Baboon Blog Redux, The Baboon Congress

Baboon Redux: Zorie Story

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Today’s re-post comes from Verily Sherrilee

A 2016 note from the author:  My company is doing its usual “Summer of Love”.  The dress code is relaxed and flip flops will be an acceptable footwear for the next three months.  I don’t really have anything new to say about my massive flip flop collection, but if you’re looking for things to re-run for the holiday weekend, we could re-run my flip flop bit from a  couple of years ago.

My father’s sister, Joan, spent a couple of years in Japan, teaching English. I was four when she came home, bearing exotic gifts. One of these treasures was a small black enamel chest of drawers; since it wasn’t to my parents’ taste, I lucked out. For reasons that I’ll never understand, it was always referred to as “the Chinese chest”. I still have it; it lives in my dining room and now I’ve raised another generation to name it incorrectly.

The most enduring gift, however, were the zories; she brought 2 pairs for me and 2 pairs for my sister. I had never had anything like them and nobody else I knew had them either – not the older, traditional Japanese style with tatami soles on wooden platforms, but plastic zories. White. If my mom had let me, I would have worn them everywhere.

My parents were ecstatic because they discovered a perfect gift for me for any occasion. Zories weren’t popular foot ware when I was growing up, but they did manage to find zories in places like Ben Franklin and Woolworth’s. I didn’t know anyone else who wore zories; in fact, I was in college before I knew that everyone else in America called them flip flops!

The last 15 years have been zorie-heaven for me. These days you can get zories in any color, any design and they are CHEAP. I have an Old Navy account so that every year I am eligible for their $1 flip flop sale. I have white zories, blue zories, purple, yellow, coral. I have fourth of July zories, Halloween zories, Christmas zories, flowers, stripes. Four years ago my company started a super-casual summer program – the dress code is pretty much thrown out. This means I can wear my zories to work every day in the summer.

As the Old Navy sale was approaching this year, I thought I would do an inventory of my zories to see what colors I could add to my collection. I pulled them all out of the closet, paired them all up and laid them all out, beginning with the white and finishing up with the black.

Then I made my fatal error; I counted them. THIRTY-EIGHT!!! I own 38 pairs of zories. 38! I didn’t go to the sale this year.

I may not go next year either.

What do you have too many of?

 

88 thoughts on “Baboon Redux: Zorie Story”

  1. I’m not a collector of anything but I do have a cousin who could match or surpass your collection of flip flops. And not only does she have the wearable kind – she also collects flip flop kitsch, including flip flop shaped dessert plates and jewelry.

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  2. Morning all. I actually had a little bit of flip flop angst this morning. Over the past few months, Krakatoa 2 (aka Guinevere or YA’s horrible dog) has destroyed more than one pair of my zories, including the black pair and the white pair. As the first day of Summer of Love here at my office, I’m wearing a pair of white shorts and a black t-shirt. And a pair of Halloween zories that are black w/ white skulls. It’s a close as I can get today!

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    2. you know vs back in my youth i had a good freind and in the male bonding tradition i called him big fat dumb and ugly as a nick na,e of affection. after years…. years…. he moved away and i was writing him letters with bfd&u as the name on the letters. (remember letters) he asked me stop it because it felt bad. i should have known but when you refer to a thing be it person plant animal ofr mineral in a way that demeans them it is a negative move.
      ill help you get rid of the dog if you need to.
      ill tell you about canine collge on penn and 66th where your dog WILL learn to isten and ya will learn to be a trainer.

      what do i have to much of…
      opinions some say

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      1. tim – I need to admit that most of my grumbling about the dog is for comedic effect. While she’s not the best dog in the world, progress is coming along. Young Adult actually has a “dog whisperer” that she has hired for advice/training; right now the big push is the “herding in the backyard” issue and the “if I find it on the floor, I must chew it” issue! And I’ve made progress on the “go insane when Young Adult comes home” issue!

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        1. glad to hear it
          my heart is so on the dogs side in this worldI have a challenge with my son who likes to reprimand the dogs for doing what he thinks should not be done
          I make sure the dogs know that it should not be done but I try and do it in a way that’s very clear that while I want a different result I do honor the dog at the same time
          almost everyone else I know that has the problems that you have had to the degree that you have had them gets rid of the dog so I admire and appreciate your allowing young adult to figure it out I hope it’s not better but good soon

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        2. You’ll laugh to hear this then – I worked in my studio this afternoon and looked up to see light blue pawprints all over the floor in the hallway and halfway into my studio. Young Adult is painting her room today and Guinevere managed to get into some paint. Amazing how much space she covered in just a few minutes!

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  3. After the move to Oregon, I no longer have 38 of anything. Speaking of footwear only, the number is 2. That is, I have summer clogs and winter clogs. One advantage of this radical simplicity is that I don’t waste time debating what I’ll put on my feet. And if I somehow have trouble choosing, I look out the window to see if it is summer or winter. Life is simple, life is sweet.

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  5. Right now, I feel like I have too many film negatives. But that’s because I’ve been working on scanning and organizing them and I still have a long ways to go. The nice thing about scanning slides is that you can hold up a slide to the light and have a good idea of what the picture is. After scanning a bunch of slides, it’s easy to match up the originals with the scanned images. Hold up a strip of negatives to the light and I still don’t have a clue what the pictures are, much less where they were taken, or what year. (If the negatives are still in the envelope in which they came back from the developer, then I can figure out what year that roll of film was developed, but I’ve found some rolls that were developed in, say, 2001, but contain pictures from both 2000 and 2001. That sort of thing – along with the fact that scanning is slow and tedious – is enough to drive me mad and that’s why I feel like I have too many film negatives.

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    1. I feel your pain, ljb. I don’t even want to think about how many old photos, slides, negatives and such we have stashed in an armoire and a closet. And of course, we rarely labeled any of the photos with names, dates, and places. So if we get around to organizing them all someday, we’ll be guessing a lot about dates for sure, and maybe even some places.

      Chris in O-town

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      1. Hey Chris – I’ve got the afternoon off next week for your signing. I think you said earlier it was at the Farmer’s Market? Is there an address for the directionally challenged?

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        1. Here’s the invitation to Chris’ book launch:
          You are cordially invited to attend a “Book Launch Celebration” for my début suspense novel, Castle Danger, on Thursday, June 2, 2016, from 4:00-6:00 p.m. The party will take place at The Perfect Day Cakes & Bakery, 324 North Cedar Avenue, Owatonna, MN.

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        2. I suppose there are baboons from the Twin Cities who can’t make the party who might want a copy of Chris’ book?????

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        4. Hi VS,

          Actually I’m doing two signings. The first is on TH June 2, from 4-6 pm at Perfect Day Cakes, 324 N. Cedar Ave, in Owatonna.

          The second is on SAT, June 4, from 9- noon in front of the Little Professor Book Center, 110 Park Square West, in Owatonna. LPBC is three blocks south of PDC on Cedar and on the west side of Central Park. I hope you can make one or the other. But there’ll be cupcakes on TH! 🙂

          Chris

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        6. VS, I would ask you to pick up a book for me, but I’m going to go the cheapskate (and take-up-less-space) route and get the e-book.

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      2. Do you have children? If so, you could just leave it for them to do…

        That option is sounding better and better to me.

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        1. No kids, so probably one or two unfortunate nieces or nephews may get stuck with that task. My dad managed to go through and organize hundreds of old family photos recently, so if he can do it, we can do it … just not today. 😉

          Chris

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        2. Well, if I learn anything useful from my slog through this mess, I will pass it on to you.

          Maybe it’s a good winter project?

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      3. One of the tasks I applied myself to doing in preparation for the move was organizing my photos. I had hundreds of old photos, a box of Super 8 film and several thousand slides. Well, I was a photographer in my working life, plus the grandson of a small town photographer. We amassed a rich assortment of images.

        I culled and culled until in the end I had a smallish box of the most precious images from three generations of my family. Then, in the panic and confusion of my exit from my home, that box was left at the top of the attic stairway. The box is probably in a landfill now, and in fact the attic stairs no longer exist because that home was demolished.

        So, yes, it is a nuisance to organize and cull old images. But I’d love another chance to do it with images from our family.

        A few images had the luck of avoiding obliteration:
        http://www.pbase.com/mnstorytelr/image/112346370

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        1. Sad to hear about your charming house and the box of pictures you’d worked so hard to save. I understand about the panic and confusion though. I threw away a lot of things that I think I will miss someday.

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        2. Thanks, Krista. In my case things would have been much, much worse if generous Baboons had not volunteered so much time and effort helping me. I was seriously limited by arthritis at the time, barely able to limp across the living room. You will do MUCH better when you make this next move! Good luck to you.

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        3. I’m sorry to hear about that, Steve. I think that is why – despite my joking around that leaving it for the “kids” to do sounds good – I want to do it now….because who know what will happen in the future?

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  6. I have too many of everything right now, even though I got rid of half my belongings when I moved. There is simply no room here and I must get rid of much, much more.

    I have too many records: plastic bins full of 33 1/3 albums, CDs, cassette tapes and miscellaneous stuff that goes along with that sort of thing. I’m considering selling my stereo components but I like my phonograph, which means I must like my albums.

    I’m selling three boxes full of books. I have them packed and ready. There is someone locally who buys them and I have only to choose a few more and make the call.

    I have way too much antique porcelain, crystal and glassware. I’ll give it to you. I heard there’s a woman at the Eclectic Goat here in Northfield who is breaking up ruby glass for her art work. She can have mine.

    I have many canning jars of different sizes and brand new lids.

    I have baskets full of yarn and too many baskets but I want to keep all of that.

    I have too many clothes that no longer fit me. I keep visualizing my younger, thinner self.

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      1. It is HARD. Unfortunately, I didn’t part with enough stuff when I moved. Now I’m still sifting through stuff and getting rid of it.

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  7. Books. I don’t know how I managed to collect such a large number of books and why I can’t weed out the ones that are of no use. I had some reason for collecting all of them and I seem to always find new reasons for obtaining more books. Is there an organization similar to AA for people addicted books?

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    2. I used to be like that, Jim, but I’m not any more. I rarely go to bookstores now, but when I do, I almost always leave empty-handed. It’s weird.

      A number of things went into my change. One was a shift of how my books related to me. I thought of my books as my friends and loved being surrounded by them. But as I got more and more of them, I started getting the message that they didn’t like the fact that I was neglecting them. I felt hounded by all these books that wanted me to pick them up and read them, and I just couldn’t do that with all of them. It was just one more thing that I wasn’t managing to do, and it became stressful.

      Getting an e-reader (used mainly for library e-books) and realizing that I mostly read books from the library instead of the books I already owned also helped me let go of some of my books.

      But the biggest thing was a change of my mindset. I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and after I implemented what I could from that book (since I live in a household full of people who have very different ideas of what needs to be in our house, I’m limited by what I can let go of), I found my whole mindset shifting. When I’m in a store, bookstore or whatever, when I consider buying something, I think hard about whether it will make me happy to buy it. Usually I realize that I don’t need it to be happy and leave it on the shelf. Sometimes I use my phone to take pictures of books that look interesting – later I may check them out from the library, but usually I never think about them again.

      I’m not saying this is what you should do, Jim. It’s just my story.

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      1. My book collection contains many reference books on how to do various things. Now that I can find information on how to do almost anything on the internet I probably don’t need most of those. However, the information you get on the internet is not always a good as what can be found in some of the best reference books. Of course, I have a lot of how to books that I have never used which I some how can’t weed out of my collection.

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      2. I want to reply to ljb’s thoughtful post. We all know and agree, I think, that we live in a culture that endlessly pushes the idea that we will be happy if we buy things. The “things” vary, but we almost literally are drowning in messages urging us to buy things. A common theme on TB is that most of us find ourselves haunted by all the “stuff” we have accumulated.

        Those observations are just cliches, but they are still important things to recognize. It is my sense that one of the most challenging skills each of us can acquire is that sense of which purchases will actually make us happy (because some DO) and which purchases will only feed buyer’s remorse.

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        1. Well said, Steve. There is also the “thrifty” side of having too much stuff. My parents were/are very thrifty, and avoided the must-buy mentality, but I think their attitude to stuff was not the healthiest. There is some good in having some stuff that you will or may use in the future – home canned goods and things like nails and screws come to mind. But you can pass the point of good in that and get to the point of hoarding things that are not good quality and/or you may use some of them, but you will never use all that you have stored up. So it might be helpful to have a certain amount of small plastic containers to store leftover food in, but it seems silly to pile up several hundred of them. That’s the sort of thing my parents did/do in the name of being thrifty or ecological. I can remember when they would go to the town dump and be really happy when they brought back more “useful stuff” than stuff they trashed. Again, it can be good to rescue and use good stuff that other people trash – but if you make yourself responsible for rescuing everything usable that you see, pretty soon your house starts to resemble the town dump.

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  8. Having de-cluttered every space in the cottage last year, there are no duplicates of anything. I’ve never in my life lived in such order and simplicity, and the cloud of “I really should” has vanished. There are even drawers, cupboards, and one of three closets with nothing in them. The one cluttered space left is the tiny attic. There’s a pull-down ladder to it and my stamina and balance prohibit emptying it. I figured I should leave something for the kids to do when I die, though. Plus, kids and grand kids seem to love going through grandma’s attic!

    It’s been a productive process which led to creating a new bedroom, refurbishing the living room, and now tackling the whole out of doors. If I’ve made the insides look better, I can make the outsides a work of art as well. My goal is a botanical garden 🙂

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  9. For starter, gray hairs. After that, obsolete electronic stuff like floppy disks, Zip disks (they were all the rage in data storage media for about 6 months. 😦 ), computer cords and cables, adapters, old CDs for installing programs such as Windows 95, printers from 15 years ago, extra keyboards, mice, crappy computer speakers, etc., etc., etc.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. I wasn’t going to tell you, Chris, that I bought a copy of your book. So you’ve made at least one sale in Oregon! I wasn’t going to say this on the blog because I didn’t want to set up an embarrassing situation in case I couldn’t go on TB to say something nice about Castle Danger.

      Well, no problem. I’ve just started the book, but I’m enjoying it immensely. You done good!

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  13. i have so much of so much it takes the fun out of it. i have albums i love jackets hats shoes hawaiian shirts books art tools and a 10000 sq ft ware house to hide thme in. i start sorting next week thinning down . i dont need the lawn mowers and 27 boxes of miscelanious treasures the desks and dining room tables i have there or the extra fish tanks garden fencing and tools or old motorcycles and golf clubs i have stashed. the move simply re shuffled my crap. now its my turn

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  14. I have been away from home so long I can’t remember what I have! I haven’t bought any knick knacks on the trip. I haven’t bought much of anything, if truth be told. We are now in Dublin and i may go to a woolen store and get a sweater.

    Today we left Liverpool on the train to Chester and Holyhead to catch the ferry to Dublin. We were cursed from Chester all the way to Dublin and then on the ferry bus to the city center with 28 drunken British men traveling to Dublin for a “stag” . They were loud and obnoxious. We had far too many of them .

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    1. The noisy drunks reminded me of the scene from Wind in the Willows when the weasels and stoats had taken over Toad Hall and were having a loud party.

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    2. drunken englishmen on a stag im not sure but at a soccer match its the same condition and they are hooligans. they are funny for about a minute then roll into pathetic pretty fast. lousy drunks those blokes

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  15. I have a quantity of napkin rings I got at a sample sale years ago. I was browsing at the sale and picked out a couple of unpriced napkin rings from a box. I asked about the price and the woman told me, “A dollar for the box…but you have to take the WHOLE box.” So I did. There were probably thirty of so, none exactly the same. I’ve picked up a few more over the years. At least they don’t take much room to store.

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    1. Well, if you have 36 friends drop by for supper, you can set a fancy table with your cloth napkins and napkin rings. Then, after dinner, they can head to Chris’s house for drinks.

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  16. WOOT! Just picked up an email from Old Navy that they are having their $1 flip flop sale today and tomorrow. Such good timing!

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    1. I happened to find a pair at a thrift shop yesterday, for 50 cents. The clincher was that they have “Old Navy” stamped on the soles, so I had to buy them. They are silver.

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  17. So sad. Such a dilemma, this abundance of possessions that afflicts so many in our part of the world. It’s so prevalent, so widespread that a book about clearing out some of that abundance is on the bestseller lists. And too much stuff can be a challenge if you are moving, especially if you are also downsizing or if you have you have so many possessions they oppress you with their clutter or with your sense of obligation toward their maintenance.
    In many parts of the world, abundance is not a problem. Possessions are valued for their utility and people rarely agonize about an excess. But life in those places is often a hand-to-mouth existence.
    We have the privilege to lead bigger, richer lives and the ability to surround ourselves with not strictly utilitarian objects is a manifestation of that privilege. It’s advisable, of course, to be selective in the possessions you acquire and keep, on the principle that each should have its own individual significance to you.
    We have a lot of stuff. I can admit to having more than 1000 books written in or pertaining to the nineteenth century alone. We have tools and supplies relating to a variety of crafts and activities. We have art. We have pottery, both examples of the work of contemporary potters and Japanese pottery from Robin’s family. We have a lot of stuff because we have a lot of interests and a lot of curiosity. If we were passive consumers of popular culture, we wouldn’t need much– maybe just a computer and a huge television. A library card would suffice for reading material.
    But that’s not us and it’s unlikely to become us anytime soon. I’m out of bookshelf space and also wall space for any more bookshelves, so I need to focus on refining the selections I keep. No doubt we’ll periodically cull items and, if we downsize, we’ll have to take a harder look, but for now I’m expecting to supply a really interesting estate sale someday.

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    2. It sounds like you’ve hit that sweet spot, Bill, where you mainly have just what you use and love in your house. Good for you. I hope to get to that point some day. I’ve had enough contact with people who are near hoarders (one person has messy piles of paper all over his desk, bed, and floor, has at least 20 boxes of papers in his closet, and an entire 4-drawer file cabinet crammed full of more papers and would prefer to never throw out any paper that has come into his life; another hates to throw away anything like plastic containers and has stacks and stacks of them all over her apartment, but doesn’t have room for any beautiful things anywhere…) that I have a strong aversion to too much stuff and would prefer to be a lot closer to minimalism than I am now. I also like artwork on my walls and books – yes, I got rid of many of my books, but I still have a few hundred and don’t plan on getting rid of the ones I have; I may even buy more; I just don’t feel like doing so very often. So I hope to never be the kind of minimalist who owns only 100 possessions and lives in an all-white apartment with bare walls, but I do aspire to have only things around me that I really like and enjoy. I have a ways to go to get there.

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      1. Our home feels comfortably abundant to me. The main thing is not to let things take on more importance than they deserve, either in their presence or their absence.
        In the same way that hoarders fetishize possessions, I think it’s possible to fetishize austerity. Two sides of the same coin.

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  18. We are still packing up way too much stuff, even with the conscious culling that we are doing. Sigh.

    Question: do any of you know where to take RAGS for recycling?

    New blog question:
    What, if anything, are you doing this Memorial Day weekend?

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    1. Unless you have an awful lot of rags and unless you know the fiber content of the rags, I can’t imagine that it would be worth the time and trouble to try to take them anywhere. Focus, Barbara.

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  19. OT: We are now officially (whew!) buying House B (see last week’s post “I Changed My Mind”) – inspection revealed just minor electrical things that Husband can do, and the attic needs more insulation. We will be moving on June 8, same day as the closing. My sister comes in Saturday afternoon till Tuesday eve, and will be put to work (and visit my mom several times). I wish we could get to The Eddies, but we’re scheduled already.

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    1. Congratulations BiR! Good for you.

      Do you give your homes names? I usually don’t. But I gave my heart to my last home, and in the end I did have a name for it. I called it 2168. To others, my “name” sounded like an address, not a name. But to me those numbers referred to everything I treasured about that quirky place.

      You can always call your place House B. That is a natural name, not one imposed by sentimentality. That name reflects the ambiguity and complexity of a big decision like the one that is sending you back to Winona. House B, to me, also carries with it the notion that our first choices are not always the best ones. People who can fall in love with a second house or a second spouse are probably resilient. They are people who can roll with life’s little reversals, rising above adversity thanks to buoyant spirits.

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  20. I was offered a ticket for a river cruise on a paddleboat, so that’s where I’m headed out today. Tomorrow I plan to be at the Eddies picnic.

    Monday I have a work commitment, so it’s just a two-day weekend for me.

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  21. For some reason, 3-day weekends inspire me to try to be ultra-productive. (Actually, my current “job” and schedule make weekends kind of nonexistent, but oh well.) Today, I did a quick clean of my room and am still working on the 3rd load of laundry for the day. I took a friend out for lunch for her birthday and then we wandered – in between rain showers – around a swamp, her to birdwatch, me to take pictures. The rest of the weekend include cleaning bathrooms, catching up on neglected paperwork, and – weather permitting – a massive amount of yardwork. None of these are overwhelming tasks, except the yardwork – the weeds are growing gangbusters this year.

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  24. Today is one of those delicious cool days here in the Willamette Valley. I am told you guys have high humidity and a lot of rain. Real summer heat arrives here tomorrow, so I’ll enjoy this day of loafing in my sweatsuit, probably reading Chris’s novel.

    The excited news is “the Hoods are in!” Decoded, that means the strawberries from the Hood River Valley are on the market. This is a joy I have yet to sample. People say these strawberries are the real thing, berries that pack a potent true strawberry flavor. The last strawberries I bought in Minnesota were those factory-made things that look perfect but have NO flavor.

    My erstwife has been touring old family stomping grounds at Little Marais (where we rented a cabin three summers) and Cornucopia (near the funky old cabin some Baboons know). Our former cabin has been bulldozed so the new owners can build a proper cabin. That news does not dismay me. Although we loved that strange structure, we always knew it would be knocked down and replaced. I was thrilled to hear that the gazebo that my father built for me has been spared that fate. That was the most complex carpentry challenge he ever took on, and it is sweet to think the new owners will keep it.

    Have a wonderful extended weekend, dear friends. I am like the dowager countess of Downton Abbey, wondering what this thing called a “week end” is. For those of us who have retired, one day is like another. I’ll look forward to hearing how the weekend is for you all. Be safe.

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  25. T-Shirts. Each company I work for provides a half dozen with their logo on it. There are the basic whites. There is one for every running event I’ve entered (that stock has had few additions of late). One for every charity walking event. Then there are the funny ones such as “Bad Spellers of the World…Untie!”, Far Side cartoons and the most recent one, “Make America Grape Again…More Whine!”.
    Many of those will no longer fit. It is past time to clean out the drawers.

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  26. Turns out we have too many of:
    sheets, towels, tables, baskets, candles, books, pens and pencils, pencil holders, throw pillows, framed pictures, picture frames, clocks, office supplies, tables cloths… I could go on, but that’s enough for now.

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  27. This is in response to Winona Ho – way back in February. There was some talk about the song Closing Time. Don’t forget Leonard Cohen…

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  28. Just saw this quote on Facebook. “No person who can read is ever successful at cleaning out an attic.” Ann Landers. Seems to be true of at least some baboons, and not just about attics.

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