my charade is the event of the season

Today was utterly bizarre but weirdly fun, but I'm sure I will be processing this in the back corners of my mind for awhile. I had a rather lazy morning, but then [censored] and I spent the whole afternoon dealing with the detritus of the old house. For those of you not in the know, the house I grew up in is still (as of tonight) standing, but we moved out fourteen years ago after my parents built a new (10x nicer) house and left the old house to the elements (traditional elements in Iowa: air, earth, fire, water, raccoon).

It's finally getting torn down tomorrow, but that meant today was the last chance to rummage through it and see if there was anything left to salvage. Because of the aforementioned raccoons, the place was both a mess (they have been rummaging much more than us, so there are abandoned things strewn everywhere) and also felt dangerous (we didn't see any animals, but were constantly on edge that something would appear from a hole in a ceiling or floor; and the kitchen floor was so soft where it's been continually exposed to the elements that the bathroom was inaccessible and my parents' bedroom felt like a trap).

But [censored] and I maybe possibly enjoyed ourselves - I shouldn't speak for [censored], but I enjoyed myself, and it was all made easier because I was wearing a respirator and goggles and so couldn't smell anything and also wasn't getting anything into my eyes. And I certainly enjoyed myself when [censored] put me on the telehandler platform and lifted me up to the second floor to peer in through a broken window and take some last pictures of our bedrooms - we didn't trust the stairs and also were loath to go anywhere without multiple exit paths, so there was no possibility of going upstairs, but the lift was good enough for one last look.

So, we salvaged a few things, abandoned other things, accepted that we will never know what was left behind in the extremely scary storage room upstairs (we called it the room of doom even when we lived there and no one had been in it in years even before we moved), and generally had a grand old time. By seven-ish we were done with what we could do, so [censored] did a last few things outside and I took a shower so I could drive into town and pick up pizza. When I got home, I took a few last pictures of the exterior right in the best moment of late sunlight, and then we ate pizza and generally relaxed. And then, unfortunately, I had like an hour of work to do, but hopefully I don't have anything else to do while I'm on break.

And now I desperately need to sleep - the crew is showing up to tear things down early tomorrow, and I want to be awake when it happens. Goodnight!