Now with more catness! TMF hogging my office chair, sigh.
My mother called and said she's on her way. It'll be a couple of weeks as she meanders across the countryside in her Honda Fit Sport (the one with the paddle shifters, favorite car of little old grannies everywhere), but that just gives me more time to make everything spotless. So if you see a penguin loaded down with cleaning supplies, that's me, heh. What can I say... that's just something you do when your mother comes to visit, even if you're in late middle age and she's quite elderly. Just one of those mysterious mother-child things, I guess...
-- Badtux the Cleaning Penguin
My sister has a very neat and clean house -- but if family is coming from out of town, she dials it up to 11. I'n not like that, but nobody has visited in a long while...I wonder if this is the reason.
ReplyDeleteWell, it depends, Marc. Ask yourself if any of the following is true:
ReplyDelete1) You haven't seen your carpet in several months due to an accumulation of pizza boxes, dirty clothes, random bills, and assorted books
2) Your dog refuses to drink out of the toilet because it's so nasty.
3) Your bathroom lavatory is dirtier than a Mississippi gas station lavatory.
4) The pile of dirty dishes in your sink has spawned new life forms.
If any of the above are true, you *may* get more visitors if you do a little house cleaning :).
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
How much cat barf needs shampooing out of the carpets?
ReplyDeleteI shampooed the living room today, Minerva. Answer was, "quite a bit". I think I need to get a bigger shampoo machine, mine cleans well but the water tank and waste tank are so small that it took three trips to the bathroom to dump waste and refill the water tank to do the living room. Amazing how much dirt it got out of the carpet despite the fact that I have a very good vacuum cleaner (one of those Hoover Wind Tunnel ones). So now there's just the two bedrooms, but the living room seems to be the biggest cat barf target for some reason, and it's now nice and clean... for now. I'll probably spot-shampoo any new cat barf spots before the arrival of the little granny in the sports car :).
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Cleaning Penguin
Good thing you're wearing a tux for those formal Mom occasions.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, MandT. Formalwear is definitely required for this. I shall take them out to various restaurants too while I'm at it.
ReplyDeleteI just noticed that I took a photo of TMF doing his Cheshire Cat immitation. The tip of his tail has already vanished, and shortly he shall, too...
- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin
My mother once showed unannounced up with her ritzy friend at my bachelor pad of a studio apartment,in San Jose, complete with Playboy centerfolds all over the wall and TWO! not just one, transmissions scattered all over the floor for an MG Midget.
ReplyDeleteHer friend needed to use the bathroom and I made her walk across the bed so I wouldn't lose my place putting one back together.
My philosphy, 'Nucks, is that if you show up unannounced at my place, what you see is what ya get :). So, did your mom's ritzy friend use the bathroom, or did she recoil in horror at the sight of the toilet and lavatory?
ReplyDeleteI gave up on wall decoration, BTW. Way I figure it, if you want to see anything on my wall other than paint, fine, go buy it and put it up there, but I ain't wastin' my time putting things up and taking them down every time I move anymore. Besides, I need to get some better wall decorations. I figure some abstracts in bright primary colors... fuck that shit about portraits and landscapes, there ain't a single person I wanna see every time I look at my wall and if I want to see a landscape, I'll fucking jump in my Jeep and go see one first-hand, yo.
- Badtux the Decorator Penguin
Tux, you should go to an Art and Wine festival or two (and be careful about the wine). I've picked up some fabulous large, framed photographs of places I like and may never see, at very reasonable prices. (My favorite is the backside of the Lick Observatory in the snow -- a damned tricky shot to get, since they close Mt. Hamilton Road when it snows.)
ReplyDeleteAnother framed shot I have is of a desert travertine spring that doesn't exist anymore, courtesy of a summer flash-flood.
Don't despair of putting interesting things on your walls.
Oh, I don't despair, Minerva. I know exactly what I would put on my walls if I cared to put anything on my walls. See, that's the thing. I'm not interested in putting anything on my walls. First of all, they're not my walls -- they're rented walls, and I'm only going to be here a few years at most. Secondly, I don't mind looking at bare walls, and way I figure it is if you don't like looking at bare walls, you can darn well decorate them yourself. So I just don't make the effort.
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Lazy Penguin
Lol! She must have had to go pretty bad, she hiked up her skirt and strolled right across my (unmade) bed.
ReplyDeleteI did notice she never came back though.
Heh Heh heh.
My walls are simple...
ReplyDeleteDad's paintings.
Stella's paintings and other works, including a larger-than-life collage portrait of her as the Happy Wanderer, walking stick and all, right outside my bathroom door... now that opens my eyes when I leave the little room.
A couple of really nice prints (one by Kandinsky that I'm pretty sure you would find acceptable).
And a huge print of a portrait of Louis XIV's court musicians, with their instruments and music, in their powdered wigs... to remind me how glad I am that I can play their music without wearing their garb. (Shudder!)
[CAPTCHA text: "fressen", which is German for "eat" but is used only in reference to animals.]
Steve,
ReplyDeleteIn Yiddish, a fresser is a human piggo.
BadTux,
I'm with you re. the walls. A friend who lived in Toyko some time introduced me to the bare walls ethos, and I'm quite happy with it. I have a very few prints I like for one reason or another (color in a Chagall; sentiment -- dying sunflowers -- in a Van Gogh.)
I hate photos or paintings of people or most sites. I could bear Kandinsky as he is colorful and if you didn't know they were houses on the hill, you wouldn't know; the less figurative, the better.
p.s. -- I am well overdue for a cleaning jag. You've inspired me :0