Keeping the ASS in ChristmASS

Well - half of it, anyway.

It's worth repeating: Cats are not good helpers when it comes to wrapping Christmas presents.

Okay, so it isn't really worth repeating. It wasn't even worth mentioning in the first place, since pretty much anyone who gives half a rat's ass about cats is already fully aware of this fact. But what the hell. For those of you who don't know it, even the most weary, elderly, sedentary cat gets a little sparkle in his eye when the wrapping paper comes out. The crisp rustle of it, the intoxicating aroma of fresh-printed ink sliding out from a cellophane sheath; the glossy snap of Scotch tape being pulled from the reel; the wriggling twirl of the foiled ribbons; the hissing snip of scissors slicing through shiny paper - well, you can hardly expect a cat to contain itself.

Cats neither own horses nor wear pants, which makes it especially tricky for them to hold the one or keep the other on.

But despite the helpful efforts of two furry, diminutive, pointy-ended housemates, I did manage to wrap what I've accumulated so far of Christmas presents.

Katie moved out just a few months ago. She's 21 now, setting off on her first flight of adulthood (sort of). Eric is 23, living with a girl I adore somewhat apprehensively. It's scary, getting attached to your offspring's potential better halves. You don't know where it's going to end up - I mean, sure, she's awesome, and they're happy, and the two of them are so good together.

I've been in that relationship. Many times. Many.

Or not; actually, those two seem stable and calm in a way that I never quite managed, and have been so for a couple of years now. There's a certain unobtrusive purring of the kind of relationship-supporting machinery that keeps running as long as you aren't one to get all excitable and start flinging wrenches in the form of hopeful future partners, unsupportable financial cravings, or just one more kitten.

Anyway, in the wake of Katie's moving-out, I did some empty-nesting, which is to say I went through the toy chest and the depths of the storage areas and the piles of everything in the closets that's never been cleaned out, ever. There were hundreds of stuffed toys, a few of them important and worth hanging onto, most others not. There were children's books that got read once or twice and stuffed into the back of an overcrowded shelf. There were blocks, puzzles, Barbies, beads, teasets and action figures. There were kids' meal toys from pretty much every fast-food place you can think of, and possibly some you'd rather you hadn't.

So all these extraneous things went out - in bags of trash or recyclables, in boxes of items donated to Goodwill. Katie's whole high-school subscription to Vogue got trashed. Now if I could just eradicate the smell of the perfume samples.

All in all there were so many boxes and bags, it's kind of hard to go and buy a bunch of Christmas crap that I know will be fully appreciated for all of two weeks before being relegated to the back of the closets I've just spent so much effort digging out from under years of needless excess.

Keeping to a minimum of what we need and really want is more of a Quixotic struggle than I'd anticipated.

Bingo, overexcited by the myriad sensory excitements of Christmas wrapping, got carried away and tilted at a brown paper shopping bag tonight, and I'm sorry to say that he was very soundly defeated. He jumped into the bag, tipped it over, jumped out, jumped back in, spun around, and got his upper body stuck through one of the string handles. The ensuing ruckus was so noisy and violent that his younger, fatter cohort, Baby Kitty, promptly slunk off to hide behind the encyclopedias in the bookcase.

This is also where she hid from the Christmas tree when I put it up, because apparently in Soviet Russia, CHRISTMAS TREE TERRORIZES CAT.

We put the ass-backwards in Christmas.

Clean It Like You Mean It

Think - Hey! I'm talking to you, here - think about how much more orderly your life would be if you were the kind of person who thought, as your eyes swept the kitchen (oh and as a corollary, this would also not be the only sweeping your kitchen ever received), "Hey. That faucet could be shinier!"

You aren't, are you? That's okay, I'm not either. My mother-in-law is. She cleans reflexively, like coughing. She's just sort of in the kitchen or the living room and she's talking or watching TV and her body is moving of its own volition and everything is getting clean, or cleaner, I should say, because it never actually was dirty to begin with. She raised seven children that way. Those genes turned out to be recessive.

I'm not like that either, unfortunately, because I have my mother's extremly untidy genes, which are dominant. Go figure! But about once a year I get a serious bug up my butt and clean the place like a madwoman. I mean, I wouldn't go opening the cabinets if I were you, because come on. There's, like, roach legs and shit in there, and nobody's going to clean that up. But the floors are swept and mopped, the plumbing and the furniture are shining, the appliances are free of spatters, the upholstery on the sofa is scrubbed, and the whole house gives off an aroma remarkably unreminiscent of cat pee. You should be impressed! God knows I am.

What gets you in a cleaning frame of mind? There's always the panicked sensation that company's coming and, if they see how you normally live, not only will they not like you any more, but the health department might have to get involved. But that's involuntary cleaning, and yields mediocre results at best. What is it, then, if there is such a thing, that makes you really want to clean, so that you cheerfully scrub the finger smudges off from the kitchen cabinet doors, or wipe congealed chicken juice out of the bottom of the refrigerator, or actually notice such normally unquestioned clutter as - just an example here - an eyeliner pencil and a combination lock, squirreled away behind the coffeemaker?

Me, I have to have the place to myself. It becomes, only once a year or so, all my own and only mine; so I plug my iPod into the stereo, and invite friends over (who apparently know better and don't come), and, for a brief moment in time, I channel my mother-in-law: I'm just hangin', just dancing around the house listening to my music, and somehow there are a broom and dustpan and mop and brush and sponge and cloth and a bottle of spray cleaner in my hands, and things get put away, and everything gets unbelievably clean. It's a miracle!

I'm sure there's some perfectly reasonable scientific explanation. And I bet if a team of scientists studied the phenomenon, they'd be able to produce a pharmaceutical that would replicate the effect and turn me, and you, and anyone else into a domestic goddess like my mother-in-law. Would you take it? I know it's a bit Stepford-esque. But think how shiny your kitchen faucet would be.

A Few Blocks Down from Godliness

Here, for posterity, is what my living room looks like on those staggeringly rare occasions when it's clean.

Isn't it cute? I don't know why there's that little half-moon in the front door, but I like it. Makes you think of an outhouse; not entirely accurate, as my house does have plumbing:

The kitchen is clean, too, but you've already seen that.

It's been just Eric and me, this Fourth of July weekend, and it's been kind of fun. Tonight we biked over to Zen for dinner. I've never eaten there before, but I did once buy a car from one of the owners. R.I.P., little Grungietta - she met her untimely demise at the tires of a pickup truck making a blind left turn into oncoming traffic; crumpled up like an accordion and left me completely unscathed. I miss her still.

But it's probably just as well that we went out to eat tonight, because last night, I cooked: pasta tossed with sauce from a jar and what was left of the bagged veggies in the freezer - sort of a pasta secunda vera... I do prefer good food to bad; but not strongly enough to bother cooking decently, though I draw the line at Cheez Whiz.

We went shopping yesterday, too - in the car, which, once we put some air in the tire, drove just as well as if it hadn't sat idle in the carport for three months or more. Borders had the most amazing book on treehouses, although if they're large and elaborate enough, with plumbing and wiring and finished interior walls and wood paneling and climate control and everything, you sort of start to wonder what, exactly, is the point? Still, a cool book. We had ice cream at Amy's, and I had an epiphany at Bath and Body Works.

Bath and Body Works is one of those stores where they routinely ask for your phone number while you're checking out. Why do so many stores do this? Is it so that, if it turns out their Warm Vanilla Sugar body spray causes leprosy (which would certainly explain these weird flaky red spots on my neck), they can call you and tell you to load up on health insurance? I kind of doubt it. I think they sell the information to telemarketers. It's always bothered me.

So my turn came at the checkout, and the clerk rang up my purchase, and I paid for it, and she said, "Your phone number starting with the area code, please?" and I did something that amazed me.

I smiled and said, "I'm sorry, I don't give it out." And - get this - she still let me leave with the stuff I bought. She didn't argue with me, or even act the slightest bit chilly, or anything. It was the most incredible experience.

Don't laugh. I have a hard time saying no. Really hard. My stomach was all quivery. I'm serious.

I thought about it while sweeping the living room and listening to Public Enemy. Fight the powers that be - especially when the main person oppressing you is yourself. And further thoughts along those lines just get me down.

But at least I smell good!

Learned Behavior

Every morning when I make coffee, the cats gather around in anticipation. The smell of the coffee and the gurgling of the coffeemaker are what call them, but what they're actually waiting for is the saucer of half-and-half I always pour for them when I'm getting my coffee ready.

Similarly, they're learning to hide whenever they see Katie anywhere in the vicinity of any cleaning products. Katie is not the tidiest person on Earth - in fact, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being my mother-in-law, and one being, well, me - Katie is about a -367,485,946.2.

But every so often she gets a major cleaning bug up her butt and scrubs sinks, tubs and toilets, washes the car, does the dishes, does laundry, wipes down the countertops, sweeps and vacuums the floors, and generally makes a complete angel out of herself. You can't beg, threaten, or bribe her to do this. But if she's in the zone, she'll clean the hell out of the place, which is awesome.

The next day, she's back to stashing banana peels under the sofa.

Unfortunately for them, when she's in this mood, her eye invariably falls on the cats. "Romeo's fur looks a little messy," she'll say in a speculative tone, and from that point it's all over. They get bathed. Romeo complains loudly, but endures it the best he can; Bingo struggles madly to escape; Peachy - sweet, cute, adorable, fluffy, good-natured, fat little Peachy - bares teeth and claws and goes straight for the jugular; and Slappy White, who may after all be the brightest of the bunch, is nowhere to be found.

At least they have a nice clean floor to lie on while they lick all the nasty water off. And Katie gave them a nice dish of cream.