the biggest surprise was the head in the trunk

[psocoptera]

I'm back from a bit less than three weeks in San Diego, the first bit of which was Christmas Fun and the last two weeks of which were Going Through Boxes - my parents did some major renovations this fall, and so everything in my old room got boxed up and spent awhile living in the PODS. This included a great many things that I'd stuffed into my desk or closet and then forgotten, and so a main goal of the trip was to sort through it all, or as much as I could get through, finding things to discard, give away, take back to Boston, or at least repack in an orderly and condensed fashion.

And *boy* did I have Things. Highlights of the trip, or, the Amy's Stuff Awards:

Single Strangest/Funniest Item: four-inch-tall clay voodoo doll of my sister, with real hair trimmings, wearing sewn clothes like an actual outfit she had. There was a little blindfold over the eyes, I guess I was trying to get her to not notice something? ::grin:: (As far as I dimly remember, I made this more for entertainment/the fun of the project than out of any superstitious belief that it would do anything...)

Heteronormativity Award: pink plastic heart-shaped box emblazoned "Poochie For Girls", containing a pink heart-shaped notepad, small pencil, pink heart-shaped eraser, "I Love You" rubber stamp, pink puffy stickers, pink heart-shaped picture frame, and album to fill in about your crushes, consisting of five or six sets of pages to fill in like "Paste His Picture Here", "The First Time I Saw Him", and "What Makes My Heart Beat So".

Most Fun To Read: travel journals dating back to 1985.

Unexpected Body Part Award: no, not the head; a dried, severed bird foot in a plastic bag. It was with the craft supplies, with a bunch of feathers.

Nostalgic Things I Made That I Don't Want (But My Mother Is Keeping): ugly, dusty grade-school pottery and artificial-flower type craft projects.

Nostalgic Things I Made That I Totally Still Want: ugly, dusty grade-school woodworking projects and model rockets.

Overall Winner, Most Major Thing No Longer In The House, By Quantity: six full paper grocery bags of paper, mostly old school papers. I spent the bulk of my time sorting papers and managed to reduce the overall volume by maybe 60%.

Runner Up, Most Major Thing No Longer In The House, By Quantity: nearly one hundred pounds of old baby clothes and baby and toddler toys, crossing the country to me by UPS in seven big boxes as I write this. (My mom had saved a lot of stuff; this wasn't even all of it, just what I thought we might use.)

Most Major Thing No Longer In The House, Single Bulky Object/Single Item My Dad Is Most Pleased To See Go: my four old science project backboards, in all their 4'x'3' foam-core garage-occupyingness.

Most Major Thing I Totally Failed To Do Anything About, By Quantity: one dresser drawer and one box entirely full of sentimental old T-shirts from things like summer camp and Science Olympiad. I have this vague notion I might make a quilt??

Runner Up, Most Major Thing I Totally Failed To Do Anything About: my jewelry drawer. I guess I have an entire drawer full of old junk jewelry? ::blinks:: Except I think somewhere in that drawer is a) my old diary key and b) a bunch of things I made, so I don't want to just toss it all. Maybe the meeple will consider this a fabulous treasure trove to explore and I'll be able to sort through it on a future trip, which I did not think would be true of the papers.

and, finally, Biggest Surprise: the head in the trunk. I should probably clarify here that this was my mom's old doll trunk - we had found a cardboard box of her old doll clothes, raising the question, what was in the trunk? Neither of us expected the head! I should probably also clarify that this was a styrofoam head for displaying wigs, and not an organic head of any sort.

Comments

[rebeccapaul.livejournal.com]

You and your parents probably already thought of this, but... They should keep some toys there for when the meeple visits (and is old enough that toys are relevant). That way, they get to play with the cool retro toys and you have less to pack when you visit!

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Definitely a good point. The whole "what to take" thing felt kind of complicated - my little sister had some very reasonable concerns about things that were both of ours vanishing into New England and never being available for her hypothetical kids (my mother, unhelpfully, kept saying "well, that was yours first", as if she hadn't spent fifteen years teaching me to compromise with my sister); the plan wherein I stay-at-home-parent for a couple of years involves major cuts to our travel budget, so we don't see ourselves visiting frequently; nobody has any idea what the meeple will actually want to play with (my best guess is that it will be utterly and annoyingly obsessed with our laptops, since it will see that they are *our* favorite "toys"). I ended up with a bunch of my favorite stuff that I'll enjoy when I'm playing with it. ::grin::

[rebeccapaul.livejournal.com]

Jonah has spent periods of his life obsessed with laptops, cell phones, and remote controls. (My computer lives behind a closed door whenever he is awake... I find it is easier to keep him form using it if he doesn't see it!) But he likes to play with almost everything (even things we didn't realize were toys until he found them, like kitchen towels), and I imagine your meeple will, too, at some point.

I think having toys that amuse you are a good choice. (That is another reason Jonah has so many train sets. We're tempted to build new tracks while he sleeps...)

[cereph.livejournal.com]

ooooh, quilt of sentimental t-shirts is a really good idea.