Spring Cleaning

Worked all day yesterday around the place. Found mouse tracks both in the seat of high chair and in the little plastic 'canoe' you use to bathe an infant in.A friend who cleans for us now and then swears she saw a red squirrel zoom along the baseboards while she was dusting the bookshelves the other day so there's that too.This is our summer place, which we come to as many weekends as we can all year round, but much of what I'm finding today seems fall-related:Like the mouse tracks. And the squirrel fur.And the acorns I keep finding in this one bed. Acorns and tiny little seeds, tucked neat as a folded pair of pajamas and hidden under the pillow! There was more archeology when we turned to the fridge:Half a can of frosting cracked like ice on a pond! A tub of cream cheese completely fuzzed over in green!And finally this skinny tall can of grated parmesan cheese from ...2002.Buyers remorse here all right, because who on earth think parm in a can tastes okay? I did once but that was a lifetime ago.Before I know any better.Back when I got all my pasta from the Franco-American people. (Ah their spaghetti was wondrous! Fat red worms in a can!Man, the food of the late 60s and early 50s was weird but it had its appeal, yes it did. If they told us we'd all be eating kale one day who'd have believed them?               

Clean Slate

I was such a good girl the other day: I cleaned out my half of the marital bedroom including the closet and the bureau. (Anyone for a long-line bra? A nursing nightie with those two strategically  placed  windows? Howsabout a never-been-worn pair of Spanx bought in the fast-passing moment when I thought I wouldn’t mind walking around with a torso you could bounce quarters off of? ) I also totally  vacuumed under the bed which I still can’t believe myself, since this is something I haven’t truly done since the year 2000 when I set up my massage table at its foot.Yep, a massage table at the foot of the bed. That's what's under the dark blue throw in this blurry picture here on the left. My groom thought he had died and gone to heaven for a while there though really my intentions were practical: I had to do home massages and write them up for the year-long course I was taking to become a massage therapist and he was  my perfect victim, being right there all the time either napping away or reading his many George Aaargh Aaargh Martin books. I did all my assignments and  got the license and worked on the public every Monday and Thursday from 2002 to 2006 in one of the rooms associated with  my chiropractor’s office.Then almost overnight my own neck began acting up with some painful  bone-on-bone rubbing between the vertebrae: Helloooo, osteoarthritis. And goodbye to that nice little secondary career. Still, I kept the table up all this time, using it to both set things down on and hide things under, like my shoes when I kicked them off nights. And my socks and yoga pants, and sports bras (Jesus said it: the bras you will have with you always!) The groom has always maintained that I crowd up the place with too much stuff  - and then there was that year-old apple we  found under the bed-and-massage table combo that looked like the little shrunken head of Ramses II. So he went away for the two days and I did all this cleaning and took down the massage table. I’m trying not to think about how it feels to finally put away the old dream of myself as a healer. ~ Sigh ~  Anyway the room looks a lot less crowded now so there's that. Look at all the books on the night stand by the way. That's not MY night stand. Just sayin' ! I'm not the only one around here who's getting a little odd.