Stuff

So our neighbor and friend Diane's big estate sale was the big event this past weekend. Wifey worked for her the forst day, and the Ds visited.

Yesterday, Wifey begged off; we hosted D2's boyfriend Josh's wonderful parents for brunch. The "meet the parents" went swimmingly, as we knew it would. Somehow, with a fine son like Josh, we sort of knew what the parents would be like...

Josh's Mom is a Queens native, like I am, and we were at the U just a year apart. We realized we must have passed each other around Lake Osceola hundreds of times, and never met. She later became best friends with one of my old friends, Debbie, who hosted Barry, Eric, Mark, and me the first time we traveled to Gainesville, in '82 I think. The Gators beat the Canes that weekend.

Josh's Dad has a more exotic background: his Mom is Cuban, and his father is, as we say locally, a Jew=ban. He was born in Queens, too, but lived in Cuba, Venezuela, and, finally, Miami.

We all chatted like we had known each other for years, and then Wifey invited them over to Diane's sale. Like I said -- it was THE event this weekend.

After our guests left, Wifey went back over, and I followed, with some wine. We realized it was probably our final Sunday cocktail hour.

Another fine neighbor and friend, Jody, as also over. Jody is Wifey's role model for parenting adult kids. She has 5, each wildy succesful, and great people. Jody is always on the phone, coordinating some activity or another. Her oldest son John, who went to UF and Cornell Law, and then clerked for two federal judges in Boston, is moving back to the 305 to take a job in Diane's office: the US Attorney's office. His father Bob started his career there, too.

John is a terrific young fellow, who paid his law school tuition with money he earned as an international fashion model. And despite all he has going for him, he's humble and charming. No wonder Wifey wants to learn from Jody...

Anyway, about the stuff. The whole episode just solidified my DISLIKE for it. You pay tons of money for crystal and glasses and knick knacks, and it gets sold years later for pennies on the dollar. Or worse, you pay to store it for years, and then your kids have to get rid of it when you die!

Diane luckily sold a lot. She made enough money to decorate her new place -- with MORE stuff!

It always seemed to me the Buddhists had the right idea: your possesions own you more than the other way around...

D1 enjoys fine things, but at least she uses and enjoys them -- especially clothes. D2 is more like I am. When she graduated high school, I wanted to buy her a nice watch, and she resisted. Finally, we bought her a Michelle, for I think, about $600. She wears it, but would probably prefer not to have to watch her watch, as it were...

As I left the sale on Saturday, before its opening, there were already about 20 folks waiting to go in. They literally grabbed me and started asking questions about what Diane had. Two well dressed older ladies demanded to know what Limoges pieces there were. I had no idea.

One guy, about my age, whose Mercedes SUV was parked blocking my mailbox, also peppered me with interrogatories... I told him I knew nothing about collectibles -- I was a mere civilian friend of the sale holder. He said, accusatorily, "Well what do YOU collect?"

I told him nothing. He shot back "Well why NOT?" The guy was truly angry and incredulous, that I wasn't part of his whole scene. I told him that I just collected memories, and they were all in my head.

He looked at me like an Evangelical Christian looks at a non believer...

We had a party a few weeks ago, and it got a bit more crazy than usual. I found 2 broken martini glasses by the pool. Wifey and I had bought them for, I think, $5 each. I laughed to myself, and enjoyed the memory of how they were broken.

Somehow, if they were Waterford, and I paid $100 for each of them, I wouldn't have found it that funny...