would you like to take that with you today?

The best time to stop being materialistic is after you've already got all the "stuff."

Okay, so when we moved here we didn't do such a good job at paring down our possessions. We had a huge, month-long giveaway - TVs, washer and dryer, books, objects, records, books, lock-picking sets - you name it. We put it out there and invited our friends over for what my godson Max called "a garage sale where everything is free." (He took the lock-picking set.) Yet the marble orbs and paper-making equipment and kite fabric and a million other things that we haven't used since moving here came along anyway. And when my sister downsized from her 200-year-old farmhouse to her teeny tiny beach home, I got more stuff. And when we emptied Mom's house, I got even more stuff.

Now don't get me wrong - I have no problem shredding or burning my aunt's estate information (Mom was her executrix) and shit-canning my folks' pay stubs and tax information. If anybody wants it I'll be happy to give up the china. Somebody else can have the marble orbs and the Canada goose planter and the PVC lawn chairs and the snow-blower and even a bedroom set, if it comes to that. But it's time, regardless of whether we're moving or not, to start lightening the load here at druid labs.

Yesterday our dear friends Charlie and Mohamed came for a visit. I do believe we didn't stop laughing for nine hours. Charlie and I have been friends since we first met on May 7, 1979 in our data processing programmer trainee class. We became partners in crime and spent our youth wildly on crazed adventures, mostly involving dancing, drinking and shall we say, grazing on tasty morsels here and there. We'd show up for work the next day - almost always in fresh clothing - with bloodshot eyes and painful hair and giggles that just would not quit. We had fun. We didn't damage too much property and never maimed another soul, unless you count Cindy's barfing on the actual surface of the bar at the Casa Lida once. Mohamed wasn't around for any of this revelry, and I think he doesn't actually believe it.

No matter. We had fun. And I stuck Mohamed with a book and the cock-lantern that I got from my sister when she downsized. Yippee! That's one tchatchka out of the way, and 13,447 to go. What would you like to have?