The Easter Lamb Cake Story
A dear friend asked me to share my family’s lamb cake story. I teased her with the bare facts that involved our cat, a knife, and some quick thinking. So here goes:
Picture It. Milwaukee. 1972.
A family, featuring an unbelievably adorable 3-year-old child, is getting ready for Sunday Service. I (the aforementioned adorable child) have had my hair curled for Jesus (with the accompanying facelift that comes from a rushed parent pulling one’s hair into tails), and Momma and Daddy are suitably dressy. Daddy is annoyed that everyone is rushing around and he wants to leave so he can get back already. Momma has been up since before 5am getting the house ready for company and the table set so that there’s one less thing to deal with upon our return from Kingsley Methodist.
In the center of that table? A beautiful, delicious, lamb-shaped cake that we look forward to every year. Its nestled in green coconut and has a pink jelly bean for a nose.
She used special tins that she’d had since the year dot, and that I inherited and cherished (though I never used them because making that cake was a pain the ass) until they were lost in my house fire in 1995.
So, we went to Church. I itched and fidgeted through a Service. Seriously, stick a 3-year-old, who has just dug through her candy-filled Easter basket, and who is dressed in an ornate, itchy, handmade dotted swiss dress, accompanied by woolen tights, into an uncomfortable pew and see how still you can get HER to sit while some old person stands at the front of a hot room droning on about resurrection, miracles and other things she won’t understand for years. At home, there’s ham in the oven and a lamb cake on the table; Jesus will understand.
When the service was FINALLY over (nothing longer than church to a hungry, antsy, itchy, overwarm kid), we did the whole meet and greet thing and headed home, with guests pretty close behind us.
We walked in to find the cake had had a much more eventful two hours than we’d had. Its whole back hip was gone. Sitting in another part of the kitchen was our siamese cat, licking frosting and bits of cake off of his paws.
Easter is an important day to my Mother. It actually was. It was meant to be a day of beauty, of peace and of serenity.
When she saw that cake, she invented swear words that I believe have still not come into common use among the rest of us humans. I believe she may have turned burgundy. I know that I smelled smoke coming from her ears.
She was a bit miffed.
We could hear the cars of our guests pulling into the parking spaces on the street. Those guests included my maternal grandmother, who could find fault with anything. ANYTHING. She tried to reprimand my mother for raising me “wrong” because of the way I ate mashed potatoes once.
My dad grabbed a sharp knife, sliced the bit off of the lamb’s rump where it had been nibbled, and shoved the lamb over so that it was laying down.
Momma: “That’s not how it’s meant to look!”
Daddy: “It’s not meant to have a chunk eaten out of its ass, either, but there ya go.”
Momma rearranged the green coconut, fixed the frosting and was ready to answer the door when the bell rang.
Everybody arrived and the normals complimented the smells coming from the kitchen, and thanked Momma for her hospitality.
My Grandmother looked at the cake and said “it’s all wrong. It’s supposed to be sitting up.”
On “Childish” Hobbies
*Names changed not because of shame, but to protect the privacy of those still with us.
I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about my Aunt *Laurie. She was my Dad’s sister, and she was very nice to me. Her widower, my Uncle *Dan, continues to be.
Here’s the story.
Once upon a time, my parents came home from dinner at Auntie Laurie’s house, and they were laughing about how “simple” and “childish” Laurie was. I asked what had happened.
Through laughter, my parents informed me that Laurie had taken up (gasp, snort, disbelief) Coloring! After all the housework is done, and she’s watching her stories in the afternoon, she has coloring books and crayons and she, oh my god, she actually sits there, a 45+ year old woman, coloring! And here’s the part that really set my nerves on edge. “Can you believe Dan lets her do that?! I mean, not only does he let her do that, but he actually brings home coloring books for her that he thinks she might like!”
I admitted that it was an unusual hobby for a grown-up (and to be fair, at the time (early 1980s) it was. Coloring books for adults were only really released as novelty items then). Uncle Dan would have had to shop the kids’ aisle for Laurie’s books, and they would have featured nursery rhymes and Disney characters.
The more usual hobbies for housewives of the 1980s (if there was any time after dealing with the kids, house and everything else that entailed) were watching soaps, knitting, cross stitching, latch hook rug making, and drinking in the afternoons. Laurie had no kids, was a swift, efficient domestic goddess, and had found something to help her deal with her anxiety, and that she enjoyed, that had nothing to do with wool or wine.
A while later, when it was just Mom and me in the house and we were talking, I said “about Auntie Laurie’s coloring for a hobby…” Mom immediately burst into laughter again.
I said “but really, who is she hurting?”
Mom immediately said “grownups don’t color! That is a pastime for children and Laurie should be ashamed of behaving like a child.
I asked again “who is she hurting? Did she say why she does it? Why does it makes her happy?”
“She said something about how it soothes her nerves while she’s been trying to cut back on smoking. So silly. Pick a hobby for adults, or better yet, do something useful.” (I should add that my mother never looked up from her crossword puzzle the whole time she was saying all this – a grownup’s hobby, for sure, but hardly a cure for cancer. Nothing against crosswords, of course, but glass houses, stones, all that stuff.)
“I seriously don’t see the harm – if it soothes her nerves, it serves a purpose, and it makes her happy without harming another living soul. It’s also a nice, cheap hobby. As for Uncle Dan ‘letting’ her do it; she’s a grown person. I like that he tries to find things that will make her happy. It’s like when Daddy finds you books that you like when he stops at a rummage sale. Besides, I’d like to see Dad try to forbid you from doing anything. You’d kill him.”
“Now you’re just trying to be contrary to start up an argument. You’re wrong, Laurie is obviously simpleminded, Dan is a henpecked husband who doesn’t know how to wear the pants in that family, and that is that. End of discussion.”
But here’s the thing. Fuck that.
When the trend of adult coloring books became a thing a few years back, I found it surprising, but never ONCE did I make fun of anyone taking part in the pastime. Not once. Not just because I try so hard not to be an asshole, but because of Auntie Laurie. The trend of adult coloring books made me wish Auntie Laurie were still around to see it; it would have made for the easiest and most satisfying Secret Santa exchange ever, and I would have begged whoever got her name to trade with me.
Auntie Laurie wasn’t the most sophisticated woman I’ve ever known. She didn’t speak in an educated way, and her world had few shades of grey. She would say “I don’t like him. He’s mean.” If you asked her how the person she didn’t like was mean, she couldn’t really elaborate beyond “he just treats people nasty.” She wasn’t wrong. She was direct. She never gathered the tools that some others have to specify just why someone is bad news. Like my father, she was deprived of a proper education, and beaten to within an inch of her life when she was a child. Some of the stories that she and my Dad told when they got together were bloodcurdling.
But.
My Dad coped with it by having unrestrained temper tantrums, meteing out emotional abuse and unpredictable, disproportionate punishments, continually believing that everyone was out to “get” him, and retreating into an angry, paranoid world where nothing was ever good enough and nobody was trustworthy.
My Aunt had coloring books.
Ask me which route I would prefer to travel. My Aunt’s certainly had prettier colors.
Favourites of 2019 (Books Edition)
I set a goal of 40 reads for 2019, and completed 57, so I can’t complain about quantity. The vast majority of them were middle-of-the-road, “okay” reads, with very few that really knocked the ball out of the park. I did take part in two reading challenges (the PopSugar Reading Challenge and the Reading Women Challenge) and those broadened my horizons enormously. In some cases, that meant that I confirmed my suspicions that a given genre was not for me; in other, more rare instances, it opened up a whole new vista to be explored. I turned just over 15,200 pages. In the order that I read them, here are the books that stood out during the course of the year. For each of these, I have more fulsome reviews at GoodReads.
Educated, by Tara Westover
I am astounded that Westover managed to escape this seemingly endless cycle of ignorance and abuse. I hear from others that some of her family disputes her account of her childhood. I’m not surprised. If I had done these things to my child, I wouldn’t want to admit it, either.
Quiet Dell, by Jayne Anne Phillips
This was such a beautiful, evocative read. I didn’t just read a story in these pages; I saw the house as if I were walking the rooms, and would have been able to find my way around other locations, as well. Contemplations on family, trust, the afterlife, and so much more. I loved it.
A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman
I slowly grew to love Ove, for several reasons. I mentioned to friends that before I’d gotten 30 pages into it, I’d copied several quotes that resonated with me into my book journal. I still remember a few of them several months later. I almost gave up on it at first, but I stuck with it, and I’m so glad I did. It is perhaps my favorite read of the entire year.
Becoming, by Michelle Obama
By the time I’d finished this marvelous book, I had filled my book journal to overflowing with beautiful quotes that I wanted to remember forever. Right at the beginning, she says, “I spent much of my childhood listening to the sound of striving.” She’s referring to the children in the apartment below, trying to learn how to play the piano. She uses words the way those children were using the piano – to make music. This was a primer for how to move in the world with grace, dignity, style and intelligence. It is lovely to discover that someone you’ve admired for more than a decade is worthy of that admiration, and then some.
The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers, by Maxwell King
This is an excellent read for anyone who wants to know how on Earth success found a show that rests on the very simple premise that every child has the capacity to learn if they are treated with respect and kindness. It’s also a brilliant distillation of the character and personality of Fred Rogers. (Spoiler: He was a good, kind man, who sometimes said swear words and was a bit on the cheap side, but loved kids in a non-creepy way, and went far above and beyond in learning how to reach them and help them thrive.)
No dark secrets, but I never expected to find any. It was comforting to read that he sometimes engaged in language that was unheard of even in the Land of Make Believe.
Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Wow, did the year end on a high note. This was a transformational read, as far as discovering a new author I want to follow forever. This short book of stories was brilliant. Some of them were so moving that I had to take a break and just sort of “sit” with them for a bit before moving on. One of my favorite discoveries of 2019.
I’ve signed on for three reading challenges in 2020. This year, I’ve added Around the World in 52 books to the mix. It will be fun to see where the prompts will overlap during the course of my reading. Will I suddenly discover a love for Westerns? I doubt it, but I didn’t think I’d like a novel about a grumpy old Scandinavian man all that interesting, either, and now look at me.
Favourites of 2019 (Films Edition)
It’s that time of year again, when I trot out my film discoveries of the last twelve months, and impose them upon you.
I didn’t get to see much this year, compared to my usual cinematic diet. Most of the films that I loved were more recent releases, so I’m going to include all my favorites this year rather than just the oldies.
My self-imposed rule is that it has to be a film that I saw for the first time in 2019.
The Last Five Years (2014)
This is a no-brainer if you are a regular reader of my blog. This film hit me like a ton of bricks when I saw it last January, and I still sing the songs to myself lo these many months later. Anna Kendrick is so, so good.
A Quiet Place (2018)
John Krasinski and Emily Blunt have to be vewy, vewy quiet. Heck, Emily somehow has to give birth without making any noise. Since I can’t manage walking across a room without yelping sometimes, I’m assuming I’d be one of the earliest fatalities in this scenario.
All I Desire (1953)
Douglas Sirk manages to be sumptuous and soapy without the aid of the usual rich, Technicolor rainbow. A woman who left her family many years earlier, comes back, and the provincial townies get all chatty about it. Beautifully shot and performed, with the star, Barbara Stanwyck giving an especially memorable 90 or so minutes of entertainment.
Marguerite (2015, Ger.)
Released the same year as Florence Foster Jenkins and thus unjustly overshadowed, this film tells (loosely) the same story, at least as enjoyably as its more famous cousin.
Her Majesty, Love (1931, Ger.)
(aka Her Majesty the Barmaid)
A snooty family is disturbed to learn that their rich son is in love with a barmaid in a cabaret. This is thoroughly delightful, with an early, German-language performance from Cuddles Sakall. He was already adorable. I was so glad to see it in a cinema full of similarly delighted folks.
Sliding Doors (1998)
This was so clever and compelling that I watched it once, then waited for my husband to get home from work and watched it with him again. I loved the contemplation of how our lives can change on literally a second’s delay in our plans. I fell in love with John Hannah all over again, too.
Searching (2018)
A young woman goes missing, and her father goes to great lengths to try to find her, all through the use of technology. Another impossibly clever offering that I found fascinating. Never has typing and text been so fascinating outside of the pages of a book.
Funny Face (1956)
If anyone ever wondered who it was that Audrey Hepburn became a star, and they still don’t understand it after seeing Funny Face, then they’ll never “get” it. This musical was so much fun, right from the opening sequence, and Kay Thompson, well, Kay Thompson was just a downright scene thief, and that was completely okay with me. I loved every minute of it.
Paths of Glory (1957)
Full of cynicism and downright contempt for the brass who play so loosely with the lives of the people who serve. This Kubrick title about foot soldiers in WWI, their promotion-mad, incompetent superiors as safe as they could be while sending these kids to their deaths, and the lengths to which the higher-ups will go to cover their own asses is a searing indictment. On its face it seems worlds away from Dr. Strangelove (which came just three years later), but then again, maybe not.
I’ve already had a great start to my movie viewing in 2020 (I look forward to talking about 1943’s Holy Matrimony in a year’s time), but that about does it for recapping the last 365 days or so. I didn’t do a lot of moviewatching, but most of what I saw was cherce.
My Silver Divorce-aversary (or, Never Marry an Asshat)
Today is a very special anniversary for me. On December 13, 1994, I walked into a courtoom in the Milwaukee County Courthouse and, about an hour later, I walked back out, minus about 220 lbs of abuse, stupidity and general uselessness. I was broke, my credit score had been ruined by my now ex-husband, and I had PTSD. All of that was much less important than one overriding and all-encompassing fact. I was *free.*
I thought my divorce was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. In general, I don’t recommend it. My more pressing recommendation, however, is that you not marry an asshat. My bad – I got that second bit wrong, making the first bit kind of inevitable.
These 25 years have not been easy. Far from it. I lost my home to fire in 1995, and moved five times in a space of two years. I trusted people I shouldn’t have, who disappeared when they’d gotten what they wanted from me, and who took a bit of my heart with them. I loved, and I lost. I got sick. I got fired. I learned a lot about just how much I can take before I shatter.
But look what else happened during that time. In 1997, I discovered the International Buster Keaton Society, where I found a family of people who “got” me and who helped me find my talents and then nurture them. In 2001, I was published for the first (but by no means the last) time. In 2007, I married again, and that time, oh my goodness did I get it right.
So today, I remember what I felt like when I walked out of that courtroom. It’s such a vivid memory. I felt actually, physically, lighter. My head was held high. I knew that I had behaved honorably and had no reason to feel guilt for my behavior. I went back into the office that day and was literally surrounded by love. That love and support has not wavered in the intervening years.
What I thought was the worst thing that could ever happen to me? It was the best, as it turns out, in countless ways.
But still, don’t marry an asshat.
Happy the Week of 20 May 2019
What’s making YOU happy this week?
For me, it’s simple, and it’s something I wouldn’t even have noticed six years ago.
I walked to our voting venue yesterday, and back, without using my stick. I was at the very end of my endurance by the time we got back home, and my hip hurts like a sonofamother today, but I’m still so, so happy about this. Herein exists a tale; settle in.
My stick has been almost a part of my anatomy since Spring of 2014.
I can tell you the exact date I started needing it. On 30 March 2014, I fell hard, in such a way that my right leg went perpendicular to the rest of my body. My back and right joint facet have been deteriorating after this initial injury ever since. A week before that happened, I walked nonstop for more than an hour and felt great. A week afterward, I walked for 15 minutes and thought that the pain might just make me pass out, and I think I might have preferred that. Many evaluations, xrays, MRIs, orthotics, acupuncture treatments and physical therapy sessions later, and I’m only holding steady at “can we get an Uber to there? it’s a bit far from the bus stop for me.”
Fast forward to our most recent cruise. I discovered, at our buffet style meals, that it was easier for me to get from the table to the buffet and back without the stick. You need both hands to carry a tray, after all. I realized as I was walking back and forth over that short distance that my back hurt less than when I’d traversed that same path a few minutes earlier *with* the stick. Weird.
I think I’ve landed on what the problem is – because this is the longest stick I could find without spending far more than I’d like to, I’ve been “making do,” without realizing it, by leaning a bit forward and to my right when I’m walking with it. This means my posture has been conspiring with my injury to make my pain even worse. So, for short trips, I’m now carrying the stick folded up in a tote bag, rather than as an extension of my right arm.
I still need my foldable buddy, and as a matter of fact, I need a new one (hopefully a slightly longer one, if I can find one I can afford). Balance is always an issue (otherwise I wouldn’t have fallen in the first place) and I still need something to lean on when the journey is longer and I need something to lean on to rest. I don’t have words to express how marvelous it is to walk with my back straight and both hands free, however, on those short journeys. Joyous.
(Mothering Sunday at the Jekyll Island Club)
Happy the Week of 22 April 2019
What’s making YOU happy this week?
Good heavens. I haven’t written one of these posts in a ridiculous amount of time. I can only plead abject laziness. I had plenty of happy experiences; I just haven’t taken the time to write about them.
So, what’s making me happy this week.
I had a few things to choose from, but I’ll settle on finally getting to start watching the series Bloodline, with Kyle Chandler.
Chandler is an actor I’ve loved for 30 years now. I was first smitten with him in the criminally underappreciated Homefront (where I also saw John Slattery for the first time) then followed him to Early Edition (where I discovered Fisher Stevens) and then Friday Night Lights. I gave that show a try because of him, even though I loathe American football (I loathe most sports, actually), but was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the show was about relationships, loyalty, and top notch ensemble acting.
Then came Bloodline, which I couldn’t see when it first began (so shut up if you’ve seen all of it, because I’m only on episode six of the first season), because it was on streaming here. Now that the series is concluded, they are showing one episode a week on cable, and I’m finally finding out what’s going on with the Rayburns!
As is so often true with a series that Kyle Chandler is in, it’s an ensemble piece, with excellent performances from him, and Sissy Spacek, and Linda Cardellini, and the late Sam Shepard (who is in series one – who knows what happens to his character later), among many others. Add to this that the show is set in beautiful Islamorada, Florida, where I spent several winters as a youngster and which remains gorgeous in the exterior shots that that location (and it is shot on location) offers, and I’m a happy, happy person.
It’s been said more than once that having Kyle Chandler in a film is a lucky charm for the production. One year, he was in three top contenders for Best Picture (Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, and Wolf of Wall Street). On television, he’s a lucky charm for those of us who seek quality stories in among the dreck that too often gets renewed while excellence founders. Bloodline only got three seasons before it was cancelled, but I’m willing to bet that with this cast, those seasons are going to be soooooo good.
Significant Anniversaries
The 12th of April was such an interesting day. I’ve been doing a lot of contemplation in the days around it.
It is 25 years on the 12th since the first time I set foot on my beloved St. Simons Island where, until I found London, my heart lived year-round even if I could only visit every three (or more).
Both the Island and I have changed, almost beyond recognition, in the intervening years. When I arrived the first time, I was at the tail end of a bad marriage, though I was still, inexplicably, trying to save it. Today, I went looking for pictures of myself at that time, and couldn’t find any. I think that that is rather telling. I had the camera, and selfies weren’t a thing. Also tellingly, I took no pictures of my then-husband. Speaking for myself, I was 25, able to walk for miles if I chose to (and if I knew what the future held, I would have chosen to far more often), and absolutely besotted with this beautiful haven.
St. Simons itself has changed unbelievably in the last 25 years. It had already transformed since the lady who brought it to my attention, Eugenia Price, discovered it herself back in 1961 (she moved there permanently in 1965, and is laid to rest at Christ Church Frederica). She lamented that her books were a large part of the reason people flocked there (it’s why I was there). She felt guilt over that. In the 1960s, it was a fairly sleepy place of marsh, beach, and people who descended from those who had lived there more than a century before. There were tourists, of course, but nothing like what you see there today. It was steeped in history (and still is). That brought her and her best friend, Joyce Blackburn (who was also an excellent writer). She wrote about that history in a series of novels, and that’s what brought me, and literally millions of others.
When I got my first map of St. Simons, there were spots on it that were still marsh, mosquitoes and memories. When I returned most recently, in 2014, the map had roads reaching into almost every part of the Island, and many of those roads are named for professional golfers (there are four championship courses, and many more pros to play on them, in the environs). It takes knowledge and patience to find the spots that have been kept safe. I don’t have the latter in any abundance, but my nine visits to my heart’s home over the last 25 years have given me a fair amount of the former, and each return brings another new bit of learning about an old bit of Georgia.
Having said that, St. Simons has changed so much that there are things I just don’t recognize any more. In 2012, I directed my mother-in-law and husband to my very favorite restaurant, Chelsea, to discover that it no longer exists. In 2008, I happily drove to my favorite used book store, which was operated by an older gentleman who knew where every single volume was to be found in that higgledy-piggledy paradise, to find that it was a completely empty storefront. I might have cried a little, by which I mean I sat in the parking lot and bawled.
There’s even an honest-to-Pete circle-of-hell roundabout on my Island, for cripe’s sake. Is nothing sacred?
But then, I’m different now, too. I’m 25 years older (though not a whole 25 years wiser). I’m married to a man who treats me as I’ve learned I should expect to be treated, with love, respect and celebration, after painful extrication from that first, abusive marriage in 1994, and a LOT of years in the wilderness in between.
I’m living in a City that I adore, and in a country that doesn’t make me choose between medical care and food. On the other hand, I’m also living with chronic pain that doesn’t allow me to do the things I’d love to do and, crucially, now have the time to do. It is sadly ironic that only when I am finally free of the drudgery that filled my days to such an extent that there was no time for joy, that my spine says “you can have all the time you want now, but walking? not so much.”
In 1994, I had been beaten down and devalued to such a degree that I believed I had nothing at all to offer the world. It took time and loving support from treasured friends, but I’m now a published author who has even won an award or two for her writing. People even come to me with questions, and feel safe that I might give a useful (if not always completely correct) answer. That’s nice, and it was completely alien to me when I was 25; by then, I had been conditioned to believe that no matter what I did or how I did it, it would never be good enough. To those people who waged that abuse on me, I say this (there’s a hidden message in the photo; look hard).
There are a lot of things I would change about the last 25 years (and, in my case, the six that came before that). But since I’ve not yet found a reliable means of time travel (so far, I can only travel forward, in one-minute increments), I have to kick the dust over the bad experiences like the piles of crap that they are, shine up the good ones like the treasures they are, and live my life like the gift that it is.
I’m just thrilled that both St. Simons Island and I are here to enjoy this anniversary. There have been moments for both of us when that outcome was far from certain.
Happy the week of 18 February 2019
What’s making YOU happy this week?
Two words for me: Gulf and Stream.
It’s pretty easy to find the happy just by looking out the window. The sun is bright and when I’m standing in that Vitamin D, I don’t even need long sleeves, much less a jacket. (This isn’t just my Wisconsin “above freezing means swimming weather” attitude, either) – it’s properly gorgeous, and has been for the past few days.
Here is the forecast for my home state for this weekend:
On FB yesterday, I posted a photo of some beautiful flowers that were blooming at the venue I was visiting. One of my girlfriends tells me they were Bergenia. Another girlfriend, this one still in my home state, tells me that she has snow up to her thigh. I’m so happy I’m adjacent to the flowers and not the snow.
When David and I fell in love, and I was preparing to move to join him in the UK, I asked about winter gear. He told me that the winters are usually pretty mild, thanks to this mythical “Gulf Stream,” which is one of the many things that I never paid attention to if it was discussed in school.
When I went for my first visit, it so happened that I arrived in February. There were daffodils blooming. When I returned to Wisconsin in March, I arrived home to an honest-to-badness blizzard. If that wasn’t a Higher Power saying I was making the right choice in moving away, I don’t know what would be.
On the rare occasions when it does snow here in the City, I hear from at least one US friend who says “that must be nice for you to get a taste of your hometown winters!” I think to myself, “bless your heart; you don’t know me at ALL.”
Yesterday, as I turned my face to the sun like a flower, I thought “I have my post for the week.” Here ’tis.
(clearly I need electrolysis)
Happy the Week of 4 February 2019
What’s making YOU happy this week?
Saturday and yesterday, David and I cleared out the upstairs wardrobes, after a long time of not being able to find so many things that we’ve wanted/needed/wondered about.
We’d been planning this since long before the Marie Kondo show (which we can’t see, in any event) started. I read the tidying up book several years ago and we did a major cull then, but stuff piles up, again and again and again.
If you had been eavesdropping on us on Saturday, you would have heard a lot of “I’ve been *looking* for that!” and “Good Lord; what made me think that ever looked good?” or “I don’t even remember buying that,” and even “why do I own 43 pairs of shorts?” It was an interesting afternoon, to say the least. Also tiring, dusty and apparently designed to remind me of the clothes that I loved when I could still fit into them, and also to remind me that hanging onto something I last fit into 100 lbs ago is well and good in a house with infinite storage, but London homes don’t have infinite (or even adequate) storage.
So I now have a hallway full of clothes waiting for a chubby freecycler to come and get them, and a wardrobe where I can find the (far fewer) things that I still actually wear.
So, yeah, I’m happy about that. I’m also happy about what I’m reading, but that’s a story for a different day.
The Wonder That is Me