Korea day

 

Today was a Korea kind of day. Something about the air and the feel of the humidity as it lightly enveloped each measured step. Not the soul-crushing, melt-your-socks-off, leave-you-a-jiggling- puddle-of-gelatinous-goo kind of humidity of deep summer. This was more of a climb-the-mountain kind of humidity or a walk-to-the-coffee-shop kind of humidity.  A Saturday kind of humidity. A day of kids playing in the street and old men playing goh in the park.  A day you felt like you were one of the crowd even though you never were and never could be.

 

Something in the way the sun shone through the  gentle cover of light cloud. Something about the cicadas whirring and the traffic zipping by. Something in the very smell, some infinitely indefinable and slow, yearning thing.

 

 

A climb the mountain kind of humidity

Hello. My Name is Michele and I Have a Cleaning Problem: Little Secrets, Part II

I have a cleaning problem, I’ll admit it. Or perhaps I should say a lack-of-cleaning problem.

Actually I used to be quite the cleaner.  Merry Maids had nothing on me. I cleaned once a week whether it was needed or not.

And then I got pregnant…and had a baby…and…somehow I just haven’t really picked up where I left off (get it? picked up? heh. umm, okay…)

Fortunately, I still try to stay tidy. I try not to let my quite considerable amount of stuff expand unchecked into walkways or onto stairs. In sum, I do my best to maintain at least a level of safe walking conditions.  And just this very morning I tidied the table (and by tidied I mean moved all the piles around into other piles elsewhere. In fact, my life is rather subsumed by piles.).

Also fortunately, I have a husband who cannot abide uncleanliness. And instead of assuming that his little woman will provide him the cleanly comfort to which he, as a man and the main breadwinner of the household (of which he is of course the head), would like to become accustomed, he picks up the vacuum and the mop and the vinegar and the baking soda and the sponge and bless his little heart if he doesn’t clean the hell out of the house EVERY SINGLE WEEK.  I tell him it is too much (he even MOVES THINGS when he vacuums, moves them out of the way so he can get to the carpet underneath them) but he pays nary a scant amount of attention. Have you ever heard of anyone complaining because their husband cleans too much?  But I feel guilty for not cleaning since I am home all day every day socializing our infant son. (and also blogging) (but not very much! Hi, Troy! I love you!)

Usually Sometimes I will put the coffee pot away without rinsing it.  Quite frequently Occassionally I will just kind of rinse off my dishes with (cold) water and call it clean (unless company is coming! really!)  The laundry lists of how to avoid any teensy bit of contact between one’s child and germs that they write in “ladies’ magazines” just exhaust me.  And the quite amazing abundance of germ-killing products available is daunting.

Because, when it is all said and done, what is life without a little good clean dirt?

This is pretty much how I was to be found on any given day in my childhood.

(And also, when I was a baby, I managed to pick some horse manure off the boots of one of my parent’s friends (we lived in the country) and I PUT IT IN MY MOUTH. So you could probably say with veracity that I am really full of shit.)