Philosophy,housekeeping, redecorating, eye glasses, memories and a slightly skewed 1950's childhood.

If Miro called the birds "twittering machines," what are we? Perhaps we are chattering machines, a species that simply cannot shut up.

Why should I be different?

So, onto a brief biography. I was raised in Ohio among the kind of people who had a maid in every one or two weeks to do the ironing. Sometimes with family members, they'd come to strip and wax the linoleum, or to wash windows and walls and hang summer curtains. Life has gone on, as it tends to, and now I'm a woman who does these tasks for myself.

Don’t get me wrong. My grandparents weren't rich, but things were different in the 30’s and 40’s, and for a short period right after WWII. If you had a steady income that made you king of a small hill, and you could employ folks whose employment was less steady. My mother grew up with a sort of Queen complex, and despised housekeeping as something "ordinary" women did.

As a result, when times got tough, I became, by default, her Cinderella. I wasn’t as clever as Mom was, and my wits are still a little slow. I attribute this to having been born in Pisces, and, moreover, to having an identity that is somehow mixed up with turtles. Personally, I have a shell and a tendency to pull in my head, arms and legs when things scare me. Because I don’t see very well, this used to be a lot of the time. I spent my childhood ducking--until they got me a pair of glasses.

“She can read,” my parents protested when it was brought to their attention by the school nurse that I couldn't see the blackboard. “She’s got her head in a book all the time.” (Books were a darn good place to hide!)

After I got glasses, I spent a lot of time looking for them, as I don’t seem to have been endowed with what other people call “habits.” I’m constantly in motion, like some unsteady new-born molecule. Always in walking in circles, except for when I’m sitting, reading, fretting or staring at T.V. or at trees and leaves and clouds, things I can finally see and always enjoy seeing.

~~Look at the sunlit detail. The leaves have two sides, one light, one dark. The bark is gray scales and shadow, like grooves left by some ancient river.~~


Maybe I had attention deficit before anyone named it. At any rate, this was supposed to be about house-cleaning.

O.K., back on track!

As someone who came to housekeeping early, I do have favorites. Some, like vacuuming, I will never love. Simply put, I hate noise, and until someone invents a silent vacuum, I will not enjoy it, although the house looks so much perkier after it is done.
That is, in fact, the main trouble with mopping the kitchen floor. You have to vacuum first. Today I embarked on the task, long neglected. Like the old joke, my get-up-and-go has mostly got up went. I’m sixty, but not one of those glamorous, healthy sixties you see on T. V. Nor have I ever been Martha Stewart, or wanted to be. Some of my mother’s attitude still hangs on, deep in my soul. I get to these chores when I can.

I’ve always enjoyed mopping floors, even while courting depression by ruminating while doing so, but my new kitchen floor is particularly fine. I asked for it, when the kitchen redo driven by my husband was on-going. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t wanted linoleum, as it’s kind of a pain. It is real, genuine linoleum, the kind Bert sings about, and I love it with the same dedicated passion he seems to feel.

You have to go out of your way and look for linoleum. You have to pay for it, too, but it has lately been declared “green.” That is not, however, why I originally wanted it. I wanted it because of the color. Vinyl may come in great primary colors, but when we were floor shopping, I didn’t see it.

My kitchen floor is now yellow, or, to be exact “straw.” Actually, it is more like good hay, drying in the sun, the kind of yellow I used to see walking across high summer fields in Ohio.

When we bought the floor, the rest of the room had to be coordinated with it. Maybe this was an odd way to pick colors for a kitchen, to begin at the bottom, but it worked. Our house is small, old and idiosyncratic. The kitchen is dark, having only one window, so the addition of yellow brightens the room considerably.

"La-la-la Linoleum!" I love it dearly despite the extra effort to maintain.