Friends and Kitties!
What a weekend. I was happy to get back to work on Friday so I could rest. The Cats may have whined mentioned that I starved them made an Executive Feeding Decision--amongst other sundry injustices last Tuesday. Of course they never tell my side of the story! (And why should they, they're cats, after all...) Here's my excuse for their Terrible Neglect.
Monday evening I did laundry, paid bills, and some general house-wifely titivating. I put out extra Stinky Goodness to ensure full feline tummies and thus a nice lie in in the morning. I was all set for my weekend (Tues & Weds), two days of utter and complete slothitude.
I got up Tuesday morning a little after seven, made toast and coffee, and flaked out on the Catio. I read for a bit. Played with The Horde. Assessed the cat food situation (plenty). Scott had an appointment so the house was all mine. About tenish I got up to put the cinnamon pita chips away in the larder, but discovered there wasn't any room on the lower shelves, where stuff tends to migrate because I'm so short. No problem; we keep a little ladder in the garage. I innocently ambled out there to get it, and that's the exact moment where everything went horribly wrong. Because the ladder was entombed in drifts of detritus from projects past.
Scott is a great guy--he's handy and can do all sorts of home repair, gardening, you name it, but the one thing he's incapable of is picking up after himself, whether it's clothes, tools, the salt shaker, or anything, really. Granted, he can (and does, quite well) clean, but tidying is beyond his skill set; and, after 19 years together I don't entertain any fantasies that one morning he'll awaken with the Urge to Organize. In fact, I'd be Deeply Suspicious if all of a sudden he started--for example--putting the shaving cream in the basket which has been so thoughtfully provided for him. Right next to the sink. Mere inches away. With all his other kit. When we were newlyweds I threatened to build a 6'X6' clothes hamper (how could he miss?) but even then I knew it would be a waste of time and money.
But I digress...
Not only is our 400 square foot garage Project Headquarters, it also holds all the stock for Scott's eBay business--he sells vintage cassette tapes. (We have close to thirty thousand tapes.) He scours the local thrift stores regularly for cassettes and usually comes home with a hundred or thereabouts, which need to initially be sorted by genre (his job) and alphabetized (my contribution--Scott's dyslexic grasp of the alphabet is tenuous at best.) In between forays to pillage the resale emporiums he hunts and gathers at the hardware store and gardening supply shop, the booty of which are deposited within the steadily diminishing open areas of the garage. Simultaneously, various home projects going on in various stages of completion require numerous tools left lying about with sharp spiky bits just waiting to snag whatever nice top/dress/scarf I've just purchased. Or, in the painfully memorable case of the Left Open Tool Chest Drawer, lurking to put my eye out.
My point is that stuff piles up, all over, everywhere. It's our dirty little secret, our messy garage. The chaos distresses Scott as much as it does me; he starts the "We need to clean the garage" mantra after the first two (on average) layers of strata have been laid down. We meaning me, as I'm the only one at our house whose concept of cleaning involves stowing things where they actually belong, not piled willy nilly in a corner or shoe-horned into a cabinet where hopefully nobody will ever look, nor need, said items ever again. It's like a time machine, sorting out the mess: "I remember painting that room last Fall!", and "Wow--that tree has grown five feet since we planted it in 2009".
I'm still digressing...
Anyway, the friggin' ladder was close to becoming a black hole, compressed as it was from the weight of the multitudinous layers of crap. I have another one stored in the bedroom closet, which is MY domain and thus is organized. So I ask you: did I make the correct choice, intelligently close the garage door, and fetch the ladder out of the closet? No. I stupidly stepped into the messy abyss.
The time was was ten AM.
Eight and a half hours later, I was done. I organized. I put tools away. I stacked, carried, hauled, swept and vacuumed. I recycled exactly 2487923 cardboard boxes, and alphabetized nearly 1000 tapes. And do you know what? I never did get to the top shelf in the larder, and along the course of the afternoon I finished the bag of pita chips, which means I never needed to put them away in the first place.
Hoisted by my own tidy petard.
As penance, I fed the Cats.
Happy Sunday!
XX Trish XX
