The Eyes Have It

Thanks to those of you who wished my eyes to heal quickly. I can see again, though it still looks like I took a beating with an ugly stick.It was my own fault, so I deserve to be laughed at more than I deserve sympathy. Besides, now I have a really good excuse for getting a cleaning service -- I'm allergic to dust and I'm allergic to cleaning products. Damned if I do and damned if I don't.

Send in the maids!

The Thanksgiving Disaster

The week has been... interesting...

The Engineer left Saturday for big business doings in Texas. The plan was for me to fly down and join him Wednesday and we would spend Turkey Day with the Twin's family in Houston.

Monday the insulation guys finally blew the yucky gray fluffy stuff into the attic. Boy, did it stink.

Tuesday afternoon, I decided to go postal on the Engineer's shower. Regular cleanser just doesn't do the trick on the tile, so I bought some Lime-Away, stripped down, put on latex gloves and climbed on in. I spent a couple of hours scrubbing each tile individually. I wanted the colorful, 1950's vintage tiles to shine.

By the time I was ready to attack the grout with a toothbrush, my eyes were stinging like the dickens. I decided the grout could wait until the next time he was out of town. I rinsed the shower walls off, sprayed it with regular cleanser, then climbed back in with a sponge to wipe down the walls and shower myself off.

Within two hours, my eyes had swelled up to the point I couldn't open them at all and was effectively blind.

I knew it was an allergic reaction. I've done it to myself a couple of times before when using oven cleaner. Which is why I have the dirtiest oven in Utah -- I no longer go anywhere near oven cleaner.

So the Engineer spent Thanksgiving in Houston and the cats and I stayed home.

It's really boring to stay home with blind eyes. Not a whole lot to do besides try not to knock anything over. A friend did invite me to join his family for the feast, but I demurred because eating by braille in public is simply not polite (and pretty darn gross for onlookers, I would imagine.)

My eyelids have unswelled to the point I can see again, but it will be a few more days before I'm back to normal.
Guess that grout won't ever be toothbrush cleaned.

Money Makes the World Go Around

I try to say that I don't understand what it is about money that makes people so avaricious, but that's a lie, I think I do. It's not the grubby pieces of paper, metal or plastic, it's the power they bring. With sufficient money, you can do what you want, when you want, how you want. Don't we all wish for that?

I honestly can't understand the things that some people want, however.

Why would anyone want a forty room mansion and a fleet of cars? Keeping up 40 rooms would be a full time job and you can only drive one car at a time.

True, if you had unlimited money, you could afford staff; a maid, a butler, a chauffeur, a cook. Nice to be freed from daily chores, but, to me, privacy is more to be desired. Even if I had the money for mansion and staff, I wouldn't have them. A cleaning lady once a week, on the other hand...

Not that I don't have my weaknesses, I do. Who doesn't?

If I could have all the money I wished for, I would want enough to take care of day to day living without worry for the future. Enough to travel some, to visit friends and family and see the world. Enough to give gifts when I felt like it and donate some to worthy causes. Enough to see me to the end of my life with maybe some left over to throw a nice farewell party. I don't want palaces or yachts or empire, just security.

Which, sadly, is more than most people have.

The Unmentionables

Sex, religion, politics and money: these are the things that a Proper Southern Lady cannot talk about in public. Thank God I'm not a Proper Southern Lady.

Some of these topics were more unmentionable than others in my childhood home. Sex was never discussed, nor was money, both topics were totally taboo. To this day, I have no idea how much money either of my parents made and firmly believe that my siblings and I were immaculate conceptions.

Religion and politics were simple subjects with the basics assumed. When I was a child, there were three major religions: Protestant, my family's religion; Jewish, lots of smart people were Jewish; Catholic, they had too many babies. There were three immutable premisses about politics: Republicans were good, Democrats were bad; evil Communists were trying to take over the world.

I'm sure that my parents are quite baffled by the way their eldest daughter turned out. I'm a flaming, bleeding heart, tree hugging, whale kissing (right on their blubbery lips), but fiscally conservative, liberal agnostic who thinks sex is one of the most hilarious things going. For some reason the strictures on discussing money did take. I'm not comfortable discussing personal finances to this day, it's none of anybody's business but the individual's. Public money is fair game, however, and dang the way those idiots in Washington spend my tax dollars!

It's time to step out of the comfort zone and blog on these forbidden subjects. I just need to figure out what order to take them in...

1. Money -- the one I'm least comfortable with.
2. Politics -- the most annoying one.
3. Religion -- the scariest, most confusing one.
4. Sex -- the fun one!

Blog you later, alligator.

The Dinner Party

was a success. I got the house cleaned and the food cooked before the guests arrived. Even managed to get in a shower. The food was good. The BirthdayBoy loved his pies and made sure to take the remains both of them home with him.

I did forget (actually didn't even think about it) one thing...

I did not vacuumed the chairs at the dining table. Due to the remodeling chaos, it had been over 18 months since they'd been used. By humans, anyway. The cats have been sitting on them the whole time.

Everybody got up with cat hair all over their derrieres.

Oops.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into

A friend's birthday is tomorrow, but the Engineer is leaving town Saturday morning, so I invited the friend and his wife for dinner tonight. Which means I have to bake two pies, Friend's traditional birthday pie and one for the dinner. (I'm famous for my pies.)

The Engineer has been fussing since we started work on the house that we haven't been able to have a specific couple over to entertain. Since Couple A and Couple B know each other, I invited Couple B as well to kill two birds with one stone. Then I thought about Couple C, who know both Couples A and B, and figured I'd better invite them too.

So tonight's the first dinner party in the half remodeled house. The Engineer set the table last night, as he doesn't trust me to do it. I'm just glad he didn't use the fine china and Waterford crystal - I hate washing that stuff by hand, I'm always afraid I'll break something.

The dining room looks much better than it did in March. Kind of wish the Engineer had somewhat different taste in art, but the two paintings on the back wall are by a very famous Latvian artist, so he treasures them. The are both of the same thatched roof grain storage barn. The Twin has a similar painting. Twin's wife calls them the coffins. I concur.

Excuse me now, I've got to go tear up the plastic he taped to the floor to keep the carpet from being walked on. Then I will start baking and cooking.

Wish me luck!

Don't Wanna

Since returning from my long vacation, I have not been in the mood to blog. Don't know why, just don't feel like it. I've been arguing with myself about it.

"Okay, Witless, why did you start this blog in the first place?"

"To practice consistency and build character."

"Are you doing that right now?"

"Don't wanna."

"Is that any kind of an attitude?"

"Yeah, a poopie attitude."

"One of the hallmarks of being an adult is showing a little self discipline."

"Poop on being an adult, it's no fun."

"Think about the feeling of accomplishment you get when you make a blog entry every day."

"Is it really an accomplishment or is it just a demonstration of Sturgeon's Law? 'Ninety percent of everything is crap.'"

"Well, you sure as heck aren't going to get the 10% of good stuff if you don't wade through the 90% of crap."

"Maybe my crap stompin' boots got stuck in the muck and I pulled one off struggling to get out of it then stepped my bare foot into the crap and the yuck squished up between my toes."

"Seems to be about where you are right now."

"Ain't that the truth."

It's no wonder one of my nicknames is GrumpoGirl.