Cleaning House

In a tip o'the fedora to my friend Penny in Dhahran, I have to tell you that I swabbed down my toilet for the third time since I moved into my little rental a month ago.

I already know what you are thinking. Why would I count, and announce, the occurrences of such an activity?

Even before I left KSA, Penny broached the subject of how I might feel about cleaning my own toilets. Upul had only been cleaning my house for a couple of years and he rarely touched the toilet, so it wasn't like this was an entirely forgotten task for me. But Penny has been in KSA for many years, and by her own admission hasn't touched a toilet brush in over a decade. The very idea makes her a bit twitchy.

The Dhahran hovel was so hateful and decrepit that I could hardly muster any desire to keep it up but I feel quite differently about my little rental here in Oregon.

I enjoy cleaning the toilet. And sweeping the floor. And dusting. And mowing the grass and digging up pernicious dandelions. There's some pride to be had in house cleaning as the end result is immediate and obvious. But there's also the emotional break with the stale routines I had in Dhahran.

I have become quite a homebody in the past few years (ironic since I wasn't actually in anything like a home for a good part of that) and now I have a reasonable place to look after. And that includes wiping the toilet down every now and then.