Something to clean.......

This morning I thanked my husband profusely (there might have been tears) for cleaning our bathroom. It was long overdue and just yesterday morning I looked at it and thought "disgusting". If I were to use this bathroom in someone else's home, I'd be appalled. Yet, in my own home, I let it slide. Why? Anyway, great minds think alike (and apparently some of them actually put those thoughts into action) and my wonderful husband cleaned our bathroom last night (yes, he ruined another shirt with bleach but let's put petty things aside...). I was thrilled and wanted to express my gratitude so I gave him a big hug and a "thank you". He then replied "give me something to clean every day - if I do one thing each day, you know, leave it better than when I found it, then things will shape up around here." And, of course, my first thought was WTF? Am I not doing a good enough job keeping this house clean? (No!). But then I got over myself and suggested some things that desperately need a thorough cleaning. Among them, all three (yes, three!) refrigerators need a deep cleaning, the hardwood floors may contain deadly bacteria, and the pantry is stuffed full with various half-eaten packages of food products and an embarrassing amount of dog hair (the kids don't seem to remember the pantry floor when vacuuming). My husband just looked at me with a grimace and said, "yeah, that's not really what I was thinking" then proceeded to tell me he liked to "transform" things so they were obviously changed! Like cleaning our room. He went to town one day recently and "cleaned" our room, which really just meant rearranging and stowing my various crafts and hundreds of photos into other places. I will never find them now, which is probably just as well, because we all know I'm never going to scrapbook seventeen years' worth of my kids' photos.

His favorite "cleaning" project is the garage. Now, I have never understood men in that regard. My ex-husband used to busy himself cleaning the garage when we were planning for a party. Why? No one goes in the garage when you're hosting a party! Who wants to see your twenty Rubbermaid boxes of Christmas decorations? But for some reason, this is how he found himself "useful" and so I'd have a clean garage and be inside frantically wrestling children and trying to keep the dogs off the freshly mopped hardwoods. Go figure. Jeff enjoys cleaning the garage combined with a weight workout. He will do a rep of weights, then go around reorganizing our junk, then do another rep of weights. Never mind that there's a Pepsi can in the dog kennel amongst the many blankets they've chewed holes in and have now claimed as their own. That's been sitting in there for months, but the dozen or so softballs no one ever plays with are neatly tucked into their own little cubby.

I can't complain, though. Ninety percent of the time, he's the one cleaning up the really disgusting things like dog barf and poop. Just last night, he and the carpet cleaner became reacquainted at 4 a.m. when Shade decided to deposit the remnants of the last three days' worth of Christmas candy he's consumed (wrappers and all!) on our bedroom carpet. But we all had to pitch in with the pet indiscretion yesterday. For some reason, yesterday the pets decided the world was their toilet. I returned from yoga to find barf in the garage and office and poop in the family room and upstairs hallway. Everyone excpet Hannah ended up cleaning a portion of that. But she got hers - in the evening Georgette decided to drop a turd on the kitchen floor in the middle of a movie party. Nice. Hannah got that one.

Cleaning around here is never-ending and often feels like a futile effort. The only way things stay clean is when the kids are not here and lately there's ALWAYS a kid here. This week, for example, my kids were supposed to be with their dad all week. Arlie is in Spokane, so I was looking forward to a nice long week of a clean house, time to do projects, read my book, shop in peace, etc. But no. They've been here every day, having parties and creating a mess in their wake, not unlike Pig Pen's cloud of dust. And so we clean. And they mess it up. And they sometimes clean it up (although not without an eye roll or extended sigh), and the cycle continues.

So, while Jeff's "clean one thing a day" sounds like an ideal plan, it will never surmount the growing monster of clutter, trash and grime that follows a family of six. It's inescapable, and oftentimes feels like a preview for an episode of "Hoarders". But we keep cleaning and staying a half a step ahead of the chaos. And, by golly, my bathroom is clean right now so I'm going to thoroughly bask in the sparkling porcelain while I can because it might be weeks before I see the elusive gleam again.

Grrrrrr............

Let me start by saying I awoke this morning to a stuffed up head and splitting headache (damn allergies that I never had till living in Seattle!). The sound that awoke me was that dreaded hack of a dog barfing! Yes, Shade, ever lovin' Shade, spewed barf in a six foot wide swath on my bedroom floor. So, as I wait for the carpet cleaner to kick in so I can shampoo the carpet on this NOT FINE Saturday morning, because it's cloudy and gray and icky out and yesterday was sunny and I'm pissed about that too, I will use this opportunity to bitch about a few things (and perhaps make an even longer run-on sentence than I just did!).

So. Last night I went on a long walk with my wonderful friend Amy and it was delightful, warm and sunny and good conversation. Then, we went to The Rock for a drink. I was starving so I ordered these little mini calzone thingys and chose chicken when asked "chicken or pepperoni?" Well, these were about the worst little balls of dough filled with nastiness I've ever had! For one thing, they were some kind of weird, shredded (probably canned) chicken mixed with BLEU CHEESE DRESSING!!! Now, I think bleu cheese dressing is about the worst thing in the world (and a bit pompous, if you ask me, with that "blue" being spelled "bleu" all French and shit). To me, bleu cheese is like eating curdled milk mixed with something really sour (vinegar? saurkraut?) with a little dirt mixed in. Yes, dirt. Bleu cheese tastes like fresh dirt smells. Just ICK! Why would you torture your taste buds with this nastiness? Oh, even thinking about the taste is making me gag a little. Anyway, I just had to send them back. I didn't want to be Miss High Maintenance customer or anything, but it was too much (and I was STARVING and drinking for God's sake, I needed some FOOD!). I got chicken strips instead and even those were weird. They came out looking for all the world like fish and chips. The batter was that thick and slightly mashy kind you often find on beer-battered fish and chips. But no, there was some chicken underneath. After carefully scraping away all the batter (because yes, it was just too much) I ate some chicken, dipped, thankfully, in ranch dresssing (and not that nasty BLEU CHEESE crap, if I haven't made myself clear enough.......).

Ok, enough about what I ate. Here's another thing that pisses me off a little. What is up with Michelle Obama wearing $540 sneakers to the food bank to volunteer? I mean, whatever, she's the Prez Wife and all, but still! $540? My entire shoe collection doesn't add up to $540 (I mean, that's a lotta damn shoes at Payless, you know what I'm sayin?). And it's not like they were diamond encrusted or anything. They looked much like low top Chuck Taylors. So, why the $540? My kids rather enjoy those low top Chucks in all the fun colors. But at $39.99 a pop (on sale) they got them for Christmas! Geesh, Michelle O, think a little.

Also, the stupid dogs are barking their fool heads off in the garage because we're having our neighborhood garage sale today and of course, they have to bark at everything, even when it's nothing! Speaking of garage sales, that is another thing that got me a little rankled. There is this HUGE neighborhood garage sale in my area and it's always held on the first weekend in May. Which means if you're not part of that HUGE sale, it's probably not the best weekend to hold your little ole neighborhood garage sale, based on the fact that you will only get the trickling customers and you'll be lucky if they have any cash left in their wallets after visiting the HUGE sale. This, by the way, is not just my opinion, but based on scientific knowledge (ok, really just a couple years' of experience trying to do this when I was in charge of said sale). But still. I'm not even participating because I wasn't supposed to be here this weekend. So why am I even bitching about it? Because I can...........

Which brings me to this weekend. I was supposed to drive over to Spokane with Jeff and cheer him on in the Bloomsday run (FYI one of the largest footraces, like, I don't know, EVER or something, but whatever). But because we 1. Couldn't get a definitive answer from anyone over on that side (yes, family included!) on where we might be able to stay two nights and 2. Didn't have anyone to watch the dogs, and didn't know if we could bring them along (because said family didn't get back to us), we decided I would just stay behind and watch the dogs and "enjoy" a weekend alone (refer back to previous paragraph about stupid dogs and know that I will probably spend the weekend doing laundry......). Anyway, so off Jeff goes to hang out, ride his bike, have drinks with friends, etc. And run Bloomsday, which don't even get me started on running a 12K! Ugh.

Hmm......have I exhausted all my bitching yet? I dunno.........but here's the thing. It just occurred to me that I could do absolutely nothing all weekend. I could lay in bed, read and eat Twinkies all day and no one would know. (Well, I don't have any Twinkies, but you get the idea). And I woke up with this allergy headache, which is about right for this crappy weather. So, who cares if I sleep it off for, like, 12 hours?

I can't believe my good fortune! Just when I was out of things to whine about, I get a telemarketing call! At 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday! Perfect. And here's the thing. They asked if it was the "Gordon" residence. Which, is halfway right. I mean, half of the people in this house are Gordons right? (But none of them are here, so technically today it's the Moore residence). But this reminds me that it's not so easy to get rid of your previously married name. Now, don't get me wrong. Gordon is a fine name - for my kids. But not for me. I am a Moore now, and I'd like to be known as a Moore to the oustide world. But NO! It's like the Ghost of Gordon Past will haunt me forever. Example number one - the credit card company that WOULD NOT take my ex-husband's name off my account no matter that I sent them copies of both my divorce decree AND my marriage certificate. I ended up having to close the account. Example number two - Safeway. For some reason, they still have me as a "Gordon" in their records so when I shop there and they hand me the receipt, they say "thank you Mrs. Gordon" and I do a double take? Where? Where is my mother in law? Geesh.

Ok, I should go have some Crunchberries now and move on to cleaning up the dog barf in my room. Good times.

Really, really bad dog Shade!!

Shade ate about ten Hershey bars and just now threw up the evidence on my bedroom floor!!! Jeff and I were watching the ER finale and now he's on the floor using the carpet cleaner and scrubbing dog barf residue. I swear, this dog is nothing but a pain in the ass, and frankly, animal lover that I am, I don't see the point in having a "pet" like him. But Jeff goes back and forth, and I know he would never get rid of this beast. Perhaps I can slowly poison him with a wee bit of arsenic sprinkled over his food each day? Now, if only I knew how to find arsenic..........