365 True Things: 199/Cleaning

This morning, I expected my housecleaner—which means, of course, that I had to clean up before she arrived.

I really got into it, moving stacks of CDs (yes, we still listen to those artifacts) from the counter above the stereo cabinet onto the CD shelves. They're still entirely unorganized (a job for another day), but at least there are no longer piles of plastic for the kitties to knock over. Which they do, with aplomb.

I also consolidated all the books that over the past two years have somehow found their way into the house—specifically, into the bedroom; more specifically, onto the bedroom floor. Since there's no shelf space.

My original goal was to have very few bookcases, but clearly that idea has to disappear, and some new shelves need to be installed. I'm thinking some custom-made cherry shelves, to go with our TV/stereo corner; low and long, under the windows. I need to research possible designs. In any case, although I still have piles of floor-books, they're now all in one corner, and relatively consolidated. (Until the kitties knock them over.)

I then went out to my weekly Norwegian study. And when I got home: no housecleaner! Granted, I hadn't double-checked just when she would return from vacation, and I guess I overanticipated.

However, everything was so thoroughly picked up that I figured, okay: I can clean house!

And that's what I did, at least a partial cleaning. Well, a vacuuming. And since clean floors is my biggest bugaboo, that was an excellent start. Lots of sucked-up dirt, dust, and cat hair made me glad I didn't wait.

As I explained in May, I like to splash flowers around when the house is clean. Although the place isn't clean clean, the floor is good now, and the decluttering of the bedroom, ditto. So I immediately went out and got some flowers. (As well as some drain goop for a sluggish drain.)

Three bunches of five-stem gladioli later, I now have
. . . a new cat attractor! I first put the vase on the dining room table, but that was far too easy a target. So I moved everything off the funny corner cabinet (which hides the heating intake), thus creating yet another pristine, uncluttered surface! What a day! And it's almost too far to jump. (But not quite, so we'll see: at least the vase is bottom heavy; hopefully it'll stay put, or the kitties will realize—ha ha ha—that it's off-limits.)

On a side-note: I saw an old friend, Dan, for lunch and coffee today as he was driving through from his home in BC to his other (family) home in Malibu today. We hadn't seen each other in almost forty years—we met on a rollicking college road trip to the tip of Baja and back over Christmas 1975—and only got in touch again a year ago thanks to FB. It was really nice to see him.