Animal House

I'm off today, and since I didn't really have any errands that needed doing outside of the house, I let Steve take the car to work this morning. I figured, I've got tons of things to do INSIDE the apartment that need doing, and these days off where I don't go anywhere are the best times to do them. I find it very difficult to clean and do the things I need to do when Steve is home. One of us usually just ends up in the other one's way. Especially, since the area where I decided to start cleaning is where Steve spends most of his time when he's home, if there isn't something awesome on History or Discovery for him to watch. Its the study/dining room area where we have the desk set up for homework, etc. Although in recent months its become the corner for all of his Magic the Gathering paraphernalia.

I don't know if any of you have ever played MTG, or know anyone who was really into it. There are TRILLIONS of cards. Each player builds deck upon deck to play against other peoples decks upon decks, and it makes for an organizational nightmare. In fact, I almost believe thats why I never got past the novice stage. There are so many millions of options, and each deck needs a certain amount of something to be effective. In order for me to have become a good deck builder I'd have to organize the cards. And since the cards I was using are Steve's (i'm certainly not about to go and purchase an arsenal of cards for myself) that would never have worked out. So I intend to just stick to playing Steve's decks, usually a black deck because I like vampires and its more fun for me that way.

So this fine morning, I fiddled around on the computer for a while, entertaining the notion of watching something on Netflix, but couldn't really decide what I wanted. I knew I wanted to clean around the apartment, but wanted some noise in the background, and none of the streaming options suited my fancy. All the musicals I have I've watched recently, because of my holiday baking spree, and Willy Wonka was my cleaning movie the other day. Luckily I was saved by Jared, who came over to look up some stuff about FiOs vs Cablevision since he is moving into his own apartment soon and is shopping around. While he was checking out stuff online, and FB chatting Jon about how mean his cat was to him this morning, I started sifting through the monstrous piles of papers that were on the desk around him. Aside from supermarket circulars, which were getting moved into the bedroom for the bottom of the ferret cage, most of the paperwork that is in this area is Steve's schoolwork.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm the biggest packrat of them all. But great googly moogly does Steve have a lot of saved homework. Since he's a psych major, its possible that some of the work he has from past semesters will be useful to him in the future, so I understand his not wanting to part with it. And his math work is good so that he can use it as a refresher in case he gets stuck, or to help tutor Jared since he's a few semesters behind.

Once I got all the school stuff in a huge pile, I put it in a box that once held my super warm and comfy grey shearling boots, and stuck it under the desk where he can get to it if he wants to. I piled up his books underneath the TV tray that has his MTG card box on it, and then I squished all the Magic cards that were on the desk as close to each other as possible without changing what pile they were in, because I'm sure there is some sort of method to his madness in that corner. And when I stepped back, I opened up the curtain to let some real light in.

And that's when I saw it.....dust dust everywhere. My brain wanted to sneeze immediately. So i took a deep breath and told myself It's gotta be done, I'm allergic and I'm not doing anyone any favors by letting it look like this stuff has been here for a hundred years. And I dusted, and worked my way across the desk to the bookshelf, which was by far the worst area of the whole room. Here is a shot of the area, so you can see what I mean....

Now, on top of the bookshelf I have these little trinkets, nifty things that I like to show off, but that aren't so fragile that they get put in the forbidden cabinet (thats reserved for my Wizard of Oz plate, and crystal dolphins and ceramic clowns and things). There is the Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events set, with their own bookends. On one side sits my Hogwarts bookmarks in their case, and on the other sits my Lord of the Rings earrings, both courtesy of my Uncle Don on different occasions. There are two scorpion paperweights that my dad got me ages and ages ago, and then there's my Time Turner. The Time Turner was a gift from my friend Mike, a few Christmases ago. It is probably the most noticed thing on the bookshelf, and it sits in its own little case and everything. I LOVE it.

But holy crap was it dusty! As I tilted it to its side, the top fell off and the Time Turner fell on the floor. The center piece, with the hourglass in it, had fallen out. I cursed, and picked it up to survey the damage. Here is a close up so you can see what I was working with here...

The center piece is roughly the size of a quarter, at best. The little tiny pieces that hold that center piece to the innermost ring were missing. Now at this point, I've only dusted, I haven't swept and vacuumed, and now I CAN'T because I'll never find the little pieces that I need to put it back together. On my hands and knees I picked through dust and fuzz and actually found the pieces. Don't ask me how, but I got it back together, and never want to dust this area of the house ever again. Zen didn't even bother to come over and investigate, I guess she could tell how mad I was! That or she was just that comfortable on the couch, and was probably amused by me crawling around on my hands and knees cursing the floor. It was just one of those insane moments where I wished I had decided on a movie to watch, because anyone who knows me knows I don't have much patience, and that I don't work well with itty bitty things.


On a positive note, this section of the apartment looks excellent. The dishwasher just finished, so I can either move on to the kitchen or the living room next...oh the joys of growing up!