Last week while mom was in the hospital, my sister and I cleaned the house. Oh I mean we REALLY cleaned the house. As in moved the furniture and vacuumed, dusted, purged (read: threw out all the crap). If you know anything of my sister-in-law from over at Martinis Needed, you know that her sweet, OCD self must have everything “Mr. Spiffy” clean. For those not familiar with Mr. Spiffy, I recommend you watch the Backyardigan’s episode, “What’s Bugging You”. We jokingly say it ain’t clean if it ain’t Angie clean. Mr. Spiffy would likely fall short of her standards. We were shooting for Angie Clean. We came close!
It is always an adventure to move anything around here and look under it. Assorted dust bunnies are a given, but with 3 cats also in residence, you will find secret stashes of their various stolen treasures. One of the cats used to swipe coins from around the house and hide them under the rug in the kitchen. That came to a halt when we discovered it a few too many times, and we’ve yet to locate her new hiding place. Not sure if she was saving up for a bus trip to escape but she always had at least a few dollars in random change. This time, we found not only cat treasures, but enough plastic food to stock a small, toddler grocery store. Seems when I was in the childcare business here, the little people were shoving it under furniture.
Memories can be a lot like those dust bunnies, until you actually go looking for them or the couch of life is moved, you don’t know they are there. My son, his wife, and my adorable granddaughter stopped over Monday for a visit. HIJACKING: I absolutely LOVE being a grandma, best role in life EVER!!! One reason being in order to be a grandparent you had to have been a parent, and I have the best kids. *Return to Blog* Somewhere the topic came up of our blood types and I mentioned I knew my son’s because it was on his crib card in the hospital. He asked if I still had that so I went up and brought down my memory box. It is a wood box with a hinged lid that my brother, Yatz, made for me in high school. I have special, “in case of fire” items in there. I had to explain that means in case of fire in the house grab that box while exiting. I have in there the outfits my kids came home from the hospital wearing, their crib cards, their bracelets, and countless other items. My granddaughter had a lot of laughs looking at old photos of not only her daddy, but her uncles, aunt and grandma too. It was a lot of fun going through that box again, and if your past photos popped up on Facebook, blame my son. 🙂
The winds of time blew the Long Beach dust bunny out from under the couch of life. I know, very interesting timing. Right in the middle of writing my post the other day about the Biker and I going our separate ways, I received a text from him. I didn’t even have his phone number anymore, was clueless at first who was messaging me. Last time I had heard from him he was vowing to change my mind about all men being pigs, contrary to what the ex-husband told me, and I was dumping live piranhas in the mote and pulling up the drawbridge to this princess’s castle! He had NOT changed my mind, by the way. He tells me he is coming this way in a few weeks or so, to take me to dinner. I will believe this when the food and the drink land in front of me on the table while I’m listening to him tell me about himself in his delightful, Irish accent. If by some miracle this actually happens, I assure you there will be a photo to prove it. (don’t hold your breath, dear readers, I’m certainly not!)
Another dust bunny was found beneath the couch of life today. A former neighbor growing up (we’re talking when I was very young), found and commented on a blog post of mine. Pat is his name. He used to live next door and after hearing about the health of another former neighbor, dear sweet Annie, decided to look up our family and track us down to say hello. A few shared remembrances there, very pleasant ride down memory lane again.
And here I thought I’d have nothing to write about today!
Marti Gardner 
looking good Jazz
Thanks!