The house purge continues. Stanley says we are going for “reducing the visual noise,” and I’m all for it. Word Raccoon is following us around, though, grabbing her favorite books back from the “donate” pile.

Stanley was quite useful when it came to trying to tame the entertainment center. Stack by stack he told me why those were not the books for prime real estate space.

Of course he had to affectionately roast me over some, too.

“Cheap copies of classics? A Christian romance? Oh, Drema, did you go to a library book sale again?”

I had. And the books had ended up there instead of finding a home.

To be fair, I didn’t know it was a Christian romance. I fell for a pretty cover.

He tried to get me to relocate the Shirley Jackson collection I’ve been slowly reading (very slowly). WR said he could take his monocle and…I told them to break it up. Poor Stanley stood around reshaping his bowler hat.

We’ve already discussed that I do not need to buy more bookshelves, just weed through the books that I have. I’m panicking imagining that conversation, when we begin going through the books for real. 

It is one thing to sort library book sale books. But if the books have made it upstairs, they are a part of my soul, Stanley.

In the kitchen, we are in the fine-tuning stage. Things like “where did we put the extra spoonrests?” are cropping up while I’m cooking. Stanley assured me that after a couple of weeks my brain will have rewired where everything is.

“Leave my brain the hell alone. It may be a chaotic circus some mornings, but it’s my chaotic circus,” I said.

I had some backup in outrageous earrings when I said that.

Stanley asks whether I really need four, nay, five boxes of cereal atop the refrigerator and Word Raccoon is threatening to drop said cereal on his head, hissing We are out of Coke Zero. You planned this, didn’t you?

Here’s what’s allegedly on the agenda today:

• Finish sorting the mail. I let it pile up over the Thanksgiving weekend and ended up missing a beautiful birthday card that also had some birthday money tucked inside. WR said she’d take that, thank you very much, for her Coke Zero fund.
  
• Finish clearing the top of the kitchen “island.” (It began life as a science lab cabinet bought at a university auction and I repurposed its bottom half as an island. I’m just trying to clear it and figure out how to keep smoked paprika from dueling with the rest of the spices inside. The struggle is real.)
  

Stanley said I absolutely cannot put the stand mixer on top of the fridge, rather than on the island. I asked him why not, reminded him I had filled the cabinet where it had previously lived and have no intention of shifting everything again. 

“Now let’s discuss that chopping board. It is too bulky and it looks like it belongs in a food blogger’s kitchen, not yours. Word Raccoon will back me on this.”

Okay, so those weren’t his exact words, but close enough.

He said I also cannot use it as a stage for other items and Word Raccoon cannot use it as a stage for singing, either, and that I should definitely move it off the island.

Didn’t know we were voting things off the island, Stanley, but fine. (He’s giving Herbert a run for his money today.)

WR says she will vote Stanley off the island, gladly. 

So that leaves what on the island, Stanley? I already moved the marble cheese plate and the decorative basket mixed with white and sweet potatoes. (They may go back there. If I don’t see them, they maybe definitely will get forgotten about and who wants to discover a basket of rotten potatoes in January?)

WR is whistling and twirling her tail like she knows what can go on the island, besides her beautiful self.

What, a Dutch oven?

Full disclosure: the white (creamish, actually, I guess) one with the gold knob has already found its way there. It’s currently (my face is red) holding napkins. Paper napkins.

A proper napkin holder has been ordered. A cast iron one. Stanley said my first choice looked like a DIVA in red and said it and WR would fight.

He’s not wrong.

So I ordered one in white that looks like it was left out in the rain for a few weeks. It’s no wheelbarrow, but I can’t wait to get it.

Here’s the napkin holder deal.

Yes, I already have a napkin holder and of course I hate paper napkins.

But life. I have both types. 

Instead of holding napkins right now, the holder is propping up…unopened mail. (Blushing.)

I asked Stanley if I should use our current napkin holder or keep the napkins in the Dutch oven where they are.

The poor man short-circuited at that. He slowly cleaned his monocle before answering.

“My dear girl, why don’t you just buy another napkin holder and be done with it?”

He put up his hand.

“I know you are going to say you should buy a mail holder instead, but that will become a whole thing; just keep using this one for mail and buy something beautiful for the kitchen.”

He leaned against the dining room table wearily.

From the island’s drawers I uncovered not only an untouched bundle of glittered Kate Spade Christmas cloth napkins, I discovered a project I hadn’t gotten around to last year.

Word Raccoon ripped the package of peel-and-stick tiles from my hand and asked for the room.

The back of that “island” was bare, just some kind of ugly pressed board that is a tiny bit warped anyway. These tiles are gorgeous, mellowed gold and white. (The picture does not do them justice, IMO.)

In ten minutes, WR had that thing looking gorgeous. 

The raccoon declares she loves it, loves it, LOVES IT! 

And did I mention the tile matches the Dutch oven atop the island? 

Yesterday, a poem came crawling towards me like the poor cold ant I found in the downstairs bathroom. I was going to sweep up it and its sad fellow ants that were dead in the unheated room and then I noticed this one was crawling. 

WR screeched and clutched her earrings.

I switched on the heat to give it a chance.

It obviously just wanted to live.

I went into the other room and cried. Then I wrote a poem about the ant that I definitely did not call Teddie Jaque in my head.

Back to the winter rearranging. Back to the poems, maybe this evening. Tomorrow for sure. If we have to live indoors most of the winter, WR insists on being cozily surrounded by warmth and beauty. And poetry. 

And if Stanley ever tries to vote me off the island, I’ll just point to WR and say, “Take it up with her.”

(I had forgotten that WordPress automagically adds snow during December to blog posts. What a beautiful surprise.)