Best Of

Had my facial today—PITA trying to park with all the street construction in River North (city is desperately trying to get all the sewer work done before the snow flies) and loads of moving vans. In Chicago, leases expire either 9/30 or 3/31, so there's a flurry of moving around the equinoxes.

We got a lot done today: Bob & our landscaper plowed through the pass-through room and now there's space to put our pillows (tons of 'em—we had no idea they would be salvageable, nor the down duvets) and whatever luggage we can wriggle out from behind the mountain of office cartons. My BFF & I unboxed crystal, china & some of the Carnival glass from a mutual friend who's a collector. I made room in the living toom breakfront by being ruthless in wrapping up breakable lesser glassware for donation. We still have tons to cull. Found all my mom's 1847 Rogers Bros. silverplate—which the silver specialists in Wilmette had refused to touch when I inherited it, but the restoration crew managed to get pretty clean. Still have a few Kirk-Stieff pieces missing: I bet they're in boxes in the office, or marked "basement" (many of which are stacked in the garage). I noticed boxes in the garage marked "pots & pans" and "books and paperwork." Oy.

My toenails are shredding from all the trying on of shoes for culling. Meanwhile, I think I found some decent but affordable display cabinets (Penny Mustard, Ashley, Joss & Main) online that fit the dimensions of where our piano used to be. I'm considering only those pieces eligible for "white glove" delivery—I'm not about to start assembling furniture—and that will arrive in the next couple of weeks. Surprisingly, both Macy's and Wayfair seem to carry only the DIY-assembly stuff (which is usually particle board). I'm amazed by how much good china cabinets cost now. Back in 1988 at a furniture discount store in Lincoln Park (the now-defunct Roy's), we got a full American Drew solid cherry dining set (huge lighted cabinet, oval table with leaves, 4 chairs, 2 armchairs) for…are you ready?…$2900. That cabinet alone today is almost $5K (on sale)—the entire set is over $10K now. Speaking of inflation, I went to Metropolis Coffee to pick up some decaf beans. They used to sell beans for $16-18/lb, in full-pound bags. Then 4 years ago the bags shrunk to 12 oz., and now they're 10.5 oz. for $18-20. At least they're less likely to get stale before I can use them.

Also need to get cracking on finding a painter soon. My HK is coming 10/4-19, staying at the house and I hope she can use the shower there (instead of having to come here to Lincolnwood). She will help me decide what goes where and what to keep. I discovered that the first floor bathroom fan switch is on the same plate as the sole GFCI outlet…but all the fan does is hum. We'll have to get that fixed too. And I'd like at least one more GFCI there and one installed in the upstairs bath.

I hope my fellow musicians aren't insulted by my discarding the freebie CDs we exchanged at conferences. Still a lot of empty jewel boxes and "orphaned" discs. There will be time enough to try to "reunite" them.

Hi. Ladies. I was back in North Carolina at my little cabin. It does not have any closets, but has a big utility room with washer and dryer, hot water heater and lots of storage.

Chris, glad you made it through surgery.

Betrayal, Love the pictures

Cindy, love yours as well. I have been to DC and found it overwhelming. That was back in the 1980's

firefighter306, Welcome

Sandy, sounds like you are making good progress through the box

Good to hear from Carole, taco.

Canarycat, like the tropical look

and hi, to all I missed

Sandy, my 1920’s house has no closets on the first floor. Years ago I put up a wardrobe in the dining room. That’s gone and we set up an area between the closed door to the dining room, the closed basement door, and a wall - I call it my fake closet, it’s covered by a curtain. I do have a pantry, which is where we put our clothes washer. Old houses, you do what you can. You’re taking the mixed up boxes in stride! It’s nice you can let go of so much to donate.

I’ve dyed my roots this morning In anticipation of dinner and a play tonight. A gf & I are seeing “A Beautiful Noise” after dinner at a nice Italian restaurant.

I’ve got to pick up my script for 1 Xanax at CVS. Oral surgeon appointment is tomorrow for the extraction and bone graft, and I’m nervous. I had to call the surgeons office because they hadn’t called that script in. I’m hoping the surgeon is better than his office staff.

Raining here on & off since yesterday, and looks like it will continue thru Friday. It’s been humid, and damp. So I feel cold inside, and sweaty outside. Weird stuff.

Hoping you all have a good day.

PS - Kimmel was blocked here, upstate NY, but at FL house it was broadcast. It’s on my FL DVR. Also, I was sent a YouTube of the first 15 minutes, anyone can view it.

Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.

Yehuda Berg

Canarycat, the regal butler and the disgusted maid also deliver a contemporary take on classist English society of those times. As always, the stage is very well done. Here's hoping that the reviews of the whole thing will go X20 of what I wrote.