A New Leaf.
So I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf. Or, as my mother might say, I’ve decided to see the wisdom of her ways.
My mom can’t stand clutter. Can’t tolerate even a spec of dust, a stray towel on the floor, or dirty dishes in the sink. She, and if I’m not mistaken each of her four sisters, rule their roosts with a broom, a dishtowel, and a multi-step laundry process (sort/wash/dry/fold stages clearly defined) learned from their mom.
As the only daughter/only child of a woman of such vision and action, I determined early on that I’d be doing things MY way. Or more precisely, I determined I’d do them when I was good and ready, not a moment before.
This wasn’t really a problem in college. My room mates, being similarly preoccupied with finding cash to go uptown, coming out, fighting bulimia, passing geology, or not getting pregnant were fine with me not actually making a bed for an entire semester.
When I lived alone for the first time post college, it was easy to be slovenly. I didn’t own anything and couldn’t afford much that could be called furniture.
Then love. And co-habitation. With a woman who lived to clean. At least in her manic phases. It actually worked out to my advantage. For a while.
So what’s changed now? Why am I picking up the house before turning in each night? Nagging R when she repeatedly leaves a trail (shoes, iPhone, keys, bag, coat) from the front door to the dining room? Ironing clothing item by item as it’s laundered, instead of waiting for a Pisa-like pile to take over the guest room?
I have some theories. It’s not about cleanliness — it’s about order. A way to establish some sort of control in a life that’s feeling increasingly out of my control in a world that’s up for grabs.
But man I’m tired.
Autumn Ramble.
R and I took off to explore another Kentucky winery yesterday. It was windy. We got a late start. And the promised ‘easy access’ via highway exit was a bit of a fib.
It was also the first deep breath I feel I’ve taken for weeks, if not months.
Winding, hilly roads. A few straggling leaves providing an occasional pop of color. 80s tunes. A meandering creek. The occasional thoughtful-eyed cow hanging out close to the road.
The winery itself is large by Ky standards. The tasting room was packed with a fairly lively crowd. Their selection was also large — but we both chose the estate tasting. R left with a bottle of surprising Sangiovese and I brought home the affordable, crisp, Kentucky Blue Pinot Grigio. The Estate Cab Franc was tasty as well — but I wasn’t feeling the price.
I love this time of year. I really wish it lasted longer.
H1N1 Reality?
I know it’s coming. I know I’m susceptible and technically qualify as a member of an at-risk population (asthma, not pregnancy!)
But I’m starting to think huddling in my house for the next several months is the better choice given the reality of actually finding a vaccine. Do the CDC or vaccine makers ever actually meet their promised delivery dates/quantities on anything?
And could www.flu.gov be any less helpful? I live in Kentucky and my asthma is treated by a doctor there. I work and go to a primary care doc in Ohio — a mere river away. At least Ohio has the vaccine and I’m on a waiting list there. Kentucky — well, since I’m not a healthcare provider or lucky enough to know someone at the local health department, I’m not likely to get a vaccine there for the next several weeks. In fact, that helpful Web site told me to watch my local news for notification of when vaccines might be available.
I’ve been doing that. But since it’s covering the length of the lines in Ohio and the likelihood they’ll run out of vaccines before reaching those lucky enough to be at the tail end, I’m not finding it very helpful.
My hands are cracked and red from washing them every five minutes. I regard anyone who sneezes with suspicion and step further away from them. I have disinfecting wipes in my car, on my desk, and on my counter at home.
Friday I’m supposed to attend a luncheon requiring me to sit at a table with 9 strangers. Can I bring wipes? Or should I start stitching the mask tonight?
Week (Weak) in Review.
I’ve had random post topics flitting about the past couple of days. None fully formed, so it’s a haphazard list of bulleted observations coming your way this fine Sunday evening.
- First, the picture that should have been. We were killing time and watching a lame football game in Covington’s Main Strasse earlier today. There was a guy walking his ferrets. Six of them. On a multi-strand leash. He seemed to want the attention. Despite the two iPhones and three Blackberries among us, no one was willing to get up from their beer/bloody mary long enough snap the picture either of the four times the guy passed by the pub window. Ferrets. Sort of summed up the week in an odd sort of way. Probably no more strange than five lesbians sitting in a faux English pub, three avidly discussing their eagerness to join the NRA, one trying to watch football, and the other wondering how to get a photo of ferret-guy.
- I KNEW balloon boy was a hoax. That family was just too weird for words. Were it not for Wolfe B asking tough questions of a six-year-old, we’d still be thinking wow, how’d they possibly get that whole thing on tape? Gotta love the fact the fact the parents met in acting class. This furthers my burgeoning belief that the 24 hour/instant news cycle isn’t really doing a lot for journalism.
- Have you heard yet that I’m the least romantic girlfriend in the known universe? Apparently yesterday was Sweetest Day. Okay, okay, I’d seen the roses and assorted stuffed animals in the grocery earlier in the week, but I thought the sign said Boss’s Day. And by the time Sweetest Day rolled around, I was so troubled by the fact I didn’t even get a shout out on Boss’s Day that I’m lucky I crawled out of bed.
All I Wanna Do…
… is blog. Thanks to a whining dog, pinging blackberry, an inability to regulate the temperature inside the house, and freakish Windows Vista/possible need for more memory causing me to spend an hour noodling around on the back end of my pc, I’m not even sure what my initial thought for a topic was!
URRGH. Clearly I can still write a too-long sentence.
So finally, two hours later.
The dog is perched on the back of the love seat, pouting.
I’m ignoring the pinging blackberry having discerned it’s repeated texts from a cousin who has apparently launched an urban moonshine operation. 190 proof apple cider? (Wonder if he’s heard the story of our other cousin — his moonshining adventures led to arson and all sorts of purported ugliness…)
I’ve peeled off a layer of fleece.
And I’ve contact tech support (aka, R, aka, the girlfriend w/the IT title and the number for wherever one buys ‘memory’ on speed dial).
Now wtf was I going to blog about?
Ah. Yes. The fact that R and I are celebrating four years of non-cohabitating bliss this week. And we marked the occasion with yet another adventure to look at potential co-housing options.
We still each own a house. Still need to sell both of them. It’ll happen. She says so on her blog.
So we mark progress however we can, currently that’s spending hours divining exactly what it is about housing options we agree upon.
Now, a result of I’m not sure what, she’s decided maybe urban living in a creaky old house with ‘character’ might be what works. Been there, done that. And if we won the lottery and could magically afford not-a-fixer-upper in the two local neighborhoods where I’d consider living in such a home, I might consider it a teeny, tiny bit. For a minute.
I am all about compromise, however. So yesterday we checked out this.
It’s marketed as an urban treehouse. It’s in Cincinnati’s Clifton neighborhood, literally around the corner from the apartment I lived in when I first moved here a million years ago. An A frame (this is a side view, obviously) it’s perched at the top of 56 stairs straight up from the street. No drive. No escalator. No grass (it’s all ivy, because, hello, it’s on a frickin’ hillside). No fenced yard. Three floors of oddly shaped rooms and nooks, concrete counters and a six burner stove in the kitchen. Windows everywhere. Across the street from a nature preserve.
Let’s think about this for a minute. Aside from the fact we couldn’t imagine how one gets groceries in the house, let alone furniture, doesn’t it look a bit… rural? Not exactly a typical urban setting. And built in the 60s, it’s hardly ‘old’ in the classic sense.
Now do you see why this whole moving in together thing is a bit of a challenge?
40? No Way.
Random tidbits from the morning/evening news occasionally trickle into my thoughts well after I’ve heard them.
Perhaps that’s why I woke this morning obsessed with news that 40 years ago The Brady Bunch premiered.
I was 6. I don’t think I actually watched the show until it was an after-school rerun staple. But I know I’ve seen every episode.
Aside from the typical lesbian-to-be crush on Jan (girls in glasses, there was something tomboyish in her, and of course, Alice had her back) I think the show was an only child’s dream world. I couldn’t begin to relate to what a whole household of siblings might mean.
Their interactions fascinated me.
There was always someone else to blame.
There was always someone else to fight with.
There was someone to talk with during those long family vacations. And perhaps if I’d had siblings, we would have had a station wagon with a back back seat that faced the wrong way. And maybe we would have gone to a ghost town out west instead of condo in St. Pete.
40 years. Good god. Next thing someone will tell me M*A*S*H has been around for 30 years. Then I’ll be forced to dig out my bathrobe, cowboy hat and martini glasses and relive the final episode party in Moo U’s Morris Hall basement.
Or acknowledge that I’m both lame and old.
