Day #39-40 Writing Through COVID-19: Confessions

My sister Adrienne texted tonight to scold me for not blogging since Wednesday.

I told her I was lethargic. Who isn't?

I'm missing Jamie, who in non-COVID-19-times rescues me from myself every Tuesday by whipping my house back into shape. She comes in like the famed white tornado and leaves my home shiny and smelling nice.

However, for the past six weeks, I've been on my own. Each morning I wake up determined to vacuum a floor, dust shelf, or scour a sink.

Each evening I go to bed vowing to do better tomorrow.

This is a hard confession. Keeping one's living space tidy is the first step on the flow-chart of basic human functionality. Can you shut a drawer? (Me: Oops! Guess not.) Can you sweep a floor? (Me: Um, nope.) Can you keep a flat surface clear of clutter? (Me: Absolutely not.)

Multiplying my housekeeping woes are my parents' (non)housekeeping habits in the basement. I've told you that Vern is the un-brushed house-pooping elderly dog that moved in with them six weeks ago. He sheds. He smells. He doesn't like to be brushed--or frankly, even petted. Yet my parents dote on him. Their shrunken lives deserve the happiness Vern brings them. I know this. But jeez, he's not helping my housekeeping woes.

Six weeks ago I purchased elevated toilet seats and a shower chair for my parents. My sister suggested I ask our mom to keep them clean, as her spirits are lifted when she has contributing work to do. (She whistles while washing the dishes after each meal. She is happy to make a fruit salad. She marches to the mailbox several times a day as if it is she alone who is braving the snow and rain and heat and gloom of night to bring the day's newspapers and thin correspondence to our door.)

But wiping down a toilet seat is evidently out of her milieu. My dad, meanwhile, read 160 pages of an Abraham Lincoln biography today. He also took his scooter out for a spin, and tonight he was happy to settle in and watch "Death of a Salesman." But I do not think this nonagenarian has ever held a toilet brush and I doubt he will anytime soon.
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Today I managed to submit another yearbook spread and tracked down several missing senior photos. Fourteen students showed up for our (not required) English Lockdown; one student joined me from 2-3 p.m. to work on the yearbook.
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Tomorrow is Saturday. It will be in too many ways a repeat of the weekdays. But I might get a floor vacuumed. I might change the lightbulb that burned out last week.

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison