With the downpours of the last few days we found a surprise when we went down into the basement to clean out the remaining boxes. The basement was flooded. The sump pump didn’t work. The boxes had gotten wet in an almost identical scenario previously and had grown mold. Now they weren’t just moldy, they were wet and moldy. Most of the boxes contained newsprint wrapped dishes and glasses. We should have been wearing haz mat suits for the clean up we had to do this morning.

Also, an interesting little factoid that I learned this morning: we are lugging dishes around from my father’s mother, my mother’s mother, My stepfather’s mother, my mother and my stepfather’s first wife.

I remember packing dishes from my grandmother’s house when she died. China lugged from Nona’s house, wrapped and packed, lugged downstairs, lugged upstairs soggy and moldy, unpeeled, re-wrapped, packed in boxes and lugged into the new/old house garage to be gone through at a later date. Dishes are heavy! I haven’t even mentioned the china cabinet yet.

I do have to put in a positive here. She did give away her mother’s set to the nice neighbor next door.

As we were in the middle of all this I stopped looked at my mother and said, “You gave me life and I am forever grateful, but now… we’re even.”