Life's a Stitch

In a time of need long ago, I found a wonderful book explaining death to children. It's called Lifetimes. It calmly explains that every living being has an expected life expectancy and that death is the natural end. I remember changing the age of the human lifetime to beyond the 72 years it mentions, so that I didn't scare them with the possibility of the imminent death of my mother, who was nearing that magic number. Thankfully she lived at least another ten years. 

I need to write a book on the life span of non-living, but very much a part of our lives, things in our house. Let's start with the house, for example. In our neighbourhood a house has a lifespan of maybe 5o years. Seriously, if your house is older, when you sell it, poof (!), it's torn down and replaced by a bigger, better and exorbitantly more expensive model. The house across the street was sold a few years back, having been renovated with dark hardwood floors and granite countertops. Overnight it was gone. It made me uncomfortable as it was nicer than our house. Here are the before and after pictures:

Recently our 1998 VW Jetta, living with our daughter in Calgary and dubbed, Carlos, achieved his lifetime. Then there was Athena, our year 2000 Starbucks espresso machine. Athena was the name of the model, and was know for its longevity, but reached its expiry date the same week as Carlos.

Last month our 1958 downstairs toilet bit the dust, and despite this house being destined for the wrecking ball in a matter of a short time, compared to its long lifetime, it needed replacing. No picture required.

I guess that's the point. This house is nearing its lifespan and will soon be meeting the wrecking ball, or more accurately the excavator, and replacing its contents is throwing money down the drain so to speak. I went to buy replacement floodlight bulbs for the kitchen pot lights and the Home Depot lighting person tried to convince me to buy LED bulbs with a loooong lifetime and a commensurately hiiiigh price tag. I politely declined. I suppose I can unscrew the bulbs on the last day and take them wherever we end up. Actually I had a childhood friend whose practical Dad did exactly that when they moved out of their family home, but that was in the days long before LED bulbs and his kids thought him unreasonable as the house was not being torn down. I don't think I'll be going there. I'll stick with the cheap replacements and let the demolitionists deal with them.

I submitted another assignment to the ink and watercolour illustration course I'm taking online (I LOVE retirement). It's of a Vancouver anomaly, the Vernon Drive Grocery store, which has had an extraordinarily long lifetime. It has existed as a convenience store for over 100 years. It's a different style than the painting in my last post, but I'm really enjoying the change and look forward to trying some of my house portraits using this method (this is the post with the first assignment I submitted for the course).

Maybe I'd better do one of our house before it's gone.