Saturday, January 21, 2006

the big scrape before the wacky week

If you read my blog regularly, or if you have visited my house, you will know that housecleaning is something I do occasionally and with reluctance. Today is one of those days that I have decided to do it - partly because Michele and Brent are coming over. We're going out for supper together then back here for dessert and coffee. It's also partly because we have a wacky week coming up, and as much as I hate scraping, scrubbing and sucking (with a vacuum cleaner that is), there's something about it that makes me feel anchored and more in control. So the cleaning and organizing is partly physical and partly psychic. There. I said it.

Did you know how much crap a dog can make in the back yard in one week? even when she mostly craps on walks and we pick that up as we go? I swear she craps more than she eats. How can that be possible?

The week coming up begins with the federal election, which pretty much guarantees I will be busy Monday (volunteering - either as a scrutineer or voter transporter) and depressed for the rest of the week (at least). It will be much better if our local candidate Dawn Black wins, which she can. The race in our riding has been officially declared "exciting" and "too close to call" in the media. Last time the Conservative who is currently our MP won by just .2% - that's two-tenths of one percent. Dawn is a great candidate. She has been working her butt off, and will be a great MP. It will be important to work hard on Monday, though to get all of her supporters to the polls.

Why is it that 4 people in one house all decide to do their laundry on the same day? And why do 3 out of 4 people think that it is a good idea to turf wet laundry out of the washer and "play through" with their laundry, leaving the wet load on the sidelines? It's not difficult to put it in the dryer, instead of making it wait in soggy purgatory for the next available opening.

Wednesday I am delighted to be attending a WordPlay Poetry in the Schools presentation at the middle School. Our own Vancouver Poetry House will send performance poets Barbara Adler and Brendan McLeod to run a workshop for grade 6 students as part a school-wide literacy day. It will be fun. I'll take most of the day off work, but run back to my office afterward to catch up and do some hiring interviews. Later that evening I'll be part of a fundraiser for The West Coast Poetry Festival at Cafe Montmartre. That's 8pm on Wednesday the 25th.

How does toothpaste get everywhere in the bathroom? A person would have to be spinning around like a propeller, spewing it like one of those farm machines that projects manure onto farm fields to get toothpaste all over the place like it is in my upstairs bathroom. I'd like to see how this happens, just once.

Friday is a Pro D day for both kids, so I've booked the day off work. This will be lots of fun, but also stressful since I will have flexed most of Monday and Wednesday off too. There's that thing where you pay for a day off with frazzle before and after. I may have to go into work Friday evening to start up a couple of drop-in programs, because the other members of my team live in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, and it's unreasonable to ask them to drive back in to do this when I live 5 minutes from the program sites.

You know what's a real waste of time? Dusting. You have to look really close to see that there's dust, then you wipe it off and it comes back. I think I'll skip dusting and just turn down the lights and light some candles. Come to think of it, I could sprinkle some bleach on a cotton ball and tuck it behind my ear, then maybe I could light a candle in the bathroom and I might fool everyone into thinking it's clean too.

Then on Satuday-next I'm going to see Vincent in Brixton at the Playhouse in the afternoon with mom and dad, so I won't be cleaning at all next weekend.

So you see, I have to scrape today, because the house is really a mess and because I need to begin this week with a sense that things are tied down, tucked in and at least temporarily scrubbed bright. It's good exercise too. Especially the part where I carry the fifty pound bag of polluted kitty litter and collected dog crap up the street and hurl it into the dumpster. Yeah.

question: what do you do on a Saturday?

mompoet - domestic ninja

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