Saturday mornings of my childhood meant Mom cleaning the house. Mom was not a perfectionist with housework. She believed a house should be "lived in." We didn't have one of those fancy rooms where you couldn't put your feet on the couch cushions or on the coffee table in front of you. The house was kept generally straight and clean, but it wasn't spotless. And for better or worse she pretty much gave us kids our space in our rooms... Basically she would make me clean my room when, as she put it, it became a fire hazard. :) She figured it was my space. And if company came over, we closed the door. I figure it was also just simpler and less work on her part to let me have my clutter. And when I grew up I'd let clutter happen... until Saturday. Then, like her, I'd clean.
The funny thing is that this is one of the many ways her way of doing
things became my way of doing things. If I'm in full cleaning mode I
have to have music blasting, and I need to be left alone. I can get lost
in what I'm doing... and I can enjoy it.
So most Saturday mornings I'd be sleeping late because I stayed up late watching whatever late night TV was on, probably catching Monty Python on PBS... and I would wake up to Mom cleaning. Now I don't mean the vacuum was loud or she was loud... No, Mom cleaning equaled music blasting through the house. We had an old stereo Dad had built with some amazing speakers... which I proudly own, though at the moment they serve as end tables. Mom would play one of 3 albums for her morning cleaning. It was either Barry Manilow, Wayne Newton, or The Platters. The Platters were Mom's favorite band. I will completely forget they exist and then hear them playing in a store, or somewhere random, and it literally stops me in my tracks. It's like comfort food for my soul. I just looked up "The Great Pretender" by The Platters on Youtube... and it takes me home. What I wouldn't give to hear it again on vinyl, complete with scratches, blasting through the house on my speakers. Perhaps someday.
aaawww, very nice first blog
ReplyDelete