Saturday, August 24, 2013

Cleaning And Tidying For Something New

I was awake at 8am on Saturday, you've got to love it. Why is it at 8am on a weekday I feel like I can sleep for many hours to come and yet at 8am on a Saturday I am wide awake and wanting to get up? Why is that? Is it just my mind being perpendicular? I dreamt about attempting to test drive Audis and having the salesmen ignore me, like he didn’t care. I drove up in my A8 that I parked out the front. I wanted to test drive an A6, or as it was, a 5 series Audi. (Maybe that is why he ignored me?)

I dreamt about rummaging through shelves of army green and shiny bronze cameras, in Target, trying to find which one was an SLR. They were all sorts of shapes and amazing designs, with lenses and viewfinders of every proportion possible.

I shook my head and pulled on my tracksuit pants. The cameras were amazing, like retro, futuristic army space age. Actually, it was more your highly lacquered metal finish meets your Greville Street retro chic.

I came down stairs and brewed coffee as I cleaned up the dirty dishes, which I’d left from last night. They were all covered in ants. A steady line of black ran from the kitchen sink, across the bench top and up the wall and into the light switch. That is where they are left, bodies up the wall, as a warning the colony of ants that may be considering taking their place. We get them in the winter when it rains, it is as if they come inside for shelter.

Oh, the kitchen was a mess, where to start? Shrug? The coffee brews and the kitchen is tidy.

Vanilla fridge spray kills ants, if you hate fly spray as much as I do. It seems to kill them dead and leave the kitchen smelling lovely. Fly spray is just evil shit.

The coffee had just brewed and I was well into cleaning the dishes when Buddy started to bark. It was the first I’d heard from him all morning. I quietly walked over to the back door, just as Buddy ran out of his kennel and headed to the back of the yard. He stood there and sniffed at the wind.

The carpet man called. He didn’t need to come over and measure up, as the original measuring guy had passed on his measurements. He’ll be here at 9am next Saturday to start laying the new carpet.

We had a big fry up lunch. Sausages, eggs, spinach, mushrooms, toast. (Remember, I bought too many sausages the other night) I made the scrambled eggs, Sam made the rest.

We cleaned all afternoon. We have to move all of the furniture out of the lounge room for the new carpet to be laid. I have two big sideboards in the lounge, which are full of shit. Actually, one is a big writing desk with shelves above it, but it is still full of shit.

I threw away all of my treasures, things I haven’t looked at for years, true, but treasures none the less. There were three garbage bags of videocassettes, with everything on them. But, I don’t even have a video player any more. (I do in my bedroom, not that I use it, but not in the lounge room) There was another garbage bag of papers and interesting articles torn from newspapers and magazines and cards and business cards and scraps of things cut from newspapers that were mementos of… well, a life lived, I guess. And there they were being carried to the bin in a garbage bag. Lovely.

Nothing lasts forever. We must let go of everything in the end. Possessions are only temporary as we are, we all just gather together for a while. My new resolution, if I haven’t looked at it in ten years, I shouldn’t think twice about throwing it out, if the need arises.


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