August 23, 2002 - 9:57 a.m.
Life's getting to the point that a weekly update is all I might be capable of right now - and doing well to find the time to sit down and write it. It's not for lack of things to tell. My house is a very interesting place right now - both in a good sense and in the ancient Chinese context. And my free time this week vanished in the wake of an obsession.
I tend to be a little absent-minded. I lose my keys, my purse and my watch on a regular basis unless I make a point to put each in their "home." When I got married, my mother gave me one of those ring dishes so at least I wouldn't have to worry about my wedding bands. She knows me well... Anyway, there are two things that really annoy me: losing things and not being able to find them when I want them. Actually, I should say there's only one thing that annoys me because I don't realize things are lost until I want them. And when I want them, I want them now.
A few weeks ago I began looking into getting Zachary's first pair of shoes bronzed. (There is some disagreement between my husband and myself about which are Zachary's first pair of shoes. His definition is whatever went on his feet and laced up. Mine is the first pair purchased to protect his feet while walking around. In any case, my definition is the one sturdy enough to be bronzed, so it's a moot point in all debates except the ongoing one between the Bookgirl and Colin-G.) I did my research, I made a few calls, I chose a vendor. And then I went to measure his shoes to narrow down my options of how they would be mounted.
You guessed it - I couldn't find them.
They should have been on a shelf in my closet, but were not. I could successfully locate and pair every other shoe or bootie in the house, but the best I could do with the size 5 Stride Rites was discovering the empty box in the bottom of the closet. The empty box didn't disturb me, really. Zachary wears his new shoes home, so the pair bought in that box were actually in the box for the next pair - which were in the box for his third pair of shoes, on the shelf in my closet. So I had pair #2 and #3 (he's still wearing #4) but not #1.
I decided to clean the closet where I had found the box - our stuff and garb closet.
One thing this house does not lack is storage space. We have two walk in closets in our bedroom and, for people who tend to be minimalists about clothes, we really only need about half of one. So the spare closet is full of our SCA garb, luggage, some books (there everywhere, really), boxes of unsorted photos and various other stuff, all kind of piled in "to be dealt with later." In short - it's a mess. And I combed through it as finely as the brief simultaneous toddler and infant naptimes would allow. I sorted the piles of garb into his and hers rubbermaid bins, pulled the stepladder from the kitchen to reach the top shelves and reorganized everything.
No shoes.
Damn.
I returned once again to our primary closet, just to be sure I hadn't overlooked anything there, taking the stepladder with me. I'm a little on the short side (ok, poor pun). The cabinet over the range is a challenge for me and I have a clear childhood memory of my delight at being able to finally reach the beverage shelf in the refrigerator. I really ought to have more than one stepladder, but have never gotten around to purchasing another.
No shoes.
Damn.
The next day I made a list of possible places those shoes could be and set out to tackle the most likely.
I emptied and searched Marcus' closet.
No shoes.
Damn.
Zachary's closet holds little more than a rubbermaid bin of outgrown clothes, an empty box his toy castle came in, and the future footboard of his bed.
No shoes.
Damn.
That left the Closet of Doom over the garage - packed but much less intimidating since Mike cleaned it earlier this summer. I gave it a thorough looking-through, high from my perch on the stepladder.
No shoes.
Damn.
Yesterday I woke up determined to spend yet another day on a fruitless search over the boys' naptime, forsaking lunch and computer time. Such was my obsession with finding a pair of Stride Rite sneakers. But I am wise. Thousands of times in my childhood I would search for things "everywhere," only to collapse into a pouting, frustrated ball afterward, my mother would locate in plain site. If it was a snake, it would have bitten you. So I returned to the sites of previous days.
And there the damn shoes were - on the shelf in my closet, neatly sitting under the box of my bookbinding equipment. If it were a snake....
