Weep & Moan
Weep & Mop
Sweep & Mop
No trouble with task delegation around here.
My sister called Tuesday morning to say that they would be coming to town to bury her husband’s grandmother somewhere on the northside of Chicago on Saturday, and could they bunk at our house on Friday night. Well, what kind of sister would turn down an opportunity to see family that she sees so infrequently? Not even I - though I knew it would mean a blitzkrieg of housework owing to a combination of more ‘out of the home’ work for me, more intense hours spent by Rick and the boys working on his charitable foundation (how was I to know I’d wake up one day married to the local Bob-freakin’-Geldof of the IT world?), the fact that I’ve never been a great homemaker anyway (The SHE card file worked for a while, then I got pregnant with Martha - in 1986. SHE meaning Sidetracked Home Executives, not She - A Magazine of positive and inspiring articles on women for lesbians. I tried restarting the card file but never quite got back on the wagon. The last time I was sidetracked by creating a lovely collaged wooden box in which to keep the 3 x 5 cards that I should have been using. Oh, well. The box looks nice. Especially when I brush away the patina of oleaginous dust...) So,yes, one could say that we are living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome)

Tuesday night I worked on school stuff and meditated upon my cleaning strategy. Franny actually posted some clear instructions on the dry erase board to get things started. Said instructions were surely read, if not followed.

Wednesday I returned from work to pick up Eddie for our promised expedition to the LEGO store. Someone had erased the ‘S’ from the word sweep. Wednesday we were to weep and mop.

Thursday morning, lots of planning, including a scheme to rush the oriental rug to the cleaners and and vacuum the ceiling of the upstairs bathroom. (Don’t ask...) The memo board now says weep and moan. But not much has been done. Rick and Chuck are moving computers about the county and I’m coming home from work early to be with Eddie and clean.

Karen calls me at work. “We’ve had a change in plans. I hope you won’t be mad.....” My panicked heart assuming that they would arrive tonight. But, instead, her in-laws wanted to put everybody up in a hotel so Karen’s husband could have some quality time with his brother and sister who both live out in some frontier type state. That makes sense. Very good sense. Now we can tidy up at a reasonable pace. And meet the cousins for lunch on Sunday before they return to the north woods. Maybe at the Tollway Oasis. Karen thinks that is a dining experience that her children would relish. And there just happens to be an Oasis about 3 miles away from here.