(Admiral Rex’s women are going. China girl made the cut. The Salukis are toast. Forward! All photos Socotra).

I knew the harem girls were going to have to go. That was a given, and the really cool etching of the Hungarian Princess being seduced by the Gypsy girl in the back room, or the Charlotte Rampling topless image in the SS hat and gloves from the back bathroom.

I also knew the stained glass maize-and-blue Block M would have to come down- I mean, I wouldn’t buy a property from a known Buckeye, right? And I totally understand about the Christmas lights, though leaving them up year-round has been an enormous time saver.

One has to be sensitive to regional sensibilities, I know, but the depths of the depersonalization of the living space that was directed was a little breathtaking. We were in Proposal Hell at the office when I first met with Grant-the-Realtor, and I didn’t completely process what he was saying. He had been blunt enough when he observed at our first meeting “you certainly seem to have had a colorful career.”

What I think he meant was that there was certainly a lot of quirky junk filling up every corner of the unit, and what he needed, from a sales perspective, was some space in which potential buyers could imagine their crap without being overwhelmed by mine.

Fine, I thought. It had been a while since I moved- longer than most of my life, considering that Big Pink has been my primary residence for nearly a dozen years.

And the crap was indeed piling up. Time to lean it down, but first there was a consultation with a mysterious creature called a Stager. I took that sanity day Thursday and ran a big steamer trunk filled with picture frames and once precious memories down to the farm, and the Shippensburg Box, the wooden crate that might once have held silver ingots liberated by the enterprising Socotra boys who left Pennsylvania to aid in the relief of Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871.

According to the local historians, the Socotras found the ruins of a bank, and helped themselves to the shiny stuff in the ashes.

I have no idea if that is really true, but the box has sentimental value in and of itself, though I doubt if anyone else in the world could dredge up any interest. The crate sits with the golf clubs, filled with bayonets from some other wars in other times, and the golf bag has a full set of irons and two civil war sabers.

Quirky lot, and this was not helped by the pile of bric-a-brac from The Little Town By the Bay. I am thinking that the real project, once this part of it is done, is to document all this crap- take a picture and write the story of it all. That will take time and probably will not happen, I know. It is a curse to operate a private museum dedicated to…hell, I don’t know.

Anyway, Grant brought The Stager to see me the evening after I got back from the run to fill up the garage with assorted wonders. It was Spring, finally, first day in shorts, and the sun was still high in the sky at 1800 when they arrived.

Grant is a plump and energetic young man about the age of my sons. He appears to be a go-getter, and familiar with mining the resources of Big Pink, which is why I selected him. The Stager was something else. She was a lady of a certain age, close-cropped salt and pepper hair, and a forthright gaze from deep blue eyes. She wore a safari vest, as if she was going to go birding after getting done with me, and was kind enough in a brusque way as she dismissed the detritus of my life and those of the Socotras who have gone before.

I listened in resignation, understanding completely what she was saying. Fatigued as I was, my shoulders sagged with the realization of the loads of books I am going to be humping to the elevator.

We started in the front room and moved around the walls. Then into the second bedroom and the main bath, then finally into the master bedroom, walk-in closet and the back bath.

(Gone, gone, gone. Don’t lose the wallet in the shuffle.)

She did not take notes, and made pronouncements with a businesslike approach. Once she had dismissed the German picklehaube spiked helmets and the coal-scuttle buckets that have followed me around most of my life, she went after filing cabinets and the contents of the closets.

It did not take her long to dismiss my life, and really, having gone through this emptying process recently for Raven and Big Mama, I realized there was a lot to dismiss and it could be done in fairly short order. I walked her down to the elevator to see her on her way, while Grant-the-Realtor took measurements of the vanities that need to be replaced in the bathrooms. It is going to cost some money to get out of here, but it is time.

After I returned, and he was done getting the specs to take to Home Depot- I told you he was energetic- I offered him a cocktail. He took me up on it, and we sat out on the balcony. The cover is off the pool, and the dirty water of winter looked grim from above. Soon enough it will be blue, and with luck, the unit will be painted and antiseptically clean.

But there is some significant work that needs to be done. I got a note the next morning that contained The Stagers mental notes. I read through them, unsurprised, though the memories associated with each dismissed item stole up on me:

Remove plants and buffet table they are sitting on
Remove Desk in dining room
Remove small and large upholstered chairs in living room
Remove small bookshelves in master bedroom and office bedroom
Remove items from top of bookshelves in all rooms (some items can be kept to incorporate into shelves, i.e. black and white photos, memorial flags)
Remove piece in living room to right of bookshelves and lamp sitting on it
Remove file cabinet in office
Remove “futon” in office
Remove “file cabinet dresser” in master bedroom
Remove large painting in dining room, all hanging items in foyer, large painting in hall bath, red wood aspens in MBR, “Bar Harbor” painting over video cabinet, grandma’s landscape, all artwork in office
Remove as many books as possible so there will be a mix of books and art objects on bookshelves
Thin out clothing, shoes, etc. in closets

There was not a lot that would be staying, though some of it passed The Stager’s muster:

Artwork to be kept or moved and rehung:

(The plants must move. I don’t think the elephant ears are going to make it.)

Portrait in entryway, Chinese girl in window, 2 smaller pieces in dining room, 2 pieces on either side of wall unit in living room, dragon artwork in hallway, pencil architectural pencil drawing and one other piece that were on floor in front of master bedroom bookshelves, mirror and father’s drawings, 2 small pieces on either side of “Horses.”

On kitchen counter….keep coffee maker, utensil holder, salt and pepper shakers, Haitian art, microwave. See if knives can be put in cupboard. All other art should be taken down. No magnets on refrigerator. Nothing on top of refrigerator.

Painting recommended in foyer, hallway, both bathrooms, master bedroom near window and crack over closet door.
Deep clean recommended before first Open House.

(Sky Girl made the cut. I am glad. I like her a lot).

It is time. I could tell you the story of all of the junk- where the plants came from, the portrait of the woman who greeted me each morning at the Department of Health and Human Services when we were fighting the anthrax wars and the SARS epidemic- but as I said, that is another project altogether, and in the end, who cares.

I will start with things I can deal with today- books and bookcases. I hope they are going to be happy in the garage down in Culpeper. At some point, I suspect a Bonfire of the Vanities- in fact, that is one of the books that is going to travel today- may be in the cards.

And I definitely need to talk to Vicky the Maid and see if she is willing to come a little more often until this high finance crap is done.

(This goes today. Anyone need a 1969 high school year book?)

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com