I Have Been Putting That In My Mouth
I am not very domestically inclined. I keep a clean house with some help from a service. I can cook well with a recipe. I’m generally so busy that I overlook the small details. Grocery shopping irritates me. I don’t have the patience for domestic details while still enjoying an orderly house. It’s a constant battle.
This morning I was wide awake for some reason so I leaned down to pick up my tooth brush and I was horrified by what I was looking at. I thought, “OH MY GOD! I HAVE BEEN PUTTING THAT IN MY MOUTH!” The state of my tooth brush was shameful. I don’t really think about these things. Fortunately, by way of my mother’s training, I had a back up tooth brush, brand new and clean and it was nice to brush my teeth with that this morning. I am trying not to think about what diseases I have given myself with the former tooth brush. I need to put a reminder or something in my phone forcing me to change my tooth brush more than once every two years.
Yeah, I know. Total freak show here.
I am also not great about sheet changing. How often do you change your sheets? We’re all friends here. We can talk honestly about this. My mother changes sheets like three times a week. She is ultra clean. I have some of those habits but not all. Yesterday I changed my sheets. When I went to bed I was so excited because I had forgotten I had changed my sheets and sprayed them with lavender spray. My bed was so cool and inviting and clean. It was the greatest thrill and I was particularly glad that no one else was going to be putting their cooties on my sheets that night.
Confession: my mother still sends me sheets, towels, pots and pans, silverware, and dishes. When I need something, I call her and say, in a really pathetic way, that I need whatever I need. Like, oh, my towels are so scratchy. My poor skin. A few days later, fluffy towels! When I visit I go shopping in her closet and steal sheets because she is ready for the apocalypse where linens are concerned. I got dishes and wine glasses because I told her how my man friend came to my apartment and was super critical of my lack of kitchen supplies. Yeah, he’s… a piece of work but that’s not the point. She took it personally. Now I have pretty dishes. If you come over for a dinner party, you will love my plates.
This sounds immature and I am absolutely capable of acquiring these things for myself but I am also a really good daughter. When my parents call, pretty much daily, I always answer. I never sigh or roll my eyes. I listen to chatter about medical conditions and diagnose as needed without any medical expertise. I am on constant technical support call for the exact same questions—How do I cut/paste? What is wrong with my Flickr account? Face Time isn’t working! What is wrong with my computer that you are not looking at or thinking about right now?
I put in time.
As an aside, Obama’s emails are so irritating. I have tried to get removed from the various DNC email lists and it’s futile. Resistance is futile. The Borg taught us this and we should never forget. At one point, I wrote them and said, “How much will it cost me to be removed from these email lists?” I was willing to pay the price. They did not respond. So now, Obama e-mails me, and he’s all, “Hey girl,” and I start to think we have a real, soulful connection until I realize it’s just a mass email millions of other people are getting, too. I thought we had something special, he and I.
This is a long way of telling you that the other day I was thinking about cherries and I want to make this Nigella Lawson cherry almond bread because I like to bake but I was overwhelmed by the thought of having to pit all those cherries. What a pain. Then I thought, perhaps they have invented some kind of gadget for this purpose. I consulted Dr. Google and learned of this magical future device called a cherry pitter. I bought one and it arrived today so at some point today, I need to buy some cherries.
