Junk collection

Alongside my obsession with collecting Tarot cards, I collect illustrated decks of playing cards -- some transformation cards, some that are just interesting decks with different pictures on each card face. Tonight my kids' game pile avalanched and I decided to swipe the cat deck and aquarium fish deck before they got destroyed by boys, so I took them upstairs and started moving around some of my vast collection of decks of cards.

And then I decided while I was arranging stuff to do something about my jewelry box, which is mostly a collection of smaller jewelry boxes holding what small treasures my grandmothers left behind -- a couple of gold pins commemorating the volunteer work my father's mother did at Deborah Hospital, a couple of charms for necklaces that say "#1 Mom" and things like that. My mother's mother collected watches -- or I should say that she never threw out a watch once it had stopped working, since none of these were particularly rare or ornate watches -- and my mother had had a pin made for me with the faces of some of the watches.

So after arranging the jewelry box, I moved on to the little chest on my nighttable where I keep hair clips, hippie necklaces on hemp and cord, and my two Native American fetish necklaces, plus the animals from a third necklace that I found broken in a parking lot. And I made space for the runes I bought in Glastonbury and the hamsa charm my mother got me at the Jewish bookstore earlier this week.

And it occurred to me that in this fit of organizational anality, I really should put away the two baskets of laundry sitting neatly folded in front of the bookcase. But what's the fun in that? So instead I came back downstairs and organized the kids' games even though just about every box is trashed, which makes it really hard to deal with card games especially. I am really glad I bought them their own Lord of the Rings Tarot deck to keep them away from mine.

Don't ask me why I'm telling you all this. Probably to avoid putting laundry away.