I mean, hell. Do you have any idea what it's like trying to keep your house perfectly clean 24/7, always ready to show at a moment's notice, for three to six goddamn months???
While I am no domestic goddess by a long shot, I do tend to drift a bit towards the Felix end of the tidiness spectrum. But holy mother of crap. It's no picnic in the park trying to keep this big old funky place blindingly spotless, day after day after long relentless day. I'm astonished to realize what a horrendous mess two tiny dogs and I can make, living here all by ourselves.
It's bad enough that we work in the garden for a few hours every day and track in all kinds of mud and leaves and grass and other miscellaneous gradoo. But we also sleep in the bed, take showers, change clothes, cook ourselves a meal or two, bring in the mail. And before we know it the damn place is a pig sty. So when a realtor suddenly calls to give us the requisite two hour notice before showing the house to interested gawkers, we have to scurry around like mad primping and preening and polishing every surface, trying to make it look like nobody except maybe Martha Stewart's OCD housekeeper lives here.
But then comes the fun part, the part of selling the house that is a picnic in the park. Literally. Whenever the realtors want to come by with gawkers in tow, the girls and I have to vacate the premises. Luckily for us, there's a beautiful big city park just four blocks away. It's several hundred acres so we can stroll around for an hour and never sniff the same puddle of pee twice.
So here's a photodocumentary of how we spent this lovely sunny spring morning, exiled in the neighborhood park while strangers tramped through our rooms and peered into our closets.
This is the nearby city park. Lots of open space for walkies, as well as several tennis courts, little league diamonds, rec centers, and playgrounds. Unfortunately we forgot our racquets today.
This shady live oak is a great spot for one of our favorite sports, squirrel watching.
The bushes are full of rabbits and squirrels, but we know if we try to lunge off after them we'll be sentenced to six weeks at boot camp with the dreaded Dog Whisperer.
We love to mill around the picnic tables where other people may have tossed their nasty greasy old fried chicken bones.
Those of us who have hair enjoy the breeze in it.
Some of us are brave enough to try the slide; others are scared shitless.
Wheeee!
Some of us enjoy the swings; others would rather be boiled alive or devoured by the evil vaccum cleaner.
We're not sure if this is an alien space craft, or if we've wandered into the middle of a Brobdingnagian golf course. Whatever it is, we like to lift our legs on it.
Spring in the park is quite pleasant, but we hope to hell somebody buys this place before it gets too hot for us to spend an hour outside without dying. Which will be in about one more month.
For sale: One big old purple house with wrap-around veranda and eight million rose bushes that are just about to bloom.
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