Glad to elicit all those green monsters…er, congratulatory thoughts.

I’m praying to go to Daggers & Hemlock, honestly, which is my local event!

(I should be through all this by Coronation, and I still have the same sort of time for handwork – the green girdle is finished on time, and I’ll finish unplying silk tonight, I hope.)

See here, at the beginning of July I took my 85-yr-old grandma for a haircut.  She could walk just fine (with a steadying arm), carry on a loudish conversation for a long time, and was entirely the authoritative woman of high expectations, world traveling, and elegance I have always known her to be.  An institution.

The past ten days, our family members have found it necessary to sit with her round-the-clock.  She’d fallen several times, couldn’t get back up.  Now she can’t hear outside a three-foot radius, her facial muscles are entirely relaxed, her body shape is remarkably frailer, she is rarely awake for more than three hours, and asleep for more than two.  She moves into a very nice assisted living facility on Tuesday.

We are all sure this is the right decision, and she is very peaceful about it…but there’s never a good time for these Big Changes.  Although she’d done a great job on her house, cleaning out all the inevitable stupid everyday crap that we all find necessary for life…there’s still 2000sf of really good stuff.  My great-grandmothers’ silver, of which there are enough tea sets, serving dishes, candelabra, etc, to outfit a small catering company.  Much art.  Much exotic textiles (these are generally coming to me, surprise).  Much fabulous dishes, hundred-yr old linen tablewares, very nice furniture…and there are two children, five grandchildren, two of which aren’t old/settled enough to take anything yet.

We’re not going to have a problem fighting over things…but the task of going through it all, getting it labeled as best we can, and assigning places for it all to live is enormous.  We made a small dent in the silver/dishes/serving glassware yesterday, and it took ALL DAY.  My mother lives about three hours away, and is taking the Danish midcentury teak dining and living room furniture, plus the large sofa, so there’s a big moving trip I need to help with, and it’s going to hit right at Daggers & Hemlock I fear.

Does anyone know an estate liquidator for a large market (Atlanta)?  Right away I can think of a pair of 50 yr old formal kimonos that are definitely in the SELL pile.  Also a great deal of post-WWII German crystal.

I’m here, I just need to keep my weekends really flexible for the next month or so.  Coordinating schedules for these moves/marathon sessions is tough, and we’re all making schedule adjustments.