COUNTRY LIVING, PART ONE

I have mentioned that I live in the country before. It is a small, older farmhouse on three acres of what used to be a forty-acre farm. This was quite a while ago and all that really remains looking farm like is the 2½-acre yard that requires mowing far too often.

I have discovered that this area was home to quite conservative (not in a political sense, trust me, this is Democratic-Farmer-Labor country) folks before I moved in and brought the township average down to only slightly outrageous. Many of the families in this area have the same last name. Apparently they stayed around the old homestead to help out Ma and Pa. If I weren’t in Northern Minnesota I could easily mistake for some other backwoods community further south. Our “town” has two bars, one town hall, one burned out general store and one old schoolhouse converted into apartments. I have always been confused as to who would rent an apartment out here, but I have also often been known to say, “Ours is not to reason why…” This is definitely not the place to live if you find yourself needing to run down to the corner store on a regular basis.

The thing I will discuss on this particular posting relates to clothing and sleeping habits of the previous inhabitants.

This requires a bit of preparation and some self-revelation to set the tone. I am an introvert. If you were to ask any of the numbers of people who know me about this, they would scoff and laugh and point at you like you were a fool. That is because many people confuse the word “introvert” with the word “shy.” Shy, I am not. Bold and outrageous would be more fitting. However, bold and outrageous as I might be, I really like to be alone and read, watch movies, surf the ‘net, and enjoy my own company. This can easily be attested to by any of my three ex-husbands. (Did I leave out slow-learner up there with “bold and outrageous”? Oh, my.)

Now owning a home alone these days is something that must be accomplished by those who make more money than I. So, I have a housemate. We pooled our monies from our combined piles and bought this place twelve years ago. We were, and are, friends. But, I like being alone and that shouldn’t reflect poorly on her. Or me, for that matter. So, basically I live in my bedroom.

Now living in my bedroom would not be that much of a problem were it not for a couple of things. Apparently the original builders of this home were quite hard working folk. And, they also appear to have only used the bedroom for sleeping and whatever other sundry acts they had the energy for. Ergo, the bedrooms are small…utilitarian folks, these were.

I mean small as in by the time I got my double waterbed (old hippie reference number one), three bookcases, two dressers, one entertainment cart and bedside table in I had just enough room turn around in and open the door comfortably. OOOPS, I left out the fact that I am a compulsive collector of movies, CDs and more books. Hence, there are also stacks of “stuff.” And, I, being the clever girl that I am have managed to turn some of those stacks into double duty—using them as furniture, as well. We have now narrowed down the available floor space to just enough room to pull off my shoes and find a place for them that I am not standing in.

The closet is another story. Apparently these hard working folk only had two sets of clothes. Work clothes and Sunday go-to-meeting clothes. And that is exactly how much room there is available in my “closet.” There is not enough room for…the ranges of sizes of clothes that I have collected in my seemingly random ability to change sizes with a six size range. Why, if I ever weigh 120 lbs again, I have that designer pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans that I bough in the 70s. And, if I hit the top o’ the chart---I have those marvelous X-Large clothes purchased from the local fat girl’s store.

Since I don’t diet and eat in a somewhat indefinable cycle of “good for you” foods and those that don’t fit in that category (ok, garbage) my weight takes on a life of its own. I don’t care. And, I am lucky enough to have an extremely young doctor (Kristi, as mentioned earlier) who believes (and I swear to you that this is a direct quote), “Don’t worry about your weight, I prefer for my older patients to have a few extra pounds to fall back on in case they get very ill.” Woo-hoo, I ran with that…I could count on being “very ill” for at least a decade before she will have to start to worry.

I hope you are getting the picture…Oh, not done yet. Yellow-eyed dog also has to fit in here somewhere. And, fit in she does. We’re talking about an eighty-pound Chesapeake Bay Retriever who believes that if I am out of her sight the world will come to an end. So, here we are…me and the dog…safely ensconced in a pitiable wreck of a room, with no space to dance or stretch, and absolutely loving it. The life of a recluse has many advantages. And now, me, my dog and my piles of crap will go to sleep for tomorrow starts another week of dealing with the outside world.