Moving Day Photos (not for the squeamish)

I found my camera and was moved to put up a few pictures after I dumped the toaster upside down to empty the crumbs. Note the telephone for scale.

The other picture was taken in the part of the house formerly known as the dining room, and is of the pile of stuff that the movers are NOT taking. We hope.

Okay, FINE

Some of my most ardent fans have been asking, nay BEGGING, for me to do a new post. Okay, FINE. It was my sister and I'm pretty sure she mostly wants me to tell you about her new blog, The Way of the Woo. If you know my sister, you know she is VERY clever and talented, and perhaps, just the teensiest bit bossy. If you don't know her, you can check out her art here. There, Jennifer, are you happy NOW?

And, moving on, things around here are, well, moving on. The packers come tomorrow to gather all of our household goods. They pack like lightning and you have to move fast to keep them from packing your kitchen garbage, keys and passports. It's especially challenging here, because they don't understand when you say, 'No! Don't take the goldfish!' or, 'Ack! That's my dirty laundry, and put that pot roast down!' I wanted to take some pictures of the house and all our piled up junk for your viewing pleasure, but of course I can't find the camera.

We had our housing pre-inspection yesterday. If you haven't lived in military housing, this is where they come and look around and point out all the things you have to clean up before you can move: The scribbles on the wall, the dried slime on the rug, and the shaggy carpet of dust on the ceiling fan blades. Anyway, she came in and looked around and immediately assumed that we had already shipped our good furniture out and were using ratty loaner junk. Sadly, however, this is not the case. The ratty junk is, in fact, our actual belongings, and once I informed her of this, she slunk out quickly, probably good and embarrassed. So that worked out well. Sorry, Korean housing lady, better luck next time!

Let's see, what else? We will be computer and phone free after today so you might not hear from me for a while. We will also be television, book and toy free, so that's probably going to be super fun. Someone did loan us a car starting tomorrow so we can just go cruising Osan to entertain ourselves. If I don't shrivel up and die from having no computer, see you in America!

Tequila

I think we call agree that tequila is an extremely useful substance. Versatile, too. There's nothing better if you're looking to land yourself in a filthy bathtub with abrasions around your waist from diving through a very small bathroom window after running down a dark alley after a guy in a bronco offered you some wine coolers while he was chopping coke on a box of bullets with a giant hunting knife. Not that I would know. His name was Lloyd, too, isn't that a freaky slash creepy coincidence?

Anyhoo, that was a long time ago, and after that I wasn't much of a tequila fan, not that I'm any too picky about filthy bathtubs. But here at Osan, the best drinking is at the Chili's, and the wine selection is weak to say the least. So margaritas it is, and with a lot of effort, I have overcome my tequila aversion. Last night, I sat there for several hours with one of my favorite friends, and sucked down quite some volume of frozen green happiness.

After a few, I noticed something funny: I had a stinging sensation right in the middle of my upper lip. Right there where teeny tiny babies get their nursing blisters. The parallels astound, but I won't go into that here. I got to thinking, and when that happens, you know a brilliant idea is soon to follow.

So, here it is, and it kind of matches up nicely with my latest cleaning scheme. The tequila abraded my lip because it's caustic, right? Especially when you mix it with lime juice and salt! And I'm always looking for a way to clean the grout, the burnt on crud on the stove top, and the disgusting ring in the washing machine. Well, okay, that's a lie. I really couldn't care less about any of that. But I MIGHT try to get it off now that I have this tequila idea. We could share: one shot for the floor, one shot for me. One shot for the floor, two shots for me. It's not THAT outlandish; people do use vodka to clean, you know. You can read about it here. That would never work for me, though. I've worked really hard but I still haven't managed to vanquish my longstanding vodka phobia. I'm definitely willing to give it a try, but someone better come check on me in a few days.

Disorder

I have decided I must have a syndrome. Everyone should have at least one, you know, and I've been looking for mine. Well, here it is: Order Aversion Syndrome (OAS). I'm pretty sure I've always had it, but new advances have allowed me to finally diagnose it. You might have it, too. In the hope that I can help others, I'll just tell you my story. I don't know how the disorder got started. My mother is tidy, my father is not untidy, my sister is obsessively extra-neat. My husband is tidy tidier than me, and so are my kids. For real, and that's bad.

My front closet floor is piled high with a mixture of shoes, boots, hats, coats, shopping bags and empty wine bottles. My pans are stored in three different places in the kitchen, intermixed with storage containers and mixing bowls. When I go to put one away, my disorder causes me to place it totally at random. I am unable to fold clothes or towels the same way twice. Sometimes I just shove things in drawers, of course, or just leave them in the laundry basket until Godzilla could hide in there, but sometimes I do fold. Usually when I'm trying to avoid something even more unpleasant. Because my disorder renders me unable to fold a series of items all the same way, my laundry stacks look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This, as you might imagine, is very unsatisfying, thus reducing the probability that I will fold again anytime in the near future. See how insidious it is? My books are piled willy-nilly on bookshelves in four rooms. Amelia Bedelia might be next to 'Bowling Alone', or she might be next to 'Positive Discipline' or she might be next to 'Rocks and Minerals'. Who knows? The disorder makes it a crapshoot every time!

Oh, I've tried all sorts treatments for the disorder, believe you me. I've bought an organizer and scheduled tidy tasks: clean the bathrooms on Tuesday morning; mop the floors on Friday afternoon, and so on. I've tried the Flylady, and really, she just annoys me. I've borrowed a friend's labelmaker and labeled all the shelves and drawers. I swear, she made it sound like the thing had magical powers, but unfortunately, it didn't transform my home into a serene oasis of order and beauty, although I DID think I saw a golden unicorn dancing around behind the dusty blinds. I was going to link to her here but then I realized she might get mad at me for making fun of her labelmaker. To be fair, it's a LOVELY labelmaker and I'm sure that any less-than-optimal outcomes were solely the result of operator error. And, of course, I've devised all sorts of brilliant labor-saving cleaning schemes, for which I am STILL unrecognized by the Nobel or any other prize committee.

But now, I'm done. Done trying to fit in. Done trying to conform to your orderly world. I don't have to have neatly folded clothes or pans that can be located. It's just not for me. And if it takes too long to find Amelia Bedelia, maybe we'll find Mrs. Piggle Wiggle where it fell down behind Little House on the Prairie, and read that instead, and that's order enough for me.

Chores

As you must surely be aware by now, Stories from Korea is an EXCELLENT place to get your handy household tips: parenting, cleaning, cooking, jewelry design and the like. I take this responsibility very seriously, indeed. Did I say 'responsibility'? I meant 'privilege', of course.

Our departure from Korea is getting ever closer. So close now that using months is meaningless, and a smallish number of days/weeks remain. Naturally, there are many, many things to do to get ready for our move, and I have been trying very hard to make sure that I am wasting my time doing jobs that will stay done rather than wasting my time doing work that will have to be done again tomorrow, or later today, such as dishes, laundry, cooking and bathing children.

This policy allows me to spend my time wisely, and gives me some unique opportunities. Think about it. Wouldn't you love to take that annoying ambulance with the ear-piercing siren that a so-called friend gave your kids and those holey sweatpants your husband insists on wearing every single day, and the book that will make you kill someone if you have to read it one more time (I'm talking to you, Toby's Alphabet Walk) and put them all in a giant trash bag, toss it in a dumpster and LEAVE THE COUNTRY? Oh, and the little pieces of toy sets that are scattered willy-nilly all over the house, the vase you've always loathed, the muffin pan with rust spots, and those pants that never fit right? Oh yeah, baby, buh-bye! And I have the perfect response if anyone starts asking nosy questions: 'Oh, no, Darling, it must have been lost in the move. Such a shame.' BWAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, everyone should move away from Korea. I highly recommend it. And now, I must run. I'm out of trash bags and that simply will not do.

Ummm, chocolate!

Now, you guys might not believe this, but I cleaned the laundry room yesterday. Well, okay, 'cleaned' might be a little pretentious; what I did was shove the washer and dryer back against the wall where they belong, prop up the unbalanced washer leg with a bar of soap, move all the junk that was all over the counters and shelves into corners and cupboards, and sweep the floor.

You've probably read my occasional complaints about the laundry facilities here, but the laundry room is brightly lit and roomy, with lots of shelves for storage and a nice counter. Some of my friends use them for sewing or hobby rooms, and I even heard of a family that took all the shelves down and turned it into an extra bedroom. Let me just say right now that I have NO idea how any of that is possible: you can see a picture of the typical state of our laundry room here.

As I was sweeping up a pile of debris that you could hide a rat in, Shane came in and closely surveyed it. Then he said, 'No chocolate chips', and meandered off to simultaneously throw all the books off the bookshelf and smear peanut butter on the wall while I stood there, puzzled. Chocolate chips? Then it hit me: at some point, he must have successfully mined chocolate chips from the sweep-pile, and now considers it a food source. Ummmmm, chocolate.

Neverending

Jeez. It never ends, people. I was just minding my own beeswax last night, reading a 'The Secret Life of Germs', a book by Dr. Philip Tierno Jr. about germs that my good friend Helen sent me after I begged all my friends to send me reading material. Weston is interested in germs and is always asking questions about them, so I thought it would be good to brush up. It's a fascinating book, all about how we normally live in balance with microbes, which are everywhere, in huge quantities. Parts of your body have trillions of microbes per gram; that's a little scary, huh? Especially for us higher gram girls.

If you are old enough, you might remember the Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) scare of the mid-80's. The syndrome wasn't new but there was a new epidemic occurring in women using tampons. It turns out manufacturers had begun using cost-saving materials to make tampons instead of cotton, as had been done in the past, and the new materials were fostering bacterial growth, leading to the disease, which is often lethal. So they figured it out quickly, a few brands were pulled off the market, a few changes were made, and no one ever heard about it again. But guess what? People are still dying from TSS related to tampon use. Manufacturers are still using the alternative materials to make tampons. Want to know what they use? Probably not, but I'm going to tell you anyway: ground-up sawdust mixed with a few other things for absorbency, and dioxin to make them nice and white.

Dioxin, in particular, is nasty. It's a by-product of the chlorine bleaching process that causes cancer and is suspected of causing or contributing to immune system and hormonal system disturbances, and fertility and other issues.So what, right? Surely studies have been done showing it's safe to use these things month after month for years and years, right? We're talking about half the population here! But nope, not a single study. In fact, Representative Carolyn B. Maloney has repeatedly introduced a bill that would require a study on the safety of tampons and related products, and it has been continually defeated. Can I just say, though, I LOVE Rep. Maloney! I almost want to move to her district. Anyway, there's no incentive for manufacturers to make safer products. Why should they? They are making money hand over fist and they aren't held accountable for the collateral human damage. It's much cheaper for them to settle an occasional lawsuit than spend the money to develop and produce a safer product. And the lack of studies makes it easy for them. Their expensive lawyers, lobbyists and PR staff that they pay with all the money they make off of us consumers say, 'Don't blame us! There's no proof that tampons cause TSS!' And they're right, there's not legal proof, because no studies have been done, because the manufacturers spend a lot of money to suppress bills that would require studies. But here's a novel idea: make the manufacturers prove their products are safe, instead of requiring dead people to prove that they were killed by dangerous products.

Here's what we can do: Contact your legislators in support of the Robin Danielson Act. Click here to find your representatives. And once again, talking with our money is the only way to make change in the consumer market. Luckily, there are lots of great alternatives to sawdust and dioxin tampons. Try the unbleached, all-cotton varieties, a Diva Cup, Mooncup, or reusable pads.

And also, just a general tip? Wash your hands a lot more than you're doing. It could save your life. For real. Do it before you eat, after you use any publicly used facilities or items (bathroom, telephone, elevator, movie seat, taxi, grocery cart), after you shake hands, after you shop, and when you come home. Use plenty of soap, and when your hands are clean, don't touch the faucet or bathroom door on the way out. As for me, I'm going to stop reading. But first, I'm going to go sanitize my door handles.

Progress

As you may know, I have a finely honed sense of civic duty, and I have been diligently working to perfect my effort-free cleaning/feeding scheme from yesterday. I LIVE for public service, y'all.

In an effort to spare you some... ummm, missteps, here's a handy list of tips I've compiled over the last day:

1. Flour and water paste is quite nutritious, especially if you use the whole wheat flour and filtered water, but the cats won't eat it and it dries quickly into a substance closely resembling cement, only not nearly as attractive.

2. Tuna fish isn't the greatest cleaning product either; the cats love it but it sort of soaks into the walls and the mercury probably isn't good for the paint.

3. Frosting is really a better match for the wall color in the tower apartments here on base than pudding is, but it may give your child (or cat) a rash (or vicious hairball).

4. Toothpaste is surprisingly effective at removing earwax, blood, chocolate and boogers, plus it leaves shiny clean teeth and fingernails, but apparently fluoride is poisonous in fairly small doses. On a related note, home stomach-pumping equipment is pretty easy to devise with a little creativity.

Add your lessons in the comments; there's nothing like cooperativism to lick a problem, unless it's a cat! Loredana recommends using guacamole and salsa, which sounds fabulous, and it gave me another labor-saving idea: MATCH YOUR WALLS TO YOUR FAVORITE FOODS! It doesn't get any better than that, people. I'm painting mine deep brown and maroon immediately, so if you have any chocolate-loving, wine-swilling cats, please send me two three right away. Oh, and if you have a way to get peanut butter and moon sand out of the drain on my deck, please let me know. Quick.

Cleanliness is next to impossible

I've tried lots of techniques for keeping my house clean over the years: The Flylady, the plan-a-big-party-and-invite-snooty-people method (no, I'm not talking about you), a daily schedule, and many more. Until today what has worked best for me is ignoring the growing mold, laundry piles, broken toys and crushed cheerios until my head is about to explode, and then screaming at the kids that if they don't get all their junk picked up in the next five seconds I'm going to light it on fire and toast their favorite toys for supper and there will be no cookies for the next five years. That won't scar them for life, right?

But now I have a better way. I've been tinkering with better ways for a long time, but everything I come up with seems to have a flaw or two. Click here and here to see what I mean. If you're here from that stupid Nobel Prize committee that's been ignoring me for so long, pay close attention. This is your last chance, people-who-think-you're-so-smart-but-can't-recognize-a-revolutionary-idea-when-it-smacks-you-in-the-face! You're not going to have me to kick around anymore! I'm going to start my own committee and not even invite you! Okay, so all you need is a few kids, the more the better, some shaving cream and some semi-clean rags. Clean rags would be fine, too, but semi-clean is all I have. Let them smear the shaving cream all over the house and themselves, and then simply withhold food until they wipe it all up. With any luck, every single filthy item in your house will be covered in shaving cream and you will be relieved of cooking duty for hours. Brilliant! Check out the 'before' photos and then the video to see how it works.

But wait! It gets better, thanks to one of my clever friends. I posted one of these pictures on Facebook this morning and was asked if that was shaving cream or whipped cream, which gave me an even more brilliant plan: give them whipped cream, pudding, or organic yogurt, if you're a nutrition-nazi type, instead of shaving cream. That way, they occupy themselves while you read your latest issue of 'Star', the house gets cleaned and they get fed, ALL AT THE SAME TIME! Plus it might smell better; that cheap shaving cream I buy kind of reeks. But all that food is expensive and I'm not going to lie; this process does result in some wastage. I'm definitely onto something here; I'll let you know when I think of the perfect pleasant-smelling, cheap and nutritious cleaning product. Ooh, I know! CATS! Cats are the answer! Get whatever food you like the smell of, then get a few cats to lick the extra off! It won't cost extra because you won't have to buy cat food! What could possibly go wrong, I ask you?