Hiatus

My parents, accompanied by our family friends and neighbors, Gary and Elaine, arrive tomorrow, and will be with us through Wednesday morning.  Part family time, part business, my Mom rented a van to drive from Iowa (a loooong trip) to bring me my bedroom furniture from home and meet with some Ithaca credit union staff, and my dad came along to keep her company and to help with the driving.  Gary and Elaine, bless them, do a lot of driving, and decided to accompany my parents, see where Sydney and I live, and help haul all the stuff Mom has accumulated for me.

Those of you who have been to our house know that it’s little.  Very little.  I’ve saved room for the furniture pieces, but after this our house will be “done.”  The only thing we’re allowed to buy from now on out is food, since we can dispose of that.  Don’t even ask about books–we have no idea where they’ll go, but I’m sure we’ll buy them anyway.  And we’re not moving.

But with company coming, I’ve taken a couple-day hiatus from work to scrub, scour, and launder everything in the house.  Okay, not that bad, but it seems like it.  I guess to make my cleaning worthwhile, Sydney and I made a horrendous mess canning all of Tuesday and Wednesday.  Tomato juice dripping everywhere, tomato juice boiling over on the stove, compost sitting in a huge garden bucket we hauled in for the occasion, it was a real disaster scene.  Our cutting board may never recover from the massive tomato slaughtering.

Oh yes, and since our canning process included lots and lots of hot peppers, Sydney and I have recently felt as if our hands should be wrapped in “TOXIC” labels.  I managed to rub my eye while I was preoccupied and nearly blinded myself.  Sydney used his hands to eat something, getting a nice hot ring around his mouth, which I then picked up when I gave him a peck.  I’m telling you, that stuff is dangerous, and we were using kitchen gloves!  The only one to survive the process intact is Arwyn, whom I carefully petted only near the back and hindquarters for a day or two.  I can only imagine what she thought of that.

Erin