Almost Katrina-free content

My parents, praise be, are in good health, and their recent move from a row house to an apartment is not a retreat to supervised living. In fact, it's out of a pit into a Pied å Terre; my mom keeps saying it feels like an upscale hotel (although the leak in the bathroom may bring her down to earth). Yet the move after 36 years in one place may send all of us to the asylum.

I mentioned that I was not in the habit of running my battery all the way down? Friday I drove to Northampton, MA, and got my daughter, who drove us to Woburn on Saturday. I continued into Boston, where the traffic is awful, even though I learned to drive in it. My parents and I and my ex, whose birthday it was, went to the house to help pick up a few things. This involved three cars parking in the South End, which is to laugh. I parked a couple blocks away and proceeded to sack my parents' house for everything I could get, as is the wont of offspring. Mostly some very battered Oriental rugs and some paintings done by my grandmother, who was not bad for learning at age 60++. We prepared to meet at my ex's apt some miles away in Jamaica Plain. It was pretty grim as the closing on the house is Friday and they have much stuff still there. The weather was sticky and my parents are understandably in a miasma, what with the moving and the watching CNN all the time and having to stop and rage at the government

I could not find my keys. After several goes through my pockets and bag, I walked to my car, and found them securely locked in. Back to parents' house. I called Triple A, and my ex kept me company. Triple A were prompt and friendly and efficient and my goodness, cars are not very secure. Ex drove away. Triple A drove away, despite my running down the street after him shouting, because my car would not start, because having the key in the ignition had run the battery down. I walked back to my parents', and found my ex loading a plastic compost bin into the Beetle. Ex came back and jumped my battery. We filled up my car and drove to Jamaica Plain, where my mother gave me another bag of blankets (they are sending a bunch to the Gulf area, too), and then my ex's upstairs neighbors were working on the garden so I wondered if they might be dividing their hostas, which they were. Very large hostas. My car was so full it was amazing.

So yesterday I unloaded it and washed blankets and took Murphy's Oil Soap and a soft brush to the rugs, and sooner or later I shall put up some fine pictures of the cypresses near my grandmother's home in Florida in the 70's. And plant hostas, unless they eat the cats and me first, which they could do easily.