Dear Internets

Today I was uncharacteristically productive and energetic, which leads me to believe I must be coming down with a mysterious endocrinological disease. The kitchen taunted me, so I decided that it was time to really, really clean it. So I cleaned it, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Whenever I intend to mop, I let Ari play with bubbles on the kitchen floor, which is good for about an hour. Of course, usually I do not then actually get around to mopping, so we end up with a slippery puddle. Whatever. Today, I did mop. And scrubbed. With a scrub-brush. Since Chloe the cat recently killed three mice in one marathon Saturday, it seemed prudent. I let Ari wash the stove burner grills in the sink when he got sick of the bubbles. This was good for another hour. Then it was on to The Third Man, watched with Lizzie, the discount dragon costume. (Some day I will describe The Third Man, as narrated by Ari: "The boy threw the red ball." "Vink-ul." "Harry's there!" "The parrot bit Holly's finger." "I want to see the merry-go-round." "Harry and the woman are fighting." "Harry hid in the sewers.'" "Holly shot Harry." ) Then lunch. Then the UPS guy delivered a thirty pound bag of sulfur to correct my garden's ph, which is abnormally high for New England soil, usually pretty acidic. Then mopping. "Give ME the mop, mom." "Help me squeeze it!" "We need more water." "Why did you move the pail away?" And then, my beautiful clean kitchen. Except for the fridge, which smells like sour milk.

After the kitchen, we went out to the backyard. It was beautiful out. I cut down some dried Rudbeckia stalks, trimmed the catnip, and turned the soil in the vegetable beds over. February 2 is a freakishly bizarre date on which to work your soil, but it was in perfect condition for it. Ari rode his tricycle (I found it on the street for him last summer), not well, because it's still a bit too big for him. He tried to get me to let him hold my machete, my pruning shears, and my digging fork. He dug in his own newly-assigned garden bed with a short-handled cultivator, and practiced walking backward down the three shallow steps leading up to the vege patch. He terrorized me with a long-handled cultivator ("Tines DOWN, Ari!"), hid behind the compost bin, wondered where the big digging spade went (good question, did I leave it at the other garden plot or did someone steal it from the back patio?), and was pretty careful not to actually step in the vege beds, since I spent a lot of last summer saying "Ack, no, don't step there -- You'll compact the soil!!"

And then Max came home and made gnocchi for dinner. Me loves my husband.

So there, internets. An all-domestic, no politics post.