It’s been a while, we know that. My last “Orangeness” entry was in early October of last year, 2015. A week after that, my mother broke her hip in a fall at home. Twelve days later, despite attempts to repair it and rehabilitate her, my mother passed away aged 94.
Since then my life has been seriously disrupted since I am the only heir and executor of her estate, and she left a load of stuff behind which has to be taken care of. So in these months since then I haven’t had either the time or the energy to post to the Orange. But it’s 2016 now, and February, the dreariest month of our year, so I need to get back to what I like. A sip of orange juice if you might say, though orange juice reminds me of my late father who was rather unsavory in his addiction to orange juice.
Let me tell you about what was left to me in this epic passage of generations. Plenty of money, enough to pay a lot of taxes on, so I am now for the moment one of the greedy parasitic inheritors of unearned wealth. And a decrepit house in a Boston suburb, filled with 60 years of hoarded parental material, ranging from ancient decaying coats and clothes and shoes, to 60 years worth of financial statements and check stubs proving that my mother bought a bottle of milk in 1974. And my father’s piano, which a piano technician has proclaimed un-repairable. It sounds like an otherworldly dulcimer and I have recorded some untuned piano sounds to use in later ambient compositions. Last but not least there is the archive of my parents’ musical and artistic careers, which includes my father’s music and media recordings. With great effort on my part and Maggie, the archivist at Brandeis University, we were able to stash all of my father’s music material into the Brandeis Department of Music archive, where it can be accessed by anyone interested in the music of my old Dad.
Much more difficult to curate is the large collection of unsold art of my mother’s. My mother created a large amount of art with no intention of selling it. She just made it because she was compelled by talent to do so. Talent unfortunately does not mean money and in her day it was considered completely crass and low for an artist to market his - or especially her work. So my mother’s output is sitting slowly falling apart in the two back rooms of the rather small house. I have gotten a couple of them placed or promised to museums or collectors but the majority remains with the old house…and the mice.
Yeah, I haven’t mentioned the mice yet. Not computer mice, real rodents, in their numbers, infest the house. I heard them scampering in the ceiling and behind the furniture. I did not see one, which is good because if I had I would have immediately decamped to the less infested Hampton Inn. The mice were feeding on old birdseed left in the room behind other things we couldn’t see. Even when we removed the birdseed the mousies kept coming because they had left stashes in their nests which they built all around the house in hidden hoarded places. Now mouses are cute, right? Mickey and Minnie? Three Blind Mice? They are NOT cute. They are vermin. And what I didn’t know about mice is that they pee and poop all over where they go, for territory and path marking. And this mouse effluent stinks unbelievably - worse than a skunk, if you have ever smelled that. Mouse effluent is also transferable. In that it contaminates whatever touches it, which in turn contaminates whatever touches that, etc. etc. I have been spraying Febreze and other stink relievers and I still smell it more than a month afterward.
It was Christmas time and I was re-enacting the Battle Against the Mouse King, but I had no Nutcracker or Toy Soldier Army to combat them. My helpers set up traditional snap-traps baited with peanut butter and seemed to put a dent in their numbers, but what we really needed was a fierce cat who would rid the house of them gladly.
Work has been done. I need to de-clutter my own place, and every time I remove something, I either stupidly buy something new, or find more stuff. I’m like my mother. I have check stubs from 1987 in a big space-filling box. 1987, you are going to be history, if I can get to you. That’s almost mid-century, though I think my mother beat me in the long-term hoarding department.
The old living room still looks mostly as it was when my parents lived there, mid-60s style. But the antique dealers are at work. I am selling off furniture pieces one by one, though I can’t do that while I’m not there. I managed to get rid of the most well-known piece, the chair known as the “Womb Chair,” designed by the famous Finnish architect and crossword-puzzle fill in word Eero Saarinen. This chair is a famous mid-century modern design but I always disliked it. Once you got in it you couldn't get out. Sort of like being in a womb I guess. You would struggle to get your butt out of the deep back of the chair and then you would pop out wet and screaming to pick up your drink from the round cocktail table which my father built to go with all the other mid century stuff.
As I have stuff removed from the house in advance of selling it, I offered the chair to a local antique store specializing in mid-century modern housewares and furniture. It is supposed to be worth some money but there has been some deterioration over the years so maybe not so much. At least someone will buy it and it will find its way to a better home. I'm still looking for a home for the art, which is large and difficult to display, and also smells of mouse pee.
I guess you’re up to date now.
February 14, 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment