How can you tell it's Monday?...

The boss called in and said she was taking a couple hours of personal time,  but called back an hour after she was supposed to be here originally and changed that to taking a sick day. I wonder what will happen when she runs out of vacation as well as sick time?

This was a busy weekend. My parents had an auction to clean out the old homestead and  sell the rest of the furniture that  no one in the  family had room to cram in. There was a beautiful antique grandfather clock and an antique Morris chair  that went way too cheap and when the bidding wouldn't start well they decided not to sell the antique organ. I'm going to have to convince (translation-brow beat) my sister into taking it. The Amish families bought the huge dining room table and hutch and I like thinking about their large family gathered around the table that has groaned under the weight of countless of our family feasts. Not surprisingly the collection of antique TV and stereo and ham radio tubes brought in some good money. Two guys stood toe to to having a little bidding war over the tool chests full of tubes. After the dust settled I  approached them and asked  what they would do with all those parts  and they said  they'd probably use some  and sell the rest. So, I asked if they felt they'd gotten a deal and one of them answered, "It depends, if they test good, I probably will get to use some, sell the rest and make a little money. If they don't test good, it's just a box of junk!" That answer surprised me and I blurted out, "You boys are just here doing a little gambling!" I think one of them thought I was hitting on him because he said something about his wife getting annoyed at him for spending money on more parts. I did refrain from telling them that my Dad was so exasperated with the whole process that he 'd almost set them to the curb where they could have picked them up for free! J and I had tried to convince my Dad to sell them individually on ebay, but the house sold so quickly that there just wasn't time for that.  I met the new homeowners and they seem like good people.  I told them they would enjoy the house and that it had good karma.  I only hope they're able to co-exist with the large family who lives next door as peacefully as my parents have. Hearing some of the neighbor boys talk about the new dirt bike and dune buggy they've just acquired leads me to believe that there will  be a new fence in the vicinity very soon! It's amazing to think that my parents bought the house in 66 or 67 for 13K and sold it for less than I paid for my own house ten years ago. The new owners certainly got a deal, my parents profited and now they're free from  the responsibility of caring for two homesteads. I will miss the old home place, but my parents have been generous with the things that send me down nostalgia lane; the rolling pin that my Mom made countless homemade pies with, the mantel clock that my Dad disassembled as a boy and then reassembled as an adult and wound every Sunday for most of my childhood,  the large crock that sat in front of the bathroom window filled with the stinky wintered over geraniums. Of course some things can't be carried away; the pine trees where the mourning doves nested right outside Mom's sewing room window, the coal room in the basement where we stored stacks of firewood which I then lugged  upstairs to fill the wood box each week, the cool side porch shaded with honeysuckle ( I dug up a start for a vine at my own house in 2000, and the antique glider now graces my front porch), the garage that I spent a good deal of one summer helping build from the house we salvaged to make room for our church's enlarged parking lot. The house may have parted ways with our family, but the memories live on.