a whole lot about a whole lot.

This weekend was equal parts fun and equal parts....not so fun.
The fun began Friday night with prickly pear margaritas.

The not so fun began about 2 hours after a 12:00am Taco Bell run.

Let's just say The Dizzle won't be eating Taco Bell again anytime soon.

///

Saturday morning, we drove up to Sacramento (with a total of 5 stops for The Dizz to.....get some air) and spent a solid 6 hours clearing out Verner's grandma's house because she has since moved in to an assisted living situation and now no longer needs an entire house full of things. And if you're wondering how much stuff one can accumulate in 82 years of living, I will tell you:

- 3 stuffed-to-the-brim truck loads full of Goodwill donations
- 2 ginormous "1-800-Got-Junk?" trucks filled with.....well, about 200 bags of junk
- 1 neighbor named NACHO who came over with his family and cleared out many large pieces of furniture because he wanted it for his own home and to also, most likely, sell on eBay and pocket the cash. But hey, you do you, Nacho, you do you.

It was a lot of work, but minus the massive hangover, it was also kind of fun. Well maybe "fun" is the wrong word, but I wasn't not enjoying myself, you know? Verner and I kept getting side-tracked going through all of her memories and "treasures." It was kind of amazing (and personal?) to see someone's life built up in a home over the years and to think that at the end of the day....what's all this stuff for, anyway?

I remember when Verner and I sold everything we had to travel, and at the beginning, it was really hard for me to let go of all that stuff. The memories, the stories, the meaning I had attached to things....but now? I honestly can't remember any of it. I don't miss a thing. I felt like a weight was lifted and it was so refreshing to know that everything I owned fit in one suitcase.

But it's funny how us, as humans, like to just keep on accumulating stuff. We buy these homes to fill it with stuff. We pay for storage units just so we can fill it with more stuff that we then forget about for years and years, but god forbid we get rid of it, because it's our stuff! I mean, don't get me wrong, it's human nature. The minute we got our apartment, the stuff started slowly coming back. We left his grandma's place with a box (okay fine, two boxes) full of stuff. Stuff that we probably, most definitely, don't really need, but on the other hand it was like, well I can't just throw this perfectly good Mortar & Pestle set away!

///

Anyway, after a day at Verner's cousin's pool and before we left Sacramento, we made sure to visit with Verner's grandma in her new assisted living home, which I'm really glad we did. I've come to realize that I like talking to people that are at least 75 years old. The older the better, I say, because they will talk about anything and everything. Some of it makes sense, most of it doesn't, but you just let them keep on talking, because, well, they can damnit! And if you really listen to what they have to say, it's actually quite interesting. Old people, man. Sometimes I feel like we're just a hop, skip, and a blink away from being them.

For example, before we said goodbye, we tried to give her a little lesson on how to use her new iPad. Oh man. 80 year olds and iPads? Crazy. I asked Verner if one day our grandkids would try to show us something technologically advanced and if it would boggle our minds just as much. He said most definitely. Like one day, in the year 2072, our grandkids will be trying to explain how we have to implant some chip inside our forearm to make a phone call to Mars or something equally mind blowing. You just wait. It's going to happen.

Anyhoozle, this post was a whole lot about nothing? a whole lot. But I suppose if I'm going to mention it all, I will have to admit that on our way home, we went to Chili's. Did you hear that? Chili's. We don't have those chain-type restaurants in San Francisco, so we were like, hey why not?

Well I'll TELL you why not.

Verner spent all. night. long. with his head in the toilet because of those dang chicken fajitas.

Poor fella. He's had quite the rough 48 hours.

And on that note, I should probably wrap things up and tend to the sick.

Hope your weekend was great!

xoxo