Basements and Bureaucracy

After leaving you with such a tempting announcement of basement cleaning for today I am sure you have been eagerly awaiting my report. I had to take care of one issue before I could sequester myself into the dungeon. I had received a letter reminding me that I hadn’t licensed my dog yet this year.

Now, to be fair I already knew this. It just so happens that to re-license your dog your have to go to City Hall between 8:00- 4:30 Monday through Friday. I do not find these to be very convenient hours as I am actually working between those hours on those days. I would actually believe that most people are. It would seem like City Hall would have a better percentage of people actually able to register their dog if they offered later hours at least one day a week. However, the letter was also sent to the Burlington Police, Department of Animal Control I opted not to make this a matter of principal or anything. I mean look at him…

He really isn’t much more than a glorified stuffed animal. He wouldn’t make it in prison. The guy sleeps sucking on a stuffed chicken under a purple and pink butterfly blanket. It just wouldn’t be pretty. So I made the trek downtown this morning, and now Cabbie is all nice and legal.

I can also happily report that my basement looks great. I hauled an entire car full of stuff to the dump. I had bags full of stuff to take to Goodwill, but instead set it outside my house with a free sign on them and almost all of it is gone at this point. I am really excited about how much stuff I was able to get rid of. I made a few interesting discoveries too. When my mom sold her house she boxed up a few things and wrote my name on the boxes. I opened them up today and found a:

varsity jacket complete with Nancy Regan era Just Say No button,

the birthday candle my grandmother bought for me when I was born. Every year we burned it until I was 18. Note the 5 lb 15 oz weight nothing like the 6+ lb. Andrea… guess we know who was hogging all the food in there.

A hat that has to have something to do with Girl Scouts and camp. I only pray I never wore it, or at least that there isn’t any photo evidence that I ever wore it.

Girl Scout sash,

A program from our (Glenolden Elementary School) first grade production. Really things only a mom would keep. I found the note card where she wrote my blue poem that I had to read too… incase you want me to read it to you.

My clarinet book and music (found the clarinet too).

Another Girl Scout item. I think we had to wear these at Peak 85. When they made us camp in floorless tents in a sheep pasture in England. I note the button that indicated a sub camp. I think this is for keeping track of where you are suppose to be. In case you wander off into the Boy Scout area and then have to go racing back to make it in before they notice you are missing. Not that it ever happened to me personally, but I am just saying those kind of things could have happened to less trustworthy individuals. Me, I only had wholesome friends and we never would have done something like that.

I also found these funny little guys. They might look really strange, but I was really excited to find them. My grandfather made them. Whenever we would make the trip out the Grand Junction, Colorado to visit him he would open up the closet with all the wood working projects inside and let us pick one out to take home. I can remember my dad telling me to hold on to them that they would mean a lot to me someday. He was right.