Cleaning and Sneezing.

Readers of this blog who've been waiting breathlessly to find out if I ever cleaned my office, an announcement: The Office Is Clean. It's the kind of accomplishment that I feel inordinately proud of. No one needs to pat me on the back for this, as I have been congratulating myself for it all day long.

Moreover, my darling husband and I spent some of the evening (not all of it--we're not animals!) cleaning the basement in preparation for carpet cleaners who are coming tomorrow. I will spare you most of the details, but may I say just two things: (a) soda pop and (b) cat pee. Also (sorry, one more thing) (c) splinters of many woody items. I attribute responsibility for these egregious carpet horrors, respectively, to (a) teenage boys who should have been spilling their sody-pop in the club house aka shed, which was designated for such riotous living; (b) the cat; and (c) Bruiser. This may be his only character flaw, however.

We did find some good stuff, though. For instance, I found a pair of my underwear that I thought I had lost (static electricity, in a pile of clean towels, for heaven's sake, not whatever you were thinking); $15 (birthday money for my college daughter, so I'll send it to her as a little pick me up); and, along with the birthday money, a little bit of Christmas-era candy. Which I may have eaten, just a bit.

The sneezing comes of dog hair, probably, and certainly dust. When you're trying to pick up splintery items from the carpet, you're right down where the sneeze-instigators live. I'm sniffing in a most uncharming way. Lucky you you're not here to hear it.

But! all the sneezing will not be for nought (read the last two sentences for a bit of complimentary homonym action), as there will be clean carpet. It will be a companion to the sleek bamboo floor of the main floor. No longer will we have to descend into squalor.

Next: the sad, seventies den-style paneling in the basement comes down, baby. Who knows what terrors this project will reveal?

[As a footnote, I must add that I was very annoyed to have the POTUS make a speech tonight, as it postponed The O.C. for a half hour, and Without a Trace wasn't on at all. Does it make me shallow if these television shows are the pinnacle to which all in my week is directed? I feel all
. . . frustrated and incomplete.]