Cleaning... Sort Of

Boy, could I use a bandana! One of those big enough to cover my head above the eyebrows and keep about three quarts of salty sweat out of my eyes. The stuff stings! Messes up my glasses too.

Spoiler alert: Minnesota is back! By that, I mean the humidity that I used to take for granted, the crap which makes stepping outside and moving three feet totally miserable. And that's without even counting mosquitoes! I so fondly recall when we first moved to Arizona, cleaning the crap out of the house and moving our own possessions into newly painted and scrubbed rooms, knowing it was a bit warm and being totally amazed that "warm" translated to 90 degrees!

I think it's only somewhere in the 80s today, but I can't swear whether that's temperature or dewpoint. Perhaps both!

It started - and ended - modestly enough. Now that the critters are gone, it was well past time to sweep floors. I had actually done that once, a week ago. Thought I did a pretty good job, too. It seems the dirt and fur thought otherwise. (I swear the stuff just creeps out at night just to laugh at me!) I reached my limit of sitting in the chair and looking at a recurring supply of the stuff, and dug out the broom and dustpan again. Furniture was easy enough to move around. (I found out I can get rid of Steve just by turning Stephanie Miller on the TV. He does not appreciate her sense of humor.) So both he and Rich were out on the screen house with their various smokes, and taking advantage,  I swept.

I couldn't actually tell I'd just done this same thing a few days ago, with all the fur, but even  more annoying, due to its endlessly recurring supply, was the compilation of leaf bits getting tracked in on shoes from the front entryway. The wind always catches the leaves and blows them up to the door, and walking through them crunches them and brings them in.

They had served a purpose throughout early summer. We get various birds building nests in the entryway, and "decorate" the concrete pretty thoroughly as the young grow beyond the confines of the nest before fledging.  A steady pile of leaves are easier to sweep up than the walk is to scrub. But fledging happened two weeks ago, so I was out of excuses, especially as the bits kept creeping into the house.

So today was the day. The garbage bins head curbside tonight, so what gets in them goes away. I don't even bother with bagging the entryway stuff anymore. If the garbage company doesn't appreciate a dozen scoopfulls of damp crunched leaves, they are free to return them. If I just sweep them over around the corners of the house to fertilize something else, an errant breeze will just return them all in a day or two. There are already plenty on the nearby trees to start the process all over again in the fall.

But, oh! Was it a miserable job! Halfway down the walk I was already blinded in one eye by all the salt, even though I was repeatedly wiping my face with the collar of the shirt I was wearing. (Actually, pajamas, but shhhhhh! It's a t-shirt, and who needs to know from the street?) I stuck with it anyway, knowing if I quit, it'd all just be there waiting for me another day soon. Inside and out.

So, in order, I need: a bottle of water, a chair, half a dozen paper towels, first for me and then a final one for my glasses, and a good long shower.

So, of course, here I sit, blogging!