Where is it?

Everyone else goes on trips and comes home and describes all the fun things they did. I didn't go any place new except the caverns, and I will instead write about the Other Things, the things people also have happen to them but try to pretend they didn't. I will start with the ending, from when I got home, and work back. I find these things amusing, and they do not ruin my travel experiences. They just make them more unique.

Even some of the worst housekeepers still have some little thing that they are retentive about. I never had a stainless kitchen sink before, and I can't stand seeing water drops on it. I keep my sink clean enough to, uhm, eat off of. I constantly wipe it, and never allow water drops on it, or on my faucet. Ever.

I don't like a dirty bathroom, either. What with two dogs and my own (odd looking) hair, that means daily sweeping to get the hairs off the bathroom floors. The mirrors get wiped daily to avoid looking at spots on them. My bedding is washed religiously at least once a week, and the spread sometimes several times. Vacuuming is done generally more than once a week. Dishes are not allowed to pile up. Laundry is never more than one load behind. Ever. Even after my shoulder surgery, I carried items one at a time to the washer if necessary.

I was gone ten days. My home was inhabited by three nieces, one not even quite to her teens yet. The amount of neices here varied daily. Sometimes one, sometimes all three, sometimes maybe more. All of them live in very nice, neat, homes. Obviously, the cleaning is done by their parents at home, and while they all love dogs, none have any at home.

If anyone has a secret recipe for getting dog poop out of white grout on a bathroom floor, please share. Otherwise I have to go get grout cleaner and sealer. I hope to replace these tiles fairly soon as I hate them, but just knowing I have tried to clean those stains with a toothbrush and several chemicals isn't adequate. I know the floor is clean, but the stains are not sitting well with me. The dogs have lived in this condo almost two years and have never once gone in the front guest bathroom. All three rugs were stained. I am still working on the rugs. Diarrhea.

My living room carpeting had three red stains on it. I was told they were from Baby having thrown up. Dogs don't throw up that kind of red stain. Yes, it was Baby who got sick. My 7-year-old beagle who never gets sick, got sick. About 2-3 days into my trip, I got a call, "Aunt Susan, Baby is throwing up and won't eat." I was in the car, luckily riding instead of driving, and I had to give the niece explicit directions on how to cook and prepare plain chicken and brown rice only for Baby. The refusal to eat worried me almost enough for me to leave and go home, but by that night Baby was eating again, and the limited diet did the trick. Did she have diarrhea, I asked? Oh, no, I was told. I was told neither did the whole time. If Molly has diarrhea, her medication is not being given correctly and could lead to her death. Baby never gets diarrhea. She is like a machine - healthy as an ox, no health issues. Molly, the 9-year-old beagle, is the fragile one. Just don't tell her that during her nightly 2-mile walks.

The nieces were advised to curtail long walks due to Baby's problem. I also didn't want them walking Molly during the sunny part of the day. The nieces love my beagles, so I don't really worry about their care of the dogs, unless they love them to death.

So, red stains on carpeting, poop in the bathroom on the floor and the three throw rugs. I wandered into the kitchen (remember, I had been up about 30-35 hours by this time). The sink had obviously not been washed or wiped in ten days. The dishwasher was full. The dishwasher had been run, but not emptied. The rest of the dishes from 10 days were in the sink (I don't put dishes in the sink), on the counter, and elsewhere in the kitchen. My blender base was on one counter, and the glass part on another. I asked where the niece found the blender, since I hadn't used it but once or twice since I got it and didn't even know where I kept it. She couldn't remember. I realized a few days later that the connecting piece is missing, and so far, I haven't found it.

The top sheet off the bed was on the sofa for the dogs. A very old single bed sheet was on the bed. When I removed that, I realized one niece had encountered her time of the month while I was gone. So did my sheet and mattress pad, and no attempt had been made to wash it out, as far as I could see. I am still working on that, too. I am very grateful to my friend Cindy for teaching me about waterproof mattress pads several years ago. Thanks to having dogs, I use nothing else. I would have gone ballistic to find blood stains on my new, expensive mattress set.

Usually I come home to find all my towels in a soggy, wet, mildewy pile on my laundry room floor. I will happily toss them in the washer and listen to the pleasant swishing sounds. Not this time. Well, there was a pile, but smaller than usual. I checked the linen closet. They had actually done a load of laundry! Towels were oddly folded in strange piles and put into the closet. Even a kitchen towel was in there. Nice attempt! I refolded the towels, moved them around, and dragged the kitchen towel to the kitchen.

There is something on one of my windows, but I am not sure what it is. It's not water, or it would have evaporated by now. Oil? Jello? I am not sure what it is, or how it got there. It's a large area on the window, and will remain one of those mysteries of life until I get around to washing windows. I hope this happens soon.

The nieces happily gave the dogs a shower in my bathroom. I am not sure why, although Molly does have something stuck on her fur. My guess is syrup, but I could be wrong. The shower was not cleaned once, nor the floors swept or vacuumed any where in here, for ten days. Does anyone wonder what an opaque mirror looks like? I had no idea the shine on a sink could be entirely obliterated. I have two mats on my shower floor. They were some very interesting colors, and I had no idea that much dog hair could harbor underneath them. They went in the washing machine too, after I did the towels and sheets.

My two new All-Clad pans that I have carefully bought on sale because they will last me forever? All-Scratched pans. Next time I will ask them to use only non-metal on the pans. If they can make that one little change, I will be happy. I had meant to hide those two pans in my car when I left, but I just forgot. One of them did pull out all my pots and pans and lids and put them in neat piles, so I guess that was a reasonable trade off. I wonder what prompted that? I hope nothing fell on any toes.

I just quietly sighed, and thanked the girls for taking good care of my dogs. That is what counts, right? I can clean and repair everything else. I know they weren't drinking, partying, taking drugs or having unreliable boys over. The nieces are good kids, and love my dogs. They just don't know how to clean, or perhaps considered themselves on vacation too. I get frustrated, but I am OK with it.

Meanwhile, I was rushing into the (dirty) shower as ST was expected within the hour, and the nieces were enjoying my high speed cable access, wirelessly. I had had to show them how to use it, which surprised me. They had to use their own laptop. Ruining my laptop would have made me cry.

Luckily, they decided to pack up and move on back home before ST showed up. I was exhausted. I took him on a tour of my home, saying, "Just in case you think I never do anything around here...." His good manners did not allow him to comment on the shower.

The toilet. I guess one of the nieces had some sort of explosive issue. At least twice, since I have two bathrooms. I cleaned that up, and tried not to think about what she might have eaten to cause that sort of disturbance. ST didn't have to deal with that surprise. At least it missed the walls.

After he left, I crashed and slept hard for two hours. In the middle of the day! Me! I needed it. The next day I got up at 8 am, took care of the dogs, curled up on the sofa with them, and slept until noon. The day after that, same thing. I napped until the child called me at 11:30 am. We went out and had fun for a few hours.

No, I didn't take any pictures of my home. I just did the tour to see what needed to be fixed and agreed again to fix the dress the one niece tried to make. She obviously never sewed before. It will take me hours just to remove her stitching. She must have used heavy thread and a backstitch set too tightly on the machine, but I think I can fix it. I had needed her to try it on before I was willing to redo it. The pattern was not her size, either, but I think I can work with it.

I will try not to dribble any Red Pop on the fabric.