No Foolin’

It was a chilly dank morning when I drove to the gym for workout. There were golfers getting ready to tee off at the golf course, but they were probably wearing their long underwear.

It was still cloudy and cool when I finished beating up my body and headed home. I had the heat on full blast in the flower van.

After breakfast, I drove out to the cemetery. It was busy, because it’s the week before Easter and people were giving their dead loved ones spring flowers.

But just as I was leaving the cemetery, the clouds parted and the blue sky started to appear, and just like that, the sun came out and oh, those temps started to rise.

I drove to Como Lake and began my walk just like a few thousand other people. It’s funny how giddy we get when the weather gets nice, even after a wimpy winter. I saw walkers, runners, bikers, and everything in between. It was like being part of a pre-Easter parade, instead of wearing bonnets, we were wearing exercise clothing.

And where was Joe? Well, Joe was moving a bunch of his stuff to a storage unit closer to his other one. When he moved in with me, he put a lot of his stuff in storage (thank goodness!). He rented two units, but one was far away from his big one.

I guess a unit became available closer to his big storage unit, so he was moving stuff from one unit to the other today.

Do you know people who just can’t their stuff organized?

Well, that’s Joe. I cleaned out one kitchen cabinet and one closet yesterday, and Joe’s jaw dropped in amazement because it’s so easy for me.

I make three piles – one to donate, one to keep, and one to throw.

It took me about an hour to do my clean out.

It would take Joe forever, because he would never get started. He’s one of those people who gets overwhelmed in the details and gets buried so deep, he can’t decide where to begin.

Ray was good at organization, like I had the most organized kitchen in St Paul, because he would periodically go through the junk drawers, organize the pantry, and throw out old stuff.

But Ray was a bit of a hoarder. He loved free stuff and stopped at every free sign on every curb and brought home tons of useless things. His office and the garage would get full of stuff that “they were just going to throw away.”

I still have a collection of lumber in my garage that would rival any lumberyard. Ray collected lumber like some people collect stamps.

But Ray could pull out of the details and see the big picture. He was great at organizing garage sales, for example. I never had to do anything, except show up and help.

Joe doesn’t collect stuff, he just keeps papers like receipts and obscure bills and print outs from web pages. He tries to organize it, but all this stuff is in boxes that have no labels or organization. He says, “I’m going to get to it.” But he never does, and since it’s such daunting task, it’s nicer to just sit on the couch and watch TV.

Heck, it took me about three months to finally clean out that cabinet and closet. Going through stuff just isn’t very fun or interesting.

Everyone has a different approach to life and just as long as Joe accepts my neat and tidy ways, he’ll be OK.