Rubber rug rake, Kitsap County Fairground Home Expo

I have a small house on the property, which everyone calls a cottage, but that's not what I call it. The Little House is what I named it when I lived in it a couple years back. I took on that small space as my home with the family returned from it's initial Boise exile a couple years back. I proceeded to make that wee joint my home, and loaded it up with kitchen appliances, stereo gear, a wireless computer and every other conceivable comfort of home. The only thing I didn't have was a vacuum cleaner. My mom sent me cash for one the winter before but for the sake of maintenance in The Big House I left it behind. I had a rug rake and that was sufficient enough tool for one man.

We picked up those rakes back in February, or possibly March, of '06. I have the receipt around somewhere. I suppose that's what kicked off this post. That receipt. I came across a bag of them, well, a full out bag of stuff from that winter and spring, stuffed away in a dresser drawer. It jogged my memory of the day we picked up those tools. The memories of that day are a bit mixed. I suppose it started out well at Pat's that morning. Breakfast is always a good thing, but as always, we ate like criminals on the run. In the back room, with our backs to the wall, our eyes on the front door. All we were lacking were a brace of six-guns, a string of horses out by the kitchen and three day stubble on our chins. Well, on my chin anyway. I remember the bread being fresh, the coffee hot and weak, and you being just wonderful. Time has a way of doing that. Throwing a sparkle on things.

We had an assignment to do that morning. Home Expo, Kitsap Fairgrounds, KRL booth, a set up and then relief at two. The library had extra staff there and so we had time to wander around, see the goods that other vendors brought in to sell. I saw these cool rubber rakes being demonstrated and we went back after our shift and picked up two of them, one for me, one for you. Funny how things, strange things like those rakes, come into your life, and then, without really thinking too hard about them, stick around for a long while afterwards. We finished out our shift and on the way out of the fairgrounds saw Kaydee, a colleague of ours preparing for her afternoon gig. "Oh, you must be Roger's Jane!" she said to us. A somewhat strange thing to hear, I suppose, since we thought our relationship was still pretty much undercover and not quite that transparent, but then again, maybe we were out there. Maybe the world knew about us and we just didn't clue in. Or maybe secretly we did, and we rejoiced in it. All the same it was odd and wonderful all at the same time to hear our names spoken together so publicly. We loved out loud that day and didn't even know it.

That would have negated that mission of yours to turn me onto Rascal Flatts and and have me listen to that song of theirs that you wanted me to hear, "I want to love you out loud". Apparently we already had. But on that day you were going off to visit friends and I was going back home to clean and take a walk. That afternoon our very public love became somewhat silent. If I remember correctly I took on my rugs with that rake that afternoon, but it wasn't until I moved into the little house that it really came into play. But by then that rake was just another reminder of our folly, another piece of flotsam from our adventures washed up on the shore of my life, another reminder of you, a tangible tool that worked all too well at dregging up feelings and sweeping up messes at the same time.

I was talking to a friend the other night and we were surprised to learn that we've both shared similar patterns in our lives in regards to friends we've chosen to share our hearts with. She was telling me about how, at the end of a torturous affair, she burned everything that that man had given her, well everything that could be put to the torch. I think she was surprised that I've managed to hang onto things, still had our satchel, still had the notes you wrote me and all the photos of our life around. Maybe it is odd, I don't know.

All those things could be somewhat meaningless, in the end, if what you have in your heart is bitter or wrecked in some way. I never felt that way. But I can see her point. All those other things, like that rake and it's ilk, will someday find their way out of places like my little house and out of my life. I know that that satchel will eventually find a home in my old footlocker in the basement. It's time is coming. I told myself New Year's Day, and I mean it. It needs to move on, settle out, go away. If it could talk I am sure that it would agree with me.

Doesn't mean that I won't think of you and our times fondly. It just means that things like that rubber floor rake have outlived their totemic power. I'll just use the vacuum from here on out.

Fondly, your WHMB