I'm cleaning house today for company. It's just the thing to do. I normally press The Boy into service on the weekends, whenever he doesn't have too much homework to do. Housework is a skill that they don't teach you in high school but they should. It stays with you a lot longer than the capital of Arkansas and the twenty-seventh president's wife's name and who won what war in 1815 ever does.
I love to have company, and I love a clean house. One goes well with the other, and I suppose that one can stand alone without the other, but together it's a mighty fine time. I'll be making supper, too, but it's also a bit of a potluck in that my guests are bringing a side and a dessert. Some wine, too. Not that they need to do that. After my mom died every time I did a California run I would bring back a case or two. That and weekly specials at Saars and Grocery Outlet and those cases barely move.
So, the kitchen is hot and the house is coming together. I try to keep it up and generally speaking today will be more of a pick up. Wasn't always this way. I've been graced with wives that never learned the art of housecleaning. Pity. They should have had my mom as a mother growing up. Would have straightened them out. My estranged one was probably the worst of the lot. Took three weeks to clean and get this place in order after she left to Idaho. From what I gather it takes her that long to get the house ready whenever I go to visit.
But I digress.
It was that three week stint in cleaning that brings me to this story. It was a Saturday, the third weekend after they left. Things were not in piles like they had been. The couches had been moved back, the kitchen straightened, the doors and walls scrubbed, the cobwebs gone. The housework was moving in a good direction, not necessarily ready for company ready but close. Then the phone rings. You were down the block with two cups of coffee in hand. Could you come up and see the progress?
Could you come up? What a question.
And you did. But only for a bit. It was the first time you ever saw the place. The living room was far from what it looks like today. The floor in the hallway was still tore up. The fireplace mantle a dream. The trim around the kitchen and hallway doorway still unfinished. Hell, the house was a mess. But you made me feel as if you were gracing me in a well appointed mansion. It felt that way, anyway. I suppose it was finally seeing that house of mine through someone else's eyes that made me appreciate what I had, and fired up inside of me an intense desire to make it better.
You came through that day as a friend, nothing more. We were work buddies, pals. We wrote to each other but we had our lives on full boil on all burners. It was only an August weekend day, a Saturday and we both had things to do. You came up to my house, shared a bit of life with me, and took off on your errands. You left behind a coffee cup on my kitchen counter, stained with your lipstick. I looked at it sitting there as if it were some sort of magical gift left behind by a sorceress. The coffee was long gone by the time you left, but that lipstick stained shard from your coffee cup graced my fridge door for quite a long time after that.
I have to wonder whatever happened to that piece of cup. I can't remember if you saw it when you came to dinner later on in September, but I know it was still posted on the refrigerator. It certainly wasn't the last lipstained cup you left behind in my kitchen, but it was certainly the best. But the bigger bummer was knowing that when I saw you last June, no matter what I could come up with, that that lipstick stain of yours on my Thermos cup would have to go away. To know that we shared a common cup then was all too precious considering all the events that have taken place since that very sweet and fairly innocent Saturday in August oh so long ago.
My house is coming together, and people are coming together here, too, later on to share food, friendship and a few laughs. Laughter is a good thing, and when I think of all the things we shared that laughter between us was the finest gift of all. That and the seeds of love you planted here that day in my humble home with that gift of Starbucks and your lipstick stained coffee cup.
My love to you, darlin', on this sunny, very beautiful fall afternoon.
Your WHMB
I love to have company, and I love a clean house. One goes well with the other, and I suppose that one can stand alone without the other, but together it's a mighty fine time. I'll be making supper, too, but it's also a bit of a potluck in that my guests are bringing a side and a dessert. Some wine, too. Not that they need to do that. After my mom died every time I did a California run I would bring back a case or two. That and weekly specials at Saars and Grocery Outlet and those cases barely move.
So, the kitchen is hot and the house is coming together. I try to keep it up and generally speaking today will be more of a pick up. Wasn't always this way. I've been graced with wives that never learned the art of housecleaning. Pity. They should have had my mom as a mother growing up. Would have straightened them out. My estranged one was probably the worst of the lot. Took three weeks to clean and get this place in order after she left to Idaho. From what I gather it takes her that long to get the house ready whenever I go to visit.
But I digress.
It was that three week stint in cleaning that brings me to this story. It was a Saturday, the third weekend after they left. Things were not in piles like they had been. The couches had been moved back, the kitchen straightened, the doors and walls scrubbed, the cobwebs gone. The housework was moving in a good direction, not necessarily ready for company ready but close. Then the phone rings. You were down the block with two cups of coffee in hand. Could you come up and see the progress?
Could you come up? What a question.
And you did. But only for a bit. It was the first time you ever saw the place. The living room was far from what it looks like today. The floor in the hallway was still tore up. The fireplace mantle a dream. The trim around the kitchen and hallway doorway still unfinished. Hell, the house was a mess. But you made me feel as if you were gracing me in a well appointed mansion. It felt that way, anyway. I suppose it was finally seeing that house of mine through someone else's eyes that made me appreciate what I had, and fired up inside of me an intense desire to make it better.
You came through that day as a friend, nothing more. We were work buddies, pals. We wrote to each other but we had our lives on full boil on all burners. It was only an August weekend day, a Saturday and we both had things to do. You came up to my house, shared a bit of life with me, and took off on your errands. You left behind a coffee cup on my kitchen counter, stained with your lipstick. I looked at it sitting there as if it were some sort of magical gift left behind by a sorceress. The coffee was long gone by the time you left, but that lipstick stained shard from your coffee cup graced my fridge door for quite a long time after that.
I have to wonder whatever happened to that piece of cup. I can't remember if you saw it when you came to dinner later on in September, but I know it was still posted on the refrigerator. It certainly wasn't the last lipstained cup you left behind in my kitchen, but it was certainly the best. But the bigger bummer was knowing that when I saw you last June, no matter what I could come up with, that that lipstick stain of yours on my Thermos cup would have to go away. To know that we shared a common cup then was all too precious considering all the events that have taken place since that very sweet and fairly innocent Saturday in August oh so long ago.
My house is coming together, and people are coming together here, too, later on to share food, friendship and a few laughs. Laughter is a good thing, and when I think of all the things we shared that laughter between us was the finest gift of all. That and the seeds of love you planted here that day in my humble home with that gift of Starbucks and your lipstick stained coffee cup.
My love to you, darlin', on this sunny, very beautiful fall afternoon.
Your WHMB
No comments:
Post a Comment