Long live the melamine sponge

So, the mapreading skills still need work. But I don't actually get us lost EVERY time I navigate. We made it to the closing on time. (It's a complicated city, full of one-ways, and the bypass versus the highway...)

The owners, it turns out, are cool people. We may hang out in the future, even! We did lunch, discussed the previous renters, were relieved to hear that cleaning had been done. Then it was time. Time to enter the field. We did not realize the madness that would ensue.

The renters, it seems, did not know actually how to clean well. We saw vacuuming had been done, and threw our plans for flea poisoning out the window. There could be no worries. But for the carpet... we went in with a steam cleaner, and discovered the living room carpet to not be a shade of dark tan/maroon, but a very nice sort of light beige/cream. Long live the melamine sponge! Long may you scrub our floors, walls, door frames! Hoorah for white floors, not grey! Hurrah that the apparent water damage to the bathroom was simply corner lint that had never, ever been scrubbed!

We cleaned with a fervor that may have been... fanatical. Obsessive. But we have always felt(even when renter ourselves) that a new apartment/house/garage/whatever, when you move in, should look as new as it possibly can. This is what the housing deposit is for. This is what cleaning services do. This is the way we scrub the floor, early in the morning.

So we have reclaimed the house, inch by inch, from people who did not keep it clean. We have scrubbed the scuffs from the walls, we have spackle to fill in the nail holes, we have peeled away the layers of greasegrime from the kitchen, the soapscum from the bathrooms, and even narrowly avoided death when Lysol mixed with The Works (the sudden appearance of whisps of white smoke from the toilet bowl was a pretty good indication that the vent should stay on and the bathroom door CLOSED.)

And now, a word about dogs. I shall endeavor not to say I despise dogs, despite allergies to them. I don't believe I do hate them, or other furred pets. I think I actually like them. But... there is care for dogs (which can expand to other pets) that is necessary. One is cleanliness. If the dog is not clean, do not let it roam around where it will make all your carpets smell of dog. A clean dog is pleasant to smell. A dirty dog is not. Homes that smell of dog, that are littered with dog hair, are not pleasant places to be. Two is humane treatment. Do not lock your small dog in a garage for days at a time when you are out of town, or are too lazy to care for them. The accumulated bodily functions and further animal smell contaminate the walls, floor, and ceiling, and bleach alone has not yet succeeded in removing it (though the floor must be sterile, now.) And finally, and here is probably the most important... if your dog has fleas, for the sake of your family, your small children, and your animal, get rid of them. Spray the house. Do not live in squalor surrounded by as many fleas as populated homes in the Middle Ages. The people that move into the flea-infestation that you created through your carelessness will want to kill you, especially after spending several days nursing itch paranoia and slathering on calamine lotion.

Flea foggers appear to work quite well. Nothing like poisoning the place where you sleep. Where your child will sleep. We moved our stuff in on Monday, and Mom and Dad helped us re-vacuum, reclean, and unpack through Tuesday. There is remarkable progress, though we only have space for roughly half our books on bookshelves. It also seems strange to be setting up the stuff of a person we have never met, have not yet named, who we simply do not know apart from her movement. We also have more pots and pans and plastic storage things than even I thought was possible. So, if you are someone who needs a few things like this, we might have a special present for you.

And finally, a few thoughts on pregnancy. I am in month 9. The final month. I don't feel big, but then I catch a side-on glimpse of myself in a mirror or shop window, or see my shadow on a wall, and think, "Dang! How much farther out can my belly GO?!" I think I understand now why it lasts for nine months. You need all of it to get used to the concept of actually being pregnant, and dealing with all the emotional baggage attached to how concept and reality are not at all similar. Then you need to deal with how having a child doesn't turn you into some freako suburban soccer parent, and how all those must-haves, and must-dos, are in fact choices. I didn't want to be pregnant. I would not have chosen it. I would not have blithely gone skipping into some parental dreamworld. It has been a process all the way of resistance and questioning, anger and anxiety. And I don't know that I will love my child at first sight, like everyone keeps insisting I will. BUT. I know that I am suffused with an increasing sense of curiosity. A sense of curiosity so strong about what this creature will look like, how they will be, how we will handle raising her... and this curiosity stirs a sense of protectiveness in me that does not rise on a usual basis; it inspires me to think beyond mere education. It is a curiosity so strong that it could be love, I think. I have this mine/not-mine, me/not-me kicking around which we are going to meet, and we will be strangers/not-strangers. She is us and not us. We have so much to learn, so many adventures to embark on.