Monday, October 14, 2013 – A Walk on the Domestic Side
Thanksgiving Sunday at around 1 pm, Laurence asked me the question that always makes my heart go pitter-pat… “Do you want to go for a hike?” If I were any hairier, I’d have raced around the house a few times and fetched a leash. It was a beautiful day – a balmy 20C, sunny, a slight breeze… Ahhh!
The thing you need to know about our hikes in the Conservation Area (or any area) is that:
a) I have no sense of direction and I know it, so I follow Laurence along like a lost pup.
b) Laurence has very little sense of direction, but he thinks he does, so he tromps gleefully around, saying we should be able to see “X” right ahead. We don’t, and then he says, “Hmm. Must be just around the NEXT corner.”
I truly don’t mind. OK, I always wish I’d brought a bottle of water and some toilet paper. But the more twisty and turny our path, the more of a hike I get. It’s all good.
*****
It wasn’t all good earlier in the day. We were getting ready to have company over – daughter Carolyn and her boyfriend Jeremy. We didn’t want them to see how slovenly we could get once the kids had moved out, so we decided to clean the house.
We don’t put much into it. I vacuum the floors and sweep the balcony and deck – that’s one hour and a bit. Laur washes the bathrooms, the bathroom floors, the kitchen floor and the front entrance – about one hour and 15 minutes. But it’s an excruciating one hour and 15 minutes. We both hate housework, and I’m terrible at it. Learned helplessness.
At one point Laur asked me when I was going to vacuum the kitchen floor so he could wash it. I told him I had already, and he bent over and picked up a handful of guck. Oops. Add another few minutes to my one hour and a bit.
When I was working, my first purchase was the services of someone to come in and clean our house. Now that I’m not working for pay – I can hardly justify not doing it. That Laurence, who has a job, is still willing to do half the cleaning is either a tribute to his character or his dislike of scummy bathrooms. (I reserve my elbow grease for the gym.)
*****
I confess, the house is much easier to clean and keep clean without our herd of cats and pack of dogs, plus whatever other companion animals we happened to be keeping at the time. But we do miss them a lot. Fortunately, I can get an occasional “cat fix” with our friends’ cat, Miss Kitty. But we have no dog in our immediate circle of friends.
When we were out walking along the shores of Bennett Lake today we felt like we were being accompanied by the ghosts of dogs past – scampering over the rocks and sloshing around in the water. We both commented that we really miss having a canine companion, but until our traveling days are over, it doesn’t make sense to have one. Boarding a dog or a cat, four to six months of the year, doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Nor do we or did we want to be accompanied by a bear. Laur wore bear bells on his belt loop today. I made up songs for him,
“Rings on his fingers and bells on his belt,
he shall make music inside the bear’s pelt!”
I think, to be quite honest, tinkling bells merely help the bears to find us. Today, thankfully, they weren’t hungry.
The thing you need to know about our hikes in the Conservation Area (or any area) is that:
a) I have no sense of direction and I know it, so I follow Laurence along like a lost pup.
b) Laurence has very little sense of direction, but he thinks he does, so he tromps gleefully around, saying we should be able to see “X” right ahead. We don’t, and then he says, “Hmm. Must be just around the NEXT corner.”
I truly don’t mind. OK, I always wish I’d brought a bottle of water and some toilet paper. But the more twisty and turny our path, the more of a hike I get. It’s all good.
*****
It wasn’t all good earlier in the day. We were getting ready to have company over – daughter Carolyn and her boyfriend Jeremy. We didn’t want them to see how slovenly we could get once the kids had moved out, so we decided to clean the house.
We don’t put much into it. I vacuum the floors and sweep the balcony and deck – that’s one hour and a bit. Laur washes the bathrooms, the bathroom floors, the kitchen floor and the front entrance – about one hour and 15 minutes. But it’s an excruciating one hour and 15 minutes. We both hate housework, and I’m terrible at it. Learned helplessness.
At one point Laur asked me when I was going to vacuum the kitchen floor so he could wash it. I told him I had already, and he bent over and picked up a handful of guck. Oops. Add another few minutes to my one hour and a bit.
When I was working, my first purchase was the services of someone to come in and clean our house. Now that I’m not working for pay – I can hardly justify not doing it. That Laurence, who has a job, is still willing to do half the cleaning is either a tribute to his character or his dislike of scummy bathrooms. (I reserve my elbow grease for the gym.)
*****
I confess, the house is much easier to clean and keep clean without our herd of cats and pack of dogs, plus whatever other companion animals we happened to be keeping at the time. But we do miss them a lot. Fortunately, I can get an occasional “cat fix” with our friends’ cat, Miss Kitty. But we have no dog in our immediate circle of friends.
When we were out walking along the shores of Bennett Lake today we felt like we were being accompanied by the ghosts of dogs past – scampering over the rocks and sloshing around in the water. We both commented that we really miss having a canine companion, but until our traveling days are over, it doesn’t make sense to have one. Boarding a dog or a cat, four to six months of the year, doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Nor do we or did we want to be accompanied by a bear. Laur wore bear bells on his belt loop today. I made up songs for him,
“Rings on his fingers and bells on his belt,
he shall make music inside the bear’s pelt!”
I think, to be quite honest, tinkling bells merely help the bears to find us. Today, thankfully, they weren’t hungry.