The smell of an ashtray - that brings back immediate memories of battles with my chain-smoking mother over who had to clean the ashtrays in the kitchen sink. Wet cigarette ash is foul smelling and if she was going to use the trays, she should have to clean them. She disagreed. If she came into my bedroom carrying a cigarette I'd ask her to take it out, and her answer was that "its my house." The final straw for me was a drive 90 miles north in my little truck. She asked if she could smoke and I said "no, I'll stop so you can get out to smoke." Her response was "I know how to vent it" and she promptly lit up. The first time I said anything she closed that window so she could hear me. Then when we arrived at the elderly friend's house she asked if it was ok to smoke. If that friend had said no, she would have taken it outside. She was a smart woman but wore huge blinders when it came to that addiction, and each of us moved out the moment we could when we went to college and never stayed in her musty smokey house after that. One sibling went with mom to counseling because their arguments as adults about it were so fraught. So if the town smelled like an ashtray I'd have to move to another country. Sorry, this is a decluttering thread, not an excess-baggage thread . . .

Don, I didn't think you were projecting those images outward, I was just giving you another idea for how to brighten that area of fence you're apparently upholstering.

Today is the day to finish positioning sprinklers and to program the timer. I have one I must keep pointed away from the house - there is a spot where a piece of wood has rotted and I'm going to have to replace and probably repair inside the bottom of the bay window. I don't need to hasten that repair by routinely watering the spot.