The Terminix guy came today for his monthly check to see if our traps had any bugs in them. One did. The very first one up by the corner of the front of the house. Near where we park. He said that based on the number of termites in there, the colony is very small, and is probably right under our parking area... All the other trap/poison thingies had nothing in them. He said that's a very good sign that this one spot is all we've got and will be dead by spring.
Well isn't that great. Thank God for good news.
He pulled the bait wood out of the tube, and it was crawling with the little bastards. He crushed it and them after getting a count. He was a really nice guy doing a real pain in the ass job on a very very hot day.
So -- thanks Terminix guy. You are awesome.
And also -- thanks to the people who sent me email to cheer me up. All three of you rock supreme.
I'm much better now. Sometimes I just get all sad and mushy over something, and it passes. I'm happy that's the way I am -- if I obsessed or got depressed and didn't come back up for hours or days or months, that'd be an issue. So I'm much better this morning, except the Patriots totally spanked the Steelers.
I'd hoped for a closer matchup, a better game.
But Kordell was more like Korsmell, and the Bus got a flat. And Tom Brady knows how to throw a football to his guys, and his guys know to get the down and out of bounds and stop the clock immediately instead of running and screwing up and dropping it or having it stripped from their hands (ahem, Bus? Hello? That'd be YOU!)
My buddy Chad, the soon to be father to twin boys, was thinking of taking the night off of work so he could watch the game. I sure hope he didn't... it would have been the equivalent of taking time off of work to shoot yourself in the head.
I'm all about the Patriots -- I love them. But. I love the Steelers. So when they meet I'm happy one wins. But. But but but... I love seeing a GOOD game instead of a shellacking. And I got to witness a shellacking. last night. I went to bed before the start of the fourth quarter.
But I'm totally in a better mood today. In spite of.
I have been actively working on the food pantry for the church over the last few days and have come to find out that the pantry we supplied wasn't calling us for food not because they had enough but because they closed down.
I think that perhaps there isn't a need for us to maintain a pantry, because they're gone. The coordinator is retiring and moving to Minnesota to be close to her family. There is no one in their church taking it over.
The other food pantries in the area are all set for their own storage space... so when I think about it clearly, we serve no further purpose other than to supply ourselves or to be there if the local police or fire department let us know they come across a need. Which hasn't happened in years.
So I'm going to talk to Doug about what he thinks we should do, and talk to our vestry.
But... in the meantime, our pastor's wife used to supply protein products to a group that fed kids in Haiti. The guy had called me in the spring and he and I played phone tag all summer. He's coming up here on Friday to gather what he can take which can be shipped down. So I'll be able to unload all our tuna fish, peanut butter, dried and condensed milk... that kind of stuff. I'd like to keep supporting them, because they do really good work. They also are looking for toiletries for the kids, so I'm going to start a drive for that which they can pick up in a month.
I don't want to stop doing some community service in some form. If we stop the food pantry -- I want our parish to be involved with something... we don't have a huge outreach program. In fact, this is it really. So dropping the pantry would really dissolve our participation in helping the rest of the planet. There's a lot to think about... and I don't like thinking (grin).
I can't find my car keys, again.
I have half the set, I split them up one day when Jessica needed my house key, and the house key is the glue that holds the set together. The half that is missing is to the car I have sitting in the driveway. The other half is to the car Doug has right now.
So I had to borrow my tenant's car this morning.
She is the best. I LOVE YOU JEN!!!!!!! I got Geoff to school on time, but only after I dumped all our dirty laundry out in the yard looking for the pair of shorts that I wore yesterday. No keys in the pocket. I didn't freak, yell, panic, or get nasty the way I've done in the past. I know they are somewhere around here. Hell, I used them yesterday. They can't have gone far. Geoff told me the keys were "in the laboratory..." his word for this seat. He thinks the computer is in his laboratory, like he's Dexter or something. But they aren't.
So I'm trapped here for the day. I have a baby shower gift that I have to go pick up, so I guess I have to wait for Doug to get home and go do that. Sigh. I wanted to run some errands... meh.
I have a confession to make. I think I'm being kept here in the house by Divine Intervention. My house is a mess. A wreck. A pigsty.
My house looks a mess -- and I've procrastinated, dragged my feet, made excuses, watched Jerry Springer and Law & Order in efforts to evade having to do anything about it.
But I can't deal with it anymore.
I deliberately stopped cleaning up a few weeks ago because I was sick to death of picking up, leaving a room, walking back in and finding that everything had been undone. I do the dishes, clean the stovetop, make everything nice, then Doug hits the kitchen... makes an ungodly mess and leaves trash in the sink. That's right. Trash IN the sink. If he opens a packet of pasta, the box or the plastic sleeve goes in the sink instead of the trash. Cuts tomatoes? The stem goes to the sink. Brews iced tea? Tea bags -- in sink.
The livingroom. I pick up all the toys. I vacuum under the couch. I clean the top of the table. Geoff comes in. Food everywhere. Crayons, paper, toys. Everywhere.
The dining table... well, that's my bad. I fuck that one up all the time. I fold laundry in my room, walk out the door and put it on the dining table in part of a step to get it to Geoff or Jess' room.
But then I never take it the rest of the way there. So I absorb all the blame for that.
Jessie's room is a nightmare right now because the puppy keeps using it as his personal poop and pee grounds. We clean it up, reprimand him, try and correct his behavior... he does it again. The room is fairly clean, but the carpet needs an industrial sized shampooer applied to it and fast. I can't stand going in there. I don't know how the poor girl sleeps in there. Feh!
But it doesn't bother her.
Our whole family. We're lazy asses. We don't clean up after ourselves... and when the boil comes to a head, I'm the one who pops.
I made serious efforts yesterday after I finished working with Professor MF. But to no avail... it's all undone today.
I am Sisyphus. This is my rock.
Why am I this way? I think that I learned a lot from the way I grew up. I inherited the skills of housekeeping from my mom. Not to disrespect her or anything...
I know she's reading -- and I don't want her to think I harbor some sort of left over childhood angst because she didn't keep a meticulously clean house and drill me to death to clean my room and do chores. She pretty much let us be and do what we wanted. If our rooms were messy -- whatever. And I liked that kind of freedom. But it definitely didn't prepare me for home management of my own. The lack of an upkeep of the home gene is part of my DNA. And I married someone with that same genetic defect. And like two people getting together who carry the CF gene -- we've passed it on to our kids. We are sloth siblings and should have never mated.
I do the mandatory. Don't get me wrong.
I keep the dishes clean, and the laundry clean. The bathroom sink and toilet -- clean. The tub wasn't clean when we moved in and looks permanently dirty even though I scrub that bastard weekly.
The laundry is clean but not put away. The daily mail piles up on the table next to Doug's seat on the couch.
The study -- a paper bomb went off in here. There are books, and junk mail, and CD cases...
My bedroom is a wasteland of clothing that does not fit, read and unread books and magazines piled up beside and under the bed. The Nordic Track is a clothes horse because Doug can't get over to the closet to hang anything up on a regular basis.
The content of the house is disheveled and disorganized. Even though I've made several attempts at organization and resheveling. It is a sad, sorry state of affairs. I had a long list of things to do when I got laid off. So far only a fraction of them have gotten done.
Today I'm taking on Geoff's room. I need to go through all the toys and get rid of anything resembling a toddler toy or younger. I need to go through all his clothing and get rid of anything under a size 7 and archive for future use anything that got dumped in there which is larger than size 8. I need to get him a bedframe. His mattress and boxspring are on the floor - I want to either build a platform for him and have shelves and storage under, or just get a used bedframe someplace.
He took fingerpaint and painted his bedroom walls a few weeks ago -- so I have to repaint.
I think one of my problems is, that when the rock rolls over me down to the bottom of the hill, the way it does every night, I get tired and frustrated. I get shell shocked. I get sad. I give up. Then, I get renewed desire, like today. Maybe my mom had that same problem -- that sense of "whattayagonnado."
Today though, I'm reborn. Rededicated to the cause. I'll see it through to its clean conclusion -- (only to see it all undone again, I'm sure...) Maybe my keys are in his bedroom.
Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment