Boy, what a week have I had! Some friends-of-a-friend needed a place to crash overnight during their travels, so of course I said yes. Unfortunately, since we've been back from Thailand I've been fighting a nasty cough/head cold thing, and of course the house was a wreck from my lack of housekeeping energy. I immediately launched into frantic deep-cleaning mode, with my perfectionist tendencies taking the reigns. I couldn't have total strangers remembering us as "those Americans with the giant dust bunnies in every corner," now could I? Pair this with my recent realization that we've lived here almost a year and our place still looks rather like we just moved in, and as you can imagine, mayhem ensued. There was a trip to Ikea for bathroom accessories and a coffee table (which I then spent the next four hours assembling). A vacuum cleaner was purchased (I shamefully admit it's taken us ten months to buy one - but in my defense, our floors are all either wood or tile, and the vacuums here are outrageously priced). I aired out blankets, fluffed towels (we air-dry everything, which lends itself to crunchy towels unless extra measures are taken), windexed and scrubbed and mopped and dusted and straightened. Even the dog was bathed and brushed. Everything was perfectly in its place. All so our guests could crash at our place for six hours, five of them sleeping. Yes, I may have gone a tad overboard. I know Seth thought I had gone completely crazy. But as I told him, I'd rather they just have a vague recollection of a few hours spent in some apartment in Shanghai than to stick out in their memories for all the wrong reasons, know what I mean? What can I say - it's a sickness, I tell ya. But hey, now I have a tidy apartment with a new coffee table, a vacuum cleaner, and a fresh-smelling puppy. Who could complain about that?
Crazy doesn't even begin to describe it...
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