Still Life With Robin: The Free-flowing Month of May

by Peggy Robin (who gave away one of the items on the list below)

Now that June has started I was looking back over the Cleveland Park Listserv's last month of messages and was struck by the high number of giveaways in May. Not just your normal giveaways, either: you know, the usual books and box springs and aged National Geographics. I'm talking a canoe trailer, for heaven's sake. Even in "tony" Cleveland Park, people don't give away this kind of stuff every day. You can't make this stuff up, but you can quantify it, and that's what I'm doing right now.

Here's everything that was given away (some of it donated to schools, nursing homes, and other good causes) via the Cleveland ParkListserv from May 1st - 31st, 2013, by category:

Couches, Tables, Chairs, Beds, Parts of Houses/Yards:

Overstuffed butter yellow loveseat

Air hockey table

3-seat sofa

Ikea Malm queen bed frame

Desk chair

Ironing board in cabinet ("ironing center") 

A door - originally from Yenching Palace Restauant 

"Gossip bench" - a 70-inch custom sofa 

Weber gas grill 

Crib mattress 

Whirlpool electric clothes dryer 

Vacuum cleaner 

Chaise longue
Outdoor coffee table 

A Sukkah (if you don't know what that is, see:  http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday5.htm and http://bit.ly/11vqPsY) 

Queen box spring 

Full box spring & metal bed frame 

Full box spring
Crib
End table 

Premium faux wood blinds 

Youth bed
Queen mattress

2 desk chairs

Coffee table

2 end tables

Towel warmer

Pea gravel, enough to cover 20 x 20 area, 3 inches deep
Dog bed

3 baby gates

Queensize futon/mattress

Queensize Ikea bed and mattress

Firewood

Flowers & Plants:

Rhododendron - 36 inches tall

Snow drops

Blue-eyed grass & recycle basket

More blue-eyed grass

Ground cover: vinca and liriope

4 bags of Lemon Queen sunflower plants

Vehicles:

Kid's bike

Ladies' bike

Canoe/kayak trailer

Books, Magazines, Other Media:

Kids' books

Vinyl records - 80+ mostly classical

Stack of magazines

100+ CDs

Restoration Hardware catalogs

National Geographic magazines

Records - 33 rpms - mainly opera singers

100 books

Magazines of all kinds

Food & Drink:

Protein shake mix

A fruit tart and a sour cream coffee cake
Spices and cooking staples

Electronics & Office Supplies:

4 GB memory stick card

Dell ink cartridges

More Dell ink cartridges

3-ring binders

Flatbed scanner

HD digital to analog TV signal converter
Stereo components
13-inch TV with digital converter
Chumby clock (described here: http://bit.ly/YqTr54 )

Tickets:

Wolf Trap tickets

1 ticket to Arena Stage play

Miscellaneous and Hard-to-Classify:

2 galvanized metal buckets

Ice cream box from South Mountain Creamery (I'm not really sure what this is, but it was very quickly taken!)
Rechargeable bike light
Paper egg cartons

80 bricks

Prom dress

Infant bath tub

Rolling backpack

Large dog crate

Ceramic water cooler stand

One day we'll have to organize a Great Cleveland Park Listserv Giveaway Lottery, which will work like this: List members can put their email addresses into the lottery, and those who wish to give away anything on the listserv within the one-month donation window will agree that their giveaway items will go to the winner of the lottery. After one month has passed, we will draw an email address from a hat (and include the hat in the giveaway!) and the lucky (?) winner will get everything on the list for that month -- and must agree to take it! No re-gifting allowed!

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Still Life with Robin is published on Saturdays on the Cleveland Park Listserv, www.cleveland-park.com, and on All Life Is Local.