Grandparental House Inventory

Well, Mom sent an e-mail to say that she is back in VA, completely exhausted from all of the cleaning and packing and... well, more cleaning and packing (including the long and dreadful saga of the Grimiest Basement Stair Railing Ever), plus the drive down from NY.

My grandfather was, I think, quite happy to go live in a nice studio apartment at the senior living complex, where he could go get three meals a day without having to bother about fixing them himself, where there were people he could talk to and activities and free coffee all the time, and not having to worry about mowing the lawn, or shoveling snow, while various other people took care of cleaning out the house and getting it ready to put on the market.

Of course, cleaning out the house that my grandparents had been living in since it was built back in the 1950s was... um... bound to be both full of stuff (although not as full as it could have been, since my aunt cleaned out some things after my grandmother died fifteen years ago)...




1) A disturbing number of creepy ceramic animals.

2) A large ceramic Christmas tree with lights, identical to the one we got from my grandmother years ago (she did the type of ceramics where you pour into a mold and then do the glazing after the ceramic form has been fired).

3) An old metal box full of letters, documents, a set of WWII ration cards, a desk set consisting of scissors and a letter opener in a sheath, old photographs, and a fantastically beautiful hair comb that would have looked amazing with K's hairstyle for the wedding.

4) A set of six brandy glasses and a brandy snifter with a company logo (Mayflower insurance, I think, but I'm not really sure).

5) Another, much smaller, ceramic Christmas tree, where the top pulled off to reveal that it was actually a cigarette lighter, while the bottom layers were individual ashtrays.

6) The first five books of the "Left Behind" series (alas, my requests to set them on fire were denied). Dad proposed we follow the label and just leave them behind.

7) A small ceramic serving dish, shaped and colored like a life-sized baked-potato, with a small spoon in it.

8) A souvenir shotglass from Hawaii.

9) An eggbeater, located in the drawer under the oven.

10) A fairly astounding quantity of crocheted lace doilies, placemats, and things to put on dressers, done by my great-grandmother.

11) Eleven bone china teacups, and thirteen bone china saucers, all with different floral designs, bought as mementos on various trips, primarily to Canada.

12) My grandfather's deer-spooking rifle (according to Dad, when Grandpa and his buddies went deer-hunting, they'd, you know, get up and go early in the morning, and then once it was past the time to see any deer, they'd go eat lunch and spend the afternoon playing poker and drinking beer. Since Grandpa enjoyed the second parts, but wasn't actually interested in the first part, so much, when he saw a deer, he fired up into the air so that it would run away).

13) A closet full of linens and blankets and the persistent ghost of old mothballs (no actual mothballs were ever located).

11) An old ouja board, in a dusty old original box, located one morning in a deserted corner in a largely empty attic (the Roommate would like to point out that she's seen this movie, and it Never Ends Well).

12) A large ceramic serving dish, shaped and decorated like a very large baked potato. With a tiny little additional potato as a handle on the lid.

13) Two beer mugs, with my grandparents' names inscribed on them.

14) Rather more bottles of Soft Scrub cleaner (with and without bleach) than could reasonably be expected in a house with only one bathroom.

15) Assorted highball glasses.

16) One of those paintings of Jesus where the artist was clearly aiming for "soulful and compassionate" and somehow missed and went straight into disturbing "why are the eyes following me around like that" territory.

17) A cookbook entitled, "The Well-Rounded Potato."

18) Two boxes of shotgun shells. These, along with the rifle, ended up going into the bunch of stuff for the garage sale, because Mom didn't think it was a good idea to send them over to the senior apartment complex, even though a) the shotgun shells would not work in the rifle, and b) Grandpa apparently had somebody he was planning to give the rifle to.

20) An angelfood cake slicer, located in the top drawer of the buffet table my grandfather was using down in his workshop to keep the belt sander and vice assorted drillbits on.

21) A set of lawn darts. Which had to be tossed out, rather than being put with the bunch of stuff for the garage sale, because they are now illegal, on the grounds that using them might result in somebody getting hurt.