Cleaning for Company

       January 2, I come downstairs to a kitchen in crisis.  I had cooked a turkey for New Year's Day, and although I had made some effort to clean up the night before, I still have a long way to go.  The sink is piled with dishes and utensils that wouldn't fit in the too-full dishwasher. The stovetop looks greasy, and some kind of liquid is pooled around one of the burners.  The floor is littered with crumbs and dried-on drips.  I don't even have Martha's book yet, but I'm sure she would be disgusted.

       And then, I instantly feel annoyed with Ms. Stewart.  If she had cooked a 21-lb turkey the day before, I am certain her cleaning staff would take care of the mess -- not Martha herself.  Would she even have done the cooking? Or would she just have "supervised" her personal chef?  I am quite certain she doesn't clean her own homes. Who is she to give me advice on cleaning mine?

       Yet, I get to work on cleaning, just the same.  Maybe by the time the book is delivered, probably late this afternoon, my kitchen will be clean enough to face Martha's criticism head on.

       But Martha has something else in mind.  I hear a knock at the door, and find a package from Amazon.com is waiting for me.  The courier is nowhere to be seen.  The book must have been delivered by the evil spirit of Martha, attacking before I have even had my morning coffee.

       I open the package, remove a 744-page volume, and start reading.  To give Martha credit, in the introduction, she never claims to do her own cleaning.  Rather, she speaks about the challenge of "running and maintaining her home", which seems a rather nice way of saying "over-seeing the servants".  She doesn't claim to have even written the book. Rather, she states that she formed the concept and created an outline, and then had a team of researchers and writers compile the encyclopedic tome.

       So, I forgive her a bit, and turn to a page which lists six things to be done daily:

1.  Make the bed.  I had failed on that one already.  Not only today, but for many years of my adult life.

2.  Manage clutter.  Let's not even go there.  Not yet anyway.  

3.  Sort the mail.  That's directly related to the managing clutter issue, so let's skip that one too.

4.  Clean as you cook.  The kitchen mess attests to my failure on that point.

5.  Wipe up spills while they're fresh. Ditto.

6.  Sweep the kitchen floor.  Ditto again.

       The next two pages go on to provide a long list of weekly housekeeplng goals.  Sure thing, Martha.  So I gently close the book, pour myself some coffee, and pick up the newspaper.  For full distraction, I also turn on CNN.

       Two hours later, a neighbor calls to suggest that he and his wife come over to our place that night to watch a hockey game on TV.  They had had us over a couple of weeks before to watch another game at their place.

       Although I don't think Martha's "Homekeeping Handbook" includes advice on entertaining etiquette. I am quite sure that my stumbling, "Uh...uh...uh..." response would fail all Stewart-esque standards.  "Or do you want to come to our place?" my neighbor eventually offered.  I think through the pros and cons.  I like our neighbors and enjoy watching hockey with them.  My husband, who is an extremely expressive fan, tends to be more civilized with other people around.  Martha would be impressed that I had ingredients to cook up a great game-time snack.  All I really had to do was clean.  I manage to coax the words out of my mouth:  "Sure come on over. The game starts at 7:30."

       And I get to work. I attack the kitchen first.  In our open-concept home, guests have to walk through the kitchen to get to the living room, so there's no hiding it.  I empty the dishwasher, reload it with the remaining items in the sink, clean the counters, wipe the stovetop (and the knobs and handles), hand-wash the wine glasses and even wipe out the inside of the sink (something I rarely think of doing).  I clean the top of the dining room table and even wipe down the chairs, cleaning off some spills that clearly were no longer "fresh".  

       Moving to the living room, I clean off table surfaces, and glancing at Martha's list of weekly chores, decide to dust the leather furniture. In a few seconds, it glows. Inspired, I dust the front (and back) of the TV and the TV table, as well as the window sills and the front of the fireplace.  I dust off (and under) the few objects we have on display.  I get down on my hands and knees and use a special sponge to wipe the dog hair off our area rug.  Finally, cheating a bit, I carry an armload of things upstairs, out of the way.  No one will ever know.  

       I move to the downstairs bathroom.  Thankfully, it's pretty clean. Still, I use Windex on the mirror, the faucets and the toilet.  I straighten the towels and refill the tissue box. 

       And I call my husband at work, both to tell him we are having company, and to ask him to walk the dog when he gets home. She tends to attack brooms and vacuum cleaners, and I need to work for a few minutes without distraction.

       When he gets home, after walking the dog, the place looks good -- very good, in fact.

       "Martha would be proud," I tell him.

       "The woman is still a felon," he mumbles.