Boxes

a celebratory Christmas Cactus

 Happy Birthday RantDad.

If RantDad were still alive he would turn 90 today, one of those time horizons one hardly imagines, whether the celebrant is alive or not.

30 years ago, RantWoman flew back to MT to surprise RantDad on his birthday. That year his birthday fell on Thanksgiving. RantWoman missed out on Thanksgiving dinner but collected a nice incentive to take a later flight than the one she originally booked. The whole trip was the best birthday surprise ever.

35 years ago was a terrible tragedy RantWoman still smarts from.

But let us talk RantDad memories:

Bassoon music

Postcard collecting

Stacking boxes in boxes.

RantDad was frugal in a style that definitely did not permit throwing away all the boxes that crossed his path.  In fact, even though some kinds of math definitely were not RantDad's favorite, he made sort of a hobby of stacking boxes in boxes and then figuring out how to rearrange things to stack even more boxes in the boxes. 

When RantMom was getting ready for downsizing 1.0, we discovered that the garage of the family home still held boxes stacked from the 1960's, before the RantFamily moved from CO to MT.: All of these spatial reasoning masterpieces started going out the door during Downsizing 1.0 for RantMom. RantMom sold the home where she lived for 30 years, loaded her life behind a bulkhead in one of those we will move your stuff in our semi on our timeline deals and moved to Seattle.

And two downsizings later, RantMom's apartment still has a FEW boxes stacked in boxes remaining.

RantWoman smiles ironically every time she flattens an Amazon delivery box. The flattened boxes go to the recycle. RantWoman would be thrilled if the charming drivers who bring boxes of things to her door could, on subsequent trips. In the meantime, RantWoman strives to move the boxes along in the universe more elegantly than RantDad did.