It's in the attic

I am stuck at my mom's house in Connecticut babysitting for four very spoiled but completely lovey english bulldogs. I am working from home on a 5 hour lag which means I am up at 7, answering emails, doing conference calls, etc and going through all the dog stuff I have to do in the morning. For anyone who has ever known an english bulldog or had one in their life, you will know that the breed has put more veterinarian's kids through college than I care to think about, so the care of them is a part-time job. BTW - NEVER buy and english bulldog. Perpetrating this breed is cruel to the animals that are born (only by c-section)and require at least 1-2 surgeries for eye, skin, breathing problems. If you are intent on getting on, contact me through this blog and I will put you onto good rescue groups for bulldogs.

Anyway, I digress. I wanted to set the stage for my day because as it turns out, I have a lot of time in the afternoons which is my own. The work crowd in the UK has gone home and bulldogs sleep - a lot. So I have been looking for my roller skates. When I say roller skates, I ain't talking roller blades - aka cramp-my-ankles-until-I-am-crippled blades. I am talking my wonderful, four on the floor, black booted with red wheels roller disco skates! Last seen, my mother was wheeling around the house on them with four 90 lbs bulldogs lumbering after her. But that was 2 years ago. I haven't seen them since. When I questioned Mom before she left, her words left me with a chill. Something no one in my family wants to hear ... "I think they are in the attic".

The reason these are words I hate to hear is this: the house I grew up in is a big, colonial house with an attic that has its own bathroom, that is how large it is. And I come from a family which does not through anything away ... Nothing. I found a bag of phone bills yesterday from 1986. It is definitely a candidate for certain day time reality TV shows. So the combination of having a lot of space and a "pack-rat" mentality makes for the most unorganized, ecclectic, chaotic collection of junk that would make any depression-era old man proud! So I estimate it will take my entire 2 week stay in CT to find those skates.

It does have its upsides however. I have free storage forever. I have moved stuff from dorm rooms, apartments, as has my sister, into that attic. As a result, it has become a testament to my life and the different phases of my life. For example, I opened a box yesterday and pulled out every piece of clothing that I wore in the year 1988, when I graduated from high school. I found a T-Shirt which listed my entire graduating class from Choate Rosemary Hall, my Sting Nothing Like the Sun concert T, a couple of pair of Girbeau jeans and stirrup pants. I actually found a couple of pairs of black skinny pants which are all the rage at the GAP this season and retailing for $35 bucks or whatever. There they were, in perfect condition, waiting for me ... 2 sizes to small.

The attic journey also made me realize how different everyone in my family was and how are lives took such different paths even though we are the closest to each other. I realized this as I was going through the books - the 6,433,543,987 books that are in the attic. I was going through some of them, putting them into piles. There were mine, water-logged paperback novels - mostly Penguin classics. Open them up and there are notes scrawled in the margin tracking symbolism or subplot...distracting underlines but enjoyable nonetheless. There were my sisters which such titles as Surgery of the Alimentary Tract and The Heart complete with color dissection photos. I started stacking hers with my father's whose were the same albeit 25 years older and probably outdated. My mother's books and mine were interchangeable. Funny how that is in families.

Then there is the furniture. Ripped up, broken, put up there for "fixing" when there is time (there is never time). I have a Jordan furniture's reject showroom up in that attic complete with really bad ideas from Pier 1, 3 turntables, a mexican sombrero and my childhood toy box which contains four - count 'em - 4 full and perfectly good sets of dinnerware. I suppose you can't eat off the same pattern plates for your entire life, can you? And you can't just throw out perfectly good plates!

In another corner - all my report cards, pictures, photos, of myself and my sister ages 0-9. My mom would have kept our dirty diapers if they didn't attract vermin. It is crazy. We need a yard sale! We need Ebay! But that means a massive level of effort that no one is willing to undertake so, until such a time, we keep adding to the mess and occasionally, we take from it. Last night, I gave away a circa 1976 heavy, glass container in Harvest Gold (aka 70's mustard) in perfect working condition to my friend who remarked "I am coming back here to shop!" I am telling you ... you want it? It is probably up there!

Everything, apparently, but my damn roller skates!