Friday 5 Jan 2007
11:55 p.m.

In five minutes it will be the end of another evening of office paper-purging.

I will blame this on you, Joanne, since you sent me home this afternoon with a giant orange garbage-bag full of loot. In with the new, out with the old ... or something like that.

It really was just like Christmas, emptying out that bag.

What was in it, you ask?

1.) a hand-knit siwash, zippered front
2.) two patchwork quilts made by Joanne's mother, whom I remember
3.) fruit-flavoured tea
4.) a glass storage cylinder with peppermint-striped ceramic top
5.) a wooden bread-slicing guide
6.) an envelope full of old photos, including the funeral casket of my paternal grandmother whom I resemble and who died suddenly at age 47 of a heart attack and one of Dad and Mom hamming it up with Joanne's sister-in-law in their teenish years
7.) a painted ceramic plate -- a snowman, not Christmas-themed at all really, but more wintery
8.) a hamster

Just kidding about the hamster.

Emil and I went to Joanne's farm this morning for coffee and stayed through lunch and well into her naptime. Joanne was Mom's very close friend and it shows, for she has kept me and my family close both while Mom was sick and since she died. Her thoughtfulness and caring helped us all cope and is still making a difference.

Don't mean to embarrass you, dearie, but it's true.