books with his palm every other step.
Some pull out a book and skim the back cover before deciding to take a chance on it, others hunker down and read for several minutes before choosing.
As all this is going on, volunteers are milling about, straightening piles and digging new books out of the reserve boxes under the tables to refresh the inventory. You never know what title will emerge next.
All told, the second day of the sale, SPM and I departed with two giant bags of books, and parted with $35 to do so. To put that in perspective, we found two very nice oversized Disney art books in the piles, and left with both. One of them bore a retail price of $35.
I'd say we got our money's worth.
The next challenge is on the home front. I need to cull the herd, and weed out the books I'm through with. Those likely will be donated back to the library, so the cycle can start all over again.
And as an extra added bonus this summer, I'm planning on visiting, for the first time in many years, the book event that started it all for me. I've not been to the Berks County library system's "Book Bonanza" in many years, primarily because I really did not care for the site it had been held at. When I was a kid, it used to be held in the Berkshire Mall, but after it moved to the Leesport Farmers' Market, the lack of air conditioning in July became an issue for me. This year, it's going to be held at Wyomissing's Vanity Fair outlet store on July 13-15, and I'm all for giving it another whirl.
I think between now and then I have enough time to pull together a comprehensive list of my own...

A well-worn mystery from the late 1940s
 that looks like it belongs on my
buddy Chris Otto's "Papergreat" blog. 

A bit of Disney goodness from 1975.

Brittany with a 'y' ... or an 'i' ... or an 'ie'...

Continuing on this week's apparent theme of graduation days, I think now would be an appropriate time to speak of my current side project at work.
As an aside, I haven't established on this blog exactly what my regular job is, have I? Since my second semester at Penn State, waaaaaay back in the early Paleolithic (otherwise known as 1989), I've been a journalist. Most of the time I've been in the sports department, but in my current incarnation, at Lancaster Newspapers in bucolic Lancaster County, Pa., I toil nightly on the news desk. Primarily I edit stories and design news pages. But at this time of year, I step into another role.
I am Graduation Wench.
Fear meh.
For several weeks each year, I spend lots of extra time reaching out to area high school administrators, asking for lists of who's graduating and who's being honored with various and sundry awards. As the lists come in, I whip them into printable files and make sure they get in the paper when they need to.
Like much when working with lots of names and lots of different providers of information, it's a ballet, a whirling dervish of moving parts. But Zod help you if there's a name spelled wrong -- even if it's the school's error.
Seriously, though, I wouldn't necessarily blame either institution, the school or the paper. I mean, have you seen the way people spell these days? Twitterverse aside, nowhere is that more obvious than in the pantheon of kids' names.
Among the grad lists slipping into my work email today, for example, there were a proliferation of Brittanys. Six from one graduating class alone. But it's not just "Brittany." Oh no. There's also Britteny, Britney, Brittannie and the ever-popular Britnei.
Among the names at one local educational establishment was Mercedes. Nice, I thought. That's a pleasant return to an old-school name. Perhaps she was named in honor of a dear grandmother. Then, a little farther down the list was Mercedes' classmate ... Lexus. Undoubtedly named in honor of Dad's first really sweet ride.
At this point, only a small percentage of the lists I'm expecting have been turned in, but there are a number of very inventive names thusfar.
I've also seen Amberlene, Micoleen and Yann; Merikka, AhnaMarie and Clest.
Yes, Clest.
I've got nothing on that one. I googled, and came up with precious little in terms of mid-1990s pop culture references that may have led to it. Can't think of anything it could be short for, either.
Of course, my absolute favorite came a few years ago. We had a young man named, no lie, Tanthalas, whose folks were obviously into sci-fi. Geek chic at its best. What's more, he got his certificate in plumbing from the vo-tech. He was Tanthalas the elven plumber. We Geeks and Geek-adjacents in the office applauded most heartily. We didn't know this young man, but he seemed one of us.
As an addenda, though, recent googling shows he is now a male model in Vegas. I am not making this up. I couldn't make this up.
Anyway.
When I see names like these I always wonder what the parents are driving at. I get that parents love their kids fiercely, intensely, and want them to be different -- to stand out above the crowd so that everyone notices them and thinks they're as awesome as they are to Mom and Pop. That's wonderful.
But I have to question if an out-there name -- or an out-there spelling of a name -- is the best solution. You're handing your kid a lifetime of "What's that?" or "It's spelled HOW?" And ... what if the kid hates it or doesn't grow into it? I guess that's what nicknames are for.
Really, I'm not writing this to be smart or mean. I'm merely attempting to make an observation from the other side of the fence. In sports, tons of names get called in every night. As someone who's pulled many a phone shift, taking mountains of track meets and basketball box scores, I know that the first rule is always "Ask how to spell every name." There's plenty of "Is that Cory with an e or without?" or "Jenny with an i or a y?"And I'm here to tell you, coaches and scorekeepers don't always know if it's Marc, Mark or Marq ... and they don't always care. If I had a buck for every time the person on the other end of the line said, "I dunno, just make it up," I could afford some very nice stuff.
I'm not the only one in the family who's got some good name stories, either. My sister is a nurse at a children's hospital. She's seen some doozies, and not just confined to her patients. She had a co-worker who named her child ... ready? ... "Booyah."
Couldn't she have just named her boy Sioux?

Pomp and circumstances

I am now officially the aunt of a college graduate.
It seems like only yesterday I was the graduate and the kid in question, my only sister's only child, was a toddler in a little sailor-style dress. And now, 20 years later, Kelly Elizabeth Corcoran's name appears on a sheepskin of her very own.
I've made my living with words over these last two decades, and I can honestly say I don't have enough of them to properly express how proud I am right now, or how very much I love this kid.
Kid. Heh. She'll be 22 at the end of June. Geez, I'm old.
Despite the obligatory bumps in the road, Kelly obviously found the right one during her college experience at Catholic University. While I may still be a better speller and writer, she can kick my butt in math, having closed her final semester with a B+ in calculus (which I damn near flunked back in the day).
Oh, and her major is architecture. I can design newspaper pages? Big deal. She can design a house ... with a nice patio ... and a green roof. And plot out the neighborhood it'll get plunked down in.
It's very obvious she's deeply into what she's doing, and that's worth everything, isn't it? Next up for her is a trip to Europe in a grad-level program with CUA. She'll be traipsing through Italy, Finland, Russia, Spain, then back to Italy, and I think she wants to work a couple more countries in if time allows. In August, she'll wing her way back to the States to begin her official graduate school adventure, in a two-year program at Washington University in St. Louis.
I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

Now...

And then...

But despite all her proud accomplishments, I look at her and still see that beautiful little girl.
The one who would beam as I walked through the door, run up and grab hold of one of my legs in a big hug. The one who loved kisses and cuddles. The one who snuggled into my side sitting on the floor of my parents' rec room, totally enthralled as she watched "The Wizard of Oz" for the first time.
This is still the child I endlessly played Barbies with -- though I loathe Barbies; the child for whom I sat through "Pocahontas" in the theater with a gaggle of giggly 5-year-olds as a chaperon for her birthday party; the child whose dance recitals and concerts and lacrosse games and cross-country meets I attended as often as I could.
And of course there are the occasional emergency "My paper's due in two hours; can you edit it?" texts I still receive.
I'd gladly do all of those things and more, all over again, just for her.
I've tried to think of sage advice to offer her as she sets off on the sometimes-treacherous path of adulthood, but it occurs to me she may not need it. She's smart and confident, and she knows how to laugh at herself and the world around her. Plus, she's half Irish, so she's got that luck thing going for her.
Yep, she's off to a fantastic start.
So, sweetie, here's to you. Life will knock you down sometimes, but I have faith you'll get right back up and keep pushing. And remember, no matter how old you get, or where life takes you, your old Aunt La loves you.

One day at a time

For the past week-plus I've been embroiled in a family medical issue. I'll not go into that here. Suffice to say we've had a few tense moments. But life goes on, and we must all learn to roll with what comes our way, working with it and/or through it.
If nothing else, the whole thing has left me feeling reflective. In that vein, my dear Supportive Partner Man (anchor of the sturdiest mettle!) and I have had quite a few give and takes this week about the role family plays in our lives.

Getting a laugh out of the parental units.

I must say that I know how exceptionally lucky I have been in terms of my family. Sure, we have bumps in the road -- whose family doesn't? -- but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, we've got each other's backs. And that kind of love and unconditional support is everything. When there's an issue, we come together to handle it.
Even so, the players' roles shift as years pass.
In my mind's eye, my parents remain the very picture of indestructibility. Not perfection, mind you. The Old Man and St. Joan, by their own admission, have their flaws. They are, without question, the Battling Bickersons.
"I'm 80 years old," St. Joan opined one day last week. "I've got no regrets."
A perfect beat passed.
"Well," she continued, chucking a thumb at The Old Man, "maybe one."
Then she smiled at him. He just shook his head.

St. Joan being supportive
in my formative years.

After 61 years of marriage, this is their dynamic. St. Joan can be volatile, The Old Man longwinded. Both can be stupendously thickheaded. ... Stupendously. Thickheaded. (I'll admit that the apple didn't fall far from the tree, either.)
But their love and support of one other and their family remains unquestioned. No matter what happens down the road, I've know I've gotten to go through life with some really fantastic people around me.
And that, friends, is everything.
I have no answers for the meaning of life. At this moment in time, trying to figure out the "why" of it all has me completely at sea. Heck, I don't even have a clear, concise direction of where I want to take this particular blog post. I just had an itch to write it, because I'm one of those odd people who can best work out their feelings and thoughts by seeing them take shape as words crawling out across a computer screen.
I guess for the time being the best thing for me to do is keep channeling St. Joan's favorite observations: "One day at a time," and "If it's meant to be, it'll happen."
Wise woman, that one.