So, today I went downstairs to make a cup of tea, and while the kettle was boiling (it's a cobalt-blue laddy dah Paderno kettle, and they take hours to boil because you can't set them over high heat because if you do the bottom curls off, and the only reason I bought this extravagant kettle is because it was on sale and purchased as a gift, which is ironic because I am the only one who drinks tea now that my mother and Mrs. Walker are dead [and you can hardly call throwing nine teabags into a cauldron of boiling water tea]).So while the water was boiling I despaired once again over the backdrop wall tile because somewhere in its history part of the white had stained brown. Remembering my mother's fondness for Javex (she cleaned appliances with it, washed clothes with it, and put it in her basin of foot water at the end of a hard day), and recalling how my younger son had inherited that gene and at age sixteen used to bleach the kitchen counters while his father and I were at groceries -- what a thrill to come home to a clean main floor, I cannot tell you -- and although Javex always gives me a headache, I took out the bottle of bleach-and-water spray I concocted a few months ago, and went to town. Going to town in this kitchen is a bit of a misnomer and a pain in the ass because both fish tanks are sitting on the counter until the paint fumes up here dry, and besides, I always worry about getting water on the old GE radio I bought Don at Consumer's in Charlottetown so many years ago.
Pushing the pottery canisters aside, I squirted that section of wall, mortified to see the water turning instantly brown. Even the fish stopped swimming for a moment to look up and sigh. I could see their little lips moving and their gills heaving in and out. I thought I heard the name Jennifer, too, but who knows if that was only my imagination?
Anyway, as I took to the task of the counters, the kettle still not having boiled, I could see that I would have to move the wooden plant shelf away from the back of the sink (a clever concoction used by the last owner to hide, and sell, disreputable windows and dirty wall tile), and while doing so I noticed that some of their little leaves had wilted and died. (I heard the fish sigh again, and this time Sneakers cam
e into the room and sat down.) Stopping to spruce up the plants (which reminds me of a man who went to live in my mother's family home when he was in his early 90s. He would sit the kids up on his knee -- he had no teeth -- and say, "Now let me tell you a little thrpruth" -- a spruce is apparently a Cape Breton usage for anecdote), I noticed the dog panting at my side, requesting to go out in the backyard ("Please, Jennifer, may I go out in the back yard?"), so of course I let her out and then realized she would be thirsty when she came back in so I picked up her bowls and I washed them. (We should be so lucky sounded from down near my ankles, not two feet from where Sneakers was sitting.)
Meanwhile, as I bent over to pick up the dog bowls -- the kettle still not having boiled -- I saw that the side of the stove bore (bore?) spaghetti sauce stains, so I went to work on that while the rest of the spray soaked into and ran down the walls. As I was washing the stove, I noticed that the lid that was still sitting on the porridge pot was terrible streaky, so I decided I had best do the dishes and polish the pots. While I was working on those, I realized that the stainless steel breadbox (purchased from Gloria's store) was also a mess, and after I finished washing the stove and the dishes I set to work on rectifying the problem.At this point, Sneakers began speaking more loudly in that rich baritone voice of his, asking me why the dog was favoured and was it true that carbohydrates were the things that had made me so fat. I ignored him and, putting the breadbox on top of the fridge, I saw the mountains of dust...so I dusted and then, knowing that 2+2=4, I cleaned out the fridge and the back of the microwave (ew ew ew) and then, just as I had completed these tasks -- the kettle not making so much as a squeak -- I looked down and saw the filth of the floors at which point I heard both my mother and Sneakers speaking simultaneously: "Cleanliness is next to godliness," they said, and knowing this to be true, I set to washing the floors.
Well, one thing led to another -- the kettle only now faintly hissing -- and the long and the short of it is, I washed not only the floor but the windows, opened the mail, made the bed, cleaned out the bathtub, vacuumed, did two loads of laundry, carried two indoor plants outdoors (one of them snapping, half-stem), scraped the rest of the glue off the walls, repainted the sewing machine (this time with Sico paint and not Farrow and Ball, and let me tell you...), and got in a word or two to the cat on the subject of bad manners. Just as he was refuting my argument, his eyes widened, alerting me to the sound of the faintly whistling kettle. Anyway, it's not a worry because he and I always go on in these ways, back and forth, frick and frack, and besides, who cares? He went off to the corner store and bought Peek Frean sugar cookies, and when he got back we sat at the dining room table in the afternoon sun and enjoyed the best darned cup of tea we ever drank.Tea for two
And two for tea
Me for you
And you for me...
<:^)
