Mighty Mental Oaks

May be grown from confessional acorns.
Either way I feel like I ran into a tree. (I didn’t. Though I have headbutted the new jumbo ironing board that still lurks in a box in the hall still more than once.  Not on purpose. Mostly.)
It has been a stop and talk time at Casa De Dragon Hoard. Well actually it has been a stop and talk time OUTSIDE the Hoard.
Major Dragon spent some time with her siblings recently.  I hadn’t really thought anything of it till my aunt started discussing MD’s hoarding with me a few days later.  As an actual problem.  I was so startled I am sure I was standing there like a concussed owl.  Turned out MD had actually told her sister she may have a bit of a problem. 
To put this confession into a OMG YOU DID WHAT scale for you - I thought MD actually admitting to anyone that she had a hoarding problem (without me standing behind her poking her with a large stick) less likely than the current British Government suddenly standing up and shrieking “BUGGER AUSTERITY CUTS!” then hanging out of the windows of Westminster lobbing 50 pound notes at the people below. To actually admit she has a problem and talk about it independently is right off that scale.  Never mind going all the way to 11, you can safely add zeros to that number.  Even more amazing considering that before Christmas location arguments I was told to stop mentioning MD’s hoarding problem in front of her.  She sulkily told me I was crowing about it since I kept mentioning it.  I thought she was working up to the 5 steps back I have been expecting since the step forward when she first grudgingly admitted she had a problem.  I may have Channel Four’s Obsessive Compulsive Hoarder programme to thank for that.  Right about at the point I could have expected a major wobbly about how I am bullying her and it is her house and my god she has done that so often I could actually type out the full rant, she saw this on tv and it put, as my granny used to say, her gas at a peep. Well, for now anyway. There will always be another Table Saga to clip my clutter cleaning wings. The day there isn’t I will have to coaxed out from under the Jumbo Ironing Board with cake and reassures that the sky isn’t about to fall.
I probably won’t believe you but I do like cake.
So where does that leave the Hoard this week?  Standing on fertile ground it seems.  And not just where that stuff got dropped on the carpet.  Aunt clearly had done her research.  She offered to pick up stuff for the dump any time particularly when MD is out at work and can’t sneak it back in the house.  Just bag it and pop it on the doorstop, give her a ring and it is away.  I am caught between guilt at making her do an hour round trip if I take her up on her offer and kissing her shoes.  The offers of aid lately are a bit stunning.  There is wild, crazy talk of a skip party in the spring but that is wild and crazy talk for another post. (not actually in a skip but the skip would be there and we theoretically would be flinging stuff in it. That isn’t Major Dragon. Maybe... Bad Secret Dragon, that is no way to solve your problems. Tut.  You know this is why I started a blog, I was totally starting to talk to myself.  And the cardboard boxes. Can I blame the mental walking into trees?) 
Starting to wonder if I should be handing out badges to them. “I fought a Clutter Dragon! (and it didn’t win)” with singed edges. Or “I have the moves like Jagger a glacier” Mine will read “Have acorn, still searching for sanity”
It is a start though. Hi 2012, are we finally ready?

Note to self: find new word for "problem" or you will be typing it forever on this blog.