Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (38940)	9/30/1999 12:41:00 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

when we moved, we had a yard sale, and we sold everything, and the kids never missed a single one of the 4000 stuffed animals. (They kept one or two of their dearest of course--the really gross ones with no hair and eyes left. I threw CW's teddy in the washer and he cried and said I ruined the smell) ALso the baby clothes went. Except for one favorite box. And I bet I never think twice about them again. My kids weren't very artistic, so luckily we have very little in the way of papers. I had two big plastic frames in the upstairs hall that I replaced every week with the favorite drawing or whatever. I don't think they will ever care that I've kept nothing. I have one folder each with awards and clippings and programs and test scores. I may really regret all this someday but it made moving easier.

To: Ilaine who wrote (38940)	10/3/1999 5:05:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

<<< And plastic bags, lawn and leaf sized bags, 4 or 5 of them, full of stuffed animals the kids outgrew but don't want to give away. >>> Don't give them away! I saved my son's stuffed animals, not all of them, but the big, nice ones, bears, with their fur worn in patches down to the muslin skin, and when my first grandchild was born, which was in about fifteen minutes, it felt like, from my son's abandoning his bears for girls, I washed them in the washing machine (you can do that with stuffed animals, good ones, and then dry them in the dryer with a sneaker; don't put more than a couple in the washer at once), dried them, discovered that they were all floppy and almost empty, performed abdominal surgery, removing the old deteriorated kapoc or whatever it was and restuffing them with stuffing material they sell in sewing stores, and tied big red silk ribbons around all their necks and sent them all to him, and they are now treasured possessions. Really treasured. And also, they are beautiful, for some reason. Like antiques. I mean, anybody would think they are beautiful. I think. This sounds like a lot of trouble, but it wasn't, you do it with low energy, not in the morning with your best, and it's fun and feels creative and you feel all sentimental doing it and the results are so disproportionately lovely to the effort that believe me, Cobe, you shouldn't give them away. Not all of them, anyway. Take out the best 5, the most worn ones, because those are the ones they loved, for each boy, and operate. And when you visit, and see them lined up in a place of honor, you feel like the best damn mother on earth. I was on the phone with my son the other day and Angus, the 3 and a half year old, came up and said indignantly, "Dad! Isis is hurting me more than I'm hurting her!" I'll tell more of the background conversation to my chat with my son, too, because my son is a mathematician, and there was some talk here to the effect that mathematicians are peculiar: ~Background squabbling noise~ Son leaves phone, comes back and explains that daughter-in-law is having her day off, and he has set the angels up with play dough and some kitchen implements. ~Background squabbling noise and protesting noise~ Son says in direction of the squabbling, "Whatever it was, let's see that it doesn't happen again." ~Protesting noise~ "The pain will soon pass." ~Squabbling noise~ "Angus, please stop stabbing Isis with a fork. That's my favorite fork." (I do hope he was trying to make me laugh; otherwise there's something wrong with him.)