Early American Housekeeping

Do you ever think of yourself as Benjamin-the-hell-Frankin? Blogging about how you are undertaking this or that particular moral-fiber-increasing regimen complete with checklist and graph to chart your progress? I do. And I don't even have a son to address it to. Wait. That is incorrect. I should say I don't have a son who cares. William Franklin may not have cared for Ben's self-improving schemes either, but my son is only four. And he really doesn't care that I'm going to get back on the Flylady bandwagon-that-isn't-a-bandwagon and fulfill as many of my daily reminders as I can.

But that's what I'm going to do, for those of you who may have the slightest bit of interest. Her web site will initially create utter overwhelm-ment and dizziness in the novice. If you are not looking to lose weight, buy helpful doodads, or clear a scurrying path through your rat-pack house, you have to dig deeply (read, scroll down) for the general motivational house-cleaning stuff. But I've been on her thing for about four years now, so I know how to find it, and what I need to do. Right now, I just need to "hear" a thorough task-mistress tell me to do it. Daily. And she does sell good feather dusters and moms's's calendars. I use both.

Today, I did the following:
washed, dried, folded and put away a load of laundry
drank lots of water
"swished and swiped" (toilets and vanities of three bathrooms)

I have a cold, had a busy day, and that's all I can do housekeeping-wise today, son.

Grasping for Straws

Or is it "clutching at" straws? I don't really care right now. I have a cold. I haven't updated the blog in weeks. I am snotty and cranky and ready to throw any crumbs I can sweep together up onto the screen and call it a day. "What a gracious hostess," you are saying. "I plan on spending lots of my free time reading these crumbs and examining them for deeper meaning, for surely she must think enough of me to create creative, insightful, and witty messages on a regular basis." Yeah. Whatever. Just spreading around the germy love. On to today's crumbs:

That 104.5 - they have my number. Damn radio station out of Philly plays everything I can rock out to: Beck, Fatboy Slim, Beasties, Weezer, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, notice-I-am-stuck-in-the-90s, STP, help-me-I'm-old, Jane's Addiction, REM, but-I-was-old-even-in-the-90s, Matthew Sweet, Big Audio Dynamite, not-sure-how-to-grow-up, Talking Heads, okay-that-was-the-eighties, Nirvana. And there are so few commercials that you start to think you're listening to your home-made mix. But. BUT. But then, 104.5 will pull a fast one. When you least expect it they slip in a "current rock hit." And it really bums my stone, man. Who do they think they are, Clear Channel or something? Oh, yeah, they are. I don't even know the names of these bands whose dreck I'm listening to, except for one entertaining song whose lyrics I Googled yesterday, Silversun Pickups' Lazy Eye. Not bad. But most of the other unidentifiable modern rock that they scare me with is tepid, repetitive, and self-indulgent. Kind of like this blog. I guess they really do have my number.

p.s. I do like the White Stripes' music, which, happy for me, they also play.

Another Day, Another Thousand Pounds of Toxic Leakage

Just everyday life in Pays de DuPont. (Or would that be Pays du Pont?) It is little wonder that people around here (my family included) pay hundreds of dollars a year to have bottled water shipped in from...anywhere but here.