My mom is late for everything. If you tell her to be somewhere at a certain time, it's a pretty safe bet that she'll be at least fifteen minutes late. Her problem lies in not wanting to leave the house messy; the theory being that it's so much nicer to come home to a clean house. (Which makes sense, I guess, but it used to drive me crazy when I was a kid. My mom had four kids. The house was never clean.) Every summer we would take a family camping trip and every summer the four of us kids would sit in the car, fuming, while Mom ran around the house making beds, dusting, folding laundry, etc and Dad tried to convince her that she didn't actually need to have a spotless house to enjoy her holiday.
I kind of get it, now. You come home to a clean slate. There's a certain appeal to it.
Our flight to the Dominican was scheduled to leave Vancouver at 6am Saturday morning. Because we were travelling in large group, and due to the multiple cancellations and re-bookings and general craziness the Swine Flu caused, we were advised to arrive at the airport at 3am. There really wasn't any point in going to bed and so, after the puppies were dropped off and we were packed, I cleaned the condo. I didn't even realize that I was channelling my mother at the time; it just made sense. I don't often identify with my mom. I tend to attribute my negative personality traits to her (the crazy, the guilt, the shrillness.) It catches me by surprise when I see her in my actions.
I scrubbed; I mopped; I laundered and I vacuumed up every last bit of Stella's hair. And it felt damn good when we got home at 3:30 in the morning, after 19 hours of travelling and a week of sun and too much alcohol, to climb into a bed made with freshly laundered sheets.
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I knew I loved your Mom for a reason.
ReplyDeleteEvery time we go away, we leave the house in a spotless state.
SO MUCH BETTER to come home to.
Oh how I agree. Now, if only I could be *that* organized so I'm not still throwing things in my bag as we're walking out the door. It's most definitely depressing to come home to what looks like the results of a tornado in our home. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI try to leave my house spotless too, whenever I leave for a few days. Key word being "try." It doesn't always happen. But I totally agree that it is SO much less stressful to come home to a clean house. Last weekend I left the house looking like a tornado hit it. I was annoyed when I got home and saw the mess. I'm not going to let that happen again.
ReplyDeleteI love that song.
ReplyDeleteNothing else to add really because the title has me singing the song in my head.
i'm such a cleaner too before i leave. i hate coming home to a messy place.
ReplyDeleteI totally clean my place before I leave anywhere. Sometimes I might not get one or two things done, but it's always nice to have a nice, freshly made bed to crawl into when you get home.
ReplyDelete:)
It is SO much better to come home to a clean house. I live in an apartment all week at work, and then our house on weekends and I try and keep each tidy when I leave so that it's clean when I come back. It keeps me from getting too stressed out about living in two places except for the fact that I have to CLEAN TWO PLACES!
ReplyDeleteTotally random - I went to my see my sister-in-law last night and she's like, look what I bought! When she pulled out a pineapple corer/slicer thingy I almost died and thought "I need to tell Hillary!" (And yes, she does have an enormous kitchen!)