esrosedotblog

Every two weeks we turn the house over for cleaning.

A crack team comes in and does the necessary dusting and mop up.

It is hard to stay out of the way.

In the summer it is too hot to go outside while they are here but now, the first of the season, it was OK to go sit out back on the patio while they cleaned and mopped and all.

We tried doing it ourselves once. A long time ago.

First, there was the dearth of implements.

Hard to mop here and there with one of those stringy bastards.

Then we didn't have the product. Like one's hair. Gotta have the products: bleach, soap, wax.

Then the gloves. Nasty to do it bare. So those playtex bastards all slipping off all the time.

You get the picture.

This lot, they come in at noon and are done with the entire house, all of it, in two hours.

They have been coming to help us for quite awhile. They were hired by the realtor when we bought the place and never left.

Sooner or later, they come and tell us that we can go back inside.

The house always smells good.

Today was a big cleanup day, actually. Marcus went to the groomer this morning. He smells like an old lady. The shampoos they use on him I guess.

All this fades in a day or so and we start to fill the house up with our smell. Our special family aura.

Labels: housekeeping

I still feel a little guilty about hiring someone to clean the house.

You would think that I would be over this but I am not.

It is not so much a matter of having a better job done. I can tell you right now that will not be the case today. This guy (it is, for the first time, a man not a woman) is very good. He does it all and does it well. But I can and probably will go through the house when he is gone and find the spots that were missed.

But I do not want to do it any more. Actually "us". John and I did it together. He the dries, me the wets.

Half way measures were not OK with me. When I "mopped" the floor, it was on my hands and knees with a rag, not a mop. A mop was too far away from the action. A "swifter" would be outside my zone entirely. I think our guy uses one. I try not to look.

The pros miss the base board moulding a lot of the time. The glass is spotless but sometimes I find a missed surface.

I try not to inspect. When they leave the house smells great, a feature that never occurred when John and I did it ourselves. Maybe the faint aroma of furniture polish is mixed into the other smells.

I had to get a can of Pride for the dining room table because they used some oily shit on it. But that doesn't actually clean the globs on the wood. Only makes them shiny too.

See? I can't stop.

But I am happy to have it done. And it smells good. And a little guilt can easily get transferred over to a more generous tip for them and emotional compensation for me.

Labels: housekeeping

There is not much to say about the new 2014 Volvo XC70 I bought yesterday.

A picture would be worth a thousand words. See below.

If you saw the old XC70, you would see the new one except for a modification in the grill, small, which they always do so the cognizant can cognizate.

And the panel is all digital, variable, big and hi tech. You can get, if you want, the digital version of the old dial, just flick the switch. Or big numbers. And all.

It is the first thing that Bob the salesman has to show me and it seems cruel not to allow him the demo he so thoroughly has practiced or the boyish enthusiasm with which he conducts the tour.

I didn't even get into the car.

We went in and made a deal. It took the usual fucking two hours. Find the car in Escondido or somewhere, talk a little about how it will be not perfectly match my specs, I had to by a seat warmer and a remote ignition. One for the seriously cold climate we have here in the winter and the other so that I don't have to get into a HOT car. Shit.

But it is always thus. Just get them and believe that we will appreciate a warm ass when it hits 32 on those few days it does and the bit of air blowing in our faces as we open the car.

Otherwise it is the front wheel drive (cheaper) and beige interior and same same same.

We wanted a light color. The desired crystal white which has sparkles in it comes only in the top top of the line package. So I am getting what he told me was Champagne but the writeup says Seashell. It is a beige, light, that shines and turns silver as you walk up to the car. It is very flashy in its way and the humble desire we had to let people know subtly that we had a new car is out the window. This one shouts "look at me". "new new new". And it is just gorgeous. Not tan, not silver. Light because we don't want a heat absorber in the desert. Why people have black or dark blue cars like the one he showed me, also dirt flashers, is beyond me.

Here it is, I think it is lighter than this. I know it is. And you can't see what happens when you walk up to it in the sunlight as it gets different shades and shines in your face. My god it is pretty.

I pick it up Monday. Another two hours of back and forth.

Gladly the Volvos do not dicker or mess with you. It is all blue book less damage on the trade in (we had some damage, I thought serious, but not at 1500 and did pretty well). Then the sticker, less a "sale" two thousand off why we are getting it now, an extended warranty so we are covered for anything for 8 years and 100,00 miles which we have no chance of hitting. I hope.

I am a little excited. I told John on the phone in Bologna yesterday. He was very tired from the travel over to Munich and through the Alps on the train so he was very amenable to almost anything. I should have tried slipping a few more things in. But I had already told him of my unilateral decision to get the house cleaned bi-weekly which he is a bit cool to. He said fine even if it was an extravagance. You should see the house. Clean, clean, clean.

The simple fact is that I am tired of cleaning and we do not come close to my standards for a clean house and these new people (a family team, two men and two women I think married to each other but maybe not) exceed my standards by quite a bit. I just need to put some things back where they "belong" like my medicine chest stuff but actually even that has more spare room and a better display.

Labels: housekeeping, Volvo

John and I have been doing our own cleaning since we moved here.

And that has been good as far is it goes but over time it becomes clear that it didn't really go far enough.

I hired a team in today, Sergio and another man, two women, and they went to work.

Wow. I was ashamed to pay the price they were asking but this kind of work is very low on the supply and demand curve here. Or is it high. I said OK but added ten dollar tips for each.

They got into the nitty gritty. I had forgotten how much nitty and gritty there is.

Experts.

It took 5 hours and they were not down a second. Also windows and the outdoor furniture and they hosed down the patio and courtyard.

Booker's wall prints are gone. The corners in the showers are faultless.

I have been around the house and I can see, what I can see, is total.

They have been into everything. Even the closets under sinks. The refrigerator. I watched a good part of the early work then left for a meeting at Volvo but it was a wonderful job.

So, I am asking them to come back every two weeks. We used to have it done weekly. He offered to do it for the same rate as we used to pay in the other place with two of them, I added ten bucks in my head for tips. Of course this place is half as big. I won't pay the low rates. Just will not.

John has more willingness to do cleaning than I do because he thinks it is a bit extravagant to have a cleaner. I think he is pleading poverty. We need help.

And me? I am fucking tired of it all. I am not good at it and I know it. I don't feel good doing something that I know are half-way measures but I am not going to get more ambitious or more effective.

I just am not.

And what about our getting older? We don't have to prove to anyone that we can still hack it. Especially when we really cannot and do not want to.

So, it is done. Unilateral. I talked to him this morning from Bologna and he was so tired he didn't give me any resistance. Besides, I already signed Sergio up. Two weeks, they come again. If he wants, John can vacuum or dust in between and I will do a bit here and there with the wets but that will just be primping it.

Besides, Booker is like this dog. He likes the visitors and they are fun to watch.

I will join him just like this pooch.

Did I mention that they scrubbed all the tile floor that is visible and a lot that is not? Some of that has not been done since we have been here.

Labels: housekeeping

I want to share my dish washing procedures for other "single men" who find that they are eating alone.

First, if you are just beginning your "single" status, take all the clean dishes from last night's operation out of the dishwasher and put them away. Then take today's dishes, not counting any that your partner used this morning, and put them in the dishwasher as you use them.

I had the good fortune that my partner didn't use any before he left this morning. Easy peasy.

Do not, incidentally, use any of the dirty dishes during the day for a second use. This is a normal guy thing but I do not recommend it. Besides being a little on the disgusting side (why one would do it of course, to be disgusting) it is not making best use of this special method. Avoid the impulse to second use. One usage per dish.

At the end of the day, after dinner and before any "snack" really wash the load that is in the dishwasher.

Do not succumb to the other guy impulse which is to not wash the dishes until the machine is full. Do it at the end of your eating day.

Tomorrow. First thing. Take your dishes as needed from the dishwasher, an item at a time. Do not, of course, put it back into the washer until the end of the day. Accumulate the day's dishes in the dish rack in the left hand basin of the double sink.

At the end of the day, repeat.

This way, you will not use any more dishes than you absolutely have to use. You will have all that you need in rotation in the washer.

The single man does not want to have too many dishes in operation. I think that this is the reason the impulse to double or triple usage is indulged. This is over doing it.

Usually, the dishwasher will settle down to a nice regular inventory. In my case, there is a cereal dish, an egg plate or, on alternate days, a yogurt/fruit bowl. A mid morning cup and plate for under to contain the frozen yogurt snack.

There will be a plate for the lunch sandwich (small) and a glass for milk. There will be a coffee cup to nurse continuously during the morning to be finished around noon.

There is no afternoon snack that requires a dish of any kind. A coke in the can and a handful of pretzel rods have their own "plates". Then. A big dinner plate at night. Perhaps another glass for water with dinner but usually, on my own, I drink from my perpetual water bottle or don't have water at all as I would if someone was here.

Then, at the end of the day, as happens these days, a plate and a cup thing for pistachio nuts and their shells. This does not get washed that day but is kept over for the next day's load. It can be used the next morning, the one re-use exception if you need a handful of pistachios before lunch. After all, it is pretty clean and can be safely used in this way.

After dinner, pretty simple, everything goes into the dishwasher and the machine is turned on.

In the morning, your day's clean plates will be ready for use. Load up the dish drainer as you did on the previous day.

On Friday, there will be one cup that has been holding your tooth brush at day and your dentures at night. Put it in the wash and grab it out when it is clean just before you need it for bed. If you do not have dentures, no problem. Use your water glass in the bathroom to hold the brush for that night.

The bathroom water glass. Needs cleaning when you think of it. Put it in the mix anytime and don't forget to take it out. Do not do it on a Friday as it will be needed to hold the tooth brush if you don't have dentures. See above.

Any questions?

OK.

One more thing. In this house, we wash the dog's food dish daily. It is put in at night and retrieved in the morning. The clean dish becomes the water dish which becomes the meal dish. Then that one is washed.

I include this because some people do have a dog.

Also, I realize, that some people, usually not dog people are revolted by the idea of a dog dish being washed with human dishes. These people should get a life. The modern dishwasher is so hot you can't stand it and if I am willing to eat dishes that are used by other humans, so what?

Labels: housekeeping

OVER HEATED

The electric oven wouldn't work yesterday. We called. The guy came.

It is the heat sensor.

I like these guys. They have so much experience. When I said that it didn't work and we saw the flasher F3, he knew it was the sensor.

I said that I had just cleaned the oven. He stopped me. "Say no more".

"You should never use the oven self clean".

Too hot. 500-600 F. Too long. Up to six hours. Mine is 4.5. It fries the circuits or oven parts.

I asked how to clean then.

He took a rag and showed me a wiping motion on the counter. "Do this with oven cleaner on the rag". And he changed hands.

Here is another way to do it. Same motion, different hand.

Oh. I got it.

The new oven sensor comes tomorrow.

Never too old to learn something.

Labels: housekeeping

TURN IT OVER

Today was the annual turning of the mattress day.

They say you should do this every 90 days but I can't get enthused for doing it that often.

So we settle for annually.

It isn't difficult and it doesn't take long but it has to be done right. It is not just a flip over. It is a turn, a flip and a turn. Here!

Labels: housekeeping

mETHODICAL

Today was cleaning day. Every Friday morning.

It takes about an hour and a half.

John does the dries and I do the wets.

In the old house, we had help. We hadn't done our own house cleaning since we rented an interim apartment in Boston 13 years ago. That was only for a year.

About six moths ago, after a few weeks of coughing and tearing up, I started to look for some healthier option for cleaning products.

I reported, at the time, that I had found the method cleaning products.

I started with the kitchen sink. Comet had given me a rash and smelled like a swimming pool.

The method alternative smells good, has no chlorine and works really well. Today there were a lot of burnish marks in the sink and they all removed pretty quickly.

I moved on to the bath and tile cleaner which smells like the sink cleaner. I can't tell how it does because the tile and tubs and sinks are always clean looking. The results seem to last.

Then I moved on to the toilet cleaner. Same smell. Just like the Lysol nozzle thing that you shoot in upside down. Cleans like a bastard. No scouring and with our water there was always a scum to scrub with a scotchpad thing.

And on and on. The no-smell general cleaner, the hard floor cleaner that you spritz on and then mop, I do that by hand. I like the almond smelling wood cleaner although it is a bit spotty at times, they are wetpads. We have converted in the dishwasher and the laundry as well.

Crazy huh?

It is rare that I find something so reliably good across the entire product line.

The house smell is a good one. There are no "bad" ingredients to go into the sewer and I don't tear or cough any more.

I now use the sea salt bath gel for my showers. I even use it on my hair such as it is.

This is not an ad for method. Or really a testimonial.You can order on line but we get ours at Drugstore.com which has hefty regular shopper rebates and discounts.

There. Done. Thanks to method, I am a happy homemaker.

Oh. They have funny slogans too. The starter bundle says "cleans like a mother". Nice.

Labels: housekeeping

WHIZZZZ updated

Our vacuum has been slowly declining.

We read in the New Yorker about Dyson who invented a whole new, top to bottom, vacuum. The Cyclone.

It has been in our mind for awhile.

Since we moved to the condo and now vacuum our own floors, we are keenly aware of our Hoover's limitations. Back and forth no side to side. Trouble on bare floors. A tendency to break the drive belt. Bags.

The Dyson Cyclone (the middle priced one which is still expensive but not a lot more than other high quality vacuums) has a ball for a wheel. It swings and swivels. It has a hose which houses the handle. Handle out reveals a slinky hose.

And the cyclone. You sort of want to get down on hands and knees and watch it swirl.

John thinks that it automatically senses when it is on a rug and adjusts for the brushing.

I, personally, intend to stay as far away from it as possible.

I do the wets. My technical breakthrough is to get all new cleaning products. Method brand. Wonderful.

Labels: housekeeping, tools, toys

COMING CLEAN

Today was cleaning day. I do the wets.

I am using the new Method products and am very happy with them. Actuallyl it is method, a ploy to the post modern and helvetica set. I have had at it with them for about a month.

The tub and tile look brighter. The place smells better. And I can get into the bath/shower and spray around without worrying that I will faint.

I have become an enthusiastic floor scrubber. Again with the method o mop product. This is a hard floor cleaner that you drizzle on the floor before or as you mop.

I don't mop. I like to get down there and use a cloth. Wide swipes over the drizzled soap.

Very nice.

I do the bathroom and kitchen floors weekly and today I started the "rest of the house" project. I scrubbed our bedroom.

It wasn't very dirty. They did a good job cleaning the place down before we moved in and so it is only mostly bare feet. Man and dog. The dog prints are the worrisome ones. But not bad.

Next week the part of the floor that peeks out from the rug in the living room and maybe the dining area.

Labels: housekeeping

METHODOLOGY

A month or so ago, I bitched on here about the cleaning materials that I was using. Getting gassed in the shower stall with 409 and choking with the toilet cleaners with bleach.

Penny sent a comment about the products of

Method Home Cleaning Products

which are all natural based ingredients and which have a nice smell.

I tried the tub and tile cleaner and it worked great.

So I got the all purpose cleaner (no scent) and that worked well too.

So I went whole hog and now have the toilet cleaner, floor cleaner dish soap and sink scouring powder.

Today was the first day I used them all and the house smells great.

And, everything is clean!

By smell, I mean that, well, you have to have an odor for some of this. But they have contrived to have their's be pleasant somehow.

The Eucalyptus Mint smells a lot like a cleanser that my mother used. I bet this is not an accident.

All of these products are biodegradable so I am doing good outside the home when they get flushed while, at the same time, I am not killing myself with toxic fumes.

The containers are innovative as well. The toilet cleaner which is not shown here is a more convenient tear drop shape.

A great discovery. Or suggestion. Thanks.

Labels: environment, housekeeping

PRODUCT

Today is cleaning day.

I do the "wets".

That means, in order, getting the toilets wettened with the Lysol toilet cleaner, apply upside down into the rim. I like squirting the thing. I use the kind with bleach.

After that, I wipe down of tile, baths, counters, and finally the toilets, brush with the Lysol stuff inside and the 409 outside.

Then the glass.

The kitchen counters (Windex) and sinks (Comet).

And then the floors (Fabuloso, a local product for the Latins), by hand, on my knees with my new knee pads. I can't stand mopping and it doesn't do a very good job.

It all takes about an hour.

I do my desk, dust and Windex for the black formica. Works best.

The materials I am using need revision. I just picked up on using the same ones our housekeeper used at the old place.

The tile cleaner, 409, is choking when I am cooped into the tub and the shower doors are closed.

Maybe an organic thing would be better.

The other stuff is OK.

The best is the glass cleaner she/I use on the mirrors. Sprayway.

It is like the old glass wax. No streaks. It sprays on with a huge frost on the glass and wipes off easily. It is probably as toxic as the 409 but I like the effect. I make grand sweeps with the spray on glass.

I am sure this is boring to read about but it is a new experience for me. We haven't cleaned our own house since we lived, for a year, temporarily, in the apartment in Boston.

And maybe never before that although that couldn't be true.

When I was a kid, I cleaned the house for my mother. She worked. I couldn't have done much of a job but everyone seemed happy with it.

I like the cleaning actually. The process and the good smells afterwards along with the good feelings of having done the job.

Labels: housekeeping

COOL

We got the refrigerator fixed yesterday.

It had been out over the weekend.

A control board that regulates the baffle between the freezer (which supplies the cold air) and the warmer, temperate part closed down. So the freezer froze up and the cooler got no cool at all.

We lived out of the ice chests for a couple of days. Like a picnic.

It wasn't too bad.

But it is nice to be back to regular business.

Labels: appliances, housekeeping

A GOOD COMING HOME MOVE

Friday is a big housework day. It is a food shopping day for one thing. I had Tuesday's list as well as today's and I had to go to the bakery to get bread. I go there more often now because I don't have as much freezer capacity.

Friday is also my day to do "the wets". That is, the sinks, the toilets and the floors. Bath and kitchen.

We are not mopping all the tile in the new home. In the old place everything got mopped every week and all our furniture is water damaged on the base.

I could have taken a pass since I wasn't here and it would only be "half as dirty" but I did not. I did the work and got a feeling of satisfaction that I was home and I was into being here.

Then, I took a nap, had lunch, watched the movie and went to the pool for 20 minutes. Ten minutes a side. Just like a chicken barbecue. Only I don't baste. No chemicals. Just the natural sun and mother nature to make my Vitamin D.

Labels: condo, health, home, housekeeping, life

CLEANUP

We have chosen Friday as the day to clean house.

John has the dry and I have the wet.

We will do it every two weeks.

For years, we have had someone in to clean. Except for the one year in the apartment before we came here.

Now, here we are back to doing it ourselves.

It is fine. The space is not large and it is really built for easy accessibility.

I have all the cleaning materials our housecleaner used.

The most amazing is the odd shaped toilet cleaning bottle. That stuff just comes out of the spout and eats all the dirt.

Hi tech.

All in all, a good opening act. Both of us did good.

Labels: housekeeping

DOWNSIZE?

We have known for some time that, sooner or later, we would probably downsize from our house to a condo.

The problem is finding a living situation that suits.

One floor. Enough space and privacy.

There is a point, coming soon, or even now where the expense and the trouble of a big house is beyond our interest or capability.

Now, it is more interest. Later, I assume, it would be capability.

So we are looking around.

Today, John found a condo in a nice development which is architecturally designed. Very nice. Very quiet. In a section of town which is mostly undeveloped.

Not too expensive. Maybe a good downsize which would spin off enough cash to extend our nestegg.

Today, we made the great leap of taking me to see the place. John has looked at it a few times over the three years that it has been for sale. Actually, there are two places. Next door to each other. Mirror images of one another. How weird is that?

When he gets me to go look you know that we are nearing a tipping point.

And when we tip, we roll.

Stay tuned.

Labels: housekeeping, life

UNSURE AT ANY SPEED

We came to the "no" decision five years ago when we put on a new roof and had to remove a lot of the wiring for the alarm system.

Weighing the Value of Home Security System

It was a no brainer.

Here are the things that happened when we had it.

A midnight call by the security company when the battery went down. The guy was a dick. He actually treated me as though I was a perp. I threatened to call 911 and he left.

We had a few "false" calls to the police. We didn't have to pay a fine as there was a grace fee but still.

The batteries were forever running out. A pain in the ass.

Now we keep the house open. Anyone can get in. Fuck it.

It is the same principle we learned when we got a convertible. Leave the alarm off so they don't slit your top.

Now, if they want to come in, welcome. Take what you want.

And, we have a big scary Airedale who will not even let a good friend come in without a bark and wants us to come before he lets them "in". If you are a friend, it is a welcome bark. If you are not, well, we can tell the difference and he won't let you get past the door.

Labels: crime, housekeeping

CLIPPINGS

The other day I was looking for something. I don't even remember what it was. I never found it.

One of the places I looked was in the upper right drawer of the vanity in our bathroom. This drawer contains small implements like scissors and nail clippers. Tweezers. Stuff like that.

I knew that whatever it was that I was looking for would be in the back of the drawer and so I pulled it all the way out.

Aaaargh!!

In the back of the drawer was this immense pile of, what? I couldn't figure it out? A mouse nest? Something that had deteriorated and fallen apart?

No!

It was a huge pile of nail clippings!

I am sorry if this creeps you out. It did me a bit.

Here were all the nail clippings that I had not shaken out of the nail clippers for, well, about 13 years. Every time the drawer got closed the clippings would be shaken to the back.

Now, I think that I do dispose of the nails. But I guess not.

Here they were. Dare I say thousands? One thousand divided by ten would be 100. If I count toenails which these clearly were not, too small, then it would be 50.

So it is conceivable. All the residue of 100 clippings. Once a week. That would be two years. So it wouldn't take too much longer to collect half or a quarter of the nails.

Of course, it is a reflection on the degree of house cleaning we indulge in.

I showed John and mentioned that it was just the kind of thing where, when I am dead, someone would open the drawer and call everyone else in to look. "The old man saved all his nail clippings".

Of such stuff, legends are made.

I haven't cleaned the drawer out yet. I am thinking that perhaps I will not. It would be more fun to consider the reaction when someone finds them and wonders how the fuck they got there in the first place.

Labels: housekeeping

DOMESTIC

Today was the day I clean the stove.

Every six months.

It takes a long time and we cannot really do it in summer it is so hot.

I like the result. All that white ash inside.

Cremation.

There is a lot of maintenance around here.

At a certain point in life, it is all maintenance. They tell me. I am halfway there.

I have a lot of things on automatic. On my calendar.

Clean the oven. Put the blue stuff in the dishwasher. Put the anti-calcium drops in the fountain out front. Fill the fountain. Water the non-irrigated plants. Cover the pool, uncover the pool. Wipe down the tables outside (almost daily if the wind blows. Sand). And so on.

It is nice. Constant. A comfort.

Labels: housekeeping

SLEEPING UPSIDE DOWN

We turn our mattress once a year.

Today is the day.

It is not as easy to do as it sounds.

Last year was a clusterfuck. So many twists and turns and hollering at one another that I think we actually may have put it back exactly as it was before we started,

So this year, I enlisted some help.

How to Turn Your Mattress

It was easy if you followed the directions. Some of us didn't want to. But we got there.

It is counter intuitive somehow.

I liked the diagrams and to do it slowly so I could see it happening.

Labels: housekeeping, life