Cleaning House, Part II
Yesterday we went shopping in search of (airtight) storage bins for the cassettes and photos we recently received in our box of goodies we shipped to ourselves from Portland. (The humidity wreaks havoc if you leave stuff out, especially since we leave the doors open 24/7.) So we ran our errands, did our shopping, grabbed some lunch and returned home to begin putting away all the crap that was covering virtually every surface of the living room. Actually, I let the boyfriend tackle that task since most of it was his stuff; I wanted him to organize all of it to his liking so he could easily find stuff. I decided to tackle the kitchen.
Well, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew he was moving furniture and giving the whole place a thorough sweeping and mopping. This was a rather remarkable development, since he voluntarily helps me with housework maybe twice a year (typically right before houseguests are scheduled to arrive). Although I hadn't planned to spend my Sunday afternoon doing some seriously thorough housecleaning (something I'd rather do almost ANYTHING else to avoid), I figured I'd better take advantage of this rare opportunity. So that's we did: cleaned...for hours...until I finally cried "uncle."
Aside from the fact that the place was a mess (we'd been on a downward spiral ever since returning home from our vacation--with the piles of clutter growing at an alarming rate), there was also something cathartic about cleaning up after our recent deluge of rain. Because it seemed like we had spent most of the "week of rain" basically sitting at home, staring outside with open-mouthed wonder that it was...still raining...hard. Yesterday was our first rain-free day in quite awhile. I missed having beach time this weekend, but our poor neighborhood beach was undergoing some serious clean-up, too. It had been closed for part of the week. The taxi delivery/pick-up area had become a lake, the beach was littered with debris and Saturday morning's paper featured a front-page photo of a cut through the beach that was created from run-off from the parking lot. A CUT...in our beautiful beach. :(
But the highlight of my weekend was listening to portions of boyfriend's performance tapes that had just arrived. There were gems that I'd never heard...tapes he'd had stored away...from shows he'd done before we knew each other. As we were leaving to go shopping, I said, "Grab a tape so we can listen to something in the car." In other words, surprise me. And we zipped around our little island with the sun roof open in our little Honda while listening to a benefit he'd done in '93 with a bunch of Portland music all-stars plus Robert Cray for a musician friend of theirs who had ALS. (He has since passed away.) It was for a very good cause...and they played their asses off...and I was very happy to have some kick-ass, soulful Memphis-tinged blues blasting from our speakers.
Well, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew he was moving furniture and giving the whole place a thorough sweeping and mopping. This was a rather remarkable development, since he voluntarily helps me with housework maybe twice a year (typically right before houseguests are scheduled to arrive). Although I hadn't planned to spend my Sunday afternoon doing some seriously thorough housecleaning (something I'd rather do almost ANYTHING else to avoid), I figured I'd better take advantage of this rare opportunity. So that's we did: cleaned...for hours...until I finally cried "uncle."
Aside from the fact that the place was a mess (we'd been on a downward spiral ever since returning home from our vacation--with the piles of clutter growing at an alarming rate), there was also something cathartic about cleaning up after our recent deluge of rain. Because it seemed like we had spent most of the "week of rain" basically sitting at home, staring outside with open-mouthed wonder that it was...still raining...hard. Yesterday was our first rain-free day in quite awhile. I missed having beach time this weekend, but our poor neighborhood beach was undergoing some serious clean-up, too. It had been closed for part of the week. The taxi delivery/pick-up area had become a lake, the beach was littered with debris and Saturday morning's paper featured a front-page photo of a cut through the beach that was created from run-off from the parking lot. A CUT...in our beautiful beach. :(
But the highlight of my weekend was listening to portions of boyfriend's performance tapes that had just arrived. There were gems that I'd never heard...tapes he'd had stored away...from shows he'd done before we knew each other. As we were leaving to go shopping, I said, "Grab a tape so we can listen to something in the car." In other words, surprise me. And we zipped around our little island with the sun roof open in our little Honda while listening to a benefit he'd done in '93 with a bunch of Portland music all-stars plus Robert Cray for a musician friend of theirs who had ALS. (He has since passed away.) It was for a very good cause...and they played their asses off...and I was very happy to have some kick-ass, soulful Memphis-tinged blues blasting from our speakers.
posted by Marilyn at 12:54 AM
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