an apology is in order

So there I am, just minding my own business and not thinking mean thoughts, honest, as I use my fingernail to scrape a squished grape off the carpet (though who could blame me if I were to feel a tad hostile, this being hour three of house cleaning and I've barely made a dent) when I see, as if for the first time, this black shoebox that has been allowed to sit on top of the TV cabinet for a week. Probably two. I'm not being critical, but seriously, Stella is a pack rat. I don't know where she gets it.

To her an empty shoebox is an invitation to start a new collection or, as in this case, bring together miscellaneous objects from other collections into a new grouping, whose significance and connection is known only to the curator. I love her collections, as baffling as they are. I don't ask her to explain them or defend them or justify them. I don't even ask her to keep them all nice and tidy in her room (though that one is obviously just bad parenting). And as I said I really was not in a bad mood when I threw out the box. Not the contents, mind, just the box.

Steve has warned me for years about my midnight runs to GoodWill. There may be folks who ask their kids for input on which toys should go - I am not one. If I think it won't be missed, it goes. If there are so many pieces missing that I would have to call the manufacturer for replacement parts before anyone could play with it again, it goes. So the shoebox went. I never, never, would have done it had I thought Stella would miss it, but miss it she did. A painful morning for us both. And a lesson learned by me.

The unremarkable and the supremely important co-existing in a shoebox. That's what life is like, don't you think? Not to get all philosophical on you or anything.