Powerwash

I cleaned a lot last weekend. My house was pretty clean already but there were a few grotty little corners that needed some muscle, elbow grease, and Dawn Powerwash. I hadn’t planned to deep clean but once I cleaned out a bathroom cabinet and hung clean shower curtains, more enhanced cleaning ideas occurred to me, and I ran with them. There’s no way to deep clean one little spot and then just stop. Once that bag of potato chips is open, I’m going to keep eating. The result of all this extra effort is a house that looks almost exactly the same as it did before, but a little cleaner and neater. The kitchen cabinets are less cluttered and better organized. The inside of the oven and the top of the refrigerator are clean. Everything in the freezer is identifiable. And everything just feels better. It was a lot of work, but the return was worth the effort. 

Thanksgiving is in just about two weeks. I started my grocery shopping, so I have all the non-perishable things that I’ll need. The perishable items will need to wait until closer to the date. I have at least two more Thanksgiving grocery shopping trips to go. At least. 

And I have to figure out Christmas, which shouldn’t be a thing that I have to figure out because it happens on the very same day every year, but here we are. I might be hosting my mother for the week between Christmas and New Year’s or I might not. I might work on the day after Thanksgiving or I might not. Thanks to a stupid Commanders game, we might be moving the whole Christmas celebration to Christmas Eve. We might travel here or there if my mother doesn’t come, but I don’t know either way yet. Things are uncertain, which is my least favorite way for things to be. 

*****

But at least the shutdown is over. I’m not going to wade into the politics of which Democrats voted with the Republicans. The whole thing was the Republicans’ fault, and they were never going to act in good faith about Obamacare subsidies or anything else. Of course, we were just a few days away from air travel breaking down altogether just ahead of the holidays, which would have forced the Republicans to the table. But that’s just more misery on top of the misery that they have already caused. We all know that rich people unable to board an airplane is a national emergency like no other, but it’s not just rich people who want to fly home for Thanksgiving. I don’t care if Ivanka and Jared can’t fly to Palm Beach, but I do care about my friends and neighbors and colleagues hoping to visit their families for the holidays. As much as I wanted the Democrats to hold the line, I’m glad that there’s a chance that air travel will be back to normal before Thanksgiving week. 

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“Back to normal” lol. I’m hilarious. It’s Friday now and the President is crashing out all over the internet, which is rife with rumors and speculation that he’s going to resign (he’s not) or that the Republicans are going to use his well-documented poor health as the perfect excuse to use the 25th Amendment to yank him out of what remains of the White House and install JD Vance in his place (that one is plausible). 

Meanwhile, I have to go to a gala tonight, which is the very last thing I want to do on this lovely November-y Friday. I’m not a gala person. I don’t like to dress up. I do it when I have to, but I don’t like it. 

The gala is a charity event. An old friend of my husband is one of the organizers, and we’re going as a favor to him. He’s not one of my favorite people, and he wouldn’t be even if he wasn’t a big MAGA but he is a big MAGA and this party is going to be MAGA central, a thing that should not even exist in the DMV. Oh, and would you like to know what the charity is? It’s an organization that supports victims of human trafficking. You cannot - CANNOT - make this stuff up. Maybe I’ll report back on this event later. Or maybe I’ll forget all about it when I deep clean my brain to rid it of everything I saw on the news this week. That is a cleaning job for you right there. There’s not enough Dawn Powerwash in the world.