A glimpse in

I am cleaning up my desk area today. It's a good day for it. It's a typical first day of period laying in kind of day. It's a grey day outside, but the light is hitting the yellow leaves just right and it feels cheery.

Kinder is fever-free this morning and clearly feeling much better. He's been doing a lot of hiding from First and jumping out to say "boo!"

I awoke around 5:00 am practically panting from a nightmare, but it is a fast receded memory.

As I was going through the piles on my desk, I came across this packet of place mats (called "luncheon mats" in Japan). An aunt gave them to me/us back when we lived in Cambridge...this would be a minimum of six years and three moves ago.

I love them. They are made of washi, a type of traditional Japanese craft paper. Place mats made of paper. Only in Japan? Maybe not, but a dilemma they have posed for me, nonetheless.

There's the Yankee spirit in me that feels like it would be a waste to use them, for they can only be used once.

There's the romantic in me that just knows there will be the perfect moment to unveil them, to the crows of delight of the just right set of guests.

There's the pack rat in me that has packed and unpacked them, still in their plastic, still with their weathered 400 yen price tag, three different times, and has been completely okay with that.

Then there's the me that stood holding the packet for a minute or two, trying to decide whether to just chuck them or not. Part of me longs to just chuck a lot of stuff as I try to simplify and organize my space and things.

I wonder what else I will find as I go back in there...