torture

I have been staying at my mom's apartment since Monday while my floors were being refinished. Thank God my mom is away in Florida while I'm camping out there with Owen and Oona and my two cats. I knew that it wouldn't be the easiest thing, all of us in this small space, but I figured it would only be for a few days and that the pay off, beautiful refinished floors, would outweigh the short term stress of being sandwiched in my mom's place. What I neglected to consider is the fact that my mother is very fastidious in terms of cleaning, her house is always perfect. The thing that mystifies me is that with her zeal for cleaning, her home is jam packed with tchotchkes- artificial floral bouquets are everywhere. Any flat surface seems to be covered with a lace doily and then have little figurines or the fake flower bouquets or coasters (you'd think the woman entertained every night) on top of them. There are little faux candlesticks on each window ledge in her living room and stained glass animals suction cupped to her kitchen windows. Needless to say, the kids love visiting Grandma Cat's house because there is so much STUFF to look at and touch, where else can you find a copper lighthouse that plays music to harmonize with you while you tinkle in her toilet. Our home looks downright austere in comparison. But maybe it's a yin yang thing, my mother likes to clean to such an extent that she needs a lot of dust catchers in order to feel she's truly doing a good job. It seems almost masochist, but it's what makes her happy.

I've had to put every fake bouquet in her closet because my very poorly behaved cats were trying to eat them. They've jumped up on every surface they possibly can knocking over picture frames, getting their cat litter everywhere it seems- after having their litterbox in the basement for years it really seems that I cannot avoid stepping on cat litter, which really grosses me out. I am sleeping on a pull out bed with a very wiry mattress that is doing nothing to help my achy back. The only pot of gold is that Owen and Oona have been marvelous when it comes to bedtime. They're great for me at home but I thought it might be challenging with the two of them sharing a bedroom, but they barely make a peep and drift off without a problem in my mother's two twin beds, while I lobotomize myself with Law & Order reruns five feet away in the living room.

Anyhow, regarding the torture post. I think almost everybody, well maybe everybody I know, engages in a sort of self-torture of one thing or another. In a way I think it can be extraordinarily helpful to know what your problem areas are, parts of yourself that you'd like to work on or improve. But I know for myself that there are many areas I feel bad about (parenting, not being assertive enough, lacking confidence, placing waaay too much importance on how others feel about me - to name the tip of the iceberg) where I feel like I don't measure up and it's so easy to beat myself up about these things, it's almost reflexive. I am fully aware of my need to break free from this way that I torture myself. But sometimes you can work so hard and then someone finds your weak spots, picks at that scab, and if it happens often enough a scar forms and the tensile strength of scar tissue is 80% of the original tissue, at least that's what I learned from the wound care lecture in school last year. That being said I truly hope there's credence to the cliche that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. The past two years have really been a struggle for me in more ways than I care to enumerate. So I just might try to limit my self-torture to eating some heirloom tomatoes soaked in oil and vinegar even though my whole mouth is cut up pretty badly from these invisalign liners I've got on (to correct my crooked bottom teeth and, hopefully, fix the right side of my jaw which pops painfully when I yawn). The joys of getting old. Nothing like being forty-two with a lisp from the plastic in your mouth. Well as long as I don't sound like Truman Capote I figure I'm golden.

They finished my floors yesterday.The man who did them looked a bit like Sam Elliot and drawled out his words in much the same way. Perhaps even slower? But he was a bit inscrutable, rather cryptic with his answers, or lack thereof, to my questions about the floors, until I learned yesterday that I've got to let the floors cure for four to five more days before moving anything back into those rooms (living room, dining room, entry, hallway upstairs and Oona's room). So it looks like we'll be at my mom's until Wednesday. But, on the bright side, I can wash the three loads of laundry that accumulated at my mom's. And I have internet access (my mom took her laptop to Florida so my only access to a computer was two visits to the library this week). And wait until you see how lovely the floors look now. It's the best $1715 I've spent- and that's a flipping bargain for as bad as my floors were. He trimmed out the downstairs with new oak quarter round, he didn't do anything to the upstairs so I've got to call him about that. Well I'm off to vacuum the fine layer of sawdust that seems to be everywhere.