It started with a phone call.

Do you mind if we use your house?

People ask this all the time and usually what they mean is: can they borrow it for Shabbat/Saturday?

So the answer was no;  we’re going away but we’re spraying heavily. We have a problem with ants.

Well, we want to use the house today.

I’m in it today.  ???

We have a couple that we want to invite over for coffee.  She’s in a wheel chair and can’t get into our apartment. So we were wondering if we could use your living room for an hour or so.

My house is a mess-

We understand. We don’t care and you don’t have to clean up.

I think of all the laundry and dirty dishes. I’ve been only about 30% functional the last month with an inflamed knee muscle.  It’s kinda thick on the ground, the clutter, and I know that I was mistaken buying a house with an open plan kitchen.  I just don’t put stuff away.  And I act like I have a maid or a dishwasher the way I just leave dirty pots and what all over the counters and sinks.  This is me, take it or leave it.

Well, if you don’t care, I don’t care, either, I guess. I’ll get it picked up a little. I guess you have to have a clear path if she’s in a wheelchair.

Thanks so much, we really appreciate it.  They’ll be there between 5:30 and 6.

I put the phone back on the base and wonder how do I get into this kind of stuff…

There’s a pile of dirty clothes my daughter dumped on the floor of the dining room/hallway.  She is home for the first time in 3 weeks and she has all these dirty clothes and bedding and towels to get washed before tomorrow afternoon.  My knee hurts and I limp around with her stuff out the back door to the hampers on the service porch.

There are all kinds of clean clothes laying over chairs.  Last night was Lag B’Omer and the tradition is to light bonfires.  I can’t help myself, sorry! but this is the holiday of Burn, Baby, Burn. The whole of Israel is literally covered with a haze of smoke until morning.  If I leave the clothes outside on my very “green” solar clothes dryers, they will reek of smoke and I’ll have to launder them again.  Been there, done that, learned my lesson. But I didn’t hang up or fold what I brought in last evening before sundown, and it’s half dry and needs to be rehung. And my knee hurts.  I look for appropriate landing pads for unfolded clothes and see if there is room outside on the laundry racks.  Clothes washing, visiting daughters from college aside, continues six days a week, non stop.  What was up yesterday has already been replaced by other items. I find room some how, and put away some of the damp-ish stuff on hangers with the closet doors open.

Sweeping.  A half done ob in the best of time, I usually have small piles of sweeping detritus piled up in the house near door ways or in little off the beaten track spots and  corners waiting for someone to come along with the dustpan and take them away.  Housekeeping is really not my strong area.  What do you do all day, anyway??

It looks sorta normal and presentable.

They arrive and we all sit down in the kitchen/dining room.  And I meet the guests.  Nice people, they are a couple with a very young son.

I sit down with them and talk a little bit, and everyone keeps look at me. I start to wonder if maybe I have food on  my face or something.

You doin’t have to stay here with us if you don’t want to.  You can just go do whatever you were doing before. We’re fine.

I can take a hint.

Great, I’ll just go back to my computer, then and work on what I was working on and read the news.  More Castleville.  I don’t say that last part.

I go do my thing in the corner of the kitchen at my desk.

The conversation continues and I tune them out and read a little and wonder what the h*ll am I going to write about for the storyaday.org challenge.  But I keep picking up a word or two of their conversation, and word “computer” in Hebrew keeps coming up.  The word is close to the word for “thought”, and at first I don’t think that I’ve heard correctly.  No, I heard right-my hearing is fine.  The evils of the computer, as bad as TV, and just as addictive.  Corruption of moral values. And a waste of time, and keeps a person from doing what is important at home.  Children shouldn’t be allowed near them (and adults either).

Hey, I never cleaned house before 1992 either!

I played Castleville. I just got a dragon, great.  I need more heat??  I already have fire breathers in my dining room.

© Michal Nancy Karni 2012