the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

...and i didn't cook a morsel.

My job this year was cleaning the castle. I'd rather cook, frankly, but...fair enough. Somebody has to clean. Occasionally.

Let's face it: this place only ever gets cleaned if someone's coming over. As noted elsewhere, my motivation is always the same: I don't want people to get the right idea about what utter slobs we are. Yeah...I could just say I'm too busy to clean most of the time, but I'm not too busy to watch the occasional movie or play the occasional game or take the occasional nap, so who am I kidding? It's just too depressing to try to stay on top of the filth generated by the flies and moths who come here to die, three cats, two dogs, and three humans who kinda have trails worn where we want to go and thus needn't worry about picking up the detritus along the edges.

So Tuesday night, I hauled the ladder in so I could vacuum the windows. Just having clean window ledges does wonders for the appearance of cleanliness. The next morning, I vacuumed the whole house thoroughly, prepped for mopping, then realized I didn't have any Mr. Clean. I put in an order for Mich to pick up some on her way back from work--which I expected would be early, it being Official Clean Like A Demon Day in America. Then I sat down with a nice glass of wine to wait.

I occasionally hopped up to clean something, like the stainless kitchen fixtures, get another glass of wine, and sit back down. She didn't get home until 6:30pm, by which time I was no longer in a cleaning mood, as you might imagine. She did, however, want to make the dressing, so she handed me a knife and I went to chopping. It was the wrong kind of knife--she's one of those sorts who will pick up the first knife she sees to chop with, as though there is no difference in their functions--but I figured I could make it work. I promptly chopped through my thumbnail with it, and blamed it on her. Of course.

We trundled off to bed late, then accidentally slept in the next morning. Kermit and Tracy were to be here about 10 to start smoking the turkey. We got up around 10am and began cleaning furiously: mirrors, bathrooms, kitchen, counters, mopping.

I realized why this house doesn't get cleaned much. Mopping is work, and we have a generous 3400 square feet to mop. We continued cleaning when Tracy and Kermit got here. We probably wouldn't have done that with anyone else, but we're comfortable enough with them to keep cleaning when they come in (and accept some help).

So...the day began with us racing the clock. I finished around 1:30, took a bath, put on good clothes, and began greeting guests, of which there were many: Besides the four of us, we had Lindsay and Frank, Katie and Matt, Rene, Mary and Jennie, Anna and Ben, and Tracy's sister Julie. Most people brought games, and everyone brought food and wine.

As it turns out, we throw a nice party. I like to think it doesn't matter that we didn't have enough plates for everyone (I ate out of a bowl), and had to enlist the ottomans and my guitar stool so everyone could sit. Had Mary not brought a couple of card tables and some folding chairs, we'd have had to eat in shifts.

Kermit's smoked turkey was to die for. Everything but everything was delicious. By the end of the evening, there wasn't a clean dish in the kitchen. People had enlisted the use of odd bits of silverware I didn't even know I had, and had eaten dessert out of cups and saucers.

A number played in the pool, and the rest of us played board games: Scattergories (which I'm awful at), Boggle (same), Taboo, and a game Anna, Jennie, and Ben introduced us to. I think they call it Password Pictionary. Here's how it works: you get several people around a table (we had six), and give each person that many sheets of paper (so in this case, six apiece). Number them 1-6. On the first sheet, write a sentence. Then pass your pile to the next person. She reads the sentence, flips it to the back, then on the next sheet, she tries to draw that sentence. The next person looks at the picture, flips it to the back, then writes the sentence depicted by the drawing...and so forth until all the sheets have gone around. Then you share what you wrote and what people drew, etc.

I can't explain more, really. You just have to try the game yourself. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard.

Around 10 (?), Mary, Jennie, Anna, and Ben and I went to the basement to play Band Hero on the Wii. I think the party wound down around 2am.

What a terrific holiday. I don't think I'll be here for it next year, so I'm happy to have a memory like this to take with me. Thanks to all who made yesterday the joy it was.

d