Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts
By Alyce Wilson
May 19, 2005 - Short and Sweet
Copyright
2005 Fox Broadcasting
I've got to make this brief because I've got an insanely busy day today.
Last night, American Idol viewers made their choice, and Vonzell Solomon was sent home. This wasn't a surprise, because it was all but guaranteed that Bo Bice would be in the finals. The big question was which female contestant would go home.
I'm guessing that Carrie beat out Vonzell because her raw talent still offers more potential, and she seems to have more substance than the Dizzy Diva, Baby V.
I'm excited to see what will happen next week, as host Ryan Seacrest has promised the most impressive finals ever, whatever that means. Should be fun.
For the past week, I've spent every morning over at my old apartment,
cleaning. The Gryphon and I tackled the bathroom and kitchen areas on
Sunday, but it's amazing how much more there is to do. Why, only in my
small bedroom, there were the walls, the baseboards, the doors, the windows,
and the window blinds.
I'm convinced that there are few things more evil than dirty window blinds. Few people know that they are actually one of the punishments in Purgatory. I suppose if I took a Zen attitude to them, the repetitive motion of wiping each slat clean could be a sort of meditation. But not when all I can think about is how much cleaning them slows me down when there's so much more to do!
Today I cleaned the refrigerator, which had a pool of congealed syrup at the bottom that was, I believe, a week from becoming sentient. Fortunately, some hot water and persistence headed off an international incident. My hands, however, still smell of maple.
The ultimate goal is to have the apartment ready for a carpet cleaner to come in on Sunday. Then I can hand over the keys and be done with the old place for good. That will free me up to concentrate on all the oodles and oodles of work to do at the new place.
So far, The Gryphon and I have made some small steps towards making our place more comfortable. For example, we bought a couch cover to make his old sofa more presentable. Before putting it on, I cleaned the entire couch with upholstery cleaner. Now that the cover is on, it's amazing how much of a difference it makes.
We also bought a wireless door bell, which The Gryphon installed last night. Our front porch has the sort of heavy duty wooden door upon which hardly makes a sound when people knock on it. We did, of course, have a backup doorbell in my dog, Una, but silly us, we ignored her and missed the plumber when he came by the other night.
They're still working on transforming the clawfoot tub so that it has a shower. Apparently, this requires a custom built part which he's still in the process of having manufactured. In the meantime, we've been taking baths, which I find relaxing, to be honest. As a child, I always took baths in the evening before going to bed.
The last time I took daily baths, instead of showers, was when I spent two weeks in London in 1990. My College Roommate, also my hotel roommate, and I discovered that, while there was always a line for the small, mildewy shower on the second floor, there was seldom a line for the two spacious tubs on the top floor. We took leisurely baths in the morning each day during our visit.
Una seems to be adjusting quite nicely to the new place. For one thing, she seems to have less anxiety when one of us leaves. She's been investigating the boxes stacked around the place and must have figured out that a good number of them belong to The Gryphon. I think she understands that he and I both live here now, and that she doesn't need to fear about him taking off and not returning for two days, as he did when he had a separate apartment.
She also
isn't quite as compulsive about following me from room to room. Instead,
I'll find her stretched out on the mattress in the bedroom, or enjoying
the cool downstairs. Even with all the boxes and disarray, this place
is starting to feel like home.
More Musings on American Idol:
Moral:
You never realize how dirty your place is until you start to clean it.
Copyright
2005 by Alyce Wilson
What
do you think? Share your thoughts
at Alyce's message board (left button):
