Talkin' about SABLE

and I don't mean mink!

Every sub-culture has its own jargon. For us knitters, "stash" isn't a bag of weed,  it's bags and boxes and bins of yarn which must be hidden from sight or risk an appearance on Hoarders. Stash may start as an extra skein or two, but it often leads to SABLE:   Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy. 

No picture of my SABLE is included today because there is no camera big enough to capture it. Let's just say that it is bigger than a bread box: two closets, seven or eight large baskets, a breakfront, and few shopping bags.  Some of it, though, is set aside for "destash," which can mean donation, gift, trade, sell, or compost. I really don't want to be remembered as the crazy yarn auntie whose de-stash has become a moth-eaten de-trash.

Have you ever participated in a grand de-trash? One with a Size XXXXL dumpster, hantavirus jokes, and an entire box of disposable vinyl gloves?  I have and I tell you now: take pity on the folk who will have to dispose of your detritus.  There is no E-bay for a rolled up carpet that's become a squirrel nest.

This may be my one and only Public Service Announcement ever, but please take a moment, a few moments, a day, a month, a year, a decade and deal with it.  You may be laughing at my mountain of yarn, but consider that this scourge of prosperity comes in many forms, none of them pretty, and one of which may apply to you. 

How about WABLE:  Wine Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy? Just as my father-in-law in his later days told us he wasn't buying any green bananas, I ask why anyone my age is buying wine that won't be ready for thirty years?  None of us are living in Downton Abbey, and we don't need to lay down the port for the next two generations.  Trust me, the grandkids would  rather have the money than the Chateau Blah-Blah-Blah.  If the zombie apocalypse comes, it'll be the undead, not your grandkids, who'll be glugging it down, unless, of course, your grandkids are the zombies. So let me hear those corks popping, boys. 

As for some of your other "treasures," there are probably more than a few that are way past their drink-by dates.  Down the drain.  You will never be making wine vinegar out of them.  The eight open bottles of balsamic already in your kitchen cabinet  taste lots better than what you'll ever make from that deteriorating Yuckee Cellars cabernet.

Seen this guy in your mirror,
My Preciousssss?

Don't forget BABLE:  Book Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.  Most of us old croakers have already done the acquisition, and have the groaning shelves to prove it.  Many, many of us find it impossible to part with our beloved hoards.  

I have two words for you:  reality check.  Take a very close look at those shelves. (Tip: stop being so vain and use your trifocals.) Admit that you are never going to read that ratty old paperback copy of The Iliad required for Western Civilization your freshman year in college. Toss it.  It's full of dust mites, paper fleas, mold and a ticket stub for A Clockwork Orange. That copy of Janson's History of Art?  Straight to the recycle bin.  No one wants it.  No one.  If you want to see art, go to a museum or be amazed at what you can see on line. (Go ahead and click the link, it's office-friendly and very tasteful.)

Those Joyce Carol Oates novels?  You didn't finish reading them the first time, and you will never be desperate enough to go back and try again. Bag 'em.  Let's talk about the cookbooks. Are you going to spend one nanosecond of your remaining time on the planet learning how to make puff pastry from scratch or how to bone and stuff a goose? Thought not. Even Martha Stewart doesn't have time left for that kind of crap. And since you haven't seen your crockpot since 1985, why are there three crock-pot cookbooks on the shelf?

I'll stop here on the book front because I feel another rant about books coming on and I'd like to save that for another post.  Until I attain the nirvana of B-FABLE (Blog Fodder Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy), I'll keep that rant on the shelf. There'll be plenty of room, once I get rid of the Anglo-Saxon textbook, the Collected Works of Shakespeare held together with red duct tape, and that extra copy of Janson's.






Trouserville Tip:  For those of you in the Greater Boston area, I'd like to recommend donating your books, CD's, and DVD's to More Than Words, an organization that works with young people who have had a tough time of it, training them in retail and e-tail by operating a bookstore/cafes and an online book shop.  They will bring their van and pick up your stuff, but not the Anglo-Saxon textbook, or the Janson's, or the old National Geographics,  or . . .you get the picture.