2011-08-20-8:57 a.m.

I read emails all day every day about stuff other people want or stuff that other people want to give away. Sometimes I want what they have and I'm not the first one to reply so I'm out of luck. Sometimes I get things.

One time I got a bunch of wire hangers from this girl who got very irritated with how long I was taking to pick them up. Maybe she had a big long list of people who were anxious to get their hands on those wire hangers and she was tired of waiting for me to come get them out of her living room. It was funny. I did go get them and now I use them to make little hangers for garden tools in the lattice arch on my porch.

One time Andrew and I went to this lady's house to get some plants that she had pulled up out of her yard. She asked us inside and started showing us all her plants and basically teaching Andrew botany. (She really is a high school biology teacher!) She would pick off a piece of something and stick it in our bag and then go on to the next one. She even gave us some plants that someone else took too long to pick up. (If you use freecycle, pick things up quickly to avoid p***ing people off.)

So I know the, uh, joy of getting something for free from someone who wants it gone. But this weekend I have learned the joy of giving away stuff I don't want to people who do want it.

B left over a year ago on February 8. It was a well-planned exit. The only way you could tell that she had ever even been here was that her bed was exactly the same as it always was. I guess she didn't want that. Anyways, after a year and a half, I guess I started to realize that she was gone for good. I'm real sharp that way! I dug her bedding out of the cedar chest and put it in a big garbage bag and listed it on freecycle.

It's funny how you can leave your house one night and not know that the next person who will sleep on your daughter's pillow is not your daughter, but some stranger's grandchildren. Life is really weird sometimes.

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