i haven't really cleaned the house since lauryn moved out back in early august, a little more than 2 months ago. i knew the house would get more and more cluttered, but there was nothing i could do about it, as long as i wasn't expecting to show up. i sort of tidied up a little bit at the start of september, when i was expecting antonio to stay here for 3 months. when he told me he changed his plans, my place got even more cluttered after that. clothes draped on furnitures, coffee table covered with items, messy kitchen.
i started by cleaning the back of the kitchen, the bike-in-progress (installing the new bike bell), the tools, i put them all away. since was heading down to the basement, i also brought a few other things down as well, like the bucket of surplus aquarium gravel. i wanted to move in my back porch house plants, but it's still warm enough that they won't die just yet, so i'll do that some other day.
i got to belmont around noontime. my parents had just gotten back. they walked all the way down to iggy's behind burger king to find a crowd of people lining up for their breakfast sandwiches. they got me an egg & ham sandwich while they got my sister a salmon sandwich. while i was eating, i helped them pay their property tax online, buy a new dehumidifier from costco (midea cube 50-pint with pump, $240), and help my father chart some LiFePO4 battery data in google sheets.
we also finally took down the living room portable air conditioner. not much heavy lifting, but the vents assembly is installed on the window using a series of complicated panels that need to remove and future installed in the right sequence.
my sister came home with esmei around 1pm. we all went into the backyard to play with her. i thought esmei would be here for the day but my sister took her home because she hadn't eaten yet today.
i spent some time in the backyard watering the garden. some the seeds i planted in RB1 and RB2 have sprouted: arugula, possibly radish, some mustards, some daikons. the seedlings in RB0 are bigger, an assortment of giant red japanese mustard and cilantro.
my father and i stripped the broken panasonic microwave before tossing it out. we removed all the cables, the thermal sensors, the door switches, and the fan. while testing the switches, i discovered one of them was actually broken. i swear i tested them before and they were all working. that means there was a possibility that had i just simply replaced the broken switch, the microwave would work again. unfortunately we had stripped away so much of the old microwave, it was impossible to put it back. so i guess i'll never know the truth, but an important lesson was learned: double check the switches!
my mother came out of her video streaming watching cave around 2:45pm complaining that she was hungry and how come we hadn't grilled the chicken wings yet. so we went out to do that. while the wings were cooking, my father continued to prune the dying vines off of the raised bed trellises, and i went to the western bed to pull up all the ground ivy (AKA creeping charlie).
we ate wings along with some greek pita pocket ingredients i brought over. there was football on tv including a new england game against the raiders, but it was so depressing, i couldn't bear to watch.
i few hours later my mother made dinner: a breaded fish stirfry and a hot pepper chinese celery tofu stirfry. i left soon after i finished eating, hurrying back home to continue with the cleaning.
i ended up doing two loads of laundry, which had the added benefit of adding some laundry detergent fragrance to the house and warming it up a few degrees when i ran the dryer. i vacuumed, and wiped off any mildew i saw on the furnitures with bleach. i cleaned the living room, the kitchen, the guest bedroom, and my own bedroom. by the end of the night the house was in a semi-respectful place, but i'll do a bit more cleaning tomorrow afternoon before li arrives.
suzanne somers passed away today at the age of 76 from breast cancer, just a day shy of her birthday. this hits especially close to home because i've recently been rewatching some old three's company episodes on pluto.tv (they have a devoted three's company channel) and even went online to download a few favorite episodes.
in the late evening i took some photos of my cardboard recycle box that i've had for nearly a decade. it's basically fallen apart and i'm going to toss it out, but it's covered with produce stickers, detailing all the fruits and vegetables i've eaten over the years.