My Experiences with Unions and Monkeys: Part 2

After a few years at my job in the union shop, I took a new job in a different facility.  It was a bizarro version of my previous job.  The facility was at most 10 years old.  It was not unionized.  Everyone hated the Yankees.  They also hated the parent company--the site was an independent company and was acquired about a year before I joined.  This was stupid, in my view, because all the senior people became highly placed in the parent organization and made so much money in the buyout that they all could afford to buy a house on Nantucket and their own plane to fly there (seriously, I know at least one person who did that) and they took care of their people to the detriment of the rest of the organization.  Everyone at every level in the company did well in the buyout.  While the Environmental Health and Safety guys at my previous job drove F-150s, all the EH&S guys at the new place had F-250s and some even had a dually.

But a lot was the same because Metro Boston is a lot like New Jersey.  North Shore/South Shore debates are much like Taylor ham/pork roll.  The majority of people spend their entire lives in a bubble with a 25 mile radius, including college.  New Hampshire is Rockland County.  The accents are not sexy.  No one cares about college sports but many people are overly passionate about their favorite pro sports teams and decorate everything with the teams' logos, including their faces.  

The new facility was similar to the old one in that it was in the middle of nowhere and somewhat self-contained so going out to lunch was almost impossible, trapping you there all day and forcing you to eat the same crappy food all the time.  The EH&S guys were similar too.  There was one EH&S guy in his early 50's with a bushy handlebar mustache, engineer boots, tattoos, a chain tethering his wallet to his belt, and a leather vest (a "cut") bearing various insignias from his NH-based motorcycle crew.  He swaggered around like a badass but he was 5'4" so it was a little silly.  One day he shaved his mustache.  A few hours later I saw him again and he had the mustache again!  I asked my boss if I was losing my mind and he laughed and said "No, dumbass, Peter shaved his mustache but Paul didn't."  Turns out there were two of this guy--they were twins.  So just like my old job, the EH&S guys literally came in twos.

The new site also similarly had manufacturing, quality control, research, development, and a big animal facility.  My new job involved developing new formulations and part of that involved testing the formulations in animals so I spent a significant amount of time in the animal facility.

It was some of the worst time of my life.  One of my primary tasks was gamma scinitgraphy.  We labeled the proteins we studied with iodine-125, or "I-125," a radioactive element, so that we could measure how long the proteins remained where we put them in the animals' bodies.  Everyone referred to the radioactive material as "hot."  As in, "we got more hot protein" or "we're out of hot" or "be careful with that syringe it's full of hot" or "watch out for that spill it's hot."  We made the measurements using a gamma camera, a massive device driven by a Unix computer.  I would design the formulations, mix in the hot proteins, and a veterinarian or a veterinary technician would implant the formulation in the animals.  Then, while the animals were sedated, I would make measurements using the gamma camera over time.  

This was bad for many reasons.  Iodine naturally binds to your thyroid--it's often added to salt to prevent people from getting goiters so that's typically a good thing.  It's a terrible thing, however, if the iodine is radioactive like I-125.  I-125 also has a long half-life, which means that it sticks around forever.  So working with the radio-labeled proteins was serious stuff and I had to wear lead gloves to handle it, and spilling any on myself would've been a nightmare because they I would've had radioactive iodine stuck in my thyroid for 25 years.  I had to be vigilant about this all the time.  

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To enter the animal facility you had to don a bunch of proper protective equipment or "PPE".  There was minimum amount of required PPE, much like flair.  It varied depending on who was running the animal facility, and that person varied with surprising frequency.  The guy in charge when I first got there was fired when they discovered he was sneaking into the ketamine, an animal tranquilizer that you might know as Special K.  It was that type of place.  Anyway, the PPE offered in the airlock to the animal facility was a hairnet, face mask, surgical gloves, booties, and Tyvek lab coats.  This was all disposable and thus great for the environment.  Because I worked with radioactive material I had to wear all that PPE.  When I hear people complain about wearing a mask I laugh--I used to have to wear one all day plus a whole bunch of other more uncomfortable stuff.

And I did this in a tiny room with a massive machine that generated lots of heat.  As some of you know I am a ridiculously sweaty guy so all that PPE coupled with the heat from the gamma camera had me soaked with sweat after 20 minutes.  I was in that room for hours.  Also in that room was a machine that sterilized equipment using ethylene oxide, a really nasty chemical that can kill you several ways.  It was a relatively small device but disturbing given its deadly nature.  It sat in the corner of the room, silently threatening to kill me.  I think they stuck it in the gamma camera room because we had the space for it and everyone figured the gamma camera guys were screwed anyway, what's a little ethylene oxide exposure when we already had thyroid damage.

Prior to this role I had never spent any time with rats or rabbits, and through it I learned that I am severely allergic to rats and rabbits.  Rats are actually pretty friendly creatures but they do have fingernails and if one of them scratched my skin the least bit the scratches would turn into welts.  Their dander made my eyes itch and water, my nose congest, my throat constrict, and my lungs cough.  They can also be mean so you had to watch out for the occasional biter.  Rats are typically used for early studies because they are small and cheap and thus a good model for a large sample size.  As a result, I typically spent 3-4 days a week in a room full of radioactive rats, carefully guarding my thyroid from radiation and the rest of my body from rat dander.  Once dosed with I-125 the rats were "hot rats" but remarkably no one I worked heard of Frank Zappa.

For anything larger than a rat I would have vet tech support so they handled the rabbits.  I think I'm more allergic to rabbits than rats, at least as far as my respiratory system goes.  I'm convinced that my chronic cough is due at least in part to four years of exposure to all these animals.

My days in the animal facility involved retrieving the rats, wheeling them into the gamma camera room, pulling them out of their boxes one at a time and dropping them into a large bell jar hooked up to this octopus of an anesthesia machine that pumped a mix of oxygen and an anesthetic gas (I can't remember the name).  Once the rats were knocked out I would put three on the gamma camera's imager and stick their noses into these little nose cones at the end of one of the octopus's tentacles.  This kept them asleep while I imaged them for 3 minutes.  Essentially I photocopied radioactive rats.  Then I would put them back in their box and turn to the next set of rats.  This could take hours depending on the size of the study.

At the end of the study I would "sacrifice" the rats, which means I killed them by dropping them into a box hooked up to a tank full of carbon dioxide.  Then I would empty the rats' boxes (full of bedding and radioactive rat excreta--after the animals' bodies metabolized the protein, the I-125 would be freed and excreted through the urine and feces, I had to deal with literal hot shit) and carcasses into a plastic bag which then went into a special radioactive storage freezer.  Every once in a while we did a study without radioactivity, and in those cases I had to dissect the dead rats to retrieve whatever I implanted in them for histological analysis.  You have not smelled nastiness until you've smelled the insides of a dead rat.

The gamma camera was a cantankerous device and its Unix operating system was indecipherable.  There was only one IT guy who knew Unix, Steve the Eunuch (because he knew Unix, not because he didn't have a penis, at least as far as I know), so if the Eunuch was on vacation and the gamma camera acted up I was screwed.  My group leader was completely humorless and very tightly wound so when I once told her "I can't get the data out today, the gamma camera is frozen and the Eunuch from IT is out" she thought I was disparaging Steve and gave me a stern talking-to.  The gamma camera computer wasn't compatible with our network so I had to manually transcribe all the data into my lab notebook and then enter it manually into an Excel spreadsheet back at my desk.  I never made any errors, nothing to worry about there. 

My fellow employees often added to the degree of difficulty.  Many were, perhaps rightfully, terrified of I-125.  Rats are natural escape artists and although their cages are designed against this there was the occasional jailbreak.  No one was happy with me when one of my hot rats got loose, leaving a trail of hot shit and hot piss behind it.  It was discovered by the guy with the Special K habit and he kept it in a box on his desk until I told him how I-125 works and the bit about the pee and poop and that he thus might not want to keep it near his morning coffee and danish.  Then he handed it to me and told me to put it back where it belonged.

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Some people were of the view that they shouldn't have to work near radioactive material and they were always looking out for people in my group to slip up and get some where it didn't belong.  This happened once, I don't recall how, but as a result they reported us for allegedly being sloppy and two EH&S guys (not the twins) rode shotgun with me in the gamma camera room for a day to see what we do and to recommend better practices.  They had to suit up in all the PPE and sweat it out in the hot (puns!) room with all the boxes full of rats and their excreta.  About an hour into the day, one of the occasional angry rats bit my finger pretty badly.  It went through both gloves (I wore two gloves on each hand just in case I got a rip) and there was a lot of blood.  My allergies kicked in almost immediately and my index finger swelled up like a salami.  The EH&S guys were excited.  They sprung into action to administer first aid, whisking me over to a sink to wash the wound.  I told them to "Get the fug offa me!" but they insisted on treating my injury.  I joked that Spider-Man got his powers from a radioactive spider bite so maybe I'll turn into Rat-Man with my radioactive rat bite.  They didn't see the humor but they had sympathy for my plight, and they were delighted that they got to use their walkie-talkies to radio my injury to the nurse's station.

This all sounds pretty miserable, right?  It pales in comparison to working with monkeys.  They are terrifying.  We used cynologous monkeys, which are also called crab-eating macaques or "cynos."  If given the opportunity they will rip your face off because they are exceedingly angry.

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Our cynos came from the wild.  Someone out there might breed them but our supplier got them from the original source.  Imagine you're a monkey out in the jungle, handling your monkey business.  You might have a girlfriend or two, maybe you have a family.  Maybe you're a young guy and you still live with your parents but you like to sow your wild oats.  Life is good.  One day you're over by the swamp, trying to catch some crabs for lunch when BLAM, you get hit in the ass with a tranquilizer dart.  You're instantly woozy, then some human throws a net over you and drags you over to a box, throws you in and you can't see anything.  You pass out.  When you wake up you're in a cage by yourself, but surrounded by many other cages with a cyno in each.  You're all put on a boat and shipped to Massachusetts.  All you have to eat is whatever monkey chow they give you and some fresh fruit.  You live in a cage for the rest of your life, away from your ladyfriend and your homeboys and your family.  You're poked and prodded and used in all sorts of experiments.  You would be angry.  Angry enough to rip the fingers off the hand that feeds you.

Cynos are expensive.  In order to get into the animal facility I had to take a tuberculosis test every six months, the Mantoux skin test.  The on-site nurse would inject a little nut of tuberculin between the layers of skin in my forearm and I would come back two days later.  If the nut disappeared I was fine.  If it was raised and inflamed I had TB, which meant they were very concerned for the monkeys and I would've gotten in trouble for exposing them to TB.

Cynos are pretty smart.  When you walk into the cyno room they all angle the metal plate on the front of their cages so they can see you in the reflection, like prisoners in jail.  Some of them are friendly enough that you can house two in a box, in which case they get a big cage.  Some of them are not friendly and will kill whatever cyno you put in there with them.

As in any prison there has to be an alpha.  Our alpha was Number 3.  He was exceedingly large, twice as big as any other cyno we had, and he had a ruff of head on his hair like a mohawk.  He had huge teeth and he rippled with muscles.  He lived alone because he would destroy his roommate.  All of the cages had a lever on the side that you could pull to make the back wall move forward, trapping the monkey against the wall so you could give it a shot to tranquilize it.  Number 3 was such a badass that when he saw you coming he would turn and put his butt up against the bars so you could knock him out.

We always had to wear safety glasses but when we were near cynos we also wore face shields because they can carry the herpes B virus.  You can get it from their saliva so you need to protect your eyes, nose and mouth.  It has an 80% fatality rate, so a halfway sedated cyno can kill you even if he's too loopy to rip your face off, all he needs to do is spit in your face.  

So when we had monkey studies, I was stuck for hours in a sweltering room, draped in layers of PPE, surrounded by thyroid-seeking radioactive material and a carcinogenic sterilizing machine, with an unconscious primate that might wake up and give me a deadly disease or bite my jugular.  

And that wasn't the worst of it!  After a day like that I had to go home to a woman who was a cross between the worst of Betty Draper (heartless high-maintenance ice queen from a fancy zip code who has a bad relationship with food) and Sammi Sweetheart (demanding mercurial Italian princess from the Tri-State area who has no sense of humor about herself).  

from January Jones GIFs via Gfycat

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I should've known better--she hated The Princes Bride.

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So if you ever wondered "What the hell was zman up to around the turn of the 21st century," you now have your answer.  And that's my story about working with monkeys.

A Few Words for Johnny G

As we relayed to you all a month or two ago, we lost our good buddy Johnny G to a bad ticker in December. A tough one, for sure. The William and Mary contingent decided to throw Johnny a reverent memorial in Williamsburg last weekend. 

Okay a boozefest with equal parts camaraderie, old stories, and bourbon. God bless us for never straying from that modus operandi. 

We did, however, add a tiny sliver of reverence amid the wistful fraternity party. Enjoy our speaking and singing (!).

If you're really good, maybe we'll show you the late night antics of three gheorghies and friends.

Solidarity Filler

My Hot Takes on the Bills and the Bills/Chiefs Game

1. Brian Daboll probably isn't a genius and he probably won't save whatever franchise he goes to.  This offense looks good because Josh Allen is phenomenal.
2. Leslie Frazier probably isn't a genius either.  The Bills played a bunch of offensively challenged teams this year (Jest twice, Fish twice, Jags, Texans, WFT, Panthers, Falcons) and the defense starts six first-round picks.  This helped him look good.  His defenses in Tampa were not good and he had a 39.8% win percentage as a head coach in Minnesota.  And he just gave up 45 yards and 3 points in 10 seconds to go to OT.
3. I miss Tre'Davious White.  No one can stop Tyreek Hill but White would've done better than Dane Jackson.
4. Why was Dane Jackson, the 239th pick in the 2020 draft, on Tyreek Hill?
5. Allen is a bad man.  When was the last time you saw a QB knock a defensive player out of the game?  But I don't think this is a good way to build a lengthy career.
6.  If they're going to continue to run designed rushing plays for Allen they should get a fullback.
7. At a minimum, they need to get a big thumping running back who can get 3 tough yards so that Allen doesn't always have to.  Guys like Leonard Fournette don't grow on trees but he was available for peanuts two years ago.  Guys like Alexander Mattison, D'Onta Foreman, Devontae Booker, Mark Ingram, Rex Burkhead and Carlos Hyde are always available.
8. The overtime rules are what they are.  Buffalo couldn't stop KC when they needed to.  If the Bills were playing the Colts or the Ravens it would've been different.  That said, the outcome feels somewhat inequitable, the fans want something else so the league should respond.  I have ideas.
• Make OT a 10 or 15 minute period.  Team with the most points wins.  If they're tied play another 10 or 15 minute period.
• Both teams get the ball once.  If they both score TD in their first possessions, the next team to score any points wins.
• Use the college OT system.
• Have a FG kick-off, moving back 5 yards at a time until someone misses.
• The head coaches wrestle Greco-Roman style at midfield.  First guy to pin the other advances.
• Each team designates one player to box at midfield.  First guy to knock out the other advances.
• Erect a cage at midfield and the punters have an MMA fight.  Winner advances.
• Each team designates one player to do the NY Times Mini.  Guy with the fastest time advances.
• A player is randomly chosen from each team.  Both have 15 minutes to complete as many questions as they can from the Analytical Reasoning section of an LSAT (which is also randomly selected from a book of ten practice tests).  Guy with the best score advances.  If they tie, the punters have a knife fight at midfield, first guy to draw blood advances.
9. Romo was probably right that Buffalo should've kicked off short of the endzone to run off some clock with 0:13 left.  I suspect, however, that McDermott did not want to be the second Bills coach to lose a playoff game on a kick return with no time left.
10. Only six punts, very few penalties, no gross injuries, receivers running free all over the place, QBs looking like superheroes, 5-5 combined on fourth down, lots and lots of points, defensive futility.  This is what the league wants.  

COVID-420

 SCIENCE!

There is no reason for me to be bumping down zman's epic tome, but I think Whit missed me a bit, so I thought I'd pop in here to GTB HQ before I return to the hellsite that is twitter dot com. And why actually produce a post for the first time in months now, you ask? 'CAUSE WEED, that's why. More specifically, how some recent scientific study showed that cannabis may prove useful in some cases fighting this fucking god awful never-ending shitshow pandemic.

"Compounds in cannabis can prevent infection from the virus that causes Covid-19 by blocking its entry into cells, according to a study published this week by researchers affiliated with Oregon State University. A report on the research, “Cannabinoids Block Cellular Entry of SARS-CoV-2 and the Emerging Variants,” was published online on Monday by the Journal of Natural Products."

Puff, puff, prevent folks. Think it's time to get Luniz to cut a new track.

My Experiences with Unions and Monkeys: Part 1

After graduating from college I got a job working in a laboratory for a large pharmaceutical company.  My site was over 100 years old and was responsible for many important innovations over the decades.  It was a throwback to an earlier time when companies did everything in-house.  For example, there was an eyeglasses shop on site.  You could bring your prescription and they would make free safety glasses for you.  The frame options were terrible and the lenses were bulletproof-glass-thick but they were free.  I got a pair of prescription sunglasses there.

They also had their own plumbers, electricians, HVAC repair, you name it.  It was almost like a little town unto itself or maybe a college campus.  All of these repair/support roles were unionized.

Like many other laboratories, mine had freezers that went all the way down to -80C, we referred to them as a "minus eighty."  You put things in a minus eighty to assure they don't degrade or break down.  You know how they find a frozen wooly mammoth perfectly preserved in ice once in a while?  That's what a minus eighty does.

One day I went to open one of the minus eighties and there were a bunch of lights flashing on the front.  The thermometer said it was only -60C or something like that.  So I quickly moved as much as I could from the broken minus eighty to my other minus eighty, but I didn't have enough room for all of it so I used space in another lab's minus eighty with the promise that I would get it out of there as soon as possible.

Then I called refrigeration.  They said they could fix it but I had to call trucking to get it over to them.  I called trucking and they said I needed to get it on the loading dock so they could pick it up.  So I unplugged the minus eighty and rolled it to the door (they're all on wheels).  It was too big to fit so I had to take the door off the hinges.  Then I rolled it to the freight elevator, went down two flights, and pushed it onto the loading dock.  I told trucking where it was and a few days later they picked it up and brought it to refrigeration.

Months passed.  I called refrigeration about once a week and they assured me they would get to it soon.  My colleagues were pissed that all of our stuff was smushed into one minus eighty and/or in someone else's minus eighty.  No one knew where anything was so they had to check two minus eighties to find their antibodies or whatever.

The other lab was pissed that I put stuff in their minus eight for months.  I told them the story with refrigeration but they didn't care.  They complained to the head of their lab who complained to the head of my lab who came to me and I promised him I didn't break the minus eighty, I'm just the stupid mope who found it thawing and tried to take care of the situation.  He liked me and didn't give me a hard time.  He was a frat guy and he was delighted when he told me I needed to take the annual sexual harassment training and I replied "I don't need sexual harassment training, I was in a frat and I know all about it."  He was fooling around with someone else in the lab so he knew all about it too.

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I walked over to refrigeration a few times to see where things stood.  I never saw anyone fixing any equipment but there was a lot of bullshitting and eating.  To be fair, the place was littered with fridges and freezers and air conditioners and lots of oddball lab equipment that involved a condenser so they had a lot to do, and the union didn't let them do much during the course of an eight hour day.  I was persistent and polite and told them how much grief I was getting over this freezer with the hope that they might move me up in the queue.

Finally I got a call from refrigeration--the minus eight was ready to come home.  Of course, they couldn't do anything about it, I had to set it all up.  So I called trucking and they brought it to the loading dock.  When I started to push it into the freight elevator the truck driver said "Oh!  Whut da fug do yoo tink YAW doin?!?"  And I replied "Bringing the freezer back upstairs."  It might have been better if I said "I'm fuggin yaw wife ya limp dick marmalook!"  He was apoplectic.  "Dat's a YOONyin job!  You can't move dat fridge!" 

I guess the look on my face helped him realize I had no idea what he was talking about.  He softened a bit and explained "Dis is a YOONyin shop.  Awl the diffrint depahtmints have a contract so dat only YOONyin imployEEZ can do spuhsific stuff.  Only trucking can drive tings from one location to anover.  Only mooving can moov tings.  Das how dis goes."

I thanked him for the clarification and left the minus eighty on the loading dock.  I called moving and asked them to move the freezer back.  They said it would take a week.  I said something like "I'm not asking you to push it to Chicago, just roll it 15 feet onto the elevator and down the hall to the lab."  That was not the correct approach.  Two weeks later they called to tell me they were on their way to move the minus eighty.  And of course I was still catching frequent shit from everyone I worked with over the situation.

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I met two gentlemen on the loading dock.  There were always two guys.  If you needed an outlet fixed, two guys showed up.  If a toilet was clogged, two guys showed up.  They would look at whatever needed repair, condescendingly tell you how stupid you were to allow this to happen, then one of them would take 90 minutes to fix it while talking to the other one about whether to buy an F-150 or a Silverado.  The answer was always F-150 but it was a popular debate.  When Iceman, the guy who delivered the dry ice, got a purple Ford Ranger it brought disgrace upon his wife and children.  Or they would debate what modifications to make to their motorcycles, or talk shit about some other guy's modifications to his motorcycle.  Occasionally the debate would involve Mustang vs. Camaro and they liked it when I chimed in (so they could mock me for driving a Miata, which honestly was great fun).  Then they would leave.

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It was not uncommon for the two guys to have the same name so one would be Big and the other would be Little (based on physical size not age).  Like Big Ray and Little Ray the electricians.  If they didn't have the same name the junior guy would get a shitty nickname.  Like if the senior guy was Lenny the junior guy was called Squiggy.

I don't remember the guys' names but the big guy was big, kind of a Rob Ryan look-alike only bigger.  He intimated that I was a wimp because I was not fat or tall and I did not move things.  He wheeled the minus eighty into the freight elevator while the little guy remained silent.  We rode up to the third floor and he pushed it down the hall.  When we got to the freezer room he realized it wouldn't fit through the doorway.  I said "Yeah, you have to take the door off the hinges to get it in."

He exploded.  "I can't take duh daw awf iz hinjiz!!  I'm moving!  Das a fuhsilluhdeez job!"

I couldn't hold myself together.  "Dis iz fuggin boolshit!" I replied.  "I've been waidin tree fuggin munts tuh get dis freezer back!  It's been siddin on da loadin dock for two goddam weeks while I waidid for you to spend tree minits rollin it up here!  I got everyone in dis bildin bustin my bawls about geddin dis freezer back!  I got every delivery guy in a hundrid mile radius bustin my bawls about dis fuggin ting blockin dem on da loading dock!  Now you're just gonna leave it in da fuggin hawlway until someone from facilities removes da door?  How long will I haveta wait for him?  Den how long do I haveta wait for you ta come back ta roll it trew da doorway?  And da whole time I'm gonna have Safety up my ass about da fire hazard from blockin da hawlway with a fuggin minus eighty!  Fug dat.  I'm takin da door off myself and you're rollin da freezer in.  You can tell whoever da hell you want dat I did dis, I don't give a fug."

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He was stunned.  I walked to my lab bench and got my electric screwdriver (I had to disassemble and clean our 96-well plate washer at least twice a month so I splurged on the screwdriver).  I started unscrewing the screws that held the door in place, mumbling stuff like "Deez fuggin mutts" under my breath.  The big moving guy sheepishly said "I kin do dat, but don't tell nobody I did.  I'll get in big trouble wit fuhsilluhdeez."  Eventually I relented so he could salvage his dignity.  The door came down, the minus eight went in, the door went back up, and I was able to get my group's stuff back in the deep freeze.

To put it more succinctly, but perhaps less entertainingly, what would've taken a week or less with almost zero effort from me on the free market took months of time and immeasurable angst through our on-site union shops.  That's my experience with unions.

Emergency Filler

Shlara asks, Shlara gets. I don't know when this turned into a Harry Styles stan blog, but I don't hate it. Came across this cover of Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' on the interwebz recently, though it was recorded in March 2020, in the Before Times. It's really good. And so you can enjoy it, too, while we wait on the final day of Gheorghemas.

What Premier League Club Should a Gheorghie Support: The Shlara Edition

Shlara is likely the most accomplished of the Gheorghies. First of all, she knows Gheorghe, for chrissakes.

If you start typing her name into the Ghoogles, it autocompletes it correctly. She's served in senior executive roles in multiple organizations, has been on the board of directors of several significant non-profits, and has founded her own business. As Guy Fieri notes, she's the real deal.

She's a serious person, indeed. She's got substance. Her career has been marked by a focus on communications, social purpose, and enterprise community relations.

Nobody could argue that Shlara is shallow. But she does have a weakness for a certain type of tall, handsome authority figure. Jay Wright, for example. 

Shlara needs a football side that's deeply entrenched in its community. One that takes its responsibility to its supporters and the people its local environs seriously. If it happens to be led by a handsome fellow who looks good in a suit, so much the better.

Shlara should support Aston Villa.

Villa are a solid side, the best team in Birmingham, which is a cultured and vibrant city in England's West Midlands. They were one of the founding members of the Premier League, only dropping out of the top division for three years in the mid-2010s. They're currently a solid fixture at the top level, though early season inconsistency led to the firing of head man Dean Smith in November. (Ironically, from a Gheorghian perspective, Smith was immediately hired by Zman's Norwich.)

Smith's departure opened the door for Villa to name one of England's legendary players to his first Premier League head coaching job. Stephen Gerrard capped a magnificent 18-year career with Liverpool in 2015. He played a valedictory campaign in MLS with LA Galaxy before beginning his coaching career in earnest. After a stint with Liverpool's U18 side, Gerrard led Glasgow Rangers from 2018 to late last year, taking the team to its first Scottish Premiership title in 10 years and going undefeated in the process in 2020.

He's also a handsome lad. Again, we note that Shlara isn't shallow. Not at all.

Villa also walk the walk in Birmingham. The club's relationship with Acorns Children's Hospice is unusually close in comparison with others in the sporting world. Villa has worn the charity's logo on its kits in games past and sold kits with that livery to raise money. The club's foundation serves a wide range of community needs, including food delivery, wellness training, and other educational missions.

In addition to Shlara, Prince William is a Villa fan. As is Tom Hanks - a good dude, for sure. So she's in fine company. Villa's claret and blue kits are distinctive, and the club's rampant lion logo is classy and cool. Like Shlara.

Up the Villans! Up the Shlara!

Shuteye Evolution

Most of us don’t think much about sleep, unless we aren’t getting enough or have to buy a mattress. In both instances, it costs, which seems the modern baseline for attention. Sometimes, however, subjects present themselves a little differently. 

In the past few days, sleep and history crossed my radar from uncommon directions. The takeaway is that present waking and sleeping patterns can be argued as relatively recent, products of the Industrial Revolution and modern conveniences such as electricity and the light bulb. 

Our window for sleep is compressed compared to our ancestors, some of whom slept in two phases during the night – what’s called “biphasic sleep” – with a two- or three-hour awake period in the middle, in which they tended to chores or business, prayed, socialized, had sex or simply relaxed. 

The notion first came to my attention while reading Colson Whitehead’s novel, “Harlem Shuffle.” In it, the main character, Ray Carney, recalls that one of his college business professors told students that, pre-Industrial Revolution, many people split their sleep segments during the night and got things done in-between. I thought it an interesting aside, but didn’t give it further thought. 

In subsequent days, though, I came across two other stories, one on CNN’s website and one on the BBC’s site, about historic sleeping habits and “two sleeps” and what they might mean for people and health today. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, adults need at least seven hours of sleep per night, but a 2014 study found that 35.2 percent of adults were getting less than that. The CDC says that inadequate sleep is linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and depression, as well as diminished ability and chronic fatigue. 

A gent named A. Roger Ekirch, a history professor at Virginia Tech, was researching nocturnal life in pre-industrial Europe and America for a book. He scanned a 17th-century English court deposition in which a young girl described the evening when her mother left their home and was later found murdered. The girl said that her mother departed after “first sleep,” and made it sound as if it were routine. Ekirch had never seen the phrase. His curiosity piqued, he began to look for mentions of the practice elsewhere. He came across hundreds of references to “first sleep” and “second sleep” in letters, diaries, medical textbooks, newspapers, plays and songs. 

Biphasic sleep is included in his 2004 book, “At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past.” Since then, he has compiled more than 2,000 references to split-sleep schedules across many languages and cultures, going back to ancient Greece. In his research, Ekirch also came across a 1992 experiment conducted by Thomas Wehr, a psychiatrist and sleep researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health. Wehr tracked the sleep patterns of 15 men, all of whom had normal schedules – they turned in mid-to-late evening and slept straight through until morning. He reduced the number of “daylight” hours the men experienced from 16 to 10 each day, then put them in darkened environments for the remaining time. 

After 30 days, the men no longer slept in one long stretch, but gradually split their sleep periods into roughly equal halves, with a 1-to-3 hour awake period in the middle. In effect, Wehr recreated biphasic sleep. Reading about Wehr’s experiment “was, apart from my wedding and the birth of my children, probably the most exciting moment in my life,” Ekirch told the BBC, which conveys a little about how academics are wired. 

When he contacted Wehr and shared his own historical findings, “I think I can tell you he was as exhilarated as I was.” Researcher Benjamin Reiss, chairman of the English department at Emory University in Atlanta, is among those who think current sleep patterns have a capitalistic, mercenary component, a point he argues in his book, “Wild Nights: How Taming Sleep Created Our Restless World.” “The answer is really to follow the money,” Reiss told CNN. When it became more efficient and productive to have large numbers of people show up to work at factories, sleep schedules became squeezed and consolidated, Reiss says. Sleep also became associated with laziness, and productivity and working without sleep signs of strength. 

In Whitehead’s novel, a terrific read by the way, Carney toggles between respectable businessman and shady dealer. He adopts the practice of split sleep for a period. He uses the French word, “dorveille,” to describe it, but spells it phonetically – dorvay. “Dorveille” technically means the dreamlike, semi-conscious state between waking and sleeping, but Whitehead uses it as a literary device – he titles the middle segment of the novel “Dorvay” – and Carney uses it to mean the active, awake period between sleep periods. “Carney knew crime’s hours when he saw them – dorvay was crooked heaven, when the straight world slept and the bent got to work. An arena for thieving and scores, break-ins and hijacks, when the con man polishes the bait and the embezzler cooks the books. In-between things night and day, rest and duty, the no-good and the up-and-up. Pick up a crowbar, you know the in-between is where all the shit goes down.” 

Scholars and researchers find Ekirch’s work interesting, but stop short of concluding that biphasic or multi-phase sleep patterns were the norm. Brigitte Steger, a senior lecturer in Japanese studies at the University of Cambridge in the UK, said that she’s found no evidence or mention of “first” or “second sleep” historically in Japan. She thinks that daily behaviors and sleep patterns are cultural. Insomnia is a prevalent sleep disorder, particularly in the middle of the night when people wake up and are unable to get back to sleep quickly. Ekirch wonders if it’s a disorder or a physiological throwback to our ancestors. 

Modern life and conveniences probably make biphasic sleep impractical for all but a few. It may be simply a previous behavioral pattern based on what was known and available, such as changing clothes rather than bathing, or eating only two meals a day. Pace of life all but guarantees that we will continue to wrestle with sleep going forward. I promise that I won’t take offense if any of you use this post as a sleep aid.

Take Eleven Minutes and Twenty-Seven Seconds to Watch This

This won Bring a Trailer's Video of the Year Award.  It's worth your time.

Woke Up This Morning...

Day 12 coming soon. Cauc Hop II coming soon. Chinese Democracy coming soon. World peace coming soon.

For now... here's something Teej would have approved of back when he ran the show here.

Surprise Filler

I realize you're eagerly awaiting Day 12, whether you should be or not.  You could be basking in the glow of your team's national championship, or wallowing in the depths of despair after your school . . . bungled a 4th quarter drive to miss out on the FCS playoffs entirely. (Or lost last night after being utterly stymied on offense.)

You could be watching film and television, but these days the current trend is to take every lead character you've been excitedly following for years, if not decades, and either murder them off or ruin their lives beyond recognition. (Happened again this week.) What gives?

Eh. I guess that's life as well.

Anywho, one pleasant surprise was that neither my favorite weekly TV host nor his show was cancelled, and he even awoke from his annual January slumber to record an 8-minute piece in front of a life audience that could only be classified as pure dipshittery. So let's have a look.

For the record, I never read this book. I didn't see the movies. But I still found this silly and amusing.

Enjoy, and see you on Day 12.

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Eleven, All the Filler That Was Fit to Print

On the eleventh day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorge gave to me

Eleven Months of Gheorgheness

10 Awesome Auction Items and Much Much More!
Nine things worth dancing over
3 Genetic Tests on day 8.5
Eight Things I'm Thankful For
Seven Books for Reading
Six Top Episodes of Ted Lasso
Five Beers and Tunes
Four Resolutions
Three Gheorghemas Gifts to Give Yourself
Two Stones of Weight Loss (Your Mileage May Vary)

and Running Gags with Quatro Kitties

I got a text from my man Z earlier in the week, informing me that The New York Times had purchased The Athletic for $550m. I told him I'd sell G:TB for 0.1% of that amount (we're more profitable, to boot). "$550k split 6-9 ways is a nice windfall," he said. "We really do have good content. When we try."

That "when" is doing a lot of work, but he's not wrong. Let's take a trip back through the first 11 months of the Gheorghian year, shall we?

January

We dropped a solid 251 posts this year, coming off 258 in 2020. The pandemic, it seems, is good for content creation, if nothing else. The first month of the year was our most prolific, with 27.

Z and I started the year with musical collages about very different topics.

Then we went on a run of political and policy commentary that started OBX Dave's endorsement of universal basic income and ended with Z's thoughts on the January 6 fuckery.

The Hoff put a bunch of stuff up for auction.

TR lost a bunch of weight.

Derrick Henry got the Z treatment.

Whitney copped to being a fornicator.

My uncle Hoopa retired.

Squeaky's first post was a heart-stopper.

I come from witches.

OBX Dave wrote on the Baseball Hall of Fame.

February

23 posts in the year's second month. Robust.

Randy Newman bit us again.

TR is a mathsplainer and his boys are gross.

We had some fun Mardi Gras content, which included a Les Coole/Ned Henry original.

Whitney's annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame post dropped.

Kouign Amman for all my men.

OBX Dave tilted at Alden Capital's windmills.

March

We liked doing 23 posts in a month so much that we ran it back.

NJ Dave finally posted something.

First Wrenball post of the year was desultory. As the entire year of Wrenball has been.

More Les, this time with a Hampton Coliseum memorial.

I pulled off the second greatest feat of prognostication in history.

Fashion is Dumb made a triumphant return, as did the Teej.

Hot Diggity Dog!

April

We worked pretty hard in the first quarter, so we slowed it down to a walk - 19 posts for the month.

Daniel Bard overcame the yips.

A counterfactual, and the comments are fun.

Taylor Swift killed Prince Philip.

Z and Whit took very different approaches to writing about the COVID.

Whit showed us his homework.

Team TR made a decision to make a move.

The prologue episode of Rob Lasso went live. This series of recurring posts and the events that inspired them were among the most fun things I've done in the Gheorgheverse.

As did the first episode. (Not gonna link to all of them, promise.)

May

Just started drinking while working on this. It's grueling. We'll see how that affects the rest of the post. Of which there were 22 in May.

May 3 is a holiday of holidays, and thanks to Whit, we know it.

If we were to calculate the ratio of quality stuff to filler for each member of the G:TB staff, OBX Dave would rank first by a considerable measure. Here, he wrote about poop.

The NYT Mini makes me anxious.

Z won the Pinewood Derby.

OBX Dave is (was?) a callous douchebag.

Nate Knight belongs in the league.

In addition to being gross, TR's kid is a dickhead. I like that kid.

We lost Eric Carle.

Squeaky wrote about his first ten concerts. I'm confident I couldn't tell you what mine were.

June

Lotta filler in June. Must be a summer thing. Still, 25 posts made it our second most prolific month of the year.

Zman took us to a Jerzy wedding. There was ass clapping.

The first NOTify dropped.

Whitney taught us about being drunk. Not for the first time.

The season finale of Rob Lasso was a bit of a downer.

Z hipped us to ticks.

Tales from the dugout, courtesy of TR.

Z learned to drive.

I went to Boulder, looking for answers.

Like Voldemort, jorts are back. Voldejorts, anyone?

July

We eased off the gas and fully into summer in July. 21 posts, most of them ephemeral. Nonetheless:

G:TB offered its first NIL deal.

First WCSAGD of the year was for Juan Carlos. It's a beaut.

Towards a Unified Theory of Fuckery.

Z opined on gluttony.

Rootsy revealed an important secret.

August

Twenty-one more posts during the dog days. Good job, good effort.

TR walked it off.

Gotta post at least one Gheorgasbord in the 'best of' recap.

Z wants your shoe game to be better.

The first WFCSGAS went live. Poor Z got stuck with Norwich.

OBX Dave is the only one amongst us qualified to write about Miles Davis. Because he's old.

Requiem for a...cottage?

Cuisine is stupid.

@mandypatinktok @alaska_webb thank you for finding us and sharing this! ✨ Sending big love and light to you and yours. More in comments. #grieving #cancer #dads ♬ original sound - Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn G

Azzi Fudd, Paige Bueckers, and us. 

TR moves to Colorado, shits himself, feels right at home.

September

You know how when you're doing interval work and you bust your ass and then rest for a while? September was like the latter, a year-low 16 posts.

Miami Vice was a great show.

Whit brought the heat, sociologically speaking.

We were introduced to Big Dunc.

There was a lot of tennis (and some Tennys) around these parts during the U.S. Open. Z told us about Dylan Alcott.

My wife and I went to see Harry Styles. It was awesome.

October

A modest increase in level of effort, with 19 posts to start the final quarter of the year.

TR doesn't care for constipated princesses, Evan Hansen.

McRib, chomp.

OBX Dave considered the cephalopod.

There's a fucking world cup for balloon keepie-uppie. And it's amazing.

TR taught us about pet-eating coyotes.

Someone wrote about testicle baths. I'll give you one guess.

Pretty much the G:TB Prime Directive right here.

November

We were running out of gas, friends. 17 meager posts. Well, a few of them weren't meager.

The world lost the RemDog. Tooth hurty.

Up the Teej!

Z's hate for Roger Goodell is cathartic.

I am pessimistic about the future of the Republic. 

Whit celebrated Phil Collins. We all learned a few things.

And the big finale

That's a fitting coda to another trip around the sun. If you've made it this far, you're probably a bit drained, and so I'll not wax too lengthy. As the years pass, I'm more and more appreciative of this place, even if it isn't worth $550m - at least not in material terms. Ernie Johnson's message is one to live by: love you, too, Gheorghies.

Glad Tidings

The eleventh day of Gheorghemas will grace your gleeful existences before the end of the weekend (but not before the release of the new Weeknd), but to tide you over, we've got a story that'll make you want to party like it's 1999, or at Ground Zero. Whatever one does when the world's end is nigh,

We're a deeply unserious people, and most of the time I'm cool with that. Whimsy is our stock in trade, after all. But one would think that we'd be paying more attention to the news that came out of the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) annual meeting in December. (Doesn't help that most Republicans hate unions and science - doubly whammy.)

Researchers presented findings at the AGU suggesting that the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica is deteriorating so rapidly that it might collapse completely as soon as three years from now.

Thwaites, what?

That big bastard is 80 miles wide and over 3,000 meters deep. It's known in scientific circles as the Doomsday Glacier, because of a belief that its demise could set in motion a climatic cycle that might result in the collapse of the entire Antarctic glacial shelf, and with it a radical reshaping of the global climate. Now, researchers from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) - which is a terrible name for a band - believe that we're irreversibly headed that way.

Among other outcomes, scientists believe that the collapse of Thwaites could raise global sea levels by as much as two feet, which would swamp coastal habitats around the world. And since Thwaites is an influential sort of fella (I assume glaciers are dudes. Hard to really check.) it's possible that it'll drag neighboring glaciers with it as it melts from above and below, which could raise sea levels by as much as ten feet. We'd better get as much OBFT joy in as possible over the next couple of years, and I wouldn't recommend investing in real estate in Miami, if I were you.

It's the end of the world as we know it, friends. And I feel fine, if slightly hungover.

They're Tearin' the Buick City Complex Down

The Gheorghian calendar, influenced as it always is by a combination of lunar position, grain harvest, and Romanian weather, extends this year into the early days of the new Gregorian year. Which gives me an opportunity to highlight the best opening line of any song in the modern era. 

In turn, that song, "Buick City Complex" by Old 97's, in all its wistful longing for an era that won't return, is the soundtrack for today's interlude.

Even when I visited her for the first time in 1997, Conneaut Lake Park had seen much better days. The resort/amusement park opened in 1892, and in her day, she attracted Pittsburgh's upwardly mobile families, who rode her rides, played on the beach, and stayed in the grand Hotel Conneaut. A gorgeous carousel opened in 1899, and in 1938, the park's signature roller coaster, The Blue Streak, opened in 1938. It was one of the largest wooden coasters in America at the time.

I had occasion to visit the park because of my wife's family's long and winding history with the place. Her grandfather was the original owner of The Blue Streak, among several other amusements within the park's boundaries. Her father's uncle owned the carousel, which is a source of long-standing inter-familial jealousy. That's not what this story is about.

When I visited with my then-girlfriend in July 1997, the park and hotel had slid towards the seedy side. Most rides were in various states of disrepair. The Pittsburgh scenesters had long ago found more modern and sophisticated places to vacation. The hotel air conditioning went out one night, which would've been manageable but for the 95 degree temperatures and high humidity.

But a roller coaster is a roller coaster, especially a wooden one that was likely rickety on its very best day. The Blue Streak was a bone-rattling out and back, and honest, fast, and loud coaster that relied on gravity and tight turns and none of that fancy stuff. It was simple fun.

We went back a couple more times after that first visit. During the last one, my eldest daughter got terrified on the kiddie coaster and several of our party got marooned in the lake when the pontoon boat we rented blew an engine. In retrospect, these were omens.

After years of steady decline, which included several convenient fires that claimed different buildings and attractions, the property was sold in bankruptcy for $1.2m. The buyer is trying hard to quash rumors that they intend to shitcan the park and develop homes on the land. 

That got harder today when a "controlled burn" near The Blue Streak got out of hand and badly damaged the legendary coaster. It's now scheduled for demolition. My wife let out an audible gasp when she saw the news on the interwebs. 

Our chronicles of the decline of American institutions are usually limited to the news media and William & Mary hoops. But in every domain, time marches on, taking with it the temporary that our ancestors thought permanent. I think we're the only people left in town.

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day 10

On the 10th Day of Gheorghe-mas, Gheorghey Gave To Me:

10 Awesome Auction Items and Much Much More!
Nine things worth dancing over
3 Genetic Tests on day 8.5
Eight Things I'm Thankful For
Seven Books for Reading
Six Top Episodes of Ted Lasso
Five Beers and Tunes
Four Resolutions
Three Gheorghemas Gifts to Give Yourself
Two Stones of Weight Loss (Your Mileage May Vary)
and Running Gags with Quatro Kitties

We are now a year removed from 2020 which sucked we can all agree. Lots of badness including the death of both of the 'rents, but off to a better place they went. Pretty sure anyway. With all that came with it, there was much to figure out for my sibs and I during the latter half of the year. Nursing homes, check. Hospice care, check. Med dispensing machines, check. The value of my mom's OCD and how maybe we shouldn't have given her so much flack for it over the years, check. 

Pantry - organized to military standards. Closets - same. Belongings of value had corresponding receipts in a designated file. Wall prints had been labeled behind the frame with date of purchase and which child was to take it home after everything was said and done. Ditto on jewelry. So though it was annoying AF growing up (because she was always cleaning, organizing, being busy), it sure did make things easy upon their passing. It was a great lesson - my bride & I are fairly buttoned up but my mom & dad's standards which are of HOF ilk, we're on the JV team.

They lived in a pretty small home for the last 15 years or so. Collecting things was not their m.o....exactly the opposite. But even then and after the kids leaving with their respective heirlooms, there was still an abundance of anything you'd find in and around a house. Furniture, televisions, tools, clothes, a car, tchotchkes, and more tchotchkes, food, liquor!

Loads of clothes, which by comparison standards weren't "loads", shoes, were put in bags and given to Hospice or Goodwill. I sold what I could on Nextdoor - fridge, freezer, grill, a few rugs. I sold that car I mentioned, and a riding lawn mower with all the fixins. But, even after all of that, I am here right now to tell you that there were still a few truckloads worth of housewares - big, small, and in-between.

In the months leading up to our d-day, one of my sisters and I did our own exploratory research on options. She gets the pat of the back for identifying a good one. Should you live in or within a drivable distance of Northern Virginia and have a need to downsize or get rid of everything in your home or god forbid, a parents', or if you are one of those folks that likes to surf auction sites or pop in to flea markets, do I have the site for you. GTB'rs...COME ON DOWN!!!!

As a seller, there is a $2500 minimum commitment to the auctioneer, or a %'age of the value of the sold items, whichever is more. They will come to your house, photo everything and I mean everything, label it, and catalog it on their site for auction time. The auction is like everything else these days - online. They set a date and a timeline of say 6 hours. A pick-up date and time window is also set, for ours it was a few days after the auction. 

We estimated we'd sell enough goods to recoup that minimum, barely. And we did. But frankly, if the worst-case was coming out of pocket a few hundred bucks or even a thousand for them to come and take care of the aforementioned, it would still have been a non-decision for us. If you've ever held a garage sale, you learn quickly that those possessions you hold near and dear to your heart and may at one time have been relatively valuable go for pennies on the dollar.  

We did search other avenues to get rid of everything, and yes we did give plenty away if anyone is giving me a judgmental stink eye right now. Sure there were still some things left to give away, throw out, or take home but all in all, this process given all else that had to be dealt with - was close to blissful. 

Since that time, I've been a frequent visitor to the site. If you are registered, which I am as a past seller, you can elect to receive updates on upcoming auctions via text. For you NOVA-ites, I'd hop aboard - you just might find some good gets. 

On Friday of this past week, EZBidders sent out a notification of an auction to begin that day from an estate in Leesburg. I checked it out - it was billed as "Best Auction of the Year!" - and it was and still is, not ending until Wednesday. Whether you bid on anything or not, it's worth a 30 minute surf. 

I'm sure one of you vintage audiophiles, Mr. KQ perhaps, has been looking for one of these old TV/Radio/Cassette jobs...well, if you had been an EZbidder registrant a couple of months ago, this could be sitting in your garage or in a basement corner at this very moment. Somebody picked this up for for seven bucks.  

Many of these items shown above & below were all a sold at a Manassas estate sale a couple of weeks ago. You could have been there. I acknowledge the samples here may not whet the whistle of our discerning GTB'rs, but if you become a frequent visitor you will for sure find something right up your alley. Often times you will find record collections, speakers, turntables, guitars, piano's.

Pat Buckley Moss (artist) fan? Never hear of Pat Moss? We grew up with her sorta. My mother had a couple dozen of her prints including this one below. I don't know how the hell she became such a super fan of hers but she was, and we sold several of the old prints on the site. Of course at least one each was relegated by Bevvy, to her kids. That is what she wanted, and I have mine hung in a room that collects all the old prints and hangings that don't fit anywhere else in the house, but do have some meaning. 

Plentiful and wicked affordable manly items - toolboxes, yard tools, ladders, electric flashlights, hoe's! rakes, air compressors, weed eaters, nails, screws, nuts AND bolts!!!!...Crazy Eddie says prices are....INSAAAAANE!!!! Had I known of this site years ago before accumulating garage wares, I'd have been all over it. 

Ever see a $1.00 piano? Now ya have...

Did someone ask, "well what about hats for an entire little league team?" I'd say...."sure thing!" Eleven tan baseball hats asking $11.00. 

Nazi Helmet? Got it!

How about this mid-century James Bond'ish decanter set....

As mentioned, just about very auction has without fail plenty of records, audio equipment - turntables, cassette players, speakers, CDeez, and the like....I hope this site reaps some fruit for some of ya's...

I've been partial to the guys here...is it too late to 'pologize? Silverware, Jewelry, hair dryers. The Leesburg auction is a must visit for the ladies, or if one of you mates wants to take a flyer on an anniversary present. The seller I imagine to be an international woman of mystery with discerning taste and the means. State department/CIA perhaps. Loads of art, gold and diamond studded jewelry, shoes, sunglasses, watches. These shades are Fendi's...Perhaps Mrs. Russell would appreciate? Opera glasses - I'll say these are a first for me at EZbidders. With this auction ending at 7pm EST this evening - you may be able to get the pair here for about fifteen clams. 

This is just one of a few shoe lots listed by our Leesburg lassie...

Artwork...sure...plenty, including this keeper, "Antique Oil Painting of Nobleman" - Relined Canvas. $31 at this writing.

Am looking forward to hopping on here later tonight to see what fetches what. In the last hour & minutes prior to close time, and as you'd expect, bidding wars commence though in very small increments.

While in these wormholes, you'll get to know a little bit the sellers. I can't help but put a story together with each, and that story normally involves some pain and suffering. Like with the Leesburg lass, my take is that she's alive & well but ready for the next chapter in a smallish home or condo. If she has children, and I don't think she does, she does not want them or another loved one, perhaps a sibling, to have to deal with all of this unexpectedly. Regardless, she's acknowledged that "it's time". 

Most of the other auctions were like ours I believe - children getting their parents out of their home and into something manageable, or worse. Regardless, I can hear the person or persons picking up each item and having the conversation with himself or with his sibling - "Are we really going to get rid of this...This was insert reason why it was important or sentimental here." And the answer, sometimes a little more gut wrenching than others, is "Yes".