The mighty blasts of October

Well, the White Sox won last night, and the game was truly exciting. During the seventh inning, when the White Sox were down by two, the bases were loaded, there were two outs, and Konerko stepped up to the plate, I immediately thought: "Either he'll strike out or he'll hit a pop fly that even I could catch, and that will be that."

Instead, he hit a grand slam. A grand slam! While I was watching! That never happens.

So that was cool.

Then the Astros caught up and tied the game (due to some surprisingly sucky pitching from Saturday night's boy wonder, Bobby Jenks.) "Argh! Extra innings!" I thought. "I'll be up all night!" So when the White Sox got a home run in the ninth inning, I practically needed an ambulance full of CPR-trained professionals to perform resuscitation.

OK, so this morning, it's raining and overcast and instead of medical technicians, I have an army of cleaning guys going through my house with wet-dry vaccuum cleaners, long-handled brushes, and toothbrushes, washing windows inside and out, hand-scrubbing every little bit of the woodwork, and washing the radiators with a clang clang CLANGing sound. By the end of the day, my house will look fantastic. Except for my furniture, rugs, curtains, crappy art, and tacky tasteless tchotkes, that is. But that woodwork! Those windows! OMG! They are to die!

To keep out of the cleaners' way, I'm hunkered down in our minuscule so-called "sun room." It's really more a place where you'd grow ferns or maybe moss, since the trees outside have grown very tall since this house was built. And they make a lot of shade. The pedantic would describe my yard as "umbrageous." The pedantic might even liken my yard to "the forest primeval." All this shade is--if not excellent, at least acceptable--except on rainy fall days before the leaves have finished falling. Like today. Then it's kind of depressing.

The cleaning is so my house can look acceptable for Saturday night's Halloween party. Although it does seem a bit silly to rid myself of real cobwebs only to see party stores filled with artificial ones for decorating. But hey, we have REAL spiders here. And they make REAL cobwebs, man. Fake cobwebs are for wussies.

Not that I do all that much in the way of decorating. I sure as HELL don't put gruesome skeletons, severed hands, giant cobwebs, and maniacally cackling witches everywhere. This is a family party, and I don't hire hoards of professional cleaners at exorbitant prices to get the place spotless only to have a bunch of four year olds pee in their pants with fright over the decorations.

This reminds me--I've really got to get cracking on the Lisa Simpson costume my daughter thinks I can make. Or I will go down in history as the Worst Mother in the Midwest, that's all. Possibly even East of the Mississippi. And I only have two children. For all I know, the young lady in question will be picking my retirement community. And I want a nice one. With clean windows and woodwork! And no cobwebs.


--P.