Archives from 2002-2006

Mar

6

Dispatch from spic-and-spanville

March 6, 2007

The housecleaners came yesterday and OH MY GOD, people. My house is so goddamn clean it’s insane. I can’t believe how great it looks—the floors were actually gleaming. I didn’t know the floors were capable of such a thing. Sure, a dull, smudged shine right after a thorough vacuuming, I’ve seen that before, but gleaming?

They did something fancy with the guest bathroom towels, even! Look at this:

I have no idea how they folded those. The towel somehow gets folded in half, then back up? I’m never touching them again. That’s right, I’ll be wiping my hands on my jeans from now on, you got a problem with that?

And check this out: that is my reflection. In the TOASTER. Do you know how grody our toaster normally is, with the fingerprints and the crumbs and so on?

Also, they cleaned underneath Riley’s crib, as evidenced by the odd placement of his under-the-bed octopus. Or maybe the octopus went there on its own, I’m not sure.

They cleaned the inside of the microwave, all our windows (even the giant windows in the front room, holy JESUS), the mirrors, the blinds, the counters, the floors (gleaming!), the tubs, under the couches, the toilets, the coffee-maker, the bookshelves, and I shit you not, they cleaned the leaves of my houseplants.

(Before anyone asks again, yes I’ve read Nickel and Dimed, and yes I agree that some housecleaning services are probably out to rip you off and treat their employees like crap. Maybe it’s best to avoid the big chain companies like Merry Maids, I don’t know.)

JB was home for a little while yesterday and said he saw one of the workers lifting off the top of the stove to get the whole thing cleaned. I . . . did not know the top of the stove could be lifted off. It’s now immaculate, by the way. You could, I don’t know, give birth on it. If you had to. I’m not saying it would be a good idea, I’m just saying you could do it confident in the fact that it was very, very clean.

Best $90 ever spent. Seriously. If you’re in the Seattle area, I highly recommend this company, and by the way you should check out SundryBuzz today because I’ve got a review posted about Angie’s List (where I found the cleaning service) and it includes a coupon you can use for a $10 discount on an Angie’s List membership, should you be in the market for such a thing.

Lastly, apropos of nothing, here is a photo illustrating Cat’s semi-clever, semi-annoying habit of ringing a bell when she wants to be let outside (I feel compelled to clarify that this was taken on Sunday and therefore the floors were not yet GLEAMING, and also Riley was getting over a cold and that’s what’s up with the super-pitiful expression).

41 Comments

Mar

4

Weekend recap

March 4, 2007

I’m not sure whether to chalk it up to an entirely unfamiliar surge of exercise-related endorphins, or the complete and utter upheaval the Weight Watchers Flex Plan is wreaking on my system thanks to its sorrowfully austere daily caloric allotment, but I cried—ACTUALLY TEARED UP, jesus—at the end of the Turbo Jam “Punch, Kick and Jam” DVD I sloppily followed along to this morning, because the instructor was so encouraging, and seemed so sincere, and told me how proud I should be of myself for doing the whole thing, because I deserve it.

Or maybe I was just really, really grateful it was over.

I can’t even remember the last time I did such an intense workout, and let me tell you why I was finally motivated to get off my ass and throw in the video—because if you exercise, in WW you earn ‘activity points’ that translate into food you can then EAT. And let me tell you, 20 points goes way too damn fast, and I don’t know what cruel god made rice cakes have actual CALORIES (what the everloving fuck, it’s a hunk of flavored styrofoam, even the dog isn’t interested in them and she’s been known to EAT HER OWN BARF) but on this particular system every single thing you eat must be accounted for and it all adds up so quickly. Even if you’re eating bullshit food like cans of green beans and salads made with cauliflower and broccoli (you want to talk about bedfarts, christ) and pitiful little bowls of cereal measured out in precise half-cup portions.

Oh, and let’s not forget cottage cheese. The only time in my life that I ever eat cottage cheese is when I’m dieting, and its squeaky, curdy texture is as nostalgic as listening to “Lady in Red”, only instead of picturing myself at a middle school dance, slowly circling at arm’s length with some Gotcha!-clad boy, I’m remembering all my other fakeout, you-think-you’re-eating-but-that’s-only-because-your-mouth-is-moving foods: low calorie popcorn, Diet Coke, pickles, baby carrots.

I bought all these foods the other day, to have an arsenal on hand when 9:30 PM rolls around and I start feeling as though I would kill—literally kill someone, maybe with an ice pick—for a box of Nutter Butters. I was rooting around in the pickle jar last night when JB did the waggling-eyebrow thing at me and said, “Pickles, hmm?” and I had to say it had nothing to do with pregnancy, for god’s sake. Dill pickles are all about having something crunchy to eat, and while they are a poor substitution for a peanut butter cookie, at least they feel somewhat substantial, unlike those beshitted rice cakes.

Also, they’re possibly the porniest food on earth, assuming you lasciviously suck the briny juice from the pickle after you fish it, dripping, from the jar.

In addition to flapping around in the living room to a workout video (it was an awesome workout but I’m sure I looked like a complete idiot trying to follow some of the more complicated punching-and-kicking moves. That’s one nice benefit of exercising at home: no one, aside from Riley, can see my lack of coordination, or my unattractively beet red face), my weekend has included, among other things, a trip to Pottery Barn Kids for a fantastic little armchair I was inspired to buy after seeing one at Ashley’s, and an impromptu pediatrician visit after Riley started looking very much like he had an eye infection (nope, just the byproduct of a cold, but he did have an infection in one ear for which he was prescribed antibiotics—a twice-per-day dosage for 10 days, does that seem like a long-ass time for a little kid to have to take Amoxicillin, or am I just paranoid?), and now, a mellow Sunday afternoon at home while JB is out with a buddy side-scan sonaring Lake Washington in hopes of finding more shipwrecks to dive.

Riley and TURBO JAM. Note incorrect positioning of armchair.