May 24, 2015

White Dog and the White Dog Army love projects where they get to help supervise. Next to my side of the bed sits an inexpensive open grid, milk crate type "tower" which holds my sleep apnea equipment plus the usual bed stand paraphernalia. At the very bottom of the stack is a cube that holds a drawer.

I have been sneezing a lot in the morning and today pulled at a dust tuft coming out of the drawer only to end up with a long dust lint grime beast. I opened the drawer, full of stored thisses and thats which are never needed or checked upon...YIKES!

My engineering side said "open grid top, stuff in basket underneath...BAD design." It had become the beginnings of an archaeological site; the sands of time were working hard to bury the drawer's contents. And when the ever inquisitive Miss Z plunged her nose into the drawer and lifted her head crunching something, I called for an empty trash bag and cleaning cloth.

Suddenly White Dog and Sachi were next to me on the bed peering over the edge. Bella paced and barked at my feet. Zsofia had already claimed digging rights. Storm sat next to the furniture and watched in amazement. Only Puff and YoYoMa had the good sense to not lose sleep over this mess.

First we one-by-one dumped things into the trash bag and shook off the surface sediment so that we could explore without getting filthy (or less so). Then we wiped off the surface with our cloth. And FINALLY we all took a look to discover what we had uncovered.

LOTS of sewing goods like elastic, and spools of thread and those little velcro tab sets. White Dog Diaries going back to the very earliest years when I actually wrote a diary and then transcribed it onto the blog ("Luddite!" I heard WD mutter). Journals my students and I kept when we first moved to Albuquerque and I homeschooled two kids that had fallen into the public school cracks. A broken frame with a photo of Steve's grandfather. A once lovely white paper cut snowflake ornament now looking like Chicago snow in late January. A three inch long plastic ant. What a treasure trove!

With each item, the White Dog Army had to examine the artifact and pass judgment. It was a bit unnerving the number of things the Baby found to actually eat...much to her elder siblings disgust.

By the time we finished that single drawer, we needed to vacuum the carpet. Steve took the now empty crate to the bathtub to wash out while the WDA and I pondered how to improve the design of the system. We decided that we would but the drawer in upside down so no dirt could accumulate and then high-pawed each other for our brilliance.

"Wow! That was LOTS of work before breakfast," Bella pointed out. YoYoMa rounded the corner of the bed. "So let's eat!," he said. "By the way," he added as he passed the tower, "You are going to have to add a rock or weight to that empty bottom section; the tower is now topheavy!"

"AFTER breakfast," Storm agreed.