No, I didn't empty them all myself

I’m in exile.  In the past month, I’ve packed up my entire office (with almost twelve years worth of accumulation and accretion) and the library/guest room.  This is the main reason I’ve been absent from this space for so long. 

I’ve been plaguing all the local liquor stores for empty boxes because it’s an excellent reuse of the cardboard boxes they get by the tens (sometimes hundreds) every day.  It’s a good thing I started when I did, because college is letting out all over New England, and every kid on every nearby campus is thinking:  hey, I bet the liquor store will have free boxes.  Fortunately (and let’s not be coy about this), I’m on a first name basis with most of the purveyors of booze in town.  And I’m older and wilier.

So now most of my books are in the basement (there may be between 120-150 boxes, all told), the old bookcases are in the garage, and my office pro-tem is in the dining room.  The cat is vexed with the disruption to her routine.  I managed to put my back out.  Mr. G. hopes not to make the journey from second floor to basement, loaded with 30lbs of books each time, for at least two weeks, when the process will be reversed.

It’s all in a good cause, this temporary exile.  New, built-in, bookcases are incoming.  New paint will be applied (hey, it needed it when we moved in, and more than a decade later…).  Books have been culled and laterally recycled in some suitable fashion, and more may be sent out into the world before the process is completed.

But for now, it’s organized mayhem.