My Kitchen, My Life

Earlier last week, Grace said she saw a cockroach in my kitchen. The thought of this stirred a repulsion so deep within me that I leaped into action. My kitchen needs lots of work, but one thing I have never seen in it is a roach. Spiders? Yes. Flies, mosquitoes, crickets? Sure. But never a roach.

When we lived in Van Nuys and the girls were just babies, we had an ant infestation that ended all others. They invaded our little home and would come like an army across the floor, onto the carpet and if you happened to be laying on the floor, they would just march like a stream over you. I am not kidding. I had never seen anything like it. Daily I would clean and vacuum and disinfect but nothing would stop them and so finally I called an exterminator and they came in and did the job. Ants gone. But in a matter of a month or two I noticed, for the very first time ever, cockroaches. And they were everywhere - EVERYWHERE - big and ugly and fast. I set bait, I cleaned, I scoured, I vacuumed. I swept, I poisoned and I prayed - and nothing, NOTHING would get rid of them. I had a friend who was a contractor and I asked him, "Tim, I'm going out of my mind. You build houses. You are well versed in home pests. How can I get rid of cockroaches?" His reply: "Get some ants."

Since then, I have been very careful with the balance of nature. If I see ants, I clean and make sure everything is dry and try to divert them. But I have little problem with ants. And up till now I have had no problem with roaches. So if it was true, if Grace did see one, I was going to beat it. To a pulp. Now.

Hence a 3-day gut clean of the kitchen. It started as a project that I planned to accomplish in a few hours. But it took hold of me and it became a HERCULEAN task. Ammonia, bleach, scrubbers, mops, sponges - lots of time on my hands and knees where I didn't just clean - I scrubbed to the bone and re-lined all the shelves with new paper - every cupboard, every door, every drawer, every knob, the pantry, the refrigerator, underneath the refrigerator, the floor, every wall, every baseboard, every inch. And I hand washed everything in each of the cupboards and drawers as well. And then I purged. I eliminated everything that wasn't absolutely essential. Even if it has cost me a lot of money initially. Even some things that we sentimental but lived in the back corner of a shelf - not looked at in years. And I found lots of stuff that had been missing. And in the end, between the paper towels, the thrown out food, Tupperware, broken dishes, appliances, and general crap - there were six full trash bags that went to the garbage. (By the way, through the entire process, I didn't find a single roach!) Then I took everything off the counters that we do not use every single day and put those items away. It is now clean, uncluttered, simple - even stark. And when it was all done, my mind went from room to room and I feel a month-long attack on the house coming on.

And while I was scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees, I began to see the whole process as a metaphor for my life too. I am living in a new world. One in which unemployment and insecurity have become the new standard for millions of people - including myself. And once again, I am feeling like a complete overhaul, a re-do, a gut clean is required to be able to see it through. Since beginning this blog I have been on so many interviews. And I have seen two jobs come my way, only to be unemployed again not because of my performance, but because of the economy. It is out of my hands in so many ways. But I need to start again. So a purse dumping is in order. Again.

In Honor of Bob's Birthday

I haven't gone this long without posting since I started this blog. To say that my life has been busy would be an extreme understatement. And with busyness comes lots of stuff to comment on but that will have to wait until the dust settles from everything I have finally completed doing.

In the meantime, in honor of Bob's 51st birthday - I thought I would share another memorable moment of hilarity - at his expense.

Among the many pieces of exercise equipment I have owned and never used was a fairly high-end treadmill. It had many settings and levels and lifts and and buttons and whistles - and it was a big, heavy-duty piece of equipment. Eventually it wound up in the garage, the graveyard for all things I feel badly for not using and too guilty to get rid of.

Bob spends a lot of time in the garage. He likes to play his guitar out there and practice his tap dancing. Generally it is a "Valri-free" zone; one in which he is not likely to hear me hollering for him to "knock it off". So the treadmill became his. And as Bob is a dancer, he is in fairly good shape which meant that he could set it on a pretty high speed and run (rather than walk) on it.

Good for him.

So one day, Bob - alone in the garage - got on his treadmill, set it on a fairly high speed and started to run. But as Bob is apt to do, he got distracted. Now it is important to note that the little belt that you attach to your clothing - the one that disconnects from the treadmill to automatically switch it off should you fall off - had long since disappeared. So Bob, unattached and distracted, began to run too close to the edge and finally shot off the edge. All within a matter of about 5 seconds, both legs flew back landing him on his knees. Reaching forward to catch his fall, his hands fell on the running belt which quickly carried both arms off the machine and back behind him - pinning his body into the "Dying Swan" position from "Swan Lake". With no hands for leverage, his forehead hit the running belt which immediately caused his head to shoot backward toward his body until his neck could not longer stretch.

And so, there was Bob, the crown of his bald head stuck on the fast-moving belt, being sanded like a piece of wood - on his knees with arms pinned back and no leverage to lift himself from this painful and humiliating situation. After a few, interminable, seconds, he finally threw his body sideways and escaped the treadmill that tried to eat him.

He was a bit battered and bruised and his head was scraped up pretty badly. But he lived to see another escapade - another story for another time.

And in spite of it all, and perhaps a little bit because of it, I love him.

And that looney photo above? Yeah, there's a story behind that too.

Happy Birthday Bob.