In this case my house guest (good friend) loves doing chores!! What? I did clean before she arrived...swiffed, decluttered, changed linens, removed cat condos from guest room, etc. I thought our denizen was in great shape. Ship shape...or sort of close, anyway.
She is 91. She is Italian. Not in that order. First and foremost, she is an amazing lady. One who has lived in 3 countries and has always embraced the local color. She is a giver, a friend to all and very possible a neat nick. I've witness many Italians being this way...extra attention to the dusty details, but I don't know for sure. I do know that I swiffed and mopped the tile floors more in my whole life during the 3 years we lived in Italy. Part of it could have been that living below the most active volcano in Europe, Mt. Etna...one tends to get lots of daily dusting of very fine ash everywhere. Yes, my landlord also mopped her balconies, but that's another story.
So my beautiful friend is here for a few days. Not sure exactly as those particular things are just detail...play by ear, she says. I'm supposed to "do what I want" and she's fine. Forgetaboutit.
This morning we have a nice coffee, some eggs and some fancy new yogurt. She's gonna t look for it, and also a new cordless vacuum (she likes ours). After breakfast we talk. She is adorable and very comfortable in her nightgown. She says later "we dress up" (shower etc), but not really meaning get dressed up. Just get out. She needs some new jeans and says her brows are kind of messed up she said. Messed has two syllables...Italian accent.
She finishes my dishes (that were done), sweeps, mops and asks what else she can do. Holy moly, my floor is spotless and crumbless. I actually caught a glimpse of her doing a few spots by hand and I sort of watched to see if she was sweeping under the rug or anything like that. Nope. She also shook out and took out the kitchen rugs. Maybe I am just a "casual housekeeper?" I thought I was so much more. I had to help with handing her a few of these items...broom, swiffer, wet jet pads, etc..oh and Fabuloso. She hadn't heard of that, surprisingly. I giggle as I'm giving her a cleanind tip of adding it to the mop stuff (or spraying randomly on the floor). She was in a mode and I couldn't stop her...there was nothing I could do.
So..we are ready to go and run around and get her some jeans, etc. As we leave we walk through the laundry room to leave (I swear not intentional). She sees a few flowery canvas bags of laundry. I could read her mind, so I point out the clean and freshly folded (mostly) bag. Goodness!! I also state that I've washed our comforter this morning (feeling like an overachiever, I was). Restart dryer and we head off. She gets a big gleam in her eye. I say "will it make you happy to do laundry later?" Yes, she says. Okay, then...I will make you happy. We laugh.
We had a fun afternoon and went to many places and of course she never gets tired. During lunch though, I did casually mention how dusty our baseboards are.
note* She enjoyed reading this
