Vancouver Ketchup

Where to begin...?

The Snoop n' Shmooze went very well. It was great to have a little visit with almost everyone before leaving town. While people took away a lot of stuff, I didn't really get rid of as much as I had hoped. We just had SO much shit to shed! (Ha! That would've been another good name for my little event instead of Snoop n' Shmooze - "Shit to Shed". Classy, no? ;)

The following day, Jim called around to different organizations trying to find someone who could take the rest of our stuff off our hands since we would be moving out early the next morning. The first six organizations he called did their pick-ups on different days of the week and couldn't swing by. It felt like we'd have to rent a truck and drop it off ourselves until lucky number 7 came to the rescue. Their number was passed on to us by one of the other organizations -- we didn't even know what charity it was! 

About four men showed up and happily took away our washer n' dryer, patio furniture, futon frame, dresser, desk, TV, electric guitar, five bags of clothes and linens, and roughly 20 good sized boxes of kitchen stuff, random decor, books, and everything else under the sun. As the last guy headed out the door, I asked him where they were from, even though I realized it was kind of a stupid question since we called them.  Turns out they were from the Mennonite Central Committee. At least I was somewhat familiar with the org -- after buying someone a goat for Christmas at Ten Thousand Villages a few years ago, I received a tax receipt from the MCC, and then they started sending me their magazine about four times a year. I had no idea that they had a store in Kelowna. The gentleman said that they have only one paid employee and the rest of the staff are all volunteers. As of a week or so before, their storefront had been completely emptied out, so they were quite thrilled with the huge haul we provided. I'm glad to know that all our stuff went to the organization who obviously needed it most. 

Yet even with all the stuff we got rid of, would you believe that we still had too much crap for our new little place? Seriously. I was freaked out when I started unpacking the kitchen. I laughed incredulously, before cursing at the boxes that surrounded me. "There is no. f*cking. way!" I told the blender, shaking my head. "Argh! Bloody hell! Why did I keep so many of you?" I muttered to the casserole dishes.  

Our limited cupboards filled faster than the trendiest condos, leaving our blender and toaster to take up prime real estate out in the open. Sigh. I know most people keep their blenders n' toasters on the counter - but we don't do a lot of blending or toasting, so I like to keep them tucked away... especially when we have three inches of counter space. Oh well, maybe this'll encourage us to blend n' toast more of our meals. Who the heck knows. Anyway, I'm sure I'll soon get my kitchen groove back soon enough. So far I've only cooked three "real" meals in there since we've been here - we've been eating out a LOT. Too much, actually. But more on that later.... 

To deal with our space situation and replace some of the stuff we purged, Jim n' I spent a weekend at Ikea. We bought a new desk, a night stand, shelving for the kitchen, a big bookcase/shelving unit for one of our bedroom closets, and two new dressers - one for clothes and one to house all of our DVDs, since our old movie cupboard is way too small, and is now being used as a linen closet (which it is also too small for, but what'r ya gonna do?) Anyway, we just have one shelving unit left to set up and then we can get the rest of our nonsense put away. It'll feel good to have everything finally out of boxes (with the exception of two boxes of Jim's comics and two boxes of my journals.)

As I may have mentioned before, there was a time in my life where I moved eleven times in 6 years. Every few months to a year I was relocating to either a new home or city, and during many of those moves I never bothered opening some of the boxes I carted along with me. During that phase, I used to say that if I ever wrote my memoir, the title would be "My Life In Boxes". While I don't think that title is applicable any longer, I still think it would make a very telling memoir for any person. When taking inventory of one's life, what is important enough to keep, and what items are only of perceived importance but never actually leave their box. 

For years I carted around a box of National Geographic magazines, with the best of intentions to use them in collages. I also had a box of hand-me-down closet clutter that one of my college friends passed along to me when cleaning out her own nooks n' crannies. The box included Christmas decorations, a few Frank Zappa VHS tapes I never watched, and some other junk. Don't ask me why it took two years to ditch her crap. I shouldn't have accepted it in the first place. I used to feel bad tossing things like that away. Back when I was waitressing, some random little girl once drew me a picture of a giraffe and I kept it on my fridge for almost a year because I felt guilty throwing it out. I'm sure that's how hoarding begins.... 

Jim is much more of a sentimental keeper than me, but he did really, really great with this move. He even got rid of his big Tomorrow's Memoir cutout that he had displayed in the theater when it screened. That darn thing has been stuffed behind his dresser for the last 5 years, and was sitting in his living room for the 2 before. Jim always wanted to keep it in case he ever had a production office - but as I reminded him, he's made a real movie now. It's okay to let the aging piece of cardboard go. I was even more proud of Jim when he defended his decision to toss it after his brother and friend started quizzing him on why he'd want to. I just stood there and bit my tongue thinking, "Shut the hell up guys!" But Jim did good. :)

Anyhow, now that most of our unpacking is done, I can finally take time to explore our new hood. But I want to spend a little time with my garcon ce soir, so I'll save all that for another post.