Wiped - #ROW80 #NaNoWriMo

 

Dish Drainer and Sink

Having spent the last twelve days wiping surfaces along with moving, sorting and packing stuff--all while grieving the loss of the husband who made the mess and owned the stuff--it is no wonder I feel wiped.  Wiped as in exhausted and wiped as in a bleached hard drive.

I finished with the last of the scummy scrubbing around 3 Saturday afternoon and by 5 had also finished with the last of the packing except for my personal belongings.  Then I took time to get something to eat and let my sister know my status.  

After food, water and rest I got in the shower to scrub the scum off myself from head to toe and let hot water beat on my neck, shoulders and back.

Had another rest after that before getting dressed and then starting to dismantle my safe haven aka island of sanity in the room Ed called his office and which I'd turned into my office with a sleeping mat on the floor.

I'd also used the closet in there to put things of his I was definitely bringing with me and in the end it had overflowed over a foot into the room.  The bulk of that was Ed's clothes and bedding as they took up about the same amount of space as they had on his closet floor before I sorted them into laundry loads and packed them into trash bags.

Most of his clothes I'll be donating after I've laundered them.  I saved only what was gently worn and they were all bought for him on vouchers viia the programs helping him and were intended for job searching and working. Predominately casual dress with a few dressy slacks and shirts.

The Long Counter

Most of the hours and heavy duty effort spent in those twelve days was in the kitchen.  I have hangnails on nearly every finger to show for it.  Also several broken nails and pain in fingers, wrists, elbows and shoulder.  My hands look like a washer woman's out of a Victorian novel.  Raw, dry cracked, skinned, bruised, scratched....

But it is exactly because of the effort and the wear and tear on my person that I'm feeling most accomplished over the results I got in the kitchen.  And that in spite of the fact I ran out of time to finish it to my standards.  I was also constrained by my physical limitations.  Because of my vision and joint issues I was only able to spot mop the most egregious spills on the floor by soaking them with wet rags and then scrubbing the spot using my feet on the rag.  

No way with my aging joints was I going to go down on my knees and I couldn't be swinging a wet mop around with my vision issues.  And it wouldn't be safe for me to have more than a small contained wet spot on the floor.  Most of the nasty spills were on the edges of the room near the sink, stove and fridge so I could avoid them while they dried but when they were more than a foot away from the edge I left the room until they dried.  No sense risking another senior citizen taking a fall in that apartment inside a month.

Also I left the cupboard and drawer fronts alone as I did not know what cleaner and scrubber was safe to use without ruining the finish.  Anyway it's not like I was trying to get my deposit back. 

Stove

I also left the burner pans alone as I didn't have any steel wool.  But like I said: Not after the deposit.  Just needed to take the edge off the mortification I felt when first seeing Ed's apartment seven months after our last weekend sleepover.

So, Carri arrived with the truck she borrowed from a friend about 7:30 and by 9 we were running the first load back to Mom's where she and her son unloaded while I put away food and arranged my personal bags and boxes for later unpacking--on my bed, on Mom's bed, on my desk and desk chair, on my craft table.  Then Carri returned the truck and reclaimed the van and we returned for the last of it about 11 and were driving out of the parking lot at midnight.

We stopped at Taco Bell on the way home and I chattered about going to be late for the NaNo kickoff by as much as an hour as I still had to unpack my Windows tablet which I'd gotten prepped for the purpose 24 hours earlier so I could sit on my bed with it for the kickoff.

But even late, it wasn't to be.  I got set up with the Windows tablet in bed with my Taco Bell crunch wrap and chose a short YouTube video to watch while I ate.  Next thing I knew the video was over and I remembered nothing of its ending and my hand was empty and I remembered nothing of the last bites of my crunch wrap.  It was hopeless.  I put the tablet on shelf and got up to take ibuprofin, 5HTP and Trazadone.  Having not slept at all Friday night I was determined to make sure I slept solid last night--in spite of the pain both physical and emotional.

When I crawled back into bed and pulled blankets I stuck my elbow in something wet and found the last third of my crunch wrap.  I went ahead and finished it in the dark.

This afternoon I spent three hours unpacking my personal belongings and returning to working order my various workstations--bed, desk and craft table--getting devices and lights plugged in and stowing accessories where they will be right where I expect them to be when I reach for them.  There is still some unpacking of smaller bags left to do but once I got all the big containers off Mom's bed, I was free to tackle my NaNo Day 1

I began by creating the project titled Abiding Hope.  In the slot for summary I wrote:

Set in the same mobile home park, Mobile Estates, as my election year NaNo novels for 2008 and 2012 (Mobile Hopes and Occupy Hope) Abiding Hope showcases issues relevant to the election as they play out in individuals and their family's lives--economics, health, legal, psychological, war, climate change, immigration etc.  As a microcosm of community Mobile Estates, with its high turnover rate demonstrates the need for cohesiveness in the face of all the traumas and divisive opinions showing how the political really is personal and community begins at the level of neighborhood and possibly even household.

I could also say that the whole Mobile Estates storyworld puts the lie to the American Myth about 'pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps'.  It's one of the most egregious lies we've been fed about the finding, founding and furtherance of America.  Awareness of the laws of gravity should be enough to discredit that myth yet it persists and reigns supreme in our self-talk and political rhetoric.

I've logged in 1111 words today.  That's rounded to the nearest 1111 as a little OCD tic makes me want to see the quadruple number.  I usually try for the 2222 so as to get more than the daily req of 1667 but as I's been saying, I'm wiped.

I'm hoping that by this time next week I'll be back on track with the goals as stated in this round's goal post.