Stuff and Water

You will rejoice with us, I am sure, upon hearing that we are Getting Organized. Yes, there are still stacks of boxes around, but the stacks are smaller, fewer in number, and move less often than they did even a week ago.  The situation is, in a word, manageable.

In fact, it's almost enjoyable. We open boxes now at our leisure, and are sometimes even able to take pleasure in what we find therein. We have unpacked a lifetime's supply of clothing, or enough for a year in any case, and so are cold no longer and can select the right shoe for the occasion. Our framed photos, the painting of the skaters congregating by the Magere Brug, a map of the Netherlands, Talia's grandmother's acrylics, and one or two other items adorn our walls--they are much the better for it. Our kitchen contains our kitchen goods; we are able now to begin cooking.

And then there are the little things. Literally. We all have them, tiny pieces we attract as time goes by, keeping them first for sentimental reasons, later as evidence of the deep influence inertia has upon our lives.  As I encounter them in various boxes I collect them into a single large plastic tub with the intention of storing it all away for another age or two. In goes a Swatch found on the shores of Lac Léman. Next a carved fetish given to me while a student at St. John's. Half a dozen Burning Man necklaces join them. A felt-and-pipe cleaner snake plucked from Rachel's hair one Halloween long ago pops up and is put away.  I am surprised to discover that I can, in fact, recall the provenance of most of these little treasures.

I am even more surprised to find that some of them are useful, and I will tell you here about two such. The first I discovered in a yellow Kinder Surprise. Shake it: no sound. Weigh it: no heft. Open it: no wonder--it contains a piece of Emperor Penguin chick down, collected for me by some Antarctic researcher friends of mine. It is infinitely light, warm to the touch, and without question the softest thing on earth, Felix's ass included. And its use? Felix's daycare is studying Antarctica at the moment, and so we bring it in to share. On the way home that afternoon I find the tiniest piece stuck to his eyebrow. I would cover him in it if I could.

The second piece brings us back to the title of this posting. I earlier blogged about our water and my concerns about it; generally legitimate, in point of fact likely misplaced. I promised, as you may recall, to test that water for lead, a promise I long delayed even after having found my lead testing kit. I am not by nature a procrastinator, but I feared what I would discover and so, cravenly, postponed its discovery. Still, one can live only so long a coward, and so I popped a piece into a spot of tap water the other morning and watched and waited. Nothing. The lead-pink/orange color completely failed to appear. It remained simply a sodden piece of paper. Relieved, I went to fetch a sample of the highly suspicious paint that covers the exterior of our house in a patina of what I have been assuming is flaked poison. Crumble, soak, test...nothing. Hmmm. The no-doubt-painted-with-lead ceramic church I found on the sidewalk the other day and brought home for Felix to play with? No reaction.

At this point I began to fear that my lead test kit had gone a bit queer and resolved to test the tester. But where does one find lead these days if not in the sinister but obvious places I had already been looking? And then it occurred to me: in my box of little things I had placed two ancient bullets plucked from a sand dune in Death Valley a decade or more ago. I had never tested them to see if they were lead, but they certainly suggest it, being dull, metallic, and surprisingly heavy. So I tested them. They are, and the rest of my stuff isn't. Now that's useful.