Day 5 - the first Friday of the new year

 Today is the 6th day of the 1st week, the 5th day of the 1st month, the 5th day of 2024, and:

• George Washington Carver Day
• Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival
• Joma Shinji 
• Kappa Alpha Psi Day
• Monopoly Game Day
• National Bird Day
• National Keto Day
• National Screenwriters Day
• National Whipped Cream Day
• Twelfth Night
• the twelfth day of the Twelve Days of Christmas 
• and Voyager 1 is 22h 34m 36s of light travel time from Earth

Quote of the day:

"Power is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

~  Margaret Thatcher 

Today I was reminded that 16 years ago, my life was in chaos.  My mother had been put in assisted living due to her advanced dementia, and she insisted stridently that everything that was her's be removed from the apartment we both were living in and placed into storage.  I boxed it all up for her and arranged it.  Five moving men were all over the place, taking things away, as I showed them what had to go to storage and what could go to the assisted living home.  They left me in the late afternoon without living room furniture, with an empty master bedroom, without pots/pans or dishes in the kitchen, and with a raging headache, not to mention a load of hurt feelings that I had to work through.

There were only two things that I had wanted to hold onto - the lovely red maple hope chest and my grandfather's dough boy helmet from WWI - and I asked if I could buy them from her.  She refused, and was emphatic that both be packed up, so they were.   I don't know what happened to either of those items - she claimed that neither made it to storage and accused me of keeping them.  Nothing sufficed to convince her otherwise. 

It was many months before I saw her again.  Slowly I put the apartment to rights.  I moved into the master bedroom.  I bought living room furniture.  I slowly restocked the kitchen.  And slowly I forgave her - and myself.

It all seems like a lifetime ago, something that happened to a different person.  I was, of course, in constant contact with Margaret [mom's cousin's second wife] who ended up being her confident and eventually taking on many caretaker tasks.  Once Margaret audited the checking account and proved to her satisfaction that I had not stolen money from my mother [altho she failed to convince my mother of that], she realized that everything she had been told wasn't true and we got along fine. 

 Margaret never found the helmet, but the hope chest went when the storage bin was cleared out and I think it was in there.  Someone found a very nice WWI heirloom unexpectedly!  I just hope they treasured it and didn't throw it out   Now and then I look on eBay, but it wouldn't be the same as having Grandpop Riley's actual helmet 

Not that I really need more stuff to just have around!  but it was the family history aspect that makes me wish it hadn't been lost after having been kept so carefully for 90 years.

Sometimes Triscuit seems to be taking inventory of her possessions like a dragon guarding her stash of gold and jewels, and I guess that I am doing the same.  

It's Friday and it's payday!  The weekend looms ahead....