It certainly is an odd experience dismantling someone else's entire worldly existence. Exery single item in the home must be handled, examined, judged for relevence or value - some things produce nostalgia or sentimental appreciation, others dismay or worse. Often there is a sense of violated privacy - just as often it is more a shared intimacy that couldn't manifest in life.

In addition to the material trappings, all the hooks of officialdom and involvement in commerce and culture must be dissolved. People and organizations need to be contacted and informed of your recently achieved state of non-existence.

Room by room, closet and cabinet, drawer by drawer - it seems interminable. Stuff in boxes, stuff in piles, stuff in big black garbage bags that fill up and have to be heaved into a pile in a corner of the garage every hour or so, awaiting the delivery of a dumpster next week.


The garage. We're making progress in the house. In the garage, not yet.

The auction guy was here for about three hours this afternoon, doing the inventory and appraisal. The auction will be viewable online - I'll put up a link when it is ready. When the auction house comes with their big truck next Tuesday to take away all the 'good' stuff, we will be ready to move on to the thrift store phase, then the dumpster will begin to fill up. Finally, we will hand a set of keys over to the realtor, and drive back across the high desert and Rockies to Wyoming and Colorado. Then, for me, the project continues with bill paying and insurance wrangling for a few more weeks.

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