A Clutter of Fives

"A clutter of . . ." - where did I get that? Sounds like some sort of herd/flock/pack/pod thing. I wonder what would be in a clutter? Most anything, I guess!

Madcap Mum has tagged all willing readers with a meme, so here goes.

Five items in my fridge

1. Leftover cherries from that pie I made last Saturday. Hmm.
2. Leftover roast chicken. When the kids ask what we're having, I start the chant. "Well, there's roast chicken, chicken sandwiches, chicken jambalaya . . ." James adds, "chicken cherry pie . . ."
   
3. Leftover spaghetti sauce.
4. Leftover parsnips. Mom forgot to dig hers last fall, so she dug them this spring. They weren't even mulched.
   
5. A green pepper that James actually requested. Huh? Perhaps it's significant that it's still in the fridge.

Five items in my closet

1. My knitting project. It's a turtleneck poncho, and it was supposed to be a Christmas present for Ruth. She was just hopeful that it would be ready for spring. Well, maybe next spring . . .
2. A stash of small items in case of sudden demands for gifts to take to birthday parties, school gift exchanges, etc. (See? I'm not entirely disorganized.) My favourites are a couple of decks of cards with pictures of Canadian birds and mammals on the playing faces.
3. A sit-upon. Some years ago, I went on a Girl Guide trip with Ruth, and we had to bring a sit-upon, which consists of a flat wad of newspaper sealed up in a garbage bag with tape. I found it annoyingly junky, and wished I could squat well enough to ignore the requirement, but somehow I just haven't quite tossed it yet. Maybe after she's through with Guiding.
4. Many cardboard boxes of stuff that hasn't found a home elsewhere. Mostly it's old paper that I'm never going to consult again, but there might be one sheet in there somewhere, and I just don't have time to find it right now.
5. Many clothes that don't fit. I am rarely in this predicament, and I have almost no patience for it. I blame it on the gardening. The harder I work, the more I eat, and I don't have any time for biking anymore. But I can't buy more clothes - I've got bags of fabric in that closet, too, and no time right now to sew anything.

Five items in my van truck

Don't know. Garth took it. Let me think . . .

1. A couple of pieces of baler twine.
2. Some bits of wire from when I took apart the dog run last winter. A kid from Pheasant Rump caught a ride with me this spring, and asked me if I ever clean my truck. Then she wanted to throw the wire out. Literally, just out. Out the window. I was so shocked, I just said something about it poking somebody's tires, and didn't explore the literalist understanding of "throw it out."
3. A battered box of Kleenex.
4. A first aid kit and a flashlight, good ideas, but mainly holdovers from my working days when they were required.
5. A road atlas of Saskatchewan. Love it. You know, there are far more roads than what they show on those grid road maps.

Five items in my purse

Last winter I was asked to be the fourth female body for a Ladies' Bonspiel, and as entertainment in the evening, they had "Outrageous Olympics." One of the events was a treasure hunt through the team members' purses. In spite of being a mom, I didn't have much to contribute.

1. A built-in small ring binder, formerly used to hold daily planner pages, which generally went unused. Now empty.
2. A Palm Zire data organizer, in the pocket designed for a cell phone, mostly unused. I bought it to collect local events info from the bulletin boards downtown, back when I planned to make this blog a source of timely local announcements (and thus draw an audience around my soapbox). Never quite got that happening.
3. Hmm, haven't looked in this side for awhile. Two library cards that I don't use anymore (University of Regina and the Regina Public Library, both accessible through interlibrary loans on my other card), and two photocopier cards (University of Regina, and Westar across the street from the campus). I wonder if they would still work?
4. Now for the main pocket where I put everything I use - the one with the broken zipper. There's the usual assortment of small bills and coins (these corralled in an inside pouch with a zipper that still works), some other money-related stuff, a driver's licence and a health card and my real library card.
5. A concert ticket from the Mother's Day Concert in Carlyle, featuring Shamma Sabir and Ray Bell. Shamma did some spell-binding Celtic and old-tyme fiddlin', while Ray mostly played along on the guitar, but also took a delightful mouth-trumpet solo, complete with a little trombone-slide gesture at the appropriate point. These two will be among the many fun-loving instructors at the Kenosee Kitchen Party camp in August. See ya there!

Five items on my computer desk

1. An outdated lyric sheet for one of my still-evolving songs.
2. Packaging related to a replacement camera part that turned out to be the wrong part and the right part is on the way and the other one has to go . . . oh, never mind. The camera is there, too.
3. A tin can decorated with popsicle sticks and paint, in honour of Father's Day last year (?), stuffed full of pens, markers, pencils, erasers, pencil crayons, and so on.
4. Several CDs, including George Strait's "Greatest Hits," The Whistlepigs String Band - "unjugged," and my own (Fire Lily, "Where the Fire Lily Grows"). I almost never listen to it, since I can't stand to hear all the flaws, but a few days ago I was thinking of ripping "No Place" and posting the mp3. However, since that would involve getting permission from former band members, I settled on just the lyrics.
5. A brochure about the upcoming publication of "Arcola/Kisbey Golden Heritage: Mountain Hills to Prairie Flats Vol. II." Let me know if you want more details.

Tag, anyone?