It is Sunday, August 30 and there are only 72 shopping days until my birthday.  Today we remember the birthdays of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Huey P Long and Warren Buffet.  On this day in 257 St. Sixtus II began his reign as Catholic Pope, in 1850 Honolulu officially became a city and in 1967 the US Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall as the first black Supreme Court justice.  In Afghanistan it is Children’s Day, in Gibralter it is Bank Holiday and in Turkey it is Victory Day.

Well, the big day is coming closer.  Soon we will be moving out of our house of 36 years and moving into our new home.  We have had the new place for a month now, but it has taken this long to get it cleaned and ready for us to live in.  As I mentioned in the past, the prior owners were not slobs, but they were casual about cleaning.  On the other hand, the lovely Elaine is obsessive about cleaning, trying to erase any evidence of the people who were there before. 

One of the most recent issues was the need to clean up all the paint spatters as a result of the DIY painting done by the former tenants.  Yes we had painting done, but the spatters were not the colors we used.  They were the colors that we covered up.  They did not tape around outlets and switch plates so those all had to be scraped and cleaned.  The lovely Elaine spent one afternoon sitting on the floor of the one bathroom scraping the paint off the floor with a razor blade.  I was content to leave it and just tell people that it was the design in the tile.  She gave me the look and then got back to work.

We have shampooed the rugs and cleaned the floors.  The windows have all been washed, inside and out, and the frames and screens vacuumed.  The stove and microwave have been degreased and cleaned, the counters scrubbed, the bathroom floors scrubbed (yes scrubbed, as in me on my hands and knees with a brush) and all the fans and light fixtures have been cleaned.  I cannot think of anything we missed, but if I do I will not tell her about it or we will end up taking whatever it is down or apart and cleaning it thoroughly.  

A problem we have also been having lately is losing things.  We have the item in our hand, put it down and then cannot find it when we need it.  I am not sure why this keeps happening, but it is becoming maddening.  The worst part is that when we finally find it, it is right out in the open and we cannot figure out why it took so long to see it.  I read a short story once that claimed that there are elves that exist in the world between seconds.  The story claimed that the elves would move things around during the period of time between the seconds and sometimes they would not get the objects back in time.  They would then have to wait for the next opportunity to replace the item.  That is why you cannot find something and then suddenly it is right where you left it.  At the time I thought that was a most unusual  far-fetched idea.  Lately, I am beginning to wonder if it is actually possible.

We are still going through the various levels of foolishness with the town where our old house is.  I do not want to discuss it too much now because I do not want to take the chance that one of them will read this and be offended.  I doubt that they would see it, but it would be my luck to have someone see it and tell them about it.  I will fill you in on all that once we are out and done with that circus.

On a different subject, we were out recently and went along a stretch of road that had bicycles painted on the road.  I am not sure what the symbols represented, but they were all along this one section, in both directions.  I looked at them and felt that something was needed.  The symbol was just a bicycle.  I told the lovely Elaine that I wanted to come back some evening and paint stick figures on the bikes doing various tricks.  She told me I couldn’t.  When I asked why, she said she had enough to do with the new house.  She did not want to have to waste time bailing me out of jail and going to court with me.  I try to offer new experiences for her, but she just isn’t always interested.

This week our fact tells us that only the male turkey gobbles.  Females make a clicking noise.  Most married men know that sound.  When you see it in print it is spelled tsk, tsk.  I get that noise a lot from the lovely Elaine.

Have a good week!