Friday, September 20, 2013

I cleaned today. And not very much. And yet, it exhausted me and took me all frigging day. I am a reluctant...no, resentful cleaner. It's not the physical cleaning part that bothers me as much as having to deal with all the nit-picky shit. It took me about thirty minutes just to deal with all of the CD's and their cases stacked up around the CD player. Hell, we only listen to one CD so what the fuck?
I really just want to throw everything away.
Everything.
Up to and including all of the family pictures. After about a year of exposure to anything you are pretty much completely immune to actually seeing it.
This goes for mold, as well as pictures. Boy. Does it.
If you ever plan on visiting me and are allergic to mold, bring your Epi-Pen!

Honestly, all I got done was the kitchen floor and the hallway which is sort of like an actual room in that it has actual furniture and a lot of crap in it. I mopped both of them twice and probably should have gone for a third time.


There's Buster, tracking up my clean floor. This is another thing I resent about cleaning- it doesn't last for a second. And who notices? Well, Owen might. But he notices everything.

I'm just feeling so disgruntled and a bit ragey these days. Maybe I'm just going through an annual thing like the chickens who haven't laid an egg in a week. They're moulting and their feathers line the nests and floor of the henhouse to the point where it looks like a massacre occurred in there. The only hen I have laying is Miss Honey and she's not even my hen. Owen goes out to check the eggs and he opens the little doors that lead into the nests and he says, "Nope. Just poop." He's developed a code sound and hand gesture to indicate this. Where does he come up with these things? He puts his hands on either side of his face and hoots something which sounds a bit like Coo-Coo-Coo-Coo! That is code for no eggs, just poop. He wants to check the eggs by himself these days. "Stay back!" he commands me. He has to stand on a sturdy upturned log to get access to the doors and he wants to do it himself.
Fine with me. If this was the olden days, he'd be doing all the chicken care and probably making lye soap and tilling the lower forty by himself, too. As it is, I consider it a huge accomplishment if I can get him to put the blocks away.
Well, you know. That's my fault. I'm too easy and he knows it. I'm a joke at discipline and always have been. Thank god none of my kids needed too much of it. And if they did, I pretended they didn't and it's worked out okay if you ask me. I assume it will for Owen too.

It's Friday night. I am drinking a martini. I cleaned a little bit today. I live in a house which is over a hundred and fifty years old. I made a little porch altar.


The Buddha I bought in Roseland at the Methodist Thriftstore, some butterfly lilies from my yard, a shell from the Gulf of Mexico, the goddess of Mexico.
This pleases me.

And my hallway altar.



A little handful of zinnias, my carving of the Guadalupe Goddess, my turtle shells, my sea glass from Cozumel. What you can't see is an Altoids tin with a few ashes of the body of my Lynn. 

Well. Here we are. Friday night. 

Love...Ms. Moon

14 comments:

  1. Bless your porch.
    Bless your hallway.
    Bless your martini and you.
    I think I will pull the cork on a bottle of wine.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Denise- Thank you. I appreciate your blessings more than you can know. I do need them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm ridiculous because I love cleaning. Love it. It's what I do when I feel out of control, I put things in order. Then I can relax. Today, I cleaned and I feel calm. The babies are coming tomorrow, so it will have all been for nothing, but at least I have this evening.
    It's a sickness, this cleaning thing.
    Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Whoever said cleanliness is next to godliness was an asshole.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well I certainly notice your sparkling and so inviting hallway. Now that its all clean maybe take some time to just sit and stare. Daydream. You are loved.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your hallway looks great! I gotta say, getting rid of stuff does make the cleaning a hell of a lot easier. But then you wouldn't have your fascinating altars, which are like a 3-D collage of your life. So I have no good answer.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I don't like cleaning either. I love the results though and I adore your little altars. I am hoping to scoot up and see your Roseland before I go home.

    ReplyDelete
  8. i like cleaning except dusting and vacuuming because they undo each other.


    inverse operations should only exist in mathematics!

    xxalainaxx

    ReplyDelete
  9. heartinhand- At least it's an obsession with a good result. I think I am obsessed with NOT cleaning.

    Birdie- I think god said it. Haha!

    Angella- You are loved too. Sit and dream? Oh girl. I wish I knew how.

    Steve Reed- Yes, but my altars are made up of things that are not valuable on any level but my emotional one so I can change them up any time.

    Yobobe- Make sure you make it down to the Sebastian River. There's a boat cruise thing that goes out of Captain Hiram's in Sebastian that goes down the river and it's beautiful. Goes right under the old railroad trestle and back into the depths of the river. You would pass by all my childhood haunts.

    Mrs. A- I don't even own a vacuum cleaner. I hate them.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I like that your house is 150 years old. And all your personal touches make it so easy and about you. I visit a lot of friends who have taken away all the personal touches with modernity. Not for me.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I feel you, honey. Cleaning sucks and my twice a month cleaner just quit. Shite.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Syd- I call that "defunkifying." That will never happen to a house I live in. And actually, it's 154 years old now. I feel so honored to tend it for whatever time we live here.

    Beth Coyote- Oh god. Find a replacement. Now. Do it.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Your altars are inspiring. I need a couple more Buddhas and perhaps a Virgin Mary -- or perhaps not. I need to clean up, though, maybe even light a match and torch the whole place.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Elizabeth- The idea occurs to me frequently. Either that or just pressure wash the entire thing, inside and out and toss what does not survive.

    ReplyDelete

Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.