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you down wit' OCD?
Sep. 22nd, 2002 04:26 amA phone call from my father last night totally ruined my weekend, which had started to be on the up and up.
Apparently, he came home to a busted hot water heater. Which resided in his basement. The same basement where just about everything I own is located. As well as all of my mother's doll collection and Christmas ornanments (most of which are older than I am).
Water everywhere. Cardboard boxes.
I drove over, with the Engineer to inspect the damages and try to clean it up. It's safe to say that there was about three or four inches of water in some spots of the basement, mostly located around the bulk area of my boxes. I began to lift and move, and shift things to the dry part of the basement which had been unhit. The boxes on the bottom of the pile were opened and inspected, reboxed (or just stuffed into an already existing, and not wet, box), then moved over by the Engineer.
The beginning of it all, the damage didn't appear to be all that bad. My mother's Santa Claus statue (which I don't even remember a time when it didn't exist. She loves this thing and apparently, it was rather expensive even 30 years ago.) had a chunk missing from one of his boots. Which I think is because he's plaster and had been sitting in water. The broken off piece was located and put near him, for safekeeping.
The more I delved into the pile, the more damage I began to incur. Though, it was still kept at a minimum. The most distressing of it was two of my paintings, completely ruined. I picked the first one up and saw the water stain on the back of it and almost started to cry. I didn't even want to go back into the box to see how the rest of them fared, but I forced myself into doing it. A second painting pulled out, more held back tears and a lot of profanity. They were the only two paintings I finished from the death portraits series I had started work on so many years ago of all my friends who had died. The one was of Chris and the other was of my friend Dawn, who had been in the band Fear of God. The rest of the paintings seemed fine, and they were promptly moved.
The only other big thing of mine that had to be trashed was my copy of Lenore #1, which had previously been in perfect condition. My mother's damages were far worse.
She collects bride dolls, which I don't believe I've mentioned on here before. Big, porcelain, and quite expensive. Collector's items, which are beautifully made. I think she's got 28 of them, in all. And we haven't moved them to the apartment because of our damnable walls and how unforgiving they are of shelves being hung on them. Four of them, or rather their boxes, were ruined. The dolls inside the boxes seemed to be intact and I moved them to one of my big suitcases with a lot of packing and bubble wrap. But, the boxes were destroyed. And part of their value, most of their value in some cases, lies in their boxes. They're just not worth as much without the original packing. She is, quite understandably, very upset about this.
The thing which chafes my tits about that is we had all of those boxes in trash bags, TO PROTECT THEM FROM WATER DAMAGE. But, it appeared as if something had been gnawing at the bags. Either that or someone was not as careful with moving the bags, as they should have been.
Another, unrelated, distress was the finding of a dead baby Pine Rattlesnake. Smushed under one of the boxes I had moved. Dead, yes. But, still a rattlesnake. In my father's basement which I step foot in quite often. I knew that there had been rattlers found on his property before. Hell, when I was little I watched him kill one with a shovel when it was found in the fenced in portion of his property. And a lot of other snakes have been found in or near the house, but those weren't venomous. Just big (like the enormous black snake I found sunning itself on the concrete portion of his deck eight years ago).
Rattlesnakes. In the basement. oh-my-fucking-god.
I, being the twisted girl that I can be, put the corpse in an empty coffee tin and brought it home with me. Now, I just need to find a suitable jar for its new home in my collection of dead things.
heh.
My father is going to wet vac the rest of the water out of the basement and we're going to lay down pallets, for the boxes to go onto. Then, I need to go over there and rebox, relabel, and rearrange everything. I'm also trying to convince him to finally go through everything which is down there and begin the process of clearing out all the useless bullshit which I know is lying in wait.
His house is like a gypsy heaven. Between my deceased grandmother's belongings and all the crap that Mel (the woman who used to take care of my grandmother and now rents a room from my dad) brings home, it looks like a discount store. Only extremely unorganised. It gives me the itchies, to be there for more than an hour. Because I want to start rearranging and organising, but I feel like it would be impolite.
However, now that I sit here and think about it, I don't give a damn. It's my father's house and will one day be MY house. And I'd prefer that it didn't burn down in the near or far future because of all this shit which is stored there.
This woman, she is a nutjob. I've never seen so much crap in my life. And it's ALL crap. Dollar store food, stored in the basement. Most of which, to my sight, is long past any expiration dates that may be stamped on. She also likes to visit the senior citizen apartment building where she used to live, and bring home things from the tenants there. Things which she has ABSOLUTELY no use for. Not only that, but whenever anyone dies in that building, all the other tenants (and her) become vultures. And they STEAL that person's belongings.
My father's house makes any OCD complexes I may have go into overdrive. I can't handle it and something simply must be done.
Apparently, he came home to a busted hot water heater. Which resided in his basement. The same basement where just about everything I own is located. As well as all of my mother's doll collection and Christmas ornanments (most of which are older than I am).
Water everywhere. Cardboard boxes.
I drove over, with the Engineer to inspect the damages and try to clean it up. It's safe to say that there was about three or four inches of water in some spots of the basement, mostly located around the bulk area of my boxes. I began to lift and move, and shift things to the dry part of the basement which had been unhit. The boxes on the bottom of the pile were opened and inspected, reboxed (or just stuffed into an already existing, and not wet, box), then moved over by the Engineer.
The beginning of it all, the damage didn't appear to be all that bad. My mother's Santa Claus statue (which I don't even remember a time when it didn't exist. She loves this thing and apparently, it was rather expensive even 30 years ago.) had a chunk missing from one of his boots. Which I think is because he's plaster and had been sitting in water. The broken off piece was located and put near him, for safekeeping.
The more I delved into the pile, the more damage I began to incur. Though, it was still kept at a minimum. The most distressing of it was two of my paintings, completely ruined. I picked the first one up and saw the water stain on the back of it and almost started to cry. I didn't even want to go back into the box to see how the rest of them fared, but I forced myself into doing it. A second painting pulled out, more held back tears and a lot of profanity. They were the only two paintings I finished from the death portraits series I had started work on so many years ago of all my friends who had died. The one was of Chris and the other was of my friend Dawn, who had been in the band Fear of God. The rest of the paintings seemed fine, and they were promptly moved.
The only other big thing of mine that had to be trashed was my copy of Lenore #1, which had previously been in perfect condition. My mother's damages were far worse.
She collects bride dolls, which I don't believe I've mentioned on here before. Big, porcelain, and quite expensive. Collector's items, which are beautifully made. I think she's got 28 of them, in all. And we haven't moved them to the apartment because of our damnable walls and how unforgiving they are of shelves being hung on them. Four of them, or rather their boxes, were ruined. The dolls inside the boxes seemed to be intact and I moved them to one of my big suitcases with a lot of packing and bubble wrap. But, the boxes were destroyed. And part of their value, most of their value in some cases, lies in their boxes. They're just not worth as much without the original packing. She is, quite understandably, very upset about this.
The thing which chafes my tits about that is we had all of those boxes in trash bags, TO PROTECT THEM FROM WATER DAMAGE. But, it appeared as if something had been gnawing at the bags. Either that or someone was not as careful with moving the bags, as they should have been.
Another, unrelated, distress was the finding of a dead baby Pine Rattlesnake. Smushed under one of the boxes I had moved. Dead, yes. But, still a rattlesnake. In my father's basement which I step foot in quite often. I knew that there had been rattlers found on his property before. Hell, when I was little I watched him kill one with a shovel when it was found in the fenced in portion of his property. And a lot of other snakes have been found in or near the house, but those weren't venomous. Just big (like the enormous black snake I found sunning itself on the concrete portion of his deck eight years ago).
Rattlesnakes. In the basement. oh-my-fucking-god.
I, being the twisted girl that I can be, put the corpse in an empty coffee tin and brought it home with me. Now, I just need to find a suitable jar for its new home in my collection of dead things.
heh.
My father is going to wet vac the rest of the water out of the basement and we're going to lay down pallets, for the boxes to go onto. Then, I need to go over there and rebox, relabel, and rearrange everything. I'm also trying to convince him to finally go through everything which is down there and begin the process of clearing out all the useless bullshit which I know is lying in wait.
His house is like a gypsy heaven. Between my deceased grandmother's belongings and all the crap that Mel (the woman who used to take care of my grandmother and now rents a room from my dad) brings home, it looks like a discount store. Only extremely unorganised. It gives me the itchies, to be there for more than an hour. Because I want to start rearranging and organising, but I feel like it would be impolite.
However, now that I sit here and think about it, I don't give a damn. It's my father's house and will one day be MY house. And I'd prefer that it didn't burn down in the near or far future because of all this shit which is stored there.
This woman, she is a nutjob. I've never seen so much crap in my life. And it's ALL crap. Dollar store food, stored in the basement. Most of which, to my sight, is long past any expiration dates that may be stamped on. She also likes to visit the senior citizen apartment building where she used to live, and bring home things from the tenants there. Things which she has ABSOLUTELY no use for. Not only that, but whenever anyone dies in that building, all the other tenants (and her) become vultures. And they STEAL that person's belongings.
My father's house makes any OCD complexes I may have go into overdrive. I can't handle it and something simply must be done.
