Mission: Impossible--Retrieval of Christmas Decorations

I didn't really decorate for Christmas this year.  I put the red and green poinsettia wind sock out.  And the adorable brick snowman I bought at an arts and crafts fair is sitting prominently on the almost empty shelving  unit in the living room.  Those are the only two things that I purposely and intentionally put out to mark the Christmas season.  As I've sorted through Christmas stuff, a wooden angel and a mechanical angel have been placed on a shelf.  But that's because I want to keep them and I just set them there until I get a bin emptied.

I've mentioned before the sheer magnitude of Christmas stuff that was in this house.  Before my mother passed away, I had pulled out all of her old stuff from under the eave on the east side.  I had sorted through all that while she was still alive.  I wanted to go through it again, because now I could actually get rid of some things.

Under the eave on the west side of the house, I discovered, much of my Christmas paraphernalia had been moldering.  Unlike the east side, which can be accessed through the infamous Cubby Hole, the west side is accessed from the stairway.  Unfortunately, you need to either have a ladder for stairs (which, of course, my dad had, but was probably pilfered by my oldest brother) OR you need to be small and have some upper arm strength.

Back in the day--like 30 years ago!--I was small and strong.  After pulling out the boxes right in front, I used to hoist myself up into the storage area using only the railing (which is slanted, of course!) to brace one foot on, while depending on my upper arm strength to do most of the work.  I'd crawl in there and push the boxes to the opening.  Most times, there was someone there to pull the stuff out as I moved it within reach.  My dad used to do that or, once in a while, my sister or brothers.  When we moved back here 13 years ago, it was my daughter, then 11, who climbed in there to push the boxes to the front.

Letting my daughter do this job was like the passing of the baton.  Giving the control to the next generation.  Truly, an historic moment.

For two or three years, I put up a small, slimline tree up in my room in an attempt to keep me and my daughter as a family unit.  After my dad passed away, I didn't do a tree up here, since he had died the day after Thanksgiving and I wasn't feeling festive.  Subsequently, we mostly decorated downstairs, making me, my mother and my daughter into one family unit.  It was at that point that I stopped retrieving my Christmas stuff from under the west side eave.

The roof over that particular area was leaking.  Well, the roof was leaking in a few places, but the worst damage was over the eave where my Christmas stuff resided.  The roofers had to replace boards, which left the storage area exposed.  Oh, they put tarps over it, but wind and rain would blow under.  I knew that a lot of my stuff was ruined and I kept meaning to pull it out and see what I could salvage.

Well, since I am packing up to move into my own place, I decided I'd better go through that stuff.  I knew I had a plastic bin with ornaments that should be fine and I was hoping my nativity set was still in good shape.  Last Saturday, I asked my daughter if she would help me.  I got a grudging yes, but not until after the first of the year.  But I wanted to do it now!

So, on Sunday, I removed the cover to the storage area and pulled out what I could reach.  The first thing was my large bin of ornaments.  Great!  As I gripped the handles of the bin, I was getting excited--right up until I pulled it out.  There was black, heavy, moldy dirt covering the top of everything.  Ugh!

I tried to hold  my breath as I carried the bin down the few steps to the living room, trying to avoid tripping over Khai and only partly succeeded.  Both in holding my breath and not tripping. If the living room wasn't so filled with boxes and bins, I would've fallen face first onto that dirty, yucky bin!  As it was, I managed to get the bin onto a stack of boxes as I fell over Khai.  My chest hit the edge of the box and my breath whooshed out, blowing bits of nasty, moldy dirt all over anything nearby.  At that point, my bronchi decided it had enough and sent my into coughing spasms.

The coughing was so strong I that I was doubled over.  I tripped over Khai (again) and shuffled around stacks of boxes to get to my purse and find my inhaler.  Getting light headed because I couldn't draw in enough air, and coughing so hard I thought the end was near, the thoughts that went through my mind were incongruous.  I was worried about the bit of nasty black dirt I got on my shirt.  And I was afraid Tabitha would be attacking Bebe.  Or that she was going in the storage area and how would I get her out?  I finally got to a kitchen chair and as I started to sit down, Khai jumped on the chair.  I couldn't stop the downward motion of my derriere, so I sat on him.  He really didn't like that much.  But I won.

Just sitting helped a lot.  I was reaching for my purse, when I spotted my cup of tea.  It was lukewarm, but that was okay.  The act of swallowing helped settle my lungs or bronchi or whatever.  I do have face masks.  Upstairs.  Past the stacks of boxes, past the cats, up the stairs where it was blocked by the cover/door to the storage area.  Fortunately, I made that trip in my head before I actually got up and tried it.

After resting a while.  I went back to the stairs and the yawning depths under the west side eave.  Tabitha was sitting on the stairs, just a few steps above the floor of the opening where she could see into the gaping maw.  She had a look on her face like "I'd like to go in there, but it's yucky and I've never done it, so maybe I shouldn't".  Feline ambivalence at it's best.  She did, of course, meow at me.  I patted her head and turned my attention back to the task at hand.

There was a cardboard box that I could reach.  This time I was more careful, turning my head as the box came out of the filthy mess that was the storage area.  There were a couple more boxes that I couldn't quite reach, so I got an idea.

I remember putting one of my mother's canes with her walker behind the recliner. After telling Khai to get out of the way, I grabbed the cane and headed back to the stairs, once again tripping over Khai.  Tabitha was still on her step, watching, and meowing at me.  This time I just shrugged.

Wielding the cane like a medieval warrior, I jammed the handle of the cane into the next cardboard box and pulled it forward.  After retrieving a couple of boxes, I saw another plastic bin!  Yay!  That stuff should be okay, too.  The only problem was, the bin handles were rounded and so was the cane handle.  It kept slipping out from under the handle.  I pondered this a moment.  I looked at Tabitha and she said something in Felinian (cat language--my word).  But I got the message!  Carefully I took the cane and loosened the lid of the bin.  That it loosened so easily meant that it wasn't snapped on.  I grimaced at what that might mean to the stuff inside, but I persevered.  Without dislodging the lid, I slipped the cane handle over the side of the bin and pulled it towards me.  It was a huge bin.  When I finally manhandled the bin down into the living room, I decided I had enough to get started sorting.  When I put the cover/door back on the storage area, I made sure Tabitha wasn't in there!

No, Tabitha was in the living room.  Walking on the boxes and bins.  The ones from storage.  With the nasty, black, thick, moldy dirt on them.  Which was now on her paws.  And, in pawprints, on the rug.  Thank you Tabitha Darling.

Next mission:  Sorting and Packing