Junk I recently received

Dad, if you read this and are offended, I'm sorry, but I couldn't pass up a blog entry on this. It is just too good.

My mum died in January 2005. My dad recently remarried and decided to move to Toronto to live where his new wife lives. This meant a giant divesting of stuff because Donna, the new wife, has a small house and of course, already had her house filled with her own things. I went up to my dad's apartment in Sudbury one weekend after Christmas. Picture this, as it is important later - I drove, by myself, to Sudbury from Ottawa on a Friday, went through everything (and I mean everything) in the apartment, then saw a major snowstorm was coming and drove back to Ottawa Saturday night. It was nasty and yet I did it to help out and ensure that the things that my sister, Beth, and I wanted to keep were not thrown away and the things we didn't want were left without labels on them. Okay, that's the background.

My dad very generously paid a moving truck to bring the things I wanted to Ottawa. It arrived about two weeks ago with the large items and several boxes. As they brought in the boxes it struck me that this was definitely more than I had labelled and as I opened them up, my suspicions were confirmed. Here is what I found: crap and more crap. Crap I wanted thrown away. Crap I did not want sent to me in Ottawa. Crap that I now had to take the time to go through (again) and throw away. Crap that would now occupy some of my precious and limited spare time. Was I annoyed? Oh yah... that's an understatement. My dad wasn't entirely to blame - Donna was an active participant as well so we can blame them both. Now that I've thrown away or given away most of it I look back on it and laugh. Apparently, according to Donna, there isn't a Sally Ann or Good Will to be found in Sudbury. Who knew?

I'm so glad that I took that trip to Sudbury. I see that it was very helpful.

Here is low-down of my favourite items: entire box filled with old spices. Some of the bottles were empty. One slipper - no match. At least one whole box of sewing stuff that I said I didn't want. A white lump of coral or rock. I have no idea where it came from. A small musical Easter egg that I had clearly made fun of while going through the stuff in the apartment. A very dirty and ripped tea cozy. A big bowl of plastic fruit. A box of 6 keychains. No keys.

To really get you in the moment, I've attached several photos (mainly for Beth's benefit).