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Halfway through the summer already and I’m still trying to catch up to the calendar. It’s not a fair race. I think the calendar got a good six-week head start. Confusing things is my 2025 wall calendar that, unlike many dozens before it, did not stop with December. It kept right on going from month to month through June of this year. For my entire life, calendars had stopped being useful the night of Dec. 31. Overnight on New Year’s Eve they became trash, much like the resolutions I may have made that same evening in the fog of exhaustion and regrettable stages of intemperance.
Not this one. The 2025 monthly calendar was not to be replaced at year’s end by a fresh, clean one for 2026. It kept going for six more months, through June, keeping the doctor appointments, scheduled visits from family and friends, and assorted commitments recorded for … well, recorded for what? I’m not saving old calendars. They normally get tossed into the recycling pile on Jan. 1, but this year it got to hang around for another six months. I got used to it and maybe took it for granted. Until July 1.
Have you tried to find a monthly calendar for the current year when you’re halfway through the year? Oh, they’re out there, but they are not the clean, practical ones I normally use. They are the ones nobody wants, which accounts for their availability. Photos of kittens and puppies, horses, landscapes, and, of course, appearing in mechanics’ toolboxes (except where prohibited), the ubiquitous pinups. Beautiful models, both real and imagined, taped inside toolboxes have brightened the month’s work for generations, 12 months at a time. I fondly remember Snap-on calendars being the best of that breed.
Obviously, I bought an 18-month calendar in early 2025. I didn’t know such a thing existed, and I wasn’t aware I had one until I made ready to toss it. It got a six-month reprieve, but when I began shopping for a replacement halfway through the year, there seemed to be none available but the aforementioned cutesy leftovers that cannot be hung without showing the photo. It took scissors, a hammer, a roofing nail and 14 bucks to get a handle on the second half of 2026. I’ll try to do better in 2027.
In other Bailey Island news, Verizon is giving my texts a 24-hour cooling-off period for reasons they have not shared with me. Several of my texts have not been delivered in the first day after sending them. I get a curious message by email from Verizon saying something about RCS, SMS and MMS that I don’t understand, but the net effect is that the messages don’t get sent until 24 hours later. I think Verizon doesn’t give a rat’s patoot about the many of us boomers who still write checks and letters with fountain pens. We matter too, ya know.
I stopped by the Verizon store today to ask whether I should be concerned about my texts being in their electronic 24-hour soak cycle. I didn’t get an answer to that, but left with an upgraded plan with unlimited data and a savings on my monthly bill. The text delay seems to be related to the rural nature of my service, whatever that means.
There is a basement in our home. It’s no big deal; many houses rest securely atop a concrete foundation, which, in our case, offers a storage area of precisely the same square footage as the upstairs living area. I mean that it would be the same if the basement wasn’t already providing storage space for the same stuff you could find at any flea market or respectable landfill. And there, my friends, is the rub. To put something else in the basement means something of equal volume must go. Sounds easy, no?
No. I understand how hoarders can be reluctant to admit they have a problem. It’s not easy to throw out something that may have a use in the future, but in all probability will not. This goes even for the most obviously useless items: the broken ones that were replaced long ago, the parts and accessories for things we haven’t owned for decades, collections of things we once coveted that no longer interest us, boxes of now-unavailable items that were deemed harmful or unsafe for humans or pets by some bloated government agency, piles of obsolete technology, clothing that no longer fits and the list goes on.
Recently it was decided to throw up some partition walls down there to make a space for me to pursue my interests in peace. It is a fairly large space that required the disposal or relocation of virtually everything down there. With the help of several strong backs and some trucks, we did it. Trips to Goodwill and the landfill were made, leaving just enough empty space for the new room.
Still, I didn’t get rid of enough stuff. The new room is perfect, but the rest of the basement seems more crowded than before the purge. I believe I wasn’t ruthless enough. To properly unclutter a storage area such as ours, one must grit one’s teeth, don some quality leather work gloves and a blindfold, and start tossing whatever can be lifted into a nearby 20-yard roll-off. The blindfold must be left on until the dumpster has left the property.
Failure to follow these rules will result in a basement that looks like mine. Nobody wants that.
