So...Much...Cleaning!

I have a friend coming to stay with me for a few days. We've never met before, because we were virtual colleagues, but we've kept in touch and I've really enjoyed her friendship.

Unfortunately for all concerned, I'm that kind of person. Meaning that when I have company I'm most comfortable if there's been some kind of effort made to make sure that the place doesn't look like:

1. A bomb hit it
2. Frat boys live here, spewing empty pizza boxes and beer bottles at regular intervals and leaving items to rot in the refrigerator until they either become science projects or actual college students
3. The home of someone who is about to be parted with his/her children by Family Services on grounds of not providing an appropriate home

When I'm left to my own devices, all of these types of entropy and more happen in fairly short order. Lately I've been fortunate enough that a specific human comes to my house once or twice a week, and that tends to keep things reasonable. I do things out of respect for this human that I wouldn't do for myself (like picking up most of the shoes that tend to congregate under the coffee table, and keeping the fridge clean and happy, and cleaning the bathrooms as though the ladies on "How Clean Is Your House? were invading with swabs to count bacteria). I don't know why I don't respect myself enough to do those things for me. I kind of wish I did, because I actually enjoy having the place clean. It is so exciting to be able to get up on a Saturday and just make tea or coffee without washing a tea/coffepot, a mug, a spoon, and a coffee/tea measuring device. Thrilling!

Unfortunately, the afore-mentioned human isn't around any longer, and so it's taken a couple of weeks to shake the place free from the entropy-gnomes. I have collapsed and recycled moving boxes. I have found homes for all that weird shit that needs a home (like the cords to every electrical device I've ever owned--hands up if you need another RCA cable! No, I thought not.). I have unearthed the guest room bed. I have purchased pillows to live inside the guest room bed's nice shams, and said shams have been ironed and stuffed and lovingly arranged on the actual guest room bed. I have purged my wardrobe of clothes that won't be worn again. I have found the surfaces of my desk, kitchen counters, and coffee table. I have vacuumed up some of the many, many, many colonies of spiderwebs.

(An aside. Did anyone ever notice that Charlotte's web never had a pile of carcasses under it all the time? Charlotte was one dainty spider. I think she hid the bodies to avoid freaking Wilbur out. My spiders aren't so particular. I think my own frat-boy mentality has been a corrupting influence. And let me just say that based on each spider's body count I'm in no hurry to evict any spiders, because I'd be overrun with other insects.)

At this point the guest could walk in and although there would be things that would bug me, it would all be copable. I'd just like to fix a few more things before she comes. Too bad work starts tomorrow...