My mother Rosemary is in real estate. She has been in it for almost twenty-five years now. She knows everybody in the business in South Jersey. She knows all of the neighborhoods, she knows the properties, and most importantly for our purposes here, she knows when old Eleanor Rigby kicks it and leaves behind a 2 bedroom rancher full of Precious Moments Figures.
You see, my mother was blessed with a gift. She has an amazing eye for crap. She knows crap. She appreciates crap. And she brings crap home to decorate her Italian palace. Do you have a great aunt who just passed leaving her I Love Lucy spoons to wallow unloved in the kitchen? Fear not little commemorative cutlery. Rosemary has a home for you.
They call to her these Chinese tchockes. "Take me home!" they beckon. "Place me atop the electric fireplace! Set me beside the Barnum and Bailey ceramic clown statues! Drape me in garlands of plastic ivy from Michaels! Wrap me in a Marshall's bag and take me to the Antiques Roadshow at the Atlantic City Convention Center!"
Rosemary is what happens when Jane bites it and leaves a Franklin Mint "Coins of the Disco Era" binder in her dresser. Like the wool gatherer she pulls forth her treasures from craft fairs, and short sales, and the living rooms of friendless dead folk. And with each new visit home I find that there is more to take in, and much more to fear.
Most of this has never before been seen by anyone who I ever expected to call me again. I try to avoid bringing people I like to New Jersey. (Which I've found is generally a good life policy.) But now we are going straight into the heart of the beast my friends. It's not going to be pretty. There will be collage, there will be macrame, there will be all manner of horrors to behold. But exactly like the Holocaust, if we choose to ignore these atrocities they will happen again. I'm not about to let another Holocaust happen, are you? I didn't think so. Brace yourselves friends. And prepare to know fear.
