My father came from Fountain County, Indiana. He was so far south in Fountain County, he was almost in Parke County – but he wasn’t so that isn’t relevant. It would be relevant if  The Bridges of Madison County had been named The Bridges of Parke County; it could have been, there are covered bridges there too. But it wasn’t and so mentioning Parke County doesn’t make you think of  Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep and covered bridges. But, maybe now, the idea of covered bridge country is in your mind.

Anyway, this lady named Firma who lived in those surroundings painted a lot of pictures of peaceful country scenes, and sometimes she painted them on old metal things that were used in that era. We have some at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse and just thought we would share a bit of our atmosphere.

The signature.

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The whole saw.

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Some sort of sifting-like thing with holes made into a lampshade.

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Ash shovel or coal scuttle . . . something along those lines.

Out by the hedge is a large dumpster which needs to be filled in the next couple of days before they come to pick it up. Unfortunately, most of the things to go in it are either one floor up or one floor down from ground level. And, then, of course, it the rule about no toxic stuff or old appliances. Rats. I need a truck that comes along slowly and picks up old microwaves and computers for a small fee; I don’t want to wrestle one of those things into a sedan and drive it to a recycling center because of the loading factor.

So, for now, clutter is going into the dumpster and the garage has a stack of toxic/old appliances. I have a lot of special things lying around which others see as clutter so I can’t run around telling everybody to grab something and head to the dumpster. I think I am going to have to be like Snidely Whiplash and sneak around and take other people’s clutter to the dumpster.  I will have to practice saying “Gee, I haven’t seen that lately” a lot.

I would like to have a tilt-a-room into which I could put throw away stuff and them let it tilt toward the dumpster. I could stand somewhere and film the avalanche of junk heading into the big brown receptacle. I can spend upwards of 15 minutes daydreaming about my tilt-a-room. I can spend 25 minutes maybe walking around looking at my stuff before picking up a ballpoint pen that doesn’t work and deciding I can toss it. Soooo, I guess it is less the effort of getting stuff to the trash than it is the deciding to let it go.

I am not a hoarder; I am a potential hoarder. I think that is because I can see a story in everything. Maybe they should duct tape me to the wall and duct tape my mouth closed and then just go fill the dumpster.

I had my hair colored yesterday and spent some minutes looking at the magazine Traditional Home. There is no “stuff” anywhere. Course I didn’t see any people either. Oh, yeah, they were probably outside pulling stuff OUT of the dumpster.

So, why did I get a dumpster for the driveway? For a moment did I think I had a bit of a chance of being like magazine people? Or even the basic housewife person? I would be bored to death in those rooms! I’ll bet it was an act of charity – I felt the need to provide dumpster-divers with new territory. Yes, I’m not throwing out trash; I’m filling it with someone else’s treasures.

I hate it when I manipulate myself, but sometimes it’s the only way, dontcha know.