Spring Cleaning

 The rain that washed our neighbor's ornamental plum tree didn't diminish its blossoms at all.

Indeed, the rain and the mild overnight temperatures conspired to make me more ambitious than usual, and I decided to delve more deeply into areas of my life that I have long neglected.

Far from psychological in nature, these areas are in my closet and my bathroom vanity, and I would rather go to a lengthy and soul-searching Confession in church than face my negligence and laziness to be exposed in those easily-forgotten ... landfills.

While the wind advisory played itself out, and the intermittent showers dampened the landscape once again, I got down on all fours with a pair of reading glasses on my nose and a trashbag close at hand. Gingerly, I reached into the vanity cupboard and pulled out a basket with assorted ... stuff in it, two cans of shaving gel, one lotion bottle, a discolored container of aloe vera gel, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a box of tissues.

Some of that I kept.

The rest was a conglomerate of out-of-date junk (imagine, a tube of toothpaste with an expiration date of 2007!) and stuff I had long forgotten I had. You know those pads you can stick on sore muscles for pain relief? They go out of code, too. And wart remover, and calcium pills big enough to choke a horse, and goodness, that's where that tube of sunblock went three years ago!

The obvious dead stuff entombed in the trash bag, I was free to sort through the basket, and found enough dental floss and gum strengthening sticks to last us another five to ten years, courtesy of our dentist's penchant for loading up goody bags with cheap toothbrushes and stuff every time each of us had a visit. (No wonder he charged so much!)

With everything out of the cabinet, I was able to clean up the dust and what is that? -- spider droppings??? Yuchhhh!

All tidied up, now. I have to say that if I were to peek in some acquaintance's vanity and see such order, I'd probably think that they had some kind of compulsive "neat-nut" problem going on. Yet I will remain satisfied
with my exertions today (I think I've gone back to view the final result at least six times just to marvel at the difference) and accept the suddenly sunny and poofy-cloud-filled afternoon as a kind of reward.

Here's to Spring!