Sunny California isn't today.  It's overcast here.  Since I can't lay out and bake my almost lily white skin in the sun I figured today was as good as any to do some cleaning. 

Boxes of stuff to be thrown away have already been filled and hauled out to the garage.  They'll be taken to the dump tomorrow.  There's still a lot left to pack.  The problem we're having is what to keep and what to toss.  Basically anything with no sentimental value and anything that can be easily replaced during a trip to Wallyworld is getting the heave ho.  We've whittled down the list of things that are going back to Arkansas. 

Stuff such as books, papers, certificates, pictures, knickknacks, etc are all being boxed up and shipped back by the friendly UPS dude. 

The refrigerator got picked up last night by JD's nephew.  This is a pain in the ass, as it leaves us using a friggen igloo cooler but at least it's one more item we don't have to mess with. 

Trust me folks, the thought of Bisa wrestling with a huge fridge makes me shudder.

Once it got moved that afforded us a look at the floor beneath it and the walls behind and to the side of it. 

In a word - "Ugh".

Three years of just guys living in this house have amounted to a shitload of heavy duty cleaning to be done.  At first I thought PineSol or 409 would do the trick on the greasy mess, but now I'm thinking grinder and blowtorch.

Do men not understand that you CAN move a fridge out periodically and clean behind and beneath it?

I'm guessing no.

I've got two walls done, but the wall over the oven is going to take some serious chemicals to clean. Any suggestions?  Amonia maybe?

My knees, back, hamstrings and abs are screaming at me from all the bending and stretching I've been doing.  Who knew that deep housecleaning was such a work out?

Actually, I did.  I've moved so many times it isn't funny.  What also isn't funny is that in all the times I've moved I've never EVER gotten the security deposit back.  And yanno, that sucks big time.  Especially considering that I've always had to clean a place whenever I've moved in and that whenever I've moved out the house was left spotless.

The landlord here is a bit shifty, I think.  He's letting the new tenants work off their deposit, which sounded like a very nice thing to me, leaving us with a few less things to worry about.  Until I realized "Hey, wait a fuckin minute!  He's letting him take JD's deposit!"  Because if the new guy did all the work, we wouldn't see a penny of it. 

So when the new guy showed up with the lawn mower and said he was going to do some yardwork I politely - yes dammit, I was polite.  Southern polite.  - informed him that we still had the house until the first and we'd planned on doing the mowing and other things around the house.

I think I scared him because he hasn't been back since. 

I'm ferocious I tell ya.  *grin*

I'm also smart or intuitive or whatever ya wanna call it.  There's just something that's nagging about the whole way the landlord is allowing this guy to work off his deposit.  It has me thinking that I could paint, paper and carpet this damn house and he'd STILL find some reason not to return JD's deposit. 

Therefore I refuse to kill myself cleaning up. 

Oh, there's still things that I'll do and have done - wiping down walls, cleaning out the shower, wiping down cabinets and shelves, but I'll be damned if I'm going to kill myself doing stuff that isn't going to matter in the long run.  Honestly had the fridge stayed and not been moved, I wouldn't have bothered yanking it out and cleaning behind and beneath it. 

Yeah I know what I said earlier.  Shuddup.

It's not like I have to use this landlord as a reference, yanno? 

I laid out earlier this week and got toasted.  The humidity here is so much lower than at home that I wasn't run back into the house after 30 minutes. 

I meant to stay out a total of 40 minutes, figuring 20 minutes on each side for the first time out would be just about right.

Umm, well that was my intention anyway.  I ended up dozing off.  The sun was so warm and the delta breeze felt so nice that I zoned out while baking my front and ended up doing half an hour on that side.  No problem, right? 

Flip

On my stomach, breeze blowing, sun shining, mtn dew in the shade under the chair, book in hand - paradise.

Until I woke up an hour later.

Hell.

I knew I was in trouble because I could feel the itch and burn before I even made it into the house.  Usually it takes a few hours for the red and pain to show up.  Not this time.

I slathered on some Aloe/Vit E lotion and started popping Ibuprofen.  That helped a lot.  Except for some stupid ass reason I forgot my chest.  Got the shoulders, back, back of legs all smeared but hell if I didn't forget my chest.  Now it's itching me like crazy and I walk around scratching it like I've got fleas or something.  *snort*

The boys are doing good.  Kimo opted out of going to his Pappaw's funeral, which I pretty much figured he would.  Gomez went.  He broke down again when the Preacher started talking but he hung in there.  He had his Dad beside him and my Dad standing behind him.  (It was a graveside service)

Sunday after the service Gomez came home with Dad.  He told Mom "This is the worst day of my life." and I got to thinking that yeah, it probably was.

And I wasn't there to help him through it. 

Fuck.

Yeah I know he was ok.  He was with my parents.  But still, there's just times in your life as a parent when you feel like you should be there with your kids. 

Kimo refuses to talk about it.  When asked Sunday morning if he wanted to go to the service he said "No, but hug Mammaw and Dad for me please, Pops", then he laid his head down on the table and said "And I don't want to talk about it."

Beyond that, they are doing great Mom said.  They got to go over to my brothers and go swimming and Bro grilled burgers and hot dogs for them.  Mom said they had a great time. 

They went to their Dad's Wednesday to spend the rest of the week with him and I'm guessing they'll go back to Mom's this weekend.

Jasper is at the kennel.  The way he ran into the place you'd have thought he was thinking in his little doggy head "Oh boy! A spa vacation!!"  He loves the place cuz they spoil him rotten there. 

I miss the boys.  I miss the dog.  I miss my home.  I miss my own computer with cable access cuz dial up sucks green donkey goobers.

I have to check my email thru the web because I'm not setting up access to my email accounts on JD's OE.  Nope, not gonna happen.  I can't talk to anyone on messengers for the same reason. 

Besides, it's hard to have a conversation with someone when you've got a shadow, yanno?  I've already informed JD that he's going to have to get a job when we get back to AR because this following me from room to room shit hasta stop.

Ack, lunch is here.  Gotta go.