Sites I Like #5: Seven Dumpsters and a Corpse

As with most of the links I absorb into my bookmarks, I can't remember how I found this one. But the URL (www.messiemother.com) is extremely endearing, it's relevant, and it has a flash game!

Today's site: Seven Dumpsters and a Corpse

So one of the things I like about this is that it's German. The end! No, I'm just kidding. :) But German things really do entice me. Anyway this is the site for a documentary made by Thomas Haemmerli about his mother's death and the clutter at her house that he and his brother had to wade through in the ensuing month.

There are several things I particularly enjoy about the site:

• The dumpster flash game (or muldenspiel)! I found it too hard because they make you take the wind direction into account! F that. But give it a try when you're taking a break from de-cluttering your own home. That guy down below makes a funny angry noise.


• The family history twist of the film. The brothers find so many amazing relics of their family's past throughout their project; it's inspiring. I'd really like to see the film, and this aspect is actually more intriguing to me than the de-cluttering. I love finding old photos of my mom's past when I'm cleaning. They're like decades-old Easter eggs that don't smell half bad.


• The film's relevance to my own fears. I sporadically get this feeling of dread that of my mother will let the clutter consume her again when I leave home for good and go make a life for myself. I don't want her to die alone in a sea of carelessness and disorder, despite how much I can dislike her (in times like this week, when she refuses to talk to me because of things I've said to her out of frustration and callousness brought on by the project).

As far as our own progress, we're a bit past the one-month mark and things are going ok, but not as good as those deutsche Brudern. We can actually sit (well, one of us can sit) on our couch in the living room! The ottoman has space to lie flat! WE USED THE CORNER OF THE COFFEE TABLE TO PLAY SCRABBLE (and I won 3/3). Contented sigh. Also, even in the face of our tiff (which is still going on because my mom is 5), my mother managed to cart off a carload of stuff to our standbys (Goodwill, Books for the Barrios, and her favorite used book store, Hooked on Books).