Solstice Slobbery Sweat Redemption

Today, pagans dance around Stonehenge, but tomorrow, at 3:00pm EST, summer officially begins in the House of Picket. At 3:00, the Short Drunk People will be in full on schools-out-for-summer mode which basically means that shoes will be ditched for the season and dirt and sand will become the new haute couture.

I should have spent the day stocking up on popsicles for the neighbor kids, but alas, I am without wheels. In the last few days, the Kid's fancy phone and his less than fancy car done broke. Good timing Karma! It's not like anyone's stressed out about paying for a couple weeks of over-priced camp or say, food. So wheel-less (and grocery-less) (and coffee-less), I did the next best thing: I organized everyones' rooms. In crazy upstairs heat.

Too-small hoodies and thermal shirts went in the give-away pile; t-shirts and shorts got neatly tucked into drawers. I found the stash of clothes from last summer (the one I usually forget where I have stored) and I weeded through that pile, amazed at two things: how much all three have grown and how ridiculous it was for me to hang on to those chocolate ice cream stained bermudas. I went through the book shelves and through the buckets and bins loaded there with a year's worth of collected treasures -- mini bubble bottles, lava rocks, half-busted pencils, faded stickers, Easter candy. (If anyone asks, I have no idea where any of that stuff is...)

I am glad it's done, but let me confess. I did not do it to prepare for the onslaught of summer, because frankly, finding school notebooks and soccer socks seems way more chaotic then the lushness of a July day with nothing to do. I did it because my (twice-monthly) cleaning lady told me to.

Let me explain: the Florida girloliday ran smack into end of the year hyperactivity including the luncheons and tournaments and two hour tryouts and field trips and Small Town ballot questions and in the process, there was some -- how shall I say? -- lax domestic skills on my part. And that one Tuesday when the cleaning lady was coming? Um, I forgot. And if I'd remembered? It wouldn't have mattered. The bomb had exploded and there was shrapnel everywhere. Including the breakfast dishes, hardened in syrupy crust, left out on the counter. And at least one toilet left unflushed, which the Short Drunks are quite famous for.

Anyhoo, so I spent today, the Solstice, not in meditation or even communing with nature weeding, but in a rush of "i'm gonna show her" cleaning, because dammit, I can not handle another note like this one:

Also, I hid all the pens and all the paper, including the paper napkins, just to hedge my bets.