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Yesterday, Jeanne Legault (Robert's sister), Jack Womack, Ellie Lang, some other of Robert's friends, and I tried to make order out of Robert's apartment on the Lower East Side. It was astounding: let me just say that Robert was a dumpster diver and acquired a LOT--just an example or two. I was in charge of the last room (which actually was the front room in a railroad flat)and it took me 5 hours (no exaggeration) to make my way two feet into the room, all the while bagging up papers, clothing --either for the garbage or for the Salvation Army, and trying to move 45s, record albums, videos, cds, dvds, magazines, and other sundry out of the way. I filled (with Jack's help) 4 1/2 garbage bags full of formerly neatly stacked or hanging off a tie rack neckties: hundreds of them. There were hundreds of t-shirts on the floor neatly folded in stacks--but layers of them.
After about five hours I was stymied by the fact that once I hit that two feet mark, there were stacks of record albums that blocked me from going further into the room without moving those stacks...and so far there's no place to move them TO. Also, we were out of room for the garbage bags...no more space downstairs in the garbage area and no more room on the landing, and no more room in the actual apt. We're hoping to get a dumpster tomorrow or Tuesday so that while Jeanne is back in Seattle--she's got to get back to work--we will continue to excavate until she returns as soon as she can. It may sound awful, but in fact it was like an archeological dig and I have to say kind of cathartic in a weird way.
An aside here: I've got packrat tendencies myself and I (and my sister, too) have always enjoyed digging through our mom's drawers (and when we were children and visiting our grandparents, our grandmother's too) --I don't recall if I've mentioned this in the blog before. But after being in Robert's place I told my fellow diggers that if I don't invite them over to my apt for a couple of months to please do an intervention!!!! And this evening when I got home I dumped the Playbills I've been saving in a stack for the past couple of years.
This morning was Robert's Memorial Service. About 150 family (only Jeanne and Robert's cousins) and friends attended and several people got up and spoke about him. Afterwards, 35 of us went to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame to brunch and drink and talk more about Robert. His ashes joined us and some of us drank bourbon in his name.
And finally, 12 of us walked down the block for some more drinking.
Photos below:
Memorial Service and afterwards
After about five hours I was stymied by the fact that once I hit that two feet mark, there were stacks of record albums that blocked me from going further into the room without moving those stacks...and so far there's no place to move them TO. Also, we were out of room for the garbage bags...no more space downstairs in the garbage area and no more room on the landing, and no more room in the actual apt. We're hoping to get a dumpster tomorrow or Tuesday so that while Jeanne is back in Seattle--she's got to get back to work--we will continue to excavate until she returns as soon as she can. It may sound awful, but in fact it was like an archeological dig and I have to say kind of cathartic in a weird way.
An aside here: I've got packrat tendencies myself and I (and my sister, too) have always enjoyed digging through our mom's drawers (and when we were children and visiting our grandparents, our grandmother's too) --I don't recall if I've mentioned this in the blog before. But after being in Robert's place I told my fellow diggers that if I don't invite them over to my apt for a couple of months to please do an intervention!!!! And this evening when I got home I dumped the Playbills I've been saving in a stack for the past couple of years.
This morning was Robert's Memorial Service. About 150 family (only Jeanne and Robert's cousins) and friends attended and several people got up and spoke about him. Afterwards, 35 of us went to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame to brunch and drink and talk more about Robert. His ashes joined us and some of us drank bourbon in his name.
And finally, 12 of us walked down the block for some more drinking.
Photos below:
Memorial Service and afterwards