We haven’t had out of town company since January 2020. And I have a husband who prefers a comfortable, lived in home to a sterile, pristine one. His attitude is usually a blessing since it gives me more time to write, spin, weave, knit, and crochet. But when it’s been so long between visitors – it’s a short step from comfortable, lived in to cluttered and in serious need of dusting! My nephew’s planned visit with his family reluctantly launched me into full cleaning mania. Plus baby proofing for their sixteen month toddler and putting curiosities out of reach of their curious all boy six year old. The oldest daughter who graduated high school this year didn’t need anything special…other than a place to sit that wasn’t piled with something!
First, we had to remove the clutter to get to the dirt. One day was devoted to hauling recycling to the bins; books and magazine to the library used bookstore; and clothing and household stuff to the local charity resale shop. It took two trips to take it all.
Then the cleaning could commence – upstairs and downstairs – since the trains were sure to be a “must see”. So for a week we dusted, vacuumed, put out Damp Rid, put up pretties out of reach, and rearranged our living space. At our age, these things must be done incrementally with lots of breaks. If Jim hadn’t been doing more than his share – I never would have finished on time.
Then they arrived, a little subdued from traveling two days to get to us for a short stay before continuing to the Gulf. They stayed at a nearby hotel and I didn’t cook. That helped a lot. The first night we had Dreamland ribs for dinner which the six year old said were the “best ribs in the world” – echoing what his Dad had been telling him all the way down. We had a lovely evening visiting and exploring the depths of the toy basket.
Of course, I missed dusting a little wagon of blocks. My little great niece found it and brought me gifts of dust bunnies she picked out of the bottom of the wagon until my sweet husband cleaned the blocks and wagon for her. She was quite enamored of her great uncle – following him, sitting in his lap, and wondering where he was when he left the room.
They brought us lovely hostess gifts including a special cream liqueur made from the marula fruit. Elephants seek out the fruit when it ferments because it makes them drunk. It’s fruity and smooth.
On Saturday we went to the Children’s Hands On Museum and explored all three floors that were pronounced to be “way fun”. Then we went to the Transportation Museum to see their special exhibit titled Bugs. There were only eight bugs. They were dead. There weren’t any spiders. I had to agree with my great nephew’s entertainment assessment, it was “boring”.
After leftover ribs for lunch while the baby napped at the hotel with her mom, we played Pigmania and Hungry, Hungry Hippos. Good thing no one was trying to nap in our house with pigs flying and hippo food leaping off the table and rolling under kitchen shelves. When the nap was over, the toy basket came back out and a jigsaw puzzle was started by my oldest niece. Funny, she didn’t want to miss the beach just to finish it. The decibel level dropped a little. We hit the neighborhood Mexican restaurant for a delicious dinner.
Before they got on the road, we went to the Brunch Buffett which my great nephew declared was “the goodest restaurant because you just go get what you want and you don’t have to wait.” They got on the road to the Gulf a little before noon.
We went home to a quiet house and began “finding” where we had put all the breakables and too tempting pretties. Everything is not back in its original home yet. Preparing for visitors was a lot of work, but it was so nice to have this return to normal – to actually have people stop to visit while they’re traveling on vacation – how perfectly marvelous!
But just when you begin to believe that Normal really exists…. That we might experience it again in our lifetimes – all the grocery store staff had on masks – vaccinated or not – this morning. Not a good thing. There is no going back. We can’t give our freedoms up again. We have to exercise personal choice without masks, mandates, restrictions or government interventions.
Normal is trying to come back home. Let’s welcome it like family – with open arms!