Beautiful Day; Small Progress

Today's weather was beautiful, in the 70s, sunny, blue sky and the amazing colors in the leaves; I would gladly take this exact weather for the next six months. I had to run out at lunch for an appointment and went from cautiously not wearing a jacket to taking off my sweater, and wishing I could stay out all day (though that regret diminished when the clouds came in the afternoon, making it less perfect).

Even better, though, was being able to open a window to the lovely air. Carlos has been much displeased with the window, his window, being closed most of the time that the heater wasn't working, and he was very pleased today. And so was I: his fur normally smells delicious*, and even better with fresh air, but when that air smells of autumn leaves? You can't even imagine how good that is. You may think you can, but it's even better.
*Which baffles me, honestly; what is in kitty spit, to produce this effect?

I've taken a few baby steps toward getting things cleared up around here, as I discussed. After I wrote last night, I thought about some other things I'd seen in the trunk while I was looking for those photos. Like a few board games, which I couldn't even tell you why I've kept, but I put them on Freecycle this morning and someone already came and got them, boom, gone.

And then there were the smurfs.

Did anyone else collect smurfs? I was introduced to them, somewhere around 1980 or so, when I was visiting a friend in New York, which was quite an adventure for me. I want to say she took me to Macy's, though I may not be remembering correctly, but anyway, I bought two.

Neil and Jimmy. The start of a collection that got considerably bigger; I'll have to get photos. And I've never gotten rid of them because, well, what to do with them? I hated to think of just dumping them at Goodwill; I didn't think that putting them on eBay would be worth my time and trouble; but what to do?

So last night, I thought of a friend whose kids might be of an age to be interested, and e-mailed her, emphasizing that she could say no but offering them to her. And after sending a picture so she could show them what smurfs are (kids today, sigh), they said yes! So I will be packing up the figures and cottages and kits and all, and bringing them to be played with again. Yay!

But I will be keeping Neil and Jimmy, and one other. Guess why.