I know you can't see all of the writing on that sign, but it says: "Free to a Good Home!"
Once it was time to begin renovations to the house on Columbus Street after the flooding from the broken levees after Hurricane Katrina, the dumpster was delivered. The pitching began.
Walking down the drive with a load for the dumpster, it began raining stuffed animals on my head. I looked up and burst into tears. My contractor was throwing all of my stuffed animals out of the second story window, with no questions or warning at all.
I gathered them up and decided to put them out on the porch for people in the neighborhood to take. I know. I'm a grown woman, but I work with children and many of those stuffed animals were meaningful to me. See that big brown bear with the Santa hat on!
He belonged to one of my friends who had AIDS and had passed.
Almost all of them found homes. If you look really closely at the far right edge of the photo, there is a tiny curly-coated bear with a Santa hat on. He was left. He came to the Chatette with me in France.
I did not expect to have to be doing this a second time in my lifetime!
So, as I am embarking on yet another pitching experience but en francais; I've gone from keeping and throwing away to garder/jeter. It does sound better in French, and to be honest-it has been a much more sensitive experience. I now have a dumpster in the driveway of the Chatette and I have had to go through and decide what to keep and what to pitch.
I was really happy the other day when the head of the decontamination team didn't think I was crazy when I wanted to keep my stuffed animals-les peluches! When I returned yesterday to look for some papers for my piano, everything was stored nicely in the vernissage cave AND...I brought a couple of guys home.
They reclined in their bleach and kitchen soap hot-tub while I ran out to run a few errands on my bike. We're getting really good at this...Babar and Eeyore are already done and by the Christmas Tree.
Do you recognize that little dirty-faced bear in the tub on the left?
My little New Orleans Katrina survivor has made it again. This time, through the great fire at the Chatette. Ah, that my other little Katrina survivor had been as lucky this time around.
Once they dry, they'll be joining the others under the Christmas Tree.
Happy Friday!
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