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FlooredSeptember 14, 2009 I've been meaning for quite some time -- you don't really want to know how long -- to swab my kitchen floor. This accounts for at least a third of the floor space in my studio apartment, and Travvy's crate occupies about 20 percent of it. Travvy's crate was my excuse for not swabbing the kitchen floor, but the crate itself wasn't the real reason. The crate, though (like Travvy) large, folds up easily once you've removed the floor tray, the horse blanket folded up on top of the floor, and the food dish and assorted bones and chew toys that have accumulated on top of the blanket. The big problem was the stuff that has accumulated on top of the crate. The top of the crate looked as if a two-drawer file cabinet and a floor-to-ceiling magazine rack from the public library had emptied themselves just overhead. This was my real reason for not swabbing the floor in -- like I said, you don't really want to know how long it's been since I last mopped my kitchen floor. In order to take Travvy's crate to the shows this past weekend, I had to clear off the top. Saturday morning I carefully moved pile after pile of magazines, newspapers, Mud of the Place promotional materials, income tax folders, and assorted mail to my bed. For some people this might be a trick to get them to actually sort and go through the stuff before bedtime, but I am not one of those people. At bedtime I moved the piles to a space on the floor where I wouldn't trip over them. Sitting in my desk chair, which I am right now, I can look over my left shoulder and see it all peering out from behind the small easy chair that serves as my deskside reference book holder, phone caddy, and convenient place to toss clothes that aren't dirty enough for the laundry hamper or clean enough to put away. This morning dawned sunny and dry. I gazed at the vacant space usually occupied by Travvy's crate (which was folded neatly out on the deck), ignored the pile of stuff reposing beside the easy chair, and decided to swab the kitchen floor. It took pretty much all morning. I shook out the little oval rag rug that lies under the crate and the big matching circular one in the kitchen proper. I moved my boots and Travvy's water dish outside and washed the mats they sit on. I moved boxes and magazine rack into the bedroom/office area -- Travvy had to hurdle them to get onto and off of my bed, which confirms my belief that he's got aptitude for agility. I dusted and then I vacuumed and then I swabbed the floor. While waiting for it to dry, I gathered information and wrote a sports/news story about the weekend's events for the two local papers, then -- having realized shortly after noon that all of us participants are residents of West Tisbury -- I wrote a short item for the West Tisbury town news columns (each paper has one). By then it was early afternoon. The floor was mostly dry. Travvy and I went for a walk. When we got back, I put everything back in its place and set Travvy's crate up. Now I'm gazing appreciatively at its vacant top. The paper cascade is still lurking on the floor behind my left shoulder. The next step is to find better places to put most of it. This will involve some serious dusting of shelves -- shelves that need pre-dusting with a vacuum cleaner before I wave either a featherduster or a dust rag in their direction. Tomorrow. I'll start on that tomorrow.
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