As I look at the blank sheet in my daily journal and consider the forecast for hot sun and blue skies it passes through my mind that this might be the day to reconnoitre my clothes closet.
Reconnoitre.... being a military term I ask Charles if I am using the right word to describe my intentions. We consider this together, with the help of the online dictionary.
The online dictionary indicates 'a foray into enemy territory to make observations'.
Is this enemy territory? Well, if you consider the little men who are said to occupy clothes closet and spend their time taking in seams to make the garment in question too snug to wear, yes, that's 'Enemy Territory'!
However, reconnoitre doesn't go far enough. Once I have finished the patrol there arises the question of what to do to clear the territory of unwanted and unused garments, and those that have been stitched one size too small....
Charles declares his intentions of going over town to purchase a fluorescent light bulb, and after considering the project from all angles I plunge into the closet and start removing blouses and skirts and jackets and dresses that have not seen the light of day or any other territory besides the one in which they hang since moving day! And then they just made a quick journey from the hill house to town in the back of the van, still on their hangers, from one dark closet to another, so to speak.
They got jammed into the lovely spacious closet, along with Callie who needed the smell of something familiar to keep her happy and out of the way of the movers. We turned on the light for Callie, - gave her food and water and turned our attention elsewhere.
The floor of the closet has a trap door which goes down into the low crawl space where all the Christmas decorations live, along with other objects that had no immediate use or space to store them on the main floor. Occasionally we have had to clear things away and open the trap door for workmen to reach the various switches and taps that keep the mechanics of the house going, but as I keep adding baskets and boxes there is less and less room to operate smoothly, and its terribly embarrassing in an emergency to have to clear all this paraphernalia away from the trapdoor to unveil the steps that lead down below.
So, the job of reconnoitering completed, I start taking clothes off hangers in a determined fashion, letting neither nostalgia or false hopes that that they might one day fit deter me from my task.
How about this lovely sea-green dress I wore to Kate and Will's wedding (no, not the Big Wedding, - this is our granddaughter Kathleen Rose, and her husband Will. Will anybody ever get married again, or will they all just live 'in a relationship'. I think about this a bit, and leave the sea-green dress hanging hopefully in the closet. Fair game for the seam stitchers....
Here is this lovely pink and white silky skirt and shirt ensemble that I loved and have worn for ten years - still fresh and washable, - and a trio of long cotton Indian skirts of which I only really need one.
There are some shorts that have somehow shrunk a size, and a plethora of jackets that haven't been worn for a number of years; a couple of peasantry type dresses that I used to be fond of wearing around the house
and two or three extra bathrobes that are quite respectable but don't ever get worn.
I put out the washable garments for a run through the washing machine, noting with dismay that the white shirts will need to be ironed, and pack the rest into a couple of boxes for their journey around the corner to the Bargain Centre, where hopefully they will soon find a new closet to hang in, and perhaps new adventures out on the streets, worn by new owners who will find them a refreshing addition to their wardrobe.
Tomorrow, maybe - Charles' collection of shirts and pants. He has a different army of little men who sew, but they all follow the same instructions - TAKE IN THE SEAMS AT LEAST ONE SIZE, - AND MAYBE TWO IF YOU ARE FEELING PARTICULARLY DEVILISH!
I feel quite virtuous about the look of the closet, except for the boxes that live on the top shelves and are full of mysterious things that got shoved there when we moved, and which I must investigate someday......
3 comments:
Since the closets in our retirement house are tiny, I have to do the great closet turn-out more frequently than I like. Ny dughter, who lives nearby, is very stern in the 'what not to wear' department. Yes, these tasks do engender a sense of virtue that lasts for a day or two--until I begin pushing oddments back on the shelf.
I always wondered how my clothes shrunk Hildred - now I know. Although I have never seen these little men - they must work at night when I am asleep.
Oh Hildred! That this post reminds me I should do exactly that job with our closet is a given. But it also makes me think about how far behind I am in writing in my journal...I do try to keep one and it is good for me, but it is so easy to let it slide. All my good thoughts (and there aren't too many) seem to go into the blog or into my comments.
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