Of cabbages and kings

I can't believe it's January, on the cusp of the inauguration of the first African American President, and I haven't written a blog entry yet in the new year. Tonight I will remedy that situation. I have so many things to write about, it's hard to put it all into one blog entry. You may think, from the title, that this entry has something to do with cabbages and kings. Not so. The title is meant to suggest the potpourri nature of this narrative, and perhaps reveals something about the way my brain works. Or doesn't work, as the case may be.

Today was a day of remembering. And it was prompted by cleaning every last thing out of my upstairs bathroom preparatory for its demolition tomorrow. I'll bet you're wondering what sort of memories are held in bathroom cabinets......I will cite only a few small examples. First was a 25 year old (at least) tube of Mary Kay facial masque. It had basically petrified in its container. (Pink, of course, with gold lettering). That made me think of my friend Van Mosedale, who died in the mid1980s, but who invited me to a Mary Kay cosmetics party at her home sometime around 1978. For a brief time after that, I actually wore some foundation, and had both powdered rouge and some put-on-with a finger rouge. And the masque, of course. O.k., those days are over.

Next, I found a small bar of soap in cardboard packaging with Chinese writing on one side. On the other side, it said, Kunlun Hotel, Beijing. That dates to my 1988 week in Beijing where I attended an International Special Education conference. That brought back a whole host of memories, not the least of which was my major surprise at realizing that my first trip outside the continent of North America was to China. Where did that bravery come from? Of course I also thought of another friend, Elba Marrero, who turned out to be my roommate in the Kunlun Hotel. We could not be more different, but we became lifelong friends as a consequence of that trip, and the fact that we just happened to be the last two people in line to check in to the hotel that night after 26 hours of traveling.

Later, I found a small box of matches from Rigsby's Restaurant in Columbus Ohio, a place where Sarah and I had dinner one weekend when I visited her while she was in grad school. I remember how much I looked forward to those weekends, some of which included a chance to see her perform. One weekend, I couldn't fly home because Logan was shut down because of a snowstorm much like the one we experienced today. Needless to say, I was not unhappy to have to stay one more day in Columbus!

Another matchbook came from Obrycki's Crab House in Baltimore Maryland, a place where you get to sit at tables covered with brown paper and use wooden mallets to whack away at some special kind of crab native to the area. This made me think of my friends Donna Barnes and Karen Weinhold, with whom I shared this crab experience and many other great NCTE conferences in Denver, Detroit, New York, and Atlanta. We have just been emailing about dinner together a week from Monday!

Of course i threw out massive amounts of xeroform and ouchless bandages and gauze pads which reminded me of my nose reconstruction after skin cancer surgery; and there were numerous poison ivy remedies which reminded me of some pretty bad cases of that lovely irritant. And there were male-type razors and some other items to which I said good riddance as I thought of my unmentionable exhusband. Some readers will be happy to know that I threw out anything past its expiration date (which was just about everything).

Finally, as I picked up the toilet brush, I lifted the abalone shell which is its receptacle. I scrubbed it up, and really, it's so beautiful, I don't know why I don't use it for something other than a toilet brush! It came from the beach in my southern California childhood home, and it took me right back there, even though, if I looked out the window, I could see the snow falling at a great rate, a far cry from the average sunny day in Carpinteria, California.

So, as the nation prepares for a new beginning which will, hopefully, take us back to being a nation ruled by law, with compassion and empathy for others, I prepare for a new bathroom, one which will remind me of the beach on a foggy day.....complete with an abalone shell, and minus one giant trashbag full of the stuff of life gone by.