Although the cable no longer serves any purpose because the TV signals it carried now come over WiFi, the cable is completely functional. And who knows, some day, I may have a use for it.
But I threw it out.
I'm a 64-year-old man and I threw out something that could possibly be useful some day.
This might mean that people, specifically me, can change.
On the other hand, I've probably got four or five hours in which to change my mind.
At some time in the past, I found an undeveloped roll of film. I don't remember where I found it and I don't remember when. It might have been in Ottawa. But maybe not. I might have found it last year, but it could have been 5 or 6 years ago.
From time to time, I would think, I must get that developed. Perhaps it's the only photo someone took of some special occasion. But I never got around to it.
Then one day, I learned that Kaye was going to a store where they develop film and he was kind enough to take it in for me.
Now, all this time later, the film has been developed. There was only one photo on the roll. It does not appear to be from a special occasion, but it might be a fond memory for someone.
There are many signs that our society has become too materialistic.
The top-rated show on A&E is Storage Wars where we watch a group of colourful characters buy and sell the contents of storage lockers whose owners have defaulted on the monthly rent.
The top show on History TV is Pawn Stars where we watch a colourful Las Vegas family buy interesting items from people who never admit they're desperate to pay gambling debts.
History also has American Pickers and Canadian Pickers which each follow two guys who drive around buying stuff that fits the expression "one man's trash is another man's treasure."
Spike's highest rated show is Auction Hunters, another storage locker buying show.
A&E's Hoarders is also doing really well. If you're like me, you watch Hoarders and say, "at least I'm not that bad."
There are many more shows about acquiring stuff. The ones I know about and usually enjoy include Hardcore Pawn, Antiques Road Show (UK, US, Canada), Auction Kings, What the Sell, the very weird Oddities, and Pawnathon Canada.
But here's something that hit me this morning when we were on Catherine Street dropping Zander off at the bus station. See this storage locker building that is a block from Bank Street:
It used to be a bowling alley.
I'm not saying that a bowling alley is the absolute best use of downtown real estate, but it makes me sad that it was more economical for the owners of 270 Catherine to rip out the lanes, pins and ball returns and put in storage lockers.
Shouldn't we be bowling instead of acquiring so much stuff that it won't fit in our homes so we have to rent storage lockers?
My name is David Scrimshaw and I am a hoarder. But yesterday morning, I went down in the cellar with Manon and filled two bins and a bucket with old paint cans. It was easy for me to part with the spray cans because they are empty. I didn't feel so good about the wall paint cans that I could feel stuff sloshing inside, but then I realized that they were getting so rusty there is a distinct possibility of the cans rusting through before I ever actually use the paint in them.
So then with the bins in the car along with two empty propane cylinders and a book to read while waiting in line it was off to the one day household hazardous waste depot on the other side of the Queensway.
Guess what. I didn't need the book. Norman Street between Booth and Rochester was dedicated to the depot and was swarming with cheerful volunteers in white disposable coveralls. One volunteer directed me in, another asked me for the first three letters of my postal code (full points for compliance with privacy legislation) and and a bunch more emptied my bins and gave them back to me within about a minute.
And nobody gave me any attitude or even teasing about how dangerous looking my paint cans had gotten.
It was all so easy and efficient that it made me want to go to somebody else's house to find more hazardous waste I could drop off.
There are plenty more household hazardous waste depots coming up this year. You can find them at this link on the City's website.
And here's a link that will work for other Canadian cities besides Ottawa.
Yesterday, I unsubscribed from Unclutterer. Here is why:
Another common problem we all have these days is knowing what to do with all those blown woofers lying around the house. (The ones from the speaker cabinets we've used for cat castles.)
I haven't quite figured out what to do with the metal rings. But there are lots of fun things to do with the magnets after you pry them off.
For example, they make a convenient device for storing a screwdriver with multiple bits on your fridge.
Added bonus: Sculpt the bits into different shapes while you wait for your spaghetti water to boil.
The next time you are melting glass with a blowtorch in the dining room and inadvertently burn a hole in your Ikea table top, you don't have to throw out the table. You can do what I did.
If you're not into sculpting a giant squid with pirates, you could instead make this into a tiny terrarium and keep little animals in there.
[Marcie and Red Vera, you may skipt this post.]
Drexel likes to keep an eye on me while I'm at the computer.
She had a chair, but it was getting in the way. So I added carpet scraps to the nightstand that is no longer needed in the guest room.
Did you know that with a blow torch you can heat little pieces of glass so that they melt into each other and form abstract shapes? And that you can hang the new creations from pieces of wire? Or even melt the glass around a piece of wire?
I recently discovered that you can.
I also observed the following:
Two weeks ago I spotted a broken mirror on Gladstone Avenue. I wanted to take it home, but I thought about all the stuff here that I have to do something with. I'll take a picture of it! I decided remembering one of my decluttering tips.
As soon as I took one picture, I noticed it was kind of an artsy effect. So I took a bunch of photos.
Unclutterer posted a reader suggestion this week for people who need to store lots of boots: Use binder clips to suspend up to 5 pairs from a hanger. The reader, Lisa, recommends putting fabric between the teeth of the clip and the boots to prevent indentations.
I love hanging things and I love using binder clips, but I cannot support this binder clip use. As the clever commenters point out:
Storage is not a big issue for my 2 pairs of boots, but I can tell you that I'd make a huge mess if I started storing them in a clothes cupboard without putting them in plastic bags first. And if they're in plastic bags, no need for binder clips.
I suspect these people hanging their boots in the closet don't live in winter geography. I'd wonder why they have boots at all, but they make it clear that it is not about necessity.
Wikihow has some better ideas for boot and shoe storage.
I thought I had just found a practical way to get three of my typewriters off the floor last week by hanging them on the wall. (I have four typewriters. I know. It's crazy. I am not accepting any more.)
By reading Mae Callen's blog, I learned today that my practical decluttering technique is evocative of Blue Monday Strip by famous kinetic sculpture artist Rebecca Horn.
A couple of years ago, I told Keane I wanted to make an inuksuk. (According to Wikipedia, "inukshuk" is a mispronunciation and"inuksuk" is the preferred spelling. The weird thing is that it seems that what I wanted to make is actually an "inunnguaq" because I wanted to make a cairn representing a human figure. But, "inuksuk" means "something which acts for or performs the function of a person," so why is a person shaped inuksuk supposed to have a different name? I'm afraid the discussion page on Wikipedia is no help on this question and only goes over the "s" or "sh" spelling battle.)
Unlike on the barren tundra, flat rocks are hard to come across here in the centre of Ottawa. So I decided to use urban materials. Keane happily agreed to help me in the quest and between the two of us we amassed a good collection that was kept, of course, in my basement.
Because of the decluttering mission, today was building day. Keane came over, we carried the pieces out to the driveway and we put it together. We could have consulted a reference on building inuksuit, but it was obvious how everything should go together.
We took photos, and then took the head off and waited in the driveway to get sunset pictures. (We took the head off because it belongs to Kaye and she'd be upset if it fell off and broke. We stayed in the driveway because Keane felt that people would steal the pieces of the inuksuk. I thought he was imagining things, but it is garbage night here and there were a bunch of guys on bicycles who kept circling past. They could have been fans of cultural art.)
Quite a few cars stopped. Some people took pictures. A couple of kids really liked it. "It's a robot," one shouted.
I didn't want to contradict him and maybe turn him off Inuit art, so I said "Not a very smart robot."
"But it's cool," said the kid.
I thanked him for the compliment.
Finally the sun got low in the sky, we took our final shots and then brought the pieces back into the house.
[After uploading this picture of the fantastic toolbox from Megan, I realized that I'd placed something in one of the compartments that she would not want to see. If you don't have arachnophobia, you can see the censored bit by clicking on the picture.]
Things are a bit congested and confused here at the ScrimChateau. Manon and Kaye, Drexel's former custodians have moved here and they brought a lot of stuff with them. While I managed to unload a bag or two of clothes and a broken TV before they came, I had a pretty full house to start with.
But I'm happy about the new stuff. For example, Manon has a much better tree-pruner than I did. Kaye especially has great stuff, and although I'm not allowed to use most of it, it is good to have here just in case, like the Zombie emergency box.
So, when I saw this really cool General Electric toolbox on the porch, I thought it was Kaye's and felt really jealous. To the point of wondering how I could trick her into letting me have it.
It wasn't until two days later that I noticed the thin aluminum box. Wait a second, I thought, that is exactly the sort of box I've told people to give to me instead of throwing out. I looked at the General Electric toolbox again and noticed the lamp next to it. I didn't remember ever seeing that lamp at Manon's place and I remembered that I've also asked people to give me broken lamps.
"Manon, do you or Kaye own this General Electric toolbox?"
"I thought you owned it," said Manon, "I was going to ask why you were putting that great box out with the recycling."
So that is when I figured out that a kind soul had left me three excellent things. I am looking forward to making excellent use of all of them.
Thank you. If there are stories behind any of the items, I'd love to hear them.
As part of the decluttering, I emptied some book shelves tonight. The books on the shelves were not clutter, but they took up space that some clutter can go. Among the books were university textbooks that I didn't read when I was in University. And I'm not talking about the recent time I was in university. It's been more than 25 years and I must accept that I'm never going to be an expert on Generative Phonology. Or the conflict in the Middle-East as it stood in the late '70s. So it doesn't hurt to part with those books.
But I am having a hard time parting with my big fat Webster's Collegiate Dictionary with the scooped out tabs for each letter of the alphabet. I used to use it frequently, but now I have a dictionary widget on my iGoogle page.
I'm not ever going to need a dictionary again unless the internet goes away.
And while I think it is entirely possible that circumstances could arise in which the internet goes away, I can't imagine a dictionary being useful in any of those circumstances.
Still, it was a good dictionary.
In the past week, a bunch of the blogging demi-gods have been promoting Peter Walsh's decluttering book, It's All Too Much.
They are making a big fuss over his premise that it's time we stopped trying to organize our stuff and started getting rid of it. Or at least a lot of it.
I figure I don't need to read Walsh's book because I have seen him in so many episodes of Clean Sweep that I know all his techniques.
One of those techniques is to take a photo of something that has sentimental value but you have no use for. In my decluttering on the weekend, that's what I did with my C.C Raiders pennant. It was in a box in the basement. Given that I didn't go to Raiders' games when I was a student at Cornwall Collegiate, it is not likely that I am going to start. If I do, I'll recreate the pennant from this photo.
A lot of other stuff that used to be in the basement is no longer in the basement and in fact no longer in the house. 2008 may be the year that I perform the "clean the basement" resolution.
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