Part I.
Part II.
Part III.

Part IV.
When you’re working as fast as you can at something you haven’t done before you have little time for reflection. You skeedaddle in the moment and ponder later. Then again, sometimes you scamper and consider and hope your feet don’t get tangled in a low-hanging thought, like driving like Jehu across four states and realizing you have to get up after 5 for an 8 AM garage sale.

Well, that sucks, huh?

After dinner, there was still organizing to do. Pete and I cleaned up and plunked down at the kitchen table, where we played The Price Is Right with Darla and Daria.

Daria: What do you think of this?
Pete: What is it?
Daria: A matching set of cheesy glass candleholders that weigh a ton.
Tata: $3!
Pete: Two for $5!
Daria: Sold!

The auctioneer peeled off pre-printed price tags and stuck them on things, over and over, until we were too bleary to continue.

Darla: This thing?
Tata: $1.
Darla: Why a dollar?
Tata: Maybe I don’t have to look at it again?
Darla: Good point.

On Friday night, the oddness of putting prices on Dad’s things did not really penetrate my travel exhaustion and white wine fog, which did not facilitate sleep. In my own bed, I’m not a good sleeper. For instance, this morning, I wandered into the kitchen, fed the kittens breakfast, thought about breakfast and fired up the laptop before noticing it was 2 AM. I went back to bed.

Pete: Whatcha doin’?
Tata: Evidently, I felt an overpowering subconscious need to spoon a quarter can of cat food into a bowl twice.

Next thing I knew the alarm blared and it was just after six, so I’m not just a bad sleeper, I make sleep mistakes. Likewise, the night before the garage sale, I tossed and turned. Then, because I’m thorough, I checked my work by tossing and turning again. Finally, around 5, I heard one of Darla’s cats register a complaint from outside, so I went downstairs to let him in. When I came back up the stairs, Daria popped out of her bedroom door, fully wound.

Daria: You’re up! Can I get up now? I can get up now that someone else is up!
Tata: It’s still dark out.
Daria: I’m up! Is it time to get up yet?
Tata: Sure. Why don’t you make us some coffee? Most of us will really need that.

Darla appeared at the other end of the hall like the sitcom wacky neighbor.

Darla: Where’s everyone else? We have to be at Cleo’s in half an hour.
Tata: It’s still dark out.
Daria: Dara’s teenage butt’s still in bed.
Tata: I have to shower before other humans smell me.
Darla: Cleo reminded me that even though I advertised for an 8 AM start, I should expect crazy fuckers before 6.
Tata: Intriguing! I have to tell Pete we expect early bird crazy fuckers.

Minutes later, I discovered that Darla had vigorously cleaned the common bathroom, which would have been newsworthy anytime but was made even more so because I had to wash my entire person with Pantene-knockoff shampoo. I couldn’t wait to tell Daria that Darla had emptied the once-packed bathroom of dozens of personal cleaning products and bathing came with full-body frizz control. Darla went on ahead to Cleo’s house. Pete, Daria, Dara and I followed half an hour later as the sun rose and as we pulled up, crazy fuckers were already standing on Cleo’s lawn.

It was at this instant I realized that ads in the Staunton News Leader, signs on poles and chatter on WSVA, where Dad was on the radio for 20 years, had brought all these people here for a piece of Dad. I had no illusion that he belonged to me or to us and that by keeping these objects I could keep him. Dara’s been a local celebrity since before she was born because Dad was always a public person. He’s gone. Still, I hesitated for just a moment. Then, I grabbed a box and lugged it past those people to a table in the yard.

I interrupt this brief interlude to get back to the story.

Part I.
Part II.

III.
I’m taking this out of order now, but what don’t I? At some point during the yard sale, Darla looked around impatiently and said she wished she’d brought a camera so she could record the day. I allowed as how I’d brought a camera and could take pictures. Then I apologized in advance for the crappy pictures I was about to take. So here you see images of people in scenic Staunton, Virginia, doing what people in Staunton, Virginia do on a sunny Saturday: forage through other people’s stuff.

This is one moment in all of history. I took these pictures in rapid succession because the moment itself was important, not the individual foragers and not even us, if you will, though we are not pictured. This is just time passing. This is just objects changing hands. Despite the price tags we put on each item, we sold most for a handful of change because the items themselves had become a burden on us and especially on Darla. The idea was to put these things into the hands of people who needed or wanted them, to put stuff back into circulation, without reservation. We did not turn down offers. People went away with some very nice things, and good for them. Good for us.

The important facts: a sunny day at the house of a friend, Dad’s things in boxes and on tables, two of my sisters, both of my stepmothers, Pete, me and for one moment, you.

We arranged table after table, box after box, palate after palate of Dad’s clothes, books, handtools and kitchen gadgets. We put out bookcases, lamps and recliners. We put out contraptions we could only explain because Darla is a genius. People took about half of everything.

We repacked everything that was left, hauled it back to Darla’s house and dragged it to the sun porch. By 5:30 PM, we could barely lift our arms to pack everything left over into our cars and trucks. Darla intends to pay her bills for the next month in quarters.

Part I

II.
You can get so tangled up in the events of your life that you forget the rest of the world entirely. Tomorrow is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Last week, I wrote a blog post in which my verbs were all over like snot on a toddler, and I see now I neglected to mention that the video came from Petulant via Melissa McEwan. This is not at all like me. I credit the pavement as I walk down the street, so who knows what was going on in my brain before we went to Virginia – all we know is what I am thinking when we arrive.

Tata: Pete, will you please do something tasty to these pork chops so I can eat them?

Time as you know it does not exist in the Casa Con Cows. During the month Dad was dying, we developed a syncopated rhythm, yes, but a steady beat – nope. Our days worked something like this:

1. Get up too early. Make tea and coffee. Crank up the laptop. Peek to see if Dad’s awake, possibly sit and talk with Dad. Empty garbage. Address needs of the cat herd. Eat fantastic leftovers.
2. Answer email. Work on laundry and the family store’s website while other members of the household work on Dad’s papers, errands or shopping. We grocery shop almost every day.
3. In the afternoon, we consider dinner.
4. It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where dinner is?

It doesn’t sound busy but Daria, Darla and I were lucky to get showers every other day. To combat this, we started thinking about dinner around 10 a.m., but that was then and this is now, and I want to eat the yummy pork chops before breakfast. We know from experience we fall right back into this whirling vortex the moment we hit the driveway but hope our esteemed colleague has some fight in him.

Daria: Take the panko and go on without me!
Pete: Um…got eggs?
Tata: I’m standing next to the fridge. If only I could reach…
Pete: Flour?

Daria walks around the corner to the pantry and returns with a pail of flour that reaches halfway up her thigh. She smiles knowingly.

Pete: Oil?

Daria holds one finger up in the air and disappears back into the pantry. She returns lugging a bottle the size of a gas can. Since we can’t lift the thing and most of us grew up during the gas crisis of the seventies, siphoning is no problem and the taste is more appetizing than Exxon Regular. The mass of spaghetti, mysteriously still growing in a back burner pot, is a handy canvas for the fresh sauce Daria concocts from the neighbors’ tomatoes. Pete breads and fries the pork chops. We make plates for ourselves and sit, but some habits are hard to break.

Darla: Oh, minions?
Dara: Can I get you another pork chop?
Daria: Do you need salad?
Tata: I’ll get you another glass of wine.
Darla: I was going to say it’s good to have you back but the servitude is nice, too.