44) Party Time and The Visitor*

The kids were less than pleased.

“Consider today: clean time… and no screen time.”

“Ughhhhhhh…. That sucks…” they groaned.

In all fairness you probably could have worded it better. Made the gargantuan task at hand at least sound a little more fun. Cleaning a 7,000 square foot home was daunting enough as an adult, you could only imagine how it had to feel as a kid.

Every weekend you and your sister would spend Saturday morning cleaning. You’d clean the bathroom, put away clothes, vacuum, dust… you hated every minute of it. Especially the dusting. It wasn’t fun. Before having kids you used to tell yourself that you were going to be one of those parents that set up all kinds of fun ways to clean… like basketball hoops over hampers, fun cloth cleaning slippers for the floor, contests to see who put away the most toys…

Except your current reality was that cleaning was way less fun than you had imagined and way more, “Get this shit picked up now or there’s no ipads…”

“You could, at the very least… put some fucking music on…” you told yourself as the kids droned on about how much cleaning sucked.

One time when you and your sister were young you decided that you were going to take it upon yourselves to make the task at hand a little less arduous and a lot more enjoyable. This translated into putting on thick socks and spraying the linoleum kitchen floor with furniture polish so that you could “ice skate” inside while you polished the kitchen pantry doors and cabinets.

And it was fun. Tons of fun. The two of you zipped around laughing at how far and fast you could slide. If you got up just enough speed you could actually make it nearly across the entire length of the kitchen. By the time you were done the floors gleamed and the cabinets couldn’t have looked any better. When you tired of the indoor skating rink the two of you put your dust cloths and the polish away then sat down to watch Saturday morning cartoons until your parents came downstairs for breakfast.

You were both fully immersed in an episode of ‘Ren and Stimpy’ when your dad came down the stairs. It was cold outside and he had on his thick wool socks… “Good morning girrrrrrrrllllllllllllssssssssssssss…” he managed to get out as he stepped onto the slick floor and his legs flew out from underneath him. He was airborne before he landed on the ground faster than a straw hut in a wind storm.

‘’What the!!!??? What’s all over the floor!!!????”

You and your sister had stared at each other, no one saying a word… and you didn’t have to because anyone with a lick of sense could have put a freshly polished kitchen and a slippery floor together in no time… which your father quickly did. The two of you spent the next several hours on your hands and knees scrubbing the ever loving shit out of the slippery as fuck floor.

“Music would be fun…” you mused. Not as fun as indoor “ice skating,“ but fun…

“Hey listen… let’s all work together and get this done. We have a lot of guests coming over for Beverly’s birthday party and we need to get the house clean.” They still had no idea that their grandma was coming to visit for the week and you wanted the place straightened up before then.

“Teamwork makes the dreamwork!” Your daughter smiled.

Your oldest rolled his eyes, “Oh shut it…” you heard him murmer. You let it go. Three was such an interesting dynamic, it always seemed like when one of them were getting a bit surly the other two would over compensate by being nearly too agreeable, further pissing off the unruly child. Funny how that worked out.

“I was thinking that maybe we could do some contests… like who could pick up the most toys, or dust their staircase the fastest…”

“Lame,” said your oldest.

It certainly wasn’t indoor ice skating…

The five of you spent the day cleaning… dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, washing floors, and tackling the never ending stream of laundry that sometimes seemed to overshadow your very existence. Lame indeed.

You got it all done though. Well you got everything done that was done… there was ALWAYS something else you could tidy up or clean just a little more even if you all spent every day of the week cleaning until you moved out. You were under the suspicion that much like misty beads of water accumulate on the blades of a cool blue green early autumn lawn, dust was to the church each night.

The day before you had decorated the basement while the kids were in school. You had bought roughly 200 balloons and you spent the day inflating and arranging them all. To hide the ugly gaping mess of wood over the double doors off the E Van Scoter St entrance by the kitchen, you cut three long strips of cardboard then added slits along both edges of the longest sides of each strip. You then slipped knotted balloons into each slit and wound up with three long streams of balloons in gold, blue and pink. You affixed these over the doors in an arched shape using them to add a lot of fun while also hiding a big fucking problem: the badly water damaged ceiling and upper portion of wall above the entrance… win, win. You cut a large round piece of cardboard and added slits around the side. You tied balloons to long ribbon and tied them off at various lengths to create a hanging centerpiece over the large dining room table. You added streamers and more balloons to the six support columns. You affixed sparkly foil table cloths to the unfinished plaster walls and over several of the tables. You readied the area for cupcakes (in lieu of cake) with a homemade faux cake / cupcake holder made from cardboard, spackle, glitter, and a dash of whimsy… complete with real candles.

Everything was set up and put together and looked amazing by the time the birthday girl got home from school that day. The kids all saw the basement for the first time in a nearly finished state with decorations. The transformation was incredible and the look on all of their faces let you know that you had brought the fucking birthday magic and then some. Later that day the five of you blew up several dozen more balloons that were tossed about the space to allow impromptu games of “keepy-uppy.” You used a cheap little hand pump to fill balloons while the three kids struggled to blow them up with little lungs. David took deep breaths and filled them with puffed cheeks and a bright red face.

When you were all done blowing up balloons, you and the kids played on two new small furniture dollies while David cooked dinner. The three of them took turns pushing you and each other across the massive basement, expertly steering between columns and over the new area rugs you had purchased… deftly they zipped between the recently procured pews and the Royal Palms that added some much needed organic softness that beautifully broke up the rigid linear lines of wood and stone and brick with a punch of deep green.

“Careful you don’t run over your own fingers!” You yelled to your daughter being wheeled on the other dolly as your eldest child pushed on your shoulder blades sending you sailing across the basement, criss-crossed-applesauce on the little carpet padded dolly. You’d all scream out in equal parts excitement and panic whenever your ‘backseat driver’ would nearly send you into the other dolly team or a more formidable obstacle like the stone walls. The four of you laughed, and ran, and rolled your way into exhaustion just in time for dinner… and your first meal ever in the newly ‘finished’ basement space.

How far you all had come! Months ago this space was only safe to enter with Tyvek suits and respirators. Doors were kept closed and shoes chalky thick with dust from the basement demo space weren’t permitted in other parts of the ‘home.’ Now though you sat at a long table flanked with century old pews under a stunningly beautiful maple planked home with both natural stone and freshly painted walls and flooring. The early evening dusk streamed in through six large windows, wrapping the entire space in a dreamy glow. What a fucking difference a few months, and a lot of work, and way more money than you’d like to add up, could make… and you and your family were responsible for all of it. Wow.

Saturday morning was bright and sunny. You had told the kids a few days ago that you’d all be going up to Rochester to run some errands. They had no clue that the main ‘errand’ was picking grandma up from the airport. Accustomed to being allowed to stay home alone… a new privilege since moving to the church, the kids… the boys especially were less than enthused about having to tag along for the day. “Why can’t we just stay home like we usually do?” Your middle child wanted to know.

“Because we want you to get out of the house…”

“And into a car for the day? At least in the church we can actually move around…”

They weren’t wrong. “Well because we want you to get out…”

“And into the car…” you oldest scoffed. He was teetering on the ledge of boyhood and adolescence… the new tide of teenage contempt ebbed and flowed like gentle waves against an anchored boat, every now and then crashing against the hull with little to no warning. The tide was coming in.

“Hey guys…” David said in his no nonsense parenting voice, “I don’t want to hear any complaints, we’re getting out together as a family, running some errands, and that’s that.”

“Can you turn on some music?” Your youngest wanted to know.

You grabbed your phone and popped on K-Pop Demon Hunters’ Golden…

I was a ghost, I was alone, hah

Eoduwojin apgilsoge (Ah)

Given the throne, I didn't know how to believe

I was the queen that I'm meant to be

I lived two lives, tried to play both sides

But I couldn't find my own place…

It was a kids’ movie sure… and you had scoffed at the notion of finding it bareable, let alone enjoyable yet oddly enough you found yourself really enjoying the movie… and while you weren’t exactly a thick purple haired, long limbed, slim gorgeous young animated K-Pop demon kicking pop star, the movie was oddly relatable for you… an American middle aged, short, tired, and currently unemployed mom of three with absolutely no demons in sight.

…I'm done hiding, now I'm shining like I'm born to be

We're dreaming hard, we came so far, now I believe

We're goin' up, up, up, it's our moment

You know together we're glowin'

Gonna be, gonna be golden…

There was something about this entire journey, this whole church experience, defying everyone’s expectations, and more importantly your own, and coming out so much stronger on the other side… mentally and physically (minus the gimp arm)…

…Waited so long to break these walls down

To wake up and feel like me

Put these patterns all in the past now

And finally live like the girl they all see

No more hiding, I'll be shining like I'm born to be

'Cause we are hunters, voices strong, and I know I believe

We're goin' up, up, up, it's our moment

You know together we're glowing

Gonna be, gonna be golden…

Literally you had torn down walls… you brought it all down to the foundation… to the very brink of what you thought you were capable of… and now you were building it all back up… the church… your sense of self worth and confidence… the bumps in your marriage and your shortcomings as a parent.

Oh, up, up, up, with our voices

Yeongwonhi kkaejil su eomneun

Gonna be, gonna be golden

Oh, I'm done hidin', now I'm shining like I'm born to be

Oh, our time, no fears, no lies

That's who we're born to be

You know we're gonna be, gonna be golden

We're gonna be, gonna be

Born to be, born to be glowin'

Balge binnaneun uri

You know that it's our time, no fears, no lies

That's who we're born to be…

A little over an hour later and the five of you pulled into Rochester International Airport… the kids had been told that David had to pick up a friend and give them a ride… one of the ‘errands’ that we were supposedly running.

“Do you see them?” You asked David…

“What does your friend look like?” Your middle child asked, sleepily yawning… all three had dozed off during the drive.

You and David ignored him instead scanning the line of luggage clad travelers that dotted the arrival lane. Two airport officers with whistles clenched in tight lips waved their hands and blew order into the slow moving serpentine drawl of cars that lurched into free spots to pick up their fares in short bursts of excitement… Doors opened, luggage was quickly handed off or tossed into the gaping trunks of expectant vehicles, sometimes a quick hug was exchanged before all the passengers were quickly back in the vehicle and it slid back into the never ending line of passing cars to make way for the next in line. Hands waved. People waiting for rides talked excitedly into mobile phones while searching for their drivers… smiles were exchanged. You could smell exhaust and hear the whistles and the occasional honks of a car’s alarm in the adjoining garage, or the idle of a vehicle as it was filled with suitcases… and then you spotted a familiar face…

“There they are!” You said… David gently tapped the breaks, slowing the already slow moving SUV.

“Where?”

“Over by the entrance right there…” You pointed…

From the passenger side mirror you could just make out your middle child’s face… “Hey wait a second,” he said…. “IS THAT GRANDMA???”

“Surprise!” You said.

All the kids were stirring trying to get a look out the window… they had all spotted her… you turned to see your middle child with his hands up to his face in excitement…tears that he tried to hide, slid down his cheeks.

“Are you crying buddy?” You asked him.

“I’m just really excited mom…”

Three generations…

Speaking of generations and cleaning… let me tell you a little story.

My father and I come from a long line of obsessive cleaning (somehow the bug skipped my sister and children). My grandmother used to disassemble her crystal chandeliers weekly and clean each piece by hand. She’d do the same with all the curtains in the house and much to my father’s dismay, she had a real love for ironing and starching his jeans… which one could imagine was probably really comfortable.

Apple meet tree… my father had a penchant for religiously detailing his car every Friday night after a 12-16 hour workday driving tractor trailers for UPS… his weapon of choice: a toothbrush. Obviously.

I had a thing for color coding all of my clothing and putting perfectly parallel vacuum lines in the carpet. As a child I used to love setting my Fisher Price farm set just so… each and every fence panel aligned perfectly… everything in its place.

The need to clean although strong, was equally controlled by the need to do everything in one’s own time… at least for me… I won’t speak for anyone else though I am inclined to believe that both the generations before me probably had a thing for doing tasks on one’s own time and in one’s own way.

Which is why I never took to Saturday morning chores. They weren’t on my time and to make matters all the more dreadful they were shared with my sister who gave absolutely not a single shit about anything outside of my sister… which basically meant that chores for us consisted of my sister doing nothing and me picking up the ball. The never ending group project… and by this point in time everyone knows that there are two kinds of people involved in group projects… those that do the actual work, and those that don’t do jack shit. My sister and I were no exception.

Needless to say… I hated Saturday morning chores. The dusting especially. We had this long staircase with wooden treads and risers and what felt like miles of spindles and banisters. My father had a thing with the stairs… and everything else wood for that matter… and there was a lot of frickin wood in that house, being dusted every week. My sister would bitch and moan and drift from room to room pretending to clean while I would seethe that my sister was fucking useless and I was sick of her lolly gagging.

One such Saturday my dad was sitting on the couch watching a movie in the living room: Vertical Limit while my sister and I dusted shelves and bureaus. The movie started off with a father and his children mountain climbing. At some point there’s an accident and all three of the characters fall… knocked loose by a pair of fallen amateur climbers who fall to their deaths, a single rope now holds the family… yet with the weight of their three bodies the rope’s cam begins to slip. The father realizes that they can’t all hang on to the rope so in a crescendo of intensifying drama he screams to his son to “CUT THE ROPE…” which would send him plummeting to his death but saving his two children.

Obviously the kids were really upset… there was a lot of crying and, “No DAD! We can’t cut the rope…”

And of course the dad was all, “DO IT!”

The kids are screaming… the music was getting more loud, the dad kept yelling, “CUT THE ROPE.”

Finally the camera pans to an eagle soaring (because of course it does) and the canyon wall below… where the dad’s body slams to the ground.

At some point my sister and I started arguing about cleaning. My dad pissed that we were interrupting his movie proceeded to lose his cool (understandably) and yell at my sister and I. He probably loaded us with even more chores because we turned our frustration with dusting from each other to our dad. Suddenly he was the bad guy in all of this and we were jolly and fun and right as rain with each other… he was the monster making children do chores on a Saturday morning. The horror.

We must have gotten grounded because when we finished dusting we didn’t go outside to hang out with friends… we were plopped down on the couch channel surfing and bitching about how unfair it was to have to clean the house and not be catered to like the fucking royalty we were… how dare we have to pitch in. Amiright?

“Dad is being such a jerk today.”

“I wonder what his problem is.”

“He’s always got to just explode with the dumbest stuff… like get a grip…”

“I know. He’s so annoying…”

“You know he’s so annoying that if that was us on that rope… he wouldn’t have even had to ask me to cut it… I’d have already cut it…”

Cue us laughing hysterically only to hear…

“Oh… so you’d cut my rope then huh?”

Zoom in to our faces… absolutely shocked that our father had been standing there the whole time.

Now it’s a story that we still laugh about… Even then we all had a good laugh after our shock wore off and we saw our dad standing there. He laughed too. Just the other day as a matter of fact, when I was telling my father about how pissed the kids were at me for making them help me sweep the 7,000 square foot church, my dad wanted to know if I remembered the time that my sister and I wanted to “cut his rope…”

How could we forget?

While I haven’t gotten anything like that yet… I was told that I, “made being a kid terrible…” because: chores.

So maybe we’re halfway there? Give it a few more years and a bit more dusting and maybe I’ll have my own cinematic rope sequence joke. One can only hope.

This was a painting I did years ago… inspired by my family’s trip to Sleepy Hollow cemetery. I knew my friends would have gotten a kick out of how cool the place was and wished they could see it… hence the idea for this morbid (and if you ask me… downright hilarious) piece of art. I have since turned this into actual postcards. How fun!

“Here’s Daaaaaaveeeeeeeeey!”

Antique shopping.

Our dealer called us in… she said, “Hey… I think I have the perfect chandelier for your church. I saw it at an estate sale and picked it up with you in mind…” Apparently we have a dealer now. Lol.

And also it was the perfect chandelier.

And we spotted this lamp. We wanted it for the kitchen but weren’t sure if we had a space for it. Turns out we did and we will be back.

We’re on a first name basis with the store owner.

Wild living out here no doubt.

Also we totally are considering those antique ‘vacuums’ for the kids… is this the perfect set up for our cut the rope joke moment? Perhaps.