Sweet Home Feeling

There are a few houses that I clean that give me that sweet home feeling. I like to be there. I like what's around me. I feel rejuvenated with ideas and creative yearning by the time I leave. I forget the fact that these houses are usually very cluttered. I like the clutter in these places.

Gilda Crafts owns one of these "sweet" homes. Built in the early 30's as a summer home for a dentist, this place "rocks". Literally. This California Expanded Bungalo is made from a massive quantities of large grey quarry rocks. When the local resevoir was being excavated and expanded; this dentist traded dental work for the wonderful stone work done by Italian laborers. The result is a stone craftsman cottage bungalo to die for with a floor to ceiling walk -in fireplace in the living room.

To make things all the more sweeet. Gilda and her daughter Bess are artists. Bess is a painter. Gilda is a crafter, silversmith, quilter, bead-er (is that what they're called?). The house walls are lined with Bess's provocative and bold floral paintings and abstracts. The windows glitter with Gilda's stained glass pieces. The furniture is draped with hand-made quilts the colors of sherbert. The house is a dream for me to clean.

I dust around projects in the making, craving the time I can get home and try the same. Gilda's creations make me giddy with ideas. I imagine spending hours creating decoupage boxes, collages, quilted and beaded purses, wall hangings made from ribbon and buttons and lace. It's funny, though, because when I get home..the reality of a house that's mine sets in. I temporarily loose the giddy, and gain the overdrive needed to pick up my own life.

In the summer, Gilda's garden is my fantasy hobby. I see her reveling in her herbs and vegetables, pulling a weed here and there, cultivating a bit of soil. I dream of spiffing up my own garden. Me with my wide brimmed sun hat, my shimmering pruning shears, my rustic basket overflowing with a harvest of tomatoes and peppers. I am usually uprooted into reality when I pull in my yard and peek over the hedge. The tall,angry weeds say hello.

In the fall, the kitchen counters are lined with breads, bars, and cookies. Jars of pesto and tomatoes are perched on the window sill. Herbs hang upside down to dry. I dream of baking, with a floral apron, and my hair piled high held tight with a clasp and a streak of flour on my cheek. The aroma fills my kitchen and people enter smiling and eager to taste. I think of this dream sometimes, as I open the microwave to defrost a quick dinner for my hurried teens. It hurts.

At least Gilda's home gives me something to store in my mind...the revolving "to do one day" list, that hardly ever gets checked off. I want to be Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart, and Rachel Ray! I want to be smiling and floating and creating. I don't want harsh words to set me back, or demands for laundry or dog walks to cut into my fantasy.

I dream of a day that my house is the little , clean, organized, fragrant, plush, and sweet, sweet home that lives in my alter universe.

The Closet

Do you remember "The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis? Well, if you are not familiar, the story goes like this: Some kids find a closet (wardrobe) , they open the door and walk into a amazing fantasy world. Today I found a closet, walked in, and found an amazing nightmare.

I should be more precise in explaining that under no condition could I have ever actually walked into that closet. I simply could stand outside of the closet and stare in with my mouth open. My job was to clean it out. Like every job in Cara Purchase's apartment, it was an outrageous undertaking involving many Hefty Flex lawn and leaf garbage bags. Cara is a compulsive shopper.

At 63, Cara is the youngest resident in the upscale assisted living facility. After falling off a horse, onto her head when she was 8, Cara has had an "assisted" life. Living her entire life off a trust fund, arrangements have been made and Cara can do most everything. She can drive (sort of ), can shop (excessively), can knit (planning to knit a blanket to cover the earth), and can sew (another earth-covering garment.)

Cara can take care of herself and her cat...to a point. She is a very large woman and has some medical issues including short term memory loss. She needs assistance remembering to eat a regular meal, and take her meds. She needs help cleaning. These items are all taken care of by the assisted living facility. Shady Acres does a great job. Cara likes it there.

I was hired by Cara's brother and sister-in-law, Red and Queeny Hobby. Red grew up watching over his sister. Lately, the job has been too much. The excessive quantity of stuff that Cara purchases and deposits in her apartment on a daily basis is killing Red. He just couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't walk in after a month and see the damage. I was hired to be Cara's organization guru. I been there every week . It's been a hefty (no pun) job.

The first day I was there, I took out 5 Jumbo lawn and leaf bags of stuff...and I had only organized her tiny galley kitchen and table.

"Cara, do you think you'll need 15 cans of powdered lemonade mix?"

"Shit, heavens, hell ...oh sorry...no! Do you know anyone that could use them?" she'd spurt

I was instructed by Red that I DID know someone who would take every last THING in that apartment. Cara was a good-hearted and giving soul. She loved the idea of donating her stuff to someone who really needed it.

"I want to de-crapify this joint, ya know? I have a plan to simplify!" Cara instructed

I said 'Well, I have a place where I can take anything you want to get rid of!"

After the first visit, I went to a food pantry with 4 large trash bags full of non-perishables.

After the second visit, I went to the homeless shelter with many tubes of toothpaste, and hemorroidal creme. I also had endless bottles of vitamins, shampoo, deodorant. I had razors, and dental floss, and soap and laundry detergent, and hand creme and foot powder. The director of the shelter was speechless.

"Who collected all this for us?" he asked

I just smiled. It was too long of a story. How can you explain an obsessive/compulsive disorder casually. It's sometimes just too weird.

400 mechanical pencils, 30 little fat notebooks, 28 word-find books, 7 "grabbers", 250 pens, 10 rulers, 17 brand new wallets. Why? I can't ask her and I can't explain. She doesn't know why she buys, she's not apologetic, she wants to give her apartment a "crap-ectomy".

The most amazing thing is the yarn. She's on her fourth baby blanket this month...for the poor babies. She brings them to the senior center , she says. She always has to stay stocked-up with yarn, for the poor babies. Today when I came in, 3 months after I started; Cara explained that she was on her fourth baby blanket this month for the poor babies. The number never changes. She never finishes a blanket. In the meantime, I've removed over 300 skeins of yarn . Cara has donated them to my church. Last week they started a prayer shawl ministry.

It's been a long 3 months as I've worked my way toward Cara's walk-in closet. I never had opened the door before today. Cara said she had a few things that she needed sorted and hung up in there.She said I could work on it one day when I got a chance. Today was the day, I opened the door and I wanted to evaporate. From floor to ceiling of this huge 6 X 10 foot space were mounds of trash bags. Only a magician would know how she hoisted them up on top of each other. Intermingled within trash bags were miltitudes of smaller Walmart and CVS bags, and loose clothes and coats and shoes, and oh yes...yarn.

"Oh shit, hell, oh.........sorry, shit! We really need to de-crapify in there!" exclaimed Cara as she sat heavily on her bed.

The closet.

The closet!

Another Snow Day

This time it's cancelling church school. Snow knows no bounds on disrupting any sort of education.

In a Shrine at 97

Joy Booker was 96 when she begrudgingly moved in with her daughter and son-in-law. She was having a hard time getting around alone in her house , and couldn't drive anymore. Joy was feisty and full of faculties otherwise. Her daughter , Sadie, had just felt like it was time.

Sadie and her husband, Clip, had just put on a new addition. Their 24 year-old son, Jude, had recently moved back home after graduating from college and doing a short stint with the Peace Corps. With the extra space, Joy fit in fine. Plenty of bathrooms, plenty of sitting room, plenty of shelving and flat surfaces to create a shrine.

Two weeks after Joy settled in, she was awakened by her daughter's piercing screams. She tells me the story frequently now.

"I heard Sadie's screams. I had never heard screams like that before. I won't ever forget that noise." she tells

When Joy tells the story, she seems somber, but still sparked with vitality and light. The twinkle doesn't quite disappear as she tells of her grandson's death.

"He was such a good boy, so full of life! He had so many friends, God love him...everyone loved Jude."

When Joy tells me the story, we are both standing in the shrine. The house is now Jude's shrine. Not a flat surface or space of wall is without a photo of Jude.

"I've never seen a kid that had so many pictures taken of him. Our baby..my dear son..." Clip choked back the tears, then lost the battle while I was dusting the photos on the window one day.

Clip picked up one with Jude crouched in his room, in a toddler-sized baseball outfit, hat askew , a devilish smile. Jude was brandishing a mini bat.

"This one is my favorite." he said, touching his calloused finger to Jude's image.

I smelled the alcohol on Clip's breath. It was 10:00am. It was three days before the year anniversary of Jude's drinking accident.

"July 22nd! That date will always be a nightmare date. When I see it coming on the calender, I can barely hold on. July 22nd! July 22nd." He groaned

I felt like I was punched in the stomach. July 22nd was my birthday. I must have looked pale, because Clip stopped and said.

"I'm so sorry, burdening you with all this...are you ok?"

"No, no...you are NOT burdening me. I'm just so sad for you...and for everyone, Clip, for everyone." I said firmly

I was sad for Sadie, who, a year later, could not clean out her son's room. I was sad for Clip who fondled Jude's photos, I was sad for Jude, who was at his welcome home party from the Peace Corps, drank too much, passed out and choked on his own vomit. The party was 5 houses away from his parent's.

I am forever sad for Joy, sitting in "The Shrine" wondering why she is still here and her grandson isn't.

"God must have been done with Jude and not with me." she said while flipping the tv stations with the jumbo-buttoned clicker.

"Sometimes I can't understand....what am I good for now? Why didn't God take me? Look at me...just a bump on a chair." she said smiling

I couldn't smile, I was holding back my tears. With every photo, I dust them with regret for the family. Here is Jude with his first puppy, his cousins, his baseball team. Now Jude is at the prom, at graduation and standing with his arm around his proud father.

Jude was an only child. He was adopted when he was an infant. Sadie and Clip tried for so long, but couldn't have their own. Jude was their dream, their gift, and their intentional pride.

Jude on the ski mountain with his buddies, Jude in his uniform at college, Jude on the beach tan and smiling, Jude walking a dirt path in Chile, Jude kissing his newborn nephew, Jude smiling into his mother's eyes.

Joy likes the one of Jude as a 1 year-old sitting on her lap while she read to him. It sits on the table next to her chair.

"I still love to read!" Joy says, showing me the racy novel with the large print.

Why is Joy still here, in the shrine? I can't answer that question. It seems the largest of ironies, conundrums, mysteries of life. Mysteries of death are worse. Old people eventually die. Young people aren't supposed to. What does Jude think about this. He knows the truth, I'm sure.

Jude, please whisper it in your grandmother's ear one day soon. She's in the shrine all day long, mostly alone; just you and her. She wondering .

Mind -Boggling Cleaning Blitz

Today I cleaned 3 houses before 2pm....by myself. No, I don't have a cape. I did it only out of necessity...to make a parent/teacher conference at the school for 2:15. What a mother will do to stay employed and have a family. I'm sure there are far better examples than I out there...like the guy in "Pursuit of Happyness."

I had to start fairly early to accomplish this...like 7am. Luckily I could. The Kirbys are long gone by then and I had the place to myself finally...the holiday guests were over! Another factor that helped was the distance between the 3 houses. A cinch. Two are on the same street and the third was a 10 minute drive. The last part of the equation, was that 2 houses were only 2 hour houses...and the third was arranged to be a 2 hour house, even though it sometimes takes me longer.

The third house is inhabited by my dear client, Poplin Cross. Poplin Cross is a client that I tend to refer to as my spiritual mentor. When I say "Well, I was speaking to my spiritual mentor and...." I don't mention that I'm usually speaking to my spiritual mentor while I'm washing her kitchen floor. That would just sound extra weird. I mean, who even has a spiritual mentor these days, anyway? Well, I certainly do. I could call her my spiritual psychic, because sometimes she just reads my mind.

Poplin evolved into someone that I could recognize as a mentor. At first, she was someone who simply asked a few discreet questions and did a lot of head nodding. I would clean and talk and talk and clean...before I knew it..I was a little bit healed. It took me about a year to realize what was happening. Poplin was listening to me and helping me work out my issues by guiding me. What a gift.

Poplin considers herself handicap and is retired with this disability. Arthritis claimed her teaching career but made her more spirit-filled. She is an elder at a sort of Pentecostal church, is very holy, no cable TV, romance novels, etc. Poplin is also addicted to "addictive games.com" on the Internet and loves to shop online. She is the queen of bargain shopping, especially in the bedding department. She's always brandishing great buys on flannel sheets and dust ruffles. I say, whatever makes you put more money into the economy...so be it!

Poplin is divorced , a proud mother of a 40 year old son, her ex-husband :12 years in the grave. She 's got it together. She makes small neck pillows and eye pillows filled with flax seed and lavender. She makes hair scrunchies and plastic shopping bags dispensers and sells at crafts fairs. She makes enough to buy more material and books about Jesus. She's my spiritual mentor.

"What shall I do about my son who can't get excited about school?" I say, twisting the cotton mop inside the bucket.

"What are his gifts? " she'll say
or
"Maybe God hasn't opened that door yet for him, give him love and time."

I walk out of there ready to love, forgive, and start a prayer group every time. I'm not the type you'd see at a prayer group, so that falls apart instantly. But I can say I love a little bit more during the afternoons and early evenings once I leave Poplin's tiny house.

Once, when I first met my now fiance', he asked a question that I couldn't answer. Something under the topic of living together. I told him I couldn't answer him until I talked with a friend. I couldn't wait to clean Poplin's house that next week to talk it over. I walked in and she seemed to know right away that I had something on my mind.

Gathering up her pillow-making materials, Poplin set herself up in the kitchen as I began my routine. She wanted to be where I was, she knew I needed her. I turned to her and smiled a sad smile.

"It wasn't the right question was it?' she said, all-knowing

I looked surprised. I thought about it. I said "Ya, you're right."

That was all we said that day.

Three years later, the right question was asked and a ring was slipped on my finger. The first person I called was Poplin.

The Worst Winter

My son's best friend announced to me in August that "This is gonna be the worst winter in history!" Worse for who, I wondered.

My 15 year-old son looked at me with a "Ya, you wait, we're gonna have a million snow days" look. I laughed and said to my son's friend, "Really, have you been taking meteorology classes, J.R.? I bet you say that at the start of every school year! Wishful thinking!"

J.R. turned out to be right. It's January 7th, and the kids have already missed 8 days due to weather. Today is the 8th day. I'm home because the house I'm scheduled to clean is owned by and husband and wife who are both high school teachers. They are home and say the roads are awful. Are snow days happy days for teachers? I'll have to ask them sometime.

On Dec 12th, this area had an ice storm which crippled us for over a week. Hundreds of thousands were without power when trees snapped like potato chips under the huge weight of the ice. We were without power or heat for 6 days. We were one of the luckier ones, with only two trees through the roof.

I had to shipped my teens off to their friends' houses who had wood stoves or generators. I had neither. What I did have was a large old sweet dog who I couldn't readily pack up and move into a hotel with. So, my fiance' and I stayed at the 37 degree house at night, and took my dog Rose out for slow runs when the sun came out each day to warm her up. Thankfully, Rose has a fur coating that would put any bear to shame.

My clients were out of power as well, so I lost a week of work. It was not a pleasant occurrence 2 weeks before Christmas. My kids were in "snow day" heaven. My son was staying at J.R.'s house. I guess J.R.'s father must have the inside scoop on the weather, because he immediately ran out and got the last generator in stock at the local Home Depot.

The area was deemed a "State of Emergency". The high school was a shelter. Light companies and tree companies from different states were summoned to get the streets cleared of trees and power lines back up. I have never seen anything like it.

After a week, this kids got back to school on a Thursday. Thursday evening we got 18 inches of now and school was cancelled Friday. "Snow Day!!" J.R. was clapping wildly while watching the school closing announcements, I'm sure. "I told her so!" he was thinking, with the evil teenage grin.

This has been the worst winter ever for adults. I think it has even topped the blizzard of '78. Well, back in the blizzard of '78 , I was 15. My opinion may be skewed.

Right J.R.?

Tuesdays Are Crappy

When discussing the days of the week,; most people say they hate Mondays. I think Tuesdays are the crappiest day of the week. The day is non-descript and crappy. Monday is the day that could be filled with promise. Like New Year's Day...its the beginning of something. I will aim to start a new project, a new diet, or a new behavior on a Monday. Tuesdays are the backwash days of failed Mondays.

At one point in my working life, I swore to take Tuesday off. Then I wondered, "Would I still have a crappy day on Tuesday, even if I was lying around the house?" I also wondered if I'd start hating Wednesdays . So, I decided to just suck it up and get to work. Crappy won't kill me.

I think I may schedule my least favorite houses on Tuesday . To clarify this thought, I'd like to say that these houses (and clients) aren't necessarily my least favorite. They usually turn out to be the houses that I could happily give up for the week if anything else came up. I am very happy when it snows on a Tuesday. When the roads are just too bad to drive on , and a Tuesday client calls me concerned that I may not make it up their driveway; I am all too happy to bow out.

Today, after I did my first Tuesday house (which I happen to hate to vacuum because of the dark orientals and the two light dogs); I drove without passion to my second Tuesday house.

This home is nestled in the woods at the end of a long, thin driveway. Sometimes, when it's icy, I can't get up this driveway. Those are the days that I shrug my shoulders and say..."Oh well, I'll reschedule!" (It's Tuesday, you know).

The home nestled at the end of the long, thin, UPHILL, driveway that snakes through the woods is owned by the Bookers. Janis and Wire Booker are 55 and 66 respectfully. They have 2 college- aged children . Janis and Wire and their daughter, Aimee, were out of town for a few days visiting Janis' ailing mother. Their college-aged son was at home. It's the college holiday break!

When I drove up to the house, I discovered there was nowhere to park. There were 7 cars parked at various abnormal angles. Three cars belonged in the driveway, four did not. I called the house, not wanting to walk in unannounced. No one answered the phone. I parked behind a BMW with a bumper sticker of a cartoon boy peeing on a New York Yankees logo, and went up to the house. I rang the bell, no one answered. I knocked on the door and it pushed open, (sounds like a horror movie , doesn't it?)

"Helloooooo..... is there anyone home??" I crooned as I walked in the door. "Helloooooo."

Not a peep or a rustle or a footstep was heard. I turned the corner into the family room and saw why.

Like the cars strewed at odd angles in the drive, so were the young male bodies, fully dressed, some even with shoes....all passed-out. Many were using beer cans as pillows. One young man had a Red Sox hat over his face as he splayed on the braided carpet (obviously the Yankee hater). I recognized the Booker's son , Cape, curled up in front of the high def tv: a remote control was clutched to his chest like a teddy bear. There was a bottle of Peppermint Snapps on the baby grand piano (leaving a very sticky ring, I thought to myself.)

Well, this was worse than an icy driveway. I turned around and walked out the door.

"Goodnight" I said as I shut it.

I should have known. Eleven-thirty on a Tuesday morning. Parents and littler sister away. Tuesdays are crappy. If I were that age, I'd be passed out too.