The Irish are coming for Thanksgiving

Lilllianna is scheduled to arrive today from Florida for Thanksgiving.  Lillianna has been to Maison Bean and knows what to expect.  Jolie and her 3-year-old little boy Miles, who are also supposed to arrive today, have no idea what they are about to encounter, and they are journeying all the way from the Emerald Isle, so it’s not like they can just turn around and go back home if we freak them out.

“Please don’t go to any trouble for us,” Jolie said on the phone.

“No worries,” I said absentmindedly as I began compiling an exhaustive to-do list.

In the years before the multiplication of Beans when it was just Hyacinth and me, I kept a decent house.  Thursday was my cleaning day, so that I could come home from work Friday to a clean house and a chore-free weekend.  Whilst I dusted, vacuumed and chloroxed, I would slug wine and sing off-tune along with my stereo.  Depending on the time of year, I mowed the lawn and sometimes washed my car.  Stray articles that had no home were shoved out of sight into closets and cabinets.  My organizational ability was, and still is, chaotic at best.

I was a hoarder before it became fashionable.

These days Thursdays are no longer free to clean, and the closets and cabinets have spilled over into the rest of the house.  The living room mantle, the refrigerator and my bureau have become repositories for all things little Beans aren’t supposed to play with.  Toys litter the floor.  My washing machine is constantly running.  And my sporadic cleanings, when they occur, are superficial and do not include details like ceiling fan blades or expired refrigerator contents.

Yesterday when Papa came in from whatever it is Papa does with his mornings, he found me in the kitchen teetering on a barstool cleaning the top of the range hood.  I’d started cleaning two weeks before.

“Jenny, what the hell are you doing now?!”

“What does it look like I’m doing?  I’m cleaning.”

“Why?”

“This is the first place people look when they come to your house.”

Papa shook his head, and I extended a foot to balance on the island so that I could scrub a spot on the ceiling.

“If you break your leg, I’ll drive you to the hospital after I take my nap.”

Papa is a confessed slob with no hope for reform.  Two women, both drill sergeant neat housekeepers, tried to do it, and both threw in the towel.

At this writing Maison Bean has been scrubbed and disinfected.  I have been reunited with my serrated Wusthof knife, which I found hiding under the chopping block.  I would have been in hiding, too, if I were covered in dried peanutbutter.

The mantle has been cleared.  The black fuzzy funk has been eradicated from the refrigerator, and half of the contents have been discarded.  Hyacinth has a tea tree oil scent to her instead of the compost smell she prefers.  There are fresh linens on all the beds and flowers in vases, and the smell of orange oil furniture polish lingers in the air.

Lillianna, Jolie and I were all in the same TTC class.  TTC stands for trying to conceive.  Our TTC class was actually a single women’s listserv where we discussed fertility treatments, former boyfriends, our ticking biological clocks and what it would be like to become single mothers.

Jolie and I eventually got pregnant, and Lillianna, decided after a weekend with Jax, that motherhood was overrated and accepted a glamorous job that has her jetset in the Caribbean.

Three babies and five years later we are finally getting together. TODAY.

Any hopes I had of creating a good first impression were dashed when I woke up this morning and found Papa sitting in front of his computer.

He was wearing his kilt and a pair of homemade sandals he fashioned out of a piece of carpet and leather strings back when he got caught up in the barefoot running craze.

“Papawhatthehellareyouwearing?!”

“My kilt.”

I took a deep breath.  “THEY. ARE.  IRISH. NOT. SCOTTISH.”

“Irish, Scottish—it’s all the same.”

“Dear Jesus,” I said.

Then I remembered that Jesus wore robes and sandals so he probably wasn’t going to be my best ally in this situation, and he’s probably a little annoyed with me at present because I haven’t been to church in a year.

According to Portia, bloody Marys are the antidote to extreme mortification.  I am now on my second one.  I’ll let you know next week how it all turns out.

Facebook update
Get this!  My account was reinstated.  I got a nice email from FB apologizing for any inconvenience.  WTH?!