Monday, August 13, 2007

D=Daddy and The Dear Diary of a Demented Domestic Diva


I can't talk about Domesticity without mentioning some of my Daddy's Disastrous and Deviant Doings. (You may want to have a rest before you read this...it may be long and Dumb)
We used to have a refrigerator like this. It was a behemoth, weighed a ton and couldn't be budged. We lived in a huge old house, the kitchen was immense. My mother wanted the refrigerator moved from one side of the kitchen to the other side. She kept threatening to call a moving company to do so. One day when I was very little we all went somewhere, leaving Daddy to his own Devices. When we came home several hours later, the refrigerator stood exactly where my mother had wanted it. Nothing in it had been removed: the milk bottles were still in the same place, the leftovers undisturbed. My father had attached a pulley and rope to the frig, had gone out to the garage and found a big can of axle grease. He greased the floor and slid the refrigerator across with the rope and pulley. It worked like a charm, except for the fact that it took my mother several days to remove the axle grease.
On another occasion when left alone, my father decided that our yard needed some fertilizer. He had some chicken manure on hand and an old pump. He somehow reversed the motor on the pump and blew the manure all over the yard. This also worked brilliantly except for the fact that he had neglected to close all of the windows in the house. We arrived home to find manure in every nook and cranny and the not so Delicate scent of chicken manure wafting through the rooms.
Now being the Daughter of such a man, you can imagine that now and then, I can indulge in Doubtful and Dodgey Domestic habits.
I have been known to wash chard in my washing machine (no spin cycle) when I had picked so much of it to freeze. I was going nuts rinsing it off in the kitchen sink. The little light bulb went off above my head! Ta Da..it did work.
I've used my handy dandy shop vac to suck up all manner of dried vegetable matter that has been hiding in my refrigerator. That worked too!
I also shop vac one of my Newfoundland dogs. She loves it. That also works well.
This I do not recommend: the Drying of bread crumbs with your hair dryer. It's not a pretty sight when you're done.
I leave you with a poem that's really not about housecleaning, Domestic Doings or brooms, but it's lovely. Emily Dickinson wrote this:

She sweeps with many-colored Brooms--
And leaves the Shreds behind--
Oh Housewife in the Evening West--
Come back, and dust the Pond!

You dropped the Purple Ravelling in--
You dropped the Amber thread--
And now you've littered all the East
With duds of Emerald!

And still, she plies her spotted Brooms,
And still the Aprons fly,
Till Brooms fade softly into stars-
And then I come away--

Best!

2 comments:

marylou said...

Oh my gosh...this is my most fave post yet!!! Divinely delish data:-)
Now I see how YOUR gene pool works..haha....."fantabulous" D's and super duper stories. Your dad is my hero:)
Love ya, Marylou

Amy said...

I love this story, your father must have been a hoot, is still a hoot...and clever to boot :)