Requiem for the dust bunnies
A cleaning saga of epic proportions.
Placed behind the cut for your reading convenience.
After running out of things to do in Topeka on Friday, I came home early to start tidying my house. M's mom birthday was on Saturday and we were taking her out to lunch here in Llamaville. I couldn't let her see us for the non-house-proud savages that we really are. So I started tidying up our 2d bedroom/office so I could stash all the stuff I was planning on moving up from the living room. I removed two bags of trash, broke down several cardboard boxes and vacuumed.
Then I started on the bathroom. At first, my intention was to wipe the toothpaste off the mirror, tidy the vanity and make sure the toilet was scoured of embarrassing poop stains. Then I looked into the bathtub...and mania took over. I got out the comet and scrubbed the tub. (The shower looked pretty good since we've been using the post-shower spritz.) I replaced the decrepit bathmats (veterans of M.'s solo apt days) with new ones. I vacuumed and mopped. The bathroom gleamed.
Then I hit the living room...and the kitchen. And the downstairs bathroom. I was an unstoppable sweaty bundle of dust-busting power. M. got home and was impressed. He vacuumed the living room.
Was about to collapse into a crumpled heap when we got a call from M's brother Dan. He was at the Wakarusa Festival, a spectacle located a mere mile from our apt, was suffering heatstroke and wanted to crash in our a/c-cooled paradise. So I volunteerd to pick him up. I didn't realize how incredibly dark Clinton Lake Park is at night. I managed to miss the turn off for the Festival (marked with big "Festival this way" signs) and ended up driving over the Clinton Lake dam. I called M. "I don't think this is right. I'm on a country road and I pulled over into someone's gravel driveway." He advised turning around and going back over the dam until I got to the front of the park. Eventually, I found the turn off, got myself to the festival parking area, had to convince the parking staff that I was only there for pickup, located my quarry and made my way home.
Dan is a very low maintenance guest. We gave him a towel, showed him where the bathroom and the refrigerator were (unfortunately, there was very little food in it) and gave him the best bed in the house (in the living room on the futon) which is the best temperature regulated place in the house. (upstairs is somewhat miserable. M. is working on a prototype of a rig to redirect the air from the vent in a more efficient manner).
M's mom came up Saturday midday and we took her to Wheatfields, a fancy bakery/cafe here in Llamaville. We had a lovely lunch, I showed her my newest knitting project and gave her some funky silver earrings that I bought from a local artist/metalsmith. She went home and I finally collapsed into a much needed nap. M.: "The house looks really good. I wonder how long we can keep it this way?"
Paranoia Strikes Deep
Today's NYTimes has another article on employers' using the internet to sniff out the dirt on prospective hires. While I know that any information about me floating around on the internet can be used against me, it always dishes up a new wave of fear whenever I read an article about it. (I could make my journal friends-only, but it would defeat the purpose of reaching out to my non-lj audience.) I google my name every few months. Most of the stuff is old (and speaks well of me!), though I found out today that my Friendster profile (c. 2003) can be pulled up on google searches. However, unless any future employers find my taste in literature disturbing, there is little there that is likely to offend.
The modern world has made us all transparent.
Placed behind the cut for your reading convenience.
After running out of things to do in Topeka on Friday, I came home early to start tidying my house. M's mom birthday was on Saturday and we were taking her out to lunch here in Llamaville. I couldn't let her see us for the non-house-proud savages that we really are. So I started tidying up our 2d bedroom/office so I could stash all the stuff I was planning on moving up from the living room. I removed two bags of trash, broke down several cardboard boxes and vacuumed.
Then I started on the bathroom. At first, my intention was to wipe the toothpaste off the mirror, tidy the vanity and make sure the toilet was scoured of embarrassing poop stains. Then I looked into the bathtub...and mania took over. I got out the comet and scrubbed the tub. (The shower looked pretty good since we've been using the post-shower spritz.) I replaced the decrepit bathmats (veterans of M.'s solo apt days) with new ones. I vacuumed and mopped. The bathroom gleamed.
Then I hit the living room...and the kitchen. And the downstairs bathroom. I was an unstoppable sweaty bundle of dust-busting power. M. got home and was impressed. He vacuumed the living room.
Was about to collapse into a crumpled heap when we got a call from M's brother Dan. He was at the Wakarusa Festival, a spectacle located a mere mile from our apt, was suffering heatstroke and wanted to crash in our a/c-cooled paradise. So I volunteerd to pick him up. I didn't realize how incredibly dark Clinton Lake Park is at night. I managed to miss the turn off for the Festival (marked with big "Festival this way" signs) and ended up driving over the Clinton Lake dam. I called M. "I don't think this is right. I'm on a country road and I pulled over into someone's gravel driveway." He advised turning around and going back over the dam until I got to the front of the park. Eventually, I found the turn off, got myself to the festival parking area, had to convince the parking staff that I was only there for pickup, located my quarry and made my way home.
Dan is a very low maintenance guest. We gave him a towel, showed him where the bathroom and the refrigerator were (unfortunately, there was very little food in it) and gave him the best bed in the house (in the living room on the futon) which is the best temperature regulated place in the house. (upstairs is somewhat miserable. M. is working on a prototype of a rig to redirect the air from the vent in a more efficient manner).
M's mom came up Saturday midday and we took her to Wheatfields, a fancy bakery/cafe here in Llamaville. We had a lovely lunch, I showed her my newest knitting project and gave her some funky silver earrings that I bought from a local artist/metalsmith. She went home and I finally collapsed into a much needed nap. M.: "The house looks really good. I wonder how long we can keep it this way?"
Paranoia Strikes Deep
Today's NYTimes has another article on employers' using the internet to sniff out the dirt on prospective hires. While I know that any information about me floating around on the internet can be used against me, it always dishes up a new wave of fear whenever I read an article about it. (I could make my journal friends-only, but it would defeat the purpose of reaching out to my non-lj audience.) I google my name every few months. Most of the stuff is old (and speaks well of me!), though I found out today that my Friendster profile (c. 2003) can be pulled up on google searches. However, unless any future employers find my taste in literature disturbing, there is little there that is likely to offend.
The modern world has made us all transparent.