Who Knew?

I have a confession to make--I am one of the world's absolutely worst housekeepers.  Combine this with my seeming inability to get ANYTHING done unless it's under pressure, and it spells disaster!  Really.  (And now throw in two long-haired, 100+ pound, "puppies"!)

So, imagine my horror when I found out we were out of temporary housing time and had to move back into our house before it has sold (or even gotten an offer!).  I didn't really enjoy the two mini-moves (to temp housing and back) in one summer.  I didn't enjoy fighting with the Residence Inn about their inhospitable pet policies.  And I REALLY didn't enjoy Kai getting so stressed he started to get aggressive.  But all of that, all of it, paled in comparison to. . .HAVING TO KEEP THE HOUSE CLEAN, really clean, LONG TERM.

As anybody who's ever had a house up for sale knows, you have to keep it spotless--make it look as if it is no effort to clean, or to keep clean.  Eeeeeek! 

You'd think the necessary pressure was there.  And it is.  But, unless you have a showing booked, it's in the background--laying there, stressing you out, yet never becoming acute enough to actually move you.  My worst nightmare. 

While we were not living here, we had a cleaning service come in once a week to keep things under control.  Easy, if expensive.  But actually being here, I feel much too guilty to allow that to go on.  Still, it has to be done, and I know myself well enough to know I'm not very likely to keep up with it.  What to do?  What to do?

We decided to try a Roomba.  I'd wanted one for the longest time (see the above paragraph about my housekeeping skills), and now I had an excuse!  And.  We.  Love.  It!!!!!!!  It works!  It really works!  People complain that it's noisy, or that it leaves tracks on the floor, or whatever.  But who cares?  It actually does KEEP THE FLOORS CLEAN!  Without any effort on your part.  And with absolutely no stress!

And guess what?  If you keep the floors clean, the rest of it follows--there is less dust generated for flat surfaces and there is less dog fur on furniture.  And, because you have to keep the floor clear for the Roomba to clean it, things get put up!   Did I mention that I LOVE IT!!!

I was completely astounded by this simple floor cleaning trick.  How could I not know this?  Why was I not told?  Why isn't it written down somewhere?   I asked my mother why she never told me, and her answer was, "I guess I just thought everybody knew."  

MOM!!!!  Where would I have learned it?!

Sigh.  Who knew?

Beltane Mezcal

I hope everyone had a very merry Beltane.  Despite rain and gloom, we certainly did!  We decided to focus on excess this year, and the result was a very enjoyable night and day.

It started with my first ever taste of mezcal, which, despite my Mexican heritage, I'd never tried.   We just happened to see it in Vintages section of the local LCBO.  We were surprised to see no worm in the bottle, but we found out from a helpful clerk that while they DO still put it in mezcal, Canadian health regulations prohibit a worm's inclusion in bottles imported into Canada.

The mezcal itself had a deep, rich, smoky flavor.  My DH said that he'd had a really inexpensive mezcal before, and it had tasted like kerosene.  This one most certainly did NOT.  While "smooth" is not a word I'd use to describe it, neither is harsh.  I could only take small sips, and there was a pleasant burning all the way down my throat, but overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.  (My DH, who actually LIKES smokey flavors, enjoyed it even more than I did.)

The night continued with rich colors, great music, a superb bottle of wine, grilled steaks, and staying up WAY too late!  The next day, May 1, we slept in deliciously late, then spent the remainder of the day walking in the woods with our puppies.  Not necessarily excessive, but still a lot of fun.  And the woods, at least, felt wonderfully witchy.

Contact me if you want more details on the Mezcal.  :)

Other Worlds, Adventure, An Oddball Group. . .

Since I'm not doing anything noteworthy in my own life at the moment, I thought I'd mention a webcomic by a friend of mine: 

Brymstone

By Marie Tary

It's a sci-fi/fantasy story about a group of adventurers in a future time when several worlds/universes have collided with our own.  The writing is terrific and the art is AMAZING.  (And she's only on the fourth chapter, so at this point it won't take you very long to catch up!)  If you have any interest in comics, science fiction, fantasy, roleplaying, manga, art, fiction, ongoing stories, or if you just want something new to read, check it out! (I swear I'm not making any money on this endorsement, btw, I just like the story!)

Put a little fantasy into your life!

Don't Blame the Messenger (or in this case the director)

I just watched a trailer for "Red Riding Hood", which looks like fun.  My post, however, is on the comments about it.  More than one person said they were going to pass on the movie because it is directed by the director of "Twilight", Catherine Hardwicke.

This leads me to wonder--did these commenters actually dislike the DIRECTION of "Twilight"?  Really?  With all else that was wrong with it, they noticed bad direction?  Or maybe they haven't read the source material.  (For a good introduction to that source material, head on over to a hilarious blog titled Reasoning With Vampires.)  I only thought the movie was bad until I read the books.  Boy, was I wrong!  Now, IMHO, I think they did a FABULOUS job on the movie.  Absolutely everyone who worked on it, from the actors to the payroll clerk to, yes, the director, did a great job with the material that was given to them.

You may be wondering why I saw the movie, or read the book(s!).  DH and I love vampires, and anything to do with them.  We had initially avoided the, ahem, literature (and I use that term VERY loosely) because it was aimed at kids, but once the first movie was released, we gave in and bought them.  Sigh.  We saw the movie before we started the books.  We were disappointed in the movie, but we already owned the books so we figured we might as well read them. 

Big mistake.  Big, big, BIG mistake.  Especially since both of us have trouble putting down books once we start them.  Or, as was the case here, series of books.  I realize I'm probably going to get flamed for this (actually, for the entire post), but I have read stories by 13-year-olds that are better written.  And I won't even get into bad (awful, horrible) role models or questionable scientific reasoning.  The writing is bad enough to stand all on its own.  And no, it's not a style thing or an audience-age thing--it's simply badly written.  From grammatical errors to badly written sentences to obscure words used simply to impress to factual contradictions, it's bad.

Not that I feel strongly about it or anything.