A few hours left here at my parents home before I head back up to LA.

I came down on Monday for jury duty, (which I suspect I got out of because I expressed my belief in the importance of probable cause for the police to do a search of a stopped vehicle), but stayed till today to take advantage of the air conditioner, a kitchen, (made a chocolate souffle), and of course my parents company. :)

While down here I sorted through the boxes that sit in the spare bedroom and managed to empty seven of them. I quite pleased with this progress though only about a third of these things are leaving the house for good. Another third was redistributed throughout the house to be used (and hopefully used up) and rest is a success story of creative repacking and remains in the bedroom, but much more compact.

I did not even begin to deal with the boxes of yarn and crafting supplies which was my original goal. I had to go through the rest to even get to them. So they will remain for the next trip down to San Diego.

While at it I did a great deal of organizing what’s left managing to sort of separate the rest into what I will take with me when I leave southern CA at the end of October and what will stay. I gathered books during the two years I volunteered/worked at NPR and had access to their shelves and shelves of free books (sent by publishers for review) and put many aside for my trip. Some history books, some of regional interest. Anything that had a geographical tie-in to some place I might visit on my trip got put aside and now as I look at the boxes of books and have a fair idea of the size of the van I’m slightly concerned. But I’m going to continue to ignore it now and will only worry about it when I am getting ready to leave southern CA.

It’s been interesting while living in the van to see how few things I use on a daily basis. I’m sure I’ll be writing more on this later, but I have always enjoyed getting rid of things. There’s a joy in saying to yourself, “There. This is now gone and I never have to think about it again.” This is at odds with the fact that I’m still a bit of a packrat. But I think the packrat-i-ness comes from not wanting to throw things away. I want to get rid of them, but I want to know they’re being put to some use. Or at least that they’re sitting in the back of somebody else’s closet rather than in a dump.

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