I am not much of a housekeeper. I often tell the story of the time my mother-in-law and my mother got to talking about my housekeeping skills. I don't remember exactly how it came up but their discussion ended with my mother saying, "Well she didn't get that from me." She is rather obsessive-compulsive about cleaning and her house is always immaculate so I guess she saw my laissez-faire cleaning attitude as a poor reflection on her skills. Even as Alzheimer's takes away so many of her abilities, you can still find her Windexing the sliding glass doors to her deck or buffing the kitchen counters that look clean to me. During my visit this summer she proudly said, "I forget so many things these days but I still clean my own house." "Yes, It's very clean," I agreed, as I watched her sweep invisible crumbs from the kitchen table.
Then there was the day a friend of mine got a little carried away with dusting and pushed her hand inside a vase to clean that dirt that always settles to the bottom. She cracked the vase and cut herself so badly it required a trip to the hospital for stitches. We both took this to mean overzealous housekeeping is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. So she hired a cleaning lady and was able to afford her for a few years until her husband lost his job and she had to return to cleaning her own house. I have never been able to afford a cleaning lady and although I will admit her house is still tidier than mine, even without the merry maid, I never had to mourn the loss of having the luxury of someone else clean my house.
This past Friday I had a meeting with a woman I work for regarding a new client. She wanted to brief me before we went to his office on Monday. What did that mean I wondered. Is he difficult to work for? Is he involved in some shady business? I hope after a day of working with him I won't be in need of a de-briefing.
Sheila the Bookkeeper's briefing was taking place at Panera after which Sheila the Author was rushing off to Gizzi's, another coffee shop in Boca, where she was meeting four local writers to share stories of self-publishing and brainstorm ideas on how to sell more books. By late afternoon both Sheilas would be all jacked up on caffeine.
The day started as it always does, with the age old question, what will I wear? It's still hot as hell here in South Florida so I decided to go sleeveless, not the best of options at my age. Unlike Michelle Obama, I am not comfortable baring arms. But what's a girl to do on a day when the temperature will be in the low nineties once again. I chose my favorite navy blue lacy top because it's slimming and blue is my color.
Then I decided to empty the dishwasher. Bad decision. The lace that hangs over the edge of the little blue camisole caught on the silverware drawer and tore the lace. Housework once again proved to be a dangerous endeavor.
I hunted around for my sewing kit while my husband typed an invoice for a customer. As always, he required help from me. No matter how many times I explain the difference between Save and Save As, he still needs help. "You're on your own from here," I told him after I opened a new invoice. "I have to sew this shirt." "Just wear something else," was his reply.
Sewing is another domestic skill I never mastered. My mother loved to sew. Back in 1969 my sisters and I were in a PTA fashion show wearing Easter outfits with capes and pillbox hats my mother created.
The sewing gene must skip a generation as my younger daughter has a talent for it and created some of her own outfits during high school. She also hemmed my pants which is an absolute necessity when you are five feet tall but when she left for college in Denver, I lost my in-house seamstress and I miss her terribly.
But I have the sewing kit I bought at Walmart for emergency lost buttons and other simple things. Not one of the needles had a hole I could see and I was wearing contact lenses and reading glasses.
How the hell do you thread a needle when the hole is invisible to the fifty-something human eye?
I started swearing. I felt like crying. My frustration was reaching new heights.
I know. There is Ebola and ISIS to worry about and here I was losing my mind over threading a needle. But did you know what the expression "Threading a needle" means? I do. I Googled it. "To skillfully navigate a difficult problem." This was a difficult problem and yes, it is true it is a first world problem, nothing life threatening or horrible, but I did not have the skills to navigate the task. My daughter did, she had even left a needle threaded with white thread when she visited in May, but I needed blue thread.
My husband offered to help but gave up after a few tries. "Wear something else," he said again, but I had already made up my mind. I was wearing the dark blue top. It's comfortable and slimming.
It was then that I noticed the array of safety pins in my sewing kit.
Now what, gold or silver? I had a choice of both metals. I went with silver because the jewelry I was wearing was silver. I know. Complicated decisions must be made every day. Weaving the safety pin through the torn lace it was impossible to entirely hide the pin itself but I was running out of time and finally satisfied with my work I finished getting dressed and headed out the door.
I will have you know, before I left the house I finished unloading the dishwasher and as always there were dirty dishes waiting in line on the counter because as we all know, a woman's work is never done.
You finish writing a book and you hold in your hands something you created. You unload a dishwasher and immediately fill it with more dirty dishes. Most days I follow the advice of Erma Bombeck. "No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed."