Wonderland Burlesque's Around The House Quiz

Wonderland Burlesque's 

Around The House Quiz

Today's quiz has to do with things and places around your place of residence. 

There are those day-to-day or weekly chores to be done. A favorite place to find some 'me' time. That product that truly is Mother's Little Helper!

If you live in an apartment and don't have a yard - think about those errands you have to do and the places you must go in order to maintain your domicile. 

Let's share with one another a few thoughts about those things that have become routine, things we do without a second thought. 

Let's begin...

1/ Favorite Chore Inside The House?

I like to vacuum floors and do the dishes by hand. 

Vacuuming is a lot like mowing the lawn, but indoors. At The Boyfriend's house, we have a Shark vacuum. I love it. All that marvelous suction... constantly giving me ideas. But what I really enjoy is emptying the collection container. It never fails, every week I manage to find enough cat fur to make a kitten!

And no dishwasher for me. Oh, no. I love putting my hands in that hot soapy water. I'm not sure why it feels so good. It either has to do with those Palmolive ads back in the day featuring Madge ("You're soaking in it!") or that song titled Sandra, from Barry Manilow's II album. The one is rather campy; Madge would sometimes have brilliantly red hair and a mad coif. The other, very sad. I remember the first time I heard it (I was but a wee thing,) I cried and cried. So empathetic was I, that I never looked at a sink full of dishes the same again.

Yes. Housework has consequences. 

2/ Least Favorite Chore Inside The House?

Dusting. 

I don't see the point of it. 

Yes, everything is filthy, covered in dust. You take a rag or a duster to it and all you're doing is moving it into the air, where it will be carried away only to land on something else. It's annoying. And a waste of a good floppy wrist. 

And don't get me started on dust bunnies under the bed. 

Where do they come from? Why do they grow so big? And are they organized and planning something in the night?

3/ Favorite Cleaning Aid/Product?

I have to cheat and list two. 

I love commercial grade Soft Scrub with bleach. It will clean almost anything. I am so impressed with how easy it is to use. I also love the smell of bleach... so, win-win.

Recently I discovered commercial grade 409 Degreaser Disinfectant. I use The Ex's soap, which is made with various oils, (palm, coconut, olive, etc.) and really got tired of going to town on that ring around my nice, white porcelain bathroom sink. 

This stuff! Woosh. Spray, wipe, rinse, gone. Not wild about the smell, but getting used to it. All I can say is, if Aretha Franklin had used this in her kitchen on a regular basis, she would of never had that house fire!

4/ Favorite Chore Outside The House?

Lawn mowing. Oh, I bitch about it at the start of the season, but it really doesn't take me more than an hour to do two lawns. I like it because nobody is 'at' you when you're mowing. Nobody can talk to you. If they try, you just double point to your ears and then double point to the mower. "What? Sorry, can't hear you. Lawn mower!" 

And then there's all the geometry involved. I love mowing in ever shrinking squares. It's predictable. You can let your mind wander. 

I spent a whole summer pretending I was training for and competing in a lawn mowing competition. I had running commentary in my head and developed a point system with a long list of possible deductions based on speed, accuracy and such. 

I also like to sing the same song over and over again while mowing. This is how I memorized all the words to Rosanne Cash's hit Seven Year Ache - a song I play on the piano, but could not remember the lyrics. A few weeks of mowing and I managed to press into my grey matter every single word - and it's not an easy song to memorize because there are phrases in it that I have no idea what they mean. 

5/ Least Favorite Chore Outside The House?

You would think it would be snow shoveling, but it is not. 

It's grocery shopping.

Please, somebody save me from having to run up and down aisles in order to hunt and gather. It's the lighting. It's the way the store is laid out, which never makes any sense. It's the other people and their children. It's the store clerks, who don't want to be there any more than I do, so they end up being about as helpful as a butt plug on Easter morning. It's that damn check out, which is like lining up for a beat down. It's hauling the groceries to your car and then hauling them into your kitchen and then trying put it all away before your frozen peas turn to mush. 

I don't even buy that much stuff... but it all pushes my ever-ready to be pushed anxiety buttons like it's a game of whac-a-mole. By the time I am done, I am promising myself never to put myself through that ordeal again. 

Then a week passes. I've eaten all the food. 

How else I gonna get my salad on???

6/ Favorite Leisure Activity Inside The House?

Taking a tooth brush and bleach to the grout around the tiles in my shower. 

Ha! As if.

Reading. It's like sleeping, because you are stationary, and the story of whatever it is you're reading is sort of like dreaming. 

And I love sleeping.

Not that it ever comes easily.

Reading, on the other hand? 

Real easy.

7/ Favorite Spot In The House?

It varies. 

Somedays it's my piano bench. But there are times when playing takes a great deal more effort and energy than I possess.

The other favorite spot is this pillow on my settee, where I write this blog. I almost always adore sitting there. I find comfort listening to the voice inside my head as the words hit the screen of my laptop. It's like the big old drag queen I wish to be is alive and well and still bummed that Jan Miner beat her out of the role of a lifetime.

8/ Least Favorite Spot In The House?

The shared kitchen upstairs. 

I have a tiny kitchenette in my basement apartment, but if I really want to cook and because the fridge is so large in the main kitchen, I drift up there to prepare meals. 

It's a 1952 kitchen in need of some major upgrading, but it has it's charms. I like the oak cupboards. The faded, worn Formica. It's a narrow space, which The Ex has made worse by, well, I don't know how else to say this... old lady-ing the place up to the hilt. When his mother passed, he moved a lot of her stuff into our very narrow kitchen, making it even more narrow. There is now no place to prepare anything. Mix anything. Cut anything. The counters are full and there are wooden cabinets lining the other wall. It's like a hallway in a tenement, where the neighbors store all their extra stuff just outside their doors. 

To top it off, it never fails... 

I make my evening meal every day, Monday thru Thursday at the same time that I feed Hercules, our dog. I like to watch NBC Evening News with Lester Holt (who I used to like, but now I think he's two-faced) while preparing and cooking. 

And even though I have specifically requested that he not talk to me while I cook or feed the dog or listen to Lester Holt, The Ex always appears and interrupts my flow. He gets in the way or he wants to talk at me about something. Bless his heart. But it does try my patience and takes the wind out of my sail.

It doesn't bother me as much as it first did... I mean, this is why, at my age, you do not want a roommate. Still. I don't like it. 

And I just want to call one of those non-profit used-a-bit shops and have them come haul all that stuff away so I can have my kitchen back. 

I know, I know. He's compensating for something. And I must... compromise.  

9/ Favorite Place To Hide Things?

Old eyeglass cases. 

Everything small, that is of value, is hidden in a drawer full of old eyeglass cases  - the hard shell kind with the metal hinges that click shut. I love those things. They're like clam shells full of precious treasures. 

Some days, I'm feeling nostalgic, and like Katherine Hepburn in Lion In Winter, I take them all out and look at and hold what lies within. I admire what they are worth. And then...

I return them to their cases, clicked shut, and back into the drawer they go. 

Some memories cannot bear to be handled too frequently.

10/ Favorite Hiding Place For You?

The Boyfriend's kitchen.

It's small. But there is a window with a tiny table beneath it, so the cats can see out into the backyard. It has one tiny chair. 

The Boyfriend is almost always playing video games, so I putter about and make myself a cup of tea. 

I like sitting in that chair, looking at the birds and squirrels that we attract by leaving bird seed on the walkway that splits the yard.

I imagine myself, years from now, sitting there, looking out the window, sipping tea. 

Me. Always looking out from within.

--- ---

Enough of me. 

Your turn! Leave your answers and thoughts in the comments section, or post to your blog and leave a link here. 

Ah, the places that belong to us. 

As always... thanks for reading. 

And sharing.

Places That Belong To You - Barbra Streisand 

My House - Flo Rida