Friday, November 25, 2011

Creating a Holiday Skating Rink In Your Own Hallway

The Thanksgiving Holiday is now, thankfully, over.

Two weeks of cleaning, preparing food, baking bread, and general fretting about the house has culminated in a rather excellent meal. 

Roast Bottom Round Beef with Port Wine Gravy, Yams, Mashed Potato, Carrots, Freshly Baked Rolls, and finally Apple Pie.

No Wonder why people put on weight over the holidays.  All that food coupled with the lower activity that comes with an earlier sunset would give you a good reason for it all.

While doing the final preparations for the meal yesterday, I was standing in the hallway to the bedroom side of the house.  I had turned on the light to check to make sure that the air conditioning was turned off since all the windows were open.  It has been a beautiful week here for the weather has been calm and cool and will remain that way next week.  No need to run Air Conditioning in these weather conditions.

However it showed that the louvered doors that enclosed the closets needed attention.  All that air being drawn up into the air handling unit would leave dust on those louvers. 

Here's a bright idea.  While obsessing over everything else on your plate, why not clean those louvers.  After all, the guest coming over for all that food had restricted vision and wouldn't see it anyway.  On the other hand YOU would know that the doors needed work.

Padding your way into the laundry where all good house cleaning chemicals go to die, there resided in a small "clutter catcher" box, a can of spray furniture polish.

You will need that light bulb over your head, genius, because that hallway is dark.

Yes, I started spraying the polish onto a door and proceeded to work the polish in. All six of them now had a somewhat more shiny look to them and the house had a slight orange scent to it.   Oranges in Florida?  Who knew!

As I turn around to head out to the recycle bin I look down at my faithful sidekick, Lettie.  She's standing there looking up at me as if I am the font of all knowledge.  I'm not but the love of a good dog is something every person should experience at least once in their lives.

Lettie was also doing something else.  Sliding.  If you have ever watched a video of a baby Giraffe, they typically are standing there wobbly on long legs that are spread widely apart.  Ungainly would be a good description.  My 11 year old dog was doing her best impression of that.  None of the legs were steady.  She would stand still as those long legs were sliding out from under her slowly.  Eventually she tired of that and decided it was time to go, but not before her legs gave out entirely.   Looking like a character from an old cartoon, she hit the floor as if it were ice and she were wearing Teflon shoes. 

I had a problem here.  Not only had I waxed six doors, but I waxed the floor under the doors with overspray, and the dog was enjoying the benefits of having non-stick feet. 

I helped her up and she trotted out into the rest of the house leaving little dog footprints of furniture polish along the way. 

Thinking of our guest, an 86 year old lady, we had a problem that would be solved by mopping.  We can't have her fall and break something, and the dog wasn't the only one who slid out while walking through the house.  I managed to topple into the wall, being on long legs myself.  

Next step was the mop.

The short hallway was given a thorough scrubbing and was pronounced clean.

I really should say "Clean-Ish" since the tiles were so old that they absorbed the furniture polish.  Squeaky clean though as now they no longer slid out from under dog and man, and should be grippy enough for little-old-lady. 

Oh and Orange Fresh too!

Luckily through the evening, our guest never needed to use the facilities behind my orange-polished door.  My rubber soled shoes on the other hand now squeak anywhere I go in the house.  Even after walking the dog, twice, to wear the stuff off the shoes, they squeak.

So the moral of the story is that no matter how dried out the woodwork is in the house, spray the cloth and polish the wood, not spray the wood and rub it in with the cloth.

After all, your dog will appreciate it and you won't be quite so noisy as you walk down the street.

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