A mostly useless house call this morning, deep in the 70s suburbs near the corner of Rumble and Boundary Road. Lost the moment I stepped off the bus, I found myself walking repeatedly back and forth above the bellowing truck traffic on the Boundary hill on a wire-covered pedestrian bridge, and making many useless false starts quizzing lawn care guys, senior citizen out for a morning power walk, annoyed convenience store owners, & etc. for directions.

Wasps were fierce. Ruined red blackberries after rain, the bushes humming and full of yellowjacketed doom.

Finally, a ride with a kind mailman in his Canada Post truck, up one cul-de-sac and down another, then a sharp left turn onto a street signed NO OUTLET and a whole other topography emerged from the relentless sameness of the fenced backyards and invisible barking dogs.

The "estate collection of over 10,000 books" was a washout.

Readers Digests. Book Club Frank Yerby and Frances Parkinson Keyes. National Geographics. Big picture books on Poland and Greece. And in the basement, a doll masoleum, apparently consisting of every stuffed toy the elderly owner had ever possessed. Big ratty loved-to-death Mickeys and Donalds, monkeys and blonde haired dolls from the late 30s or early 40s in six foot high teakwood showcases with dusty swinging glass doors. Equally ratty 1930s kids' books on shelves nearby. English adventuring chums and golliwogs with bicycle tire lips and huge prickly Afros, brilliant in chromolithographic plates.

I left in a hurry, not finding anything to buy, but also because death was way too close in that hot basement. The stuffed animals' sad blank faces, their threadbareness indicative of "love" now lost to me or any other spectator.


- posted by cjb @ 8:08 PM