Back in Cambridge, I am trying to re-adjust to my fall/winter/spring life (remembering to put the trash out on Monday night, instead of driving to the dump on Tuesday), field the demands of new-book-promotion (interiew Monday with Entertainment Weekly; interview two weeks from Friday with NPR), prepare for a 14-city book tour that starts October 1st, seeing friends I haven't seen since spring, doing the dentisty/mammogram/eye exam/car service juggle, catching up on DVRed TV shows (a whole season of "Newsroom"...AND I have vowed to go through this house bit by bit and dispose of accumulated stuff, in preparation for selling it next spring.

With that in mind, this morning I opened the drawers of this pretty little chest that has sat in my dining room for years....with its drawers unopened. Inside I found lots of candles. Hmmm. I haven't entertained much, in the formal sense, in a long time. So I had forgtten about candles. Do I save them? GIve them away? THROW them away?  Or put them back in the drawer and close the drawer. Three guesses.

But I also found some interesting memorabilia. Here is a Christmas card...no date. Maybe 4 years ago. I'll insert it here as a mystery item so you can guess whose daughters* these three gorgeous girls are.

And finally (I'll provide the answer to the above mystery in a minute), same drawer, a newsppaer clipping. A photo of my son (far right) and an article about the high quality of USAF pilots in Europe. "Captain's Lowry's flight evaluation noted that he flew a flawless mission by flying instrument approaches throughout different European bases during his instrument evaluation." He worked so hard to be flawless in a job that demanded it, and it was a hideous irony that he later died when his plane crashed because of a mechanic's error.

 So: how do I go about downsizing when even the smallest stuff has meaning? Grit my teeth and crumple?  No, the clipping will go into a box filled labeled with his name—GREY—and when I move the box will move with me.

The Christmas card with the beautiful daughters of *Susan and Jeff Bridges? Guess I can toss that, and hope they'll send me an update, maybe with beautiful grandbabies.