prematurely grey

In case you’ve never been here, we live in a house that would be better described as a bowling alley. You see though the length of the 60′ house when you walk through the front door. You enter into the original 1941 11′x16′ living room, commonly referred to as “The Front Room.” There’s a 5′ wide doorway to the rest of the house across from the front door. In other words, it’s a passage way with an old fireplace painted the blue of a Mexican bowl.

Here’s what’s in the front room right now:

• The box of Halloween decorations, complete with the plastic pumpkin collection all over the top of the box
• A 4′ high birthday cake “costume” worn by Mazie last Friday (which was over a decade ago, if memory serves me right). The cake costume is the latest oblation in Mazie’s ongoing devotion to “Ace of Cakes.” It was constructed from three large boxes, a roll of white wrapping paper, purple duct tape, and velcro in two hours, with a start time of 4:30.
• A hand-painted poster of a donkey and Obama ‘08, not quite finished.
• A volleyball
• Three houseplants in various levels of death
• An Obama shrine featuring postcards, Peppermints We Can Believe In, bumper stickers, photos of Obama and the Familiar Stranger, my neighbor Ben’s incredible drawing of the first debate, and the 273 poster I held, Norma Rae-style, over my head the morning of the county convention to help get the SD-14 Precinct 273 Obama delegates into the hall before they closed the doors.
• A 1933 Steinway baby grand.

Clearly, the time for Operation Clean Sweep has arrived.