"I'm Not a Hoarder, I'm..."

First, let me go on record to say this post is NOT about me! Well, of course, everything that happens here is all about me, so I guess what I'm saying is that I don't want anyone to think I'm a hoarder from the title. But I AM fascinated by the hoarding mentality. Ooh, I have so much to say! I'm rubbing my editorial hands together in anticipation!

There have been two major hoarding shows available to the viewing public. TWO. That's a lotta lotta episodes on hoarding. Why do you think they're so popular? I've thought about this, and there are a couple of standout answers. One, there are lots of hoarders out there, so it's nice for them to have a show that brings them some kindred spirits, kind of like having My Super Sweet 16 for bitchy teenagers to watch, or My Strange Addiction, so people who like to snack on the foam in their sofa cushions can feel like they're not really so odd after all.  Two, there are lots of people who want to look at these trash-filled, totally horrific homes and think, "Well, at least mine's not THAT bad."  Me? I use it for inspiration. Sometimes I like to put an episode of a hoarding show on when I clean house. It turbo-charges my work. It makes me move the sofa to clean underneath it when I don't feel like it, prompts me to pull my refrigerator apart and make it sparkle, makes me shoo all the rats out of the basement so I can mop the floor... (Just kidding about that last part. I don't mop the floor.)

It breaks my heart when people choose their junk over their kids; that children are ashamed of their homes and can't have their friends over; that they can't find their parents in all the newspapers. I can't understand how someone could hoard so much they have to leave the house to use a bathroom in a gas station - I mean, really... is that easier than cleaning out a 4x4 space? I was astonished by the handsome, well-dressed guy who lived in Alexandria, VA - so close to me I might have passed him on the street one day - who finally, after months of dating his pretty, well-dressed girlfriend, let her see his house, where he had to climb over piles of stuff (starting at the front door!) to get around. Yeah, you guessed it - that romance was over shortly after the show aired. Then there was the woman who hesitated to call 911 when her husband had a heart attack because she didn't want the paramedics to see the house (yikes! don't marry a hoarder if you have a bad heart!), and the homeowner who found a missing cat -  not only expired, but flattened - under a stack of magazines. I could go on, but you get the gist. 

Here are some of the things I love: When they show a lady in front of mountains of debris, and she says, completely without guile, "I'm not a hoarder, I'm a collector." Or they'll film a guy talking, and as he's saying something like, "It's messy, but it's not dirty," the camera pans so you see bugs crawling through the food-encrusted pots in his kitchen, and moldy bags of bread in the mound of litter on the counter. I love to see the crazy chaotic homes in the beginning of the show, and again when they're all cleaned up and liveable at the end. I was surprised when the lady who had almost gone broke buying Barbies and Barbie accessories but hoarded her own elderly mother out of her room found out her doll booty was worth $500,000 - that convinced her to let the show clean her house and her poor old mama got her room back. And I really, really, really love it when small children who have never known anything but hoards get a tidy house and their own space, and from their big eyes and stunned expressions, you'd think that the most amazing magic trick has just been performed in front of them - that is the BEST. I always send a thought out with the hope these newly organized homes will stay that way, but I know that some of them won't, because as we are reminded throughout the show, this is an illness.

I don't know who would want anyone to know that they live like that, that they would be okay with all their junk and their shame being dragged out on the front lawn for all the neighbors to see, but I guess if I could get thousands of dollars of cleanup work done, and a team of people to purge and polish my house top to bottom in two days, and all I had to do was to be publicly humiliated on national TV and forever after in reruns, I might be open to it. And I know just what to say when my embarrassing stash of shoes is exposed, too: "I'm not a hoarder, I'm a collector."


Editor's note: This writer is neither a collector nor a hoarder, and in truth, sometimes her house is a little disordered...but she always knows where her cat is.


© 2015 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

The Difference in the Lumps

I've said a final goodbye to two friends in the last month - one with whom I regretfully lost touch other than some recent connections on social media, and another who couldn't speak on the phone in the last few months but emailed steadily with me, almost right up until her death. It's hard when we start losing friends with greater frequency: not only can we not live out our intentions to connect with those individuals "someday," but we are reminded strongly of our own mortality, and how brief our time here really is.

It's easy to feel untethered at times; to fail to see the humor and the energy and the lightness in the moments we own. I was having one of those mornings recently, and at the perfect moment, I heard my phone ding... and found this reminder from a friend who must have sensed my mood from Maryland to Massachusetts (thank you, K!). From author Robert Fulghum, author of "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten," this gem: “If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you've got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference."

Time to get my head on straight. I've been thinking about lumpy oatmeal entirely too much. 

© 2015 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

I (Used to) Love the Smell of Chlorine

I love my time in the pool. LOVE IT. I go almost every day to swim and run in the blue, sparkling water. Until recently, my heartbeat would quicken when I smelled chlorine, I love it that much.

A story that hit the news in June ruined that for me. Oh, there were lots of clever titles about it, so let's just pick one at random. Okay, here we go: What Makes Your Eyes Red in the Pool? Hint: It's NOT the Chlorine. 

Yep, that's right. Turns out the more we smell chlorine, the more people have not exited the pool for - well, you know. THAT. And this isn't just any old survey, either - the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says it's so. The science behind it, says the CDC chief, is that "nitrogen in the urine combines with the chlorine and it forms what's known as chloramine." Which, though "chloramine" sounds much better than "pee+chlorine," it isn't as palatable a name fusion as, say, Brangelina, which while unoriginal and overused, at least doesn't have anything to do with anyone's pool water.

The news doesn't stop there: Travelzoo told us this summer that 64 percent of Americans, 58 percent of Canadians, 46 percent of Britons, 44 percent of Germans and 41 percent of Chinese admitted to relieving themselves in a pool or the ocean. (There is a "while on vacation" qualifier for these stats, but really - do you think it makes a whole lot of difference in the numbers?)

I want to thank the CDC and Travelzoo for delivering information for this very important pretend file of mine: Things That I Would Rather Not Know About. 

I haven't noticed fewer people at my indoor or outdoor pool, so I guess everyone has decided that they can live with a little chloramine. But I will say that I'm starting to look sideways at the grownups  and children near me, and I keep a close eye on whether they're visiting the restroom or not. Because I swear, once those Travelzoo figures get above 75 percent, I'm outta there.

© 2015 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie