Best laid plans....

This is a long one

We were supposed to be having an estate sale this weekend.

Andy was somewhere along the collector-to-hoarder spectrum. When we moved to Vermont from Los Angeles, we brought all of it with us.

I didn’t want to bring everything. But we moved in the midst of Covid – February 2021 – and once our house sold, the closing was fast. Even if we were able to sell or give away belongings at that point, I was not comfortable having people in our house, or in any of our three (yes, three) storage spaces. Andy was immune compromised and almost died from septic shock two years earlier. Our doctor urged us to be cautious. There was no telling how bad Covid would be for Andy.

So we moved it all, without time to sort through any of it. And since we’ve been here, we made it through some boxes, but when Andy died, there were still multiple unopened boxes in the garage and basement and our two storage spaces.

Here are some of the things I’ve found:

• A thank you card from Brian Wilson for the pajamas and slippers Andy gave him for his birthday

• Boxes of collectible antique tins, in addition to the dozens that were already in the house

• Candle holders of all shapes and sizes: mosaic glass votives, silver-plate candelabra, large ornate chunky wooden candlesticks, iron cobras and dozens more

• Recorded music in all its forms: 78s, 33s, 45s, cassettes, CDs, reel to reel tapes, DATs and even a couple of 8-tracks; some of it commercially released, some studio or home recordings with Andy’s handwriting ( “Brian and Andy,” “Dr. Landy telephone,” “Jerry Lee outtakes,” “good stuff,” Party Tape,” and “Andy Paley demos”)

• Five turntables (no microphones)

• Boxes of Christmas cards and their envelopes dating back to the 80s

• A collection of poems written by Andy’s mom when she was 7 years old

• At least a dozen bongos, a few autoharps and Andy’s old vintage suitcase full of percussion toys and instruments

• The Beatle boots that Del Shannon gave to Andy (the tip-off was the label on the bag: “Del Shannon boots”)

• Dozens of manila envelopes from projects Andy worked on (“1,000 Cats/Brett Gelman,” “Clowntown,” “SpongeBob Christmas,” “Camp Lazlo,” “Girly Magazine,” “Rudy Casoni,” “Thrilling Adventure Hour,” and “Andy/Brian lyrics,” including some handwritten lyrics with half the page written by Andy, the other half in unfamiliar handwriting which Brian’s manager confirmed as Brian’s handwriting) (so much great stuff but “1,000 Cats” is a masterpiece - google it)

• Boxes of vintage Christmas lights that look like they could take out a Christmas tree and a house if left plugged in and unattended

• Some tissue paper in an old binocular case which I was about to throw out until I found it had negatives wrapped inside, including one in an envelope that says, in Andy’s handwriting, “Lou Reed and me, backroom at Max’s”

• Multiple day planners from years between the 80s to a couple of years ago, with notes on recording sessions, meetings and travel

This is just a small sampling; other boxes are more valuable, while some went straight to the dumpster.

I have been trying to sort and organize since about February, because before that I was too paralyzed to do anything. I’ve had help from friends and family and professional movers. I am separating what we can give away from what we can sell from what we want to take with us when we move, which will be in July.

I wanted to get the house on the market in early June. And because there is way too much stuff in the house to put it on the market, I had scheduled an estate sale for May 23.

The estate sale guy asks that sellers do not attend their own estate sales, so I had booked an RV site near Lake Placid for May 22-24.

On Monday, May 19 – Jackson and Charlie’s 14^th birthday – the estate sale guy came for a walk-through and within a few minutes, told me there was no way they could be ready for an estate sale on May 23, and that we would have to postpone until July, when they had another opening.

I could see his point, yet couldn’t quite grasp it. I tried to hold back my tears.

I felt like a failure. I tried to remember my therapist’s advice, to be kind to myself, but I was having trouble incorporating it into this moment.

I apologized to the estate sale guy. I said I was sorry I cost them a weekend – I know it’s their busy season. I was sorry I hadn’t been able to get through everything.

And he was so kind.

He told me that he and his wife are a team and they have three children and can barely keep up. He reminded me that I was working a demanding full time job, raising Jackson and Charlie on my own while the three of us mourned Andy, and trying to sort through all of this stuff. And that he had no idea how I was doing as well as I am.

He was so kind and understanding that I stopped trying not to cry and once I got it out, we hugged.

So the estate sale will have to wait.

But the pressure to get things organized and/or out of the house is still here.

I decided to cancel the RV trip and keep moving through the unpacking and repacking, but my reservation was non-refundable, and so I decided we could use a break, despite all the work to do at home, and I figured this would be a nice test run before we drove back across the country with our travel trailer.

I was right. It was a nice test run.

It was so awful we realized we did NOT want to drive to LA either pulling the travel trailer or staying in it.

It was a cold and rainy day, but it was cold and even snowy when we made the cross-country trip to Vermont. I forgot that the rain is less forgiving than snow, and it meant that the extension cord connected to the trailer would be coated in mud, and I would have to unplug it and roll it up to take with me, and that the block of wood that supported the trailer when it was hooked up would also be covered in mud, and that by the time I hitched the trailer and stowed the block and was ready to leave I would be so covered in mud that I would need a shower and new clothes. And I did not expect that my 4-pin flat light connector would have corroded in the elements over the last four years and that the brake and taillights would only work intermittently, and that I would need to put a bunch of fairy lights in the back window just to make sure people saw the trailer as it got dark.

Mostly I did not expect that I would not have a bed in the trailer.

When we drove cross country during Covid, Charlie and Jackson were nine years old. I slept in the bed in the back of the trailer with them.

Andy slept in the front, using the bench and table that converted to a bed by removing the table leg which slid out of a metal slot; dropping the tabletop to fit into the bench; and putting the bench cushions over the table as a makeshift mattress.

Andy disliked the table leg. He thought the table wasn’t stable enough in use, so eventually he bought three table legs to replace the one leg.

I remembered this.

I had forgotten – until I tried to make the bed two nights ago - that he had used screws to attach the legs to the table.

At first I thought I was screwed.

Then I realized I had a Philips screwdriver and could unscrew the table legs.

I cursed Andy as I unscrewed the legs. We’d arrived after dark, it was pouring rain, I was exhausted from a rough week (a first birthday without Andy, postponement of the estate sale, a busy work week and the 6-month anniversary of Andy’s death on Tuesday), and I just wanted to go to sleep.

I was pleased to see Andy had only used three screws on one of the legs, though the metal collar holding the legs to the table had room for eight.

I unscrewed the three screws on the first leg and pulled.

That’s when I discovered Andy had glued the legs to the table.

That’s when I remembered that Andy had said we didn’t need that to convert to a bed, because next time he would rather sleep in the Highlander.

Jackson and Charlie take up a lot more room at fourteen years old than they did at nine. There was barely enough room in their bed for Meowy (yes, she went with us), let alone me.

And I did not want to sleep in the Highlander. It a cold night. We had a space heater in the trailer.

I turned the tabletop over and placed it on the bench so the legs jutted up from the bed-like thing I had assembled. I got into the least uncomfortable position I could manage, wedged between the three table legs, and managed to doze off a few times in the night.

I woke up at 5 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. Jackson was up shortly after that, and then Charlie, complaining of a terrible stomachache.

We’d packed minimally but the trailer was quickly cluttered with our clothes and muddy shoes and Meowy’s litter box and cat food and water, which I accidentally knocked over twice. I’d had vision of a relaxing breakfast, bringing my favorite small appliance to make lattes, but though the trailer could handle a space heater and a toaster oven, the little latte maker on its own was too much for its electric panel and it kept turning off.

This was not a relaxing mini vacation.

An hour or so into our morning, Charlie said what we were all thinking.

“Mommy, do we have to take this when we go back to Los Angeles?”

And Jackson and I quickly agreed, that no, we did not. This had been a terrible idea.

I wanted to recreate the adventure we had on the way out here, but three adult-sized humans in a 13-foot travel trailer was harder than two adult-sized humans and two kids.

We didn’t even stay the second night. I had chosen this location for its proximity to John Brown’s grave so I visited it that morning (that’s a story for another time) and then we high-tailed it back to Vermont.

And now I’ll continue trying to get the house ready for the estate sale and hopefully on the market by the end of June.

And if you’re looking for a cute travel trailer, I’ve got one for sale.