It's a long drive to Port Townsend.
It only gets longer when it takes an hour to travel the last mile to the ferries in Seattle because a soccer game just let out and all the crazy Sounders fans are clogging up the road. And when you stop for 45 minutes just before the bridge to Port Townsend for no apparent reason. And when you went to bed at 3:45 after packing up your life and were woken up by your loving mother at 6:40, only to have her conk out in Yakima and force you to drive all the way to Bellevue. Thanks, Mom. Someday I'll get you back.
Let me say something: Never trust apartment photos. My publisher/boss had me thinking that I was moving into the cutest, most spacious apartment in the world. I attribute this falsehood to absentmindedness rather than spite. The fact of the matter is, when we arrived here, we found that the charming little beaut hadn't been properly cleaned in - I'm not joking - 35 years.
Apparently the old owner of the paper had this random Chinese guy living up there for 35 years and never changed the rent, so when he finally kicked it in the past couple years, he was still only paying $25/month. Come on, now - if you don't have to spend money on rent, couldn't you have shelled out a few bucks for, I don't know, A MOP?!
Or a toilet brush. Eesh. My mom spent 3 hours cleaning the bathroom. She now has no fingerprints. Bleach goes quickly here.
Saturday night was hard. Never again will I take for granted my mom's OCD cleaning habits. I was afraid to touch anything. Couldn't put my bag on the floor - gag - couldn't set it on the kitchen table, or the counters, or the bed. What I thought was a pretty, old-fashioned carpet in the bedroom is actually a cleverly disguised slab of linoleum, patterned to look like carpet. Tricksters. The feeling of grit beneath my flip flops just about killed me.
So my wonderful mother called my editor/boss and ultimatum-ed the crap out of him. (Not really. Even confronted with 35 years of grime, my mom's still a sweetheart. I don't know how. Moms are magic.) She said that unless he got someone in here to help us clean, she couldn't leave me here. I love my mom.
We spent the night at my Aunt Jessie's house (which was spotless!!) and went to church in the morning. When we got back to the apartment, we found a blessing by the name of Allegra, busily scrubbing the kitchen cabinets. She's coming back tomorrow to scrub the floors. I love Allegra.
Last night I finally unpacked, after bleaching the dresser, the kitchen drawers & shelves, the closet, the desks...the everything. It's getting there. And it smells clean. Quite a feat, for the oldest 2-story stone building in the state. (Yeah. For reals. Who knew.)
What it all comes down to, really, is perspective. I could freak out and give up and go home, or I could get down and tackle it one square foot at a time and remember that it must have been clean once upon a time, and it can return to that state somehow.
And if I lose sight of that, I can always just walk down outside to the water. Again, I'm a block from the ocean.
It only gets longer when it takes an hour to travel the last mile to the ferries in Seattle because a soccer game just let out and all the crazy Sounders fans are clogging up the road. And when you stop for 45 minutes just before the bridge to Port Townsend for no apparent reason. And when you went to bed at 3:45 after packing up your life and were woken up by your loving mother at 6:40, only to have her conk out in Yakima and force you to drive all the way to Bellevue. Thanks, Mom. Someday I'll get you back.
Let me say something: Never trust apartment photos. My publisher/boss had me thinking that I was moving into the cutest, most spacious apartment in the world. I attribute this falsehood to absentmindedness rather than spite. The fact of the matter is, when we arrived here, we found that the charming little beaut hadn't been properly cleaned in - I'm not joking - 35 years.
Apparently the old owner of the paper had this random Chinese guy living up there for 35 years and never changed the rent, so when he finally kicked it in the past couple years, he was still only paying $25/month. Come on, now - if you don't have to spend money on rent, couldn't you have shelled out a few bucks for, I don't know, A MOP?!
Or a toilet brush. Eesh. My mom spent 3 hours cleaning the bathroom. She now has no fingerprints. Bleach goes quickly here.
Saturday night was hard. Never again will I take for granted my mom's OCD cleaning habits. I was afraid to touch anything. Couldn't put my bag on the floor - gag - couldn't set it on the kitchen table, or the counters, or the bed. What I thought was a pretty, old-fashioned carpet in the bedroom is actually a cleverly disguised slab of linoleum, patterned to look like carpet. Tricksters. The feeling of grit beneath my flip flops just about killed me.
So my wonderful mother called my editor/boss and ultimatum-ed the crap out of him. (Not really. Even confronted with 35 years of grime, my mom's still a sweetheart. I don't know how. Moms are magic.) She said that unless he got someone in here to help us clean, she couldn't leave me here. I love my mom.
We spent the night at my Aunt Jessie's house (which was spotless!!) and went to church in the morning. When we got back to the apartment, we found a blessing by the name of Allegra, busily scrubbing the kitchen cabinets. She's coming back tomorrow to scrub the floors. I love Allegra.
Last night I finally unpacked, after bleaching the dresser, the kitchen drawers & shelves, the closet, the desks...the everything. It's getting there. And it smells clean. Quite a feat, for the oldest 2-story stone building in the state. (Yeah. For reals. Who knew.)
What it all comes down to, really, is perspective. I could freak out and give up and go home, or I could get down and tackle it one square foot at a time and remember that it must have been clean once upon a time, and it can return to that state somehow.
And if I lose sight of that, I can always just walk down outside to the water. Again, I'm a block from the ocean.
God knows how to take care of me.
Love always,
molly
*Anyone who knows my short-story reference gets a hug.
1 comment:
I love your mother.
Can I come visit you when you get settled?
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