Wardrobe Surplus ...

...it's moving time! In fact not quite, but my wife and I have been trying to get ahead of the game. So far I've worked mainly on selecting books for disposal (though not yet those in the background of this blip of our living room).

Today (with a bit of wifely urging) I turned to clothing. I focused on suits, trousers, jackets, coats and such; there are nearly a dozen-and-a-half items on the two chairs to be dotated to charity. I'll move on to other sorts of clothes tomorrow (Marylee is mostly done with hers). I know it's not an elegant blip but, hey, it's a slice of life.

The small sculpture on the left is by my cousin Rosy Lamb, a successful young artist working in Paris.

I've been brief so far in this journal about our moving prospects. They've been in flux and uncertain till now. But yesterday we agreed to rent a smaller apartment down the street in Northampton through next spring.

Our downstairs condo-mates are buying us out, completing a takeover of the entire three-unit condominium (a large house plus a small "carriage house"). We'll move by 10 September to the rented apartment, so they can begin extensive renovations on the large house. They're also completely rebuilding a small house on adjoining property, which we will hopefully rent from them beginning next spring. Along with all this, we've recently taken over an apartment in New York (recently vacated by long-term tenants)--and we'll be renovating that. And we plan to return to the milder weather of Paris this winter, probably for January-March as we did last year.