Attic adventures: end of the first round of sorting

Back in the attic. I'm pretty much done with the first round of sorting--I was in there almost two hours this morning, because the end was most definitely in sight. I sorted through the stuffed animals. I think that was the biggest job yet. I came out with two bags of trash (the unsalvageables who were just too dirty to save) plus the huge green tiger and the unicorn who need to go out for trash, two bags and a box and several oversized guys who could all maybe find a new home, and then a very large pile of guys to tentatively keep. Some of them were my mom's, so she needs to look and see if they're worth saving, but most of them were my old friends. As I sorted, if I looked at someone and went "Oh! It's YOU!" and it wasn't horribly dirty, then it went in the Keep pile. Mom is probably going to argue with me, but I'm guessing I've at least halved the stuffed animal collection. I found a lot of good old friends, too. I had completely forgotten I had that many pound puppies. Once we sort through the guys who are left, I think I'm going to put everyone we're keeping into tupperware bins--I have several of them sitting around unused, and this way they won't get any dirtier. Some of them had dead bugs in their fur, and that's just gross. Let's avoid that in the future.

I also have a decent sized pile of things that Mom might want to try to sell on ebay--they're in good shape (still all fluffy and soft, little to no attic funk), they're big, and they're name-brand plush, like Elmo and Fievel. If she waits till closer to Christmas, she might get $10 each for them. There's a pretty good assortment.

On the ick side, I found another dead thing. Pretty sure it's a bird this time--there was a hole in the attic wall and bits of nest hanging out. I cleared the area so Dad can get back there and take care of it for me. Mr. Sam actually found that, he was helping me again today.

Found a sizeable collection of moldy old Barbie doll parts. Surprisingly, I'm going to hang on to this for a few days and see if I can hunt up Sunshine, to see if her dad wants it. (He's an anthropologist, more specifically an anthropomorphologist, which means he studies the causes of deaths of baby dolls. Hey, why throw it out if he can use it?) One of my emails to her has bounced back, but maybe her other address is still current, and I've asked Rhett if she's got a more recent one.

I also found (and this is the best part) two of my favorite children's books: Mystery on the Docks and Lamont the Lonely Monster!!! I'm so psyched. This is excellent news, and it's funny how I've been looking for Lamont all along and found him only on the very last day of the big sort.

Next steps are to take out the trash, leave stuff out for the Purple Heart pickup next week, and find a thrift store that'll take the used but loveable stuffies. And then there's another, smaller attic to clean, and then I'll have to go through the main attic again and sort and organize everything that's left. Man, I hope I get a job soon.

Krakatoa

Wow, I just saw the neatest show on the Discovery channel. It was about the eruption of Krakatoa in the 1880s. The show told the story from the perspective of several sets of survivors whose accounts of the eruption became famous: a ship's captain, a Dutch officer's wife, a scientist. I highly recommend watching this at some point--usually some show about a volcano wouldn't be that interesting to me, but with this one, there was a lot of personal interest in the stories of these people, and it was really well acted. Add this to your TiVo, yo.

(And lest you think I was slacking off, well, I was eating my lunch, running the dishwasher, and cleaning the bathroom during the commercials.)