haze-filled activities

Last week was fairly slow. I was sick. The first few days, I mostly hung out with the cat in bed, taking three-hour naps, not thinking very clearly when I was awake.

I finally broke into the "Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker," a massive volume containing several thousand cartoons representing eighty years of publishing, up until 2004. The book of course doesn't include all the cartoons, but they did place the full set on two CDs attached to the inside of the book. I'm only part-way through despite devoting hours to the effort. I'm enjoying reliving many happy hours of my childhood sprawled on the floor reading my grandmother's collections of New Yorker cartoons, now in my mother's possession.

One of my favorites, which is included: Industrial Crises: The day a bar of Ivory soap sank. The illustration shows a huge pool, a bubble showing the site of the sinking, alarmed bureaucrats, a diver preparing for a rescue.

Two of my favorites, not included:
Man being carried out of elegant house on a stretcher. His last words: I'm so sorry, Mrs. Witherspoon; it must have been the kohlrabi. Except that my aunt had crossed out the name of the offending food and written in "meatloaf."

Another: a man and woman eating breakfast at an impossibly long dining table, surrounded by elegant silver and chandeliers. The man, reading the paper, says "Dear! It says here that the east wing burned down last night!"


Towards the end of last week, a box I've been waiting for arrived in the mail. My sister's been helping my mother "clean house" in preparation for an upcoming move. Somewhere, in the recesses of some closet, they found a box of my papers. I'm not sure how the box survived the purge of the last move in 1988, but it is now with me. I spent a pleasurable afternoon going through it. Of course, much of it, including old journals, went into the recycling bin.

But I saved a few treasures, including:

• The hand-made certificates announcing my promotion to second and then third grade
• The class pictures from most of my elementary school years
• A few papers I wrote in high school
• A program from my eighth-grade graduation
• The invitations and program from my high school graduation

Tiny treasures; it's nice to be reunited with them.