Why I Shouldn't Waste My Time Cleaning

In a little break from the posts about my February Trip to the Nord, never let it be said that I don't know how to get out of doing housework. To start at the beginning, Salvatore is still here. Don't know who Salvatore is? Read this post:  Salvatore. One day, turned into two, turned into the rest of my time in this house - eight more days. There aren't even any more pretensions that Salvatore and his assistant, Guiseppe, will finish soon. Today, my landlord stopped by and assured me that no work would be done inside (I didn't realize there was still a question about that since in my mind, there would absolutely not be anymore work inside), and he ended with, "Outside is no problem?" Since I've sort of gotten used to Salvatore and Guiseppe hanging about, I agreed that it is no problem. I did notice that my landlord gave Salvatore the key to my house today. That's a little problem. But really, I'm just too tired to pursue it. Side note: Guiseppe plays my favorite, contemporary Christian music on his boom box (is that the term the kids use these days?), and he even sings along, so at least I get a show each day.

As I've written before, we live in something resembling Fort Knox. Bars on every window and steel barred doors, metal shutters that roll down electrically in between the metal bars and our locking windows. These metal bars are painted white and show every bit of dirt that floats around so heavily in the air here. I gave up cleaning them a long time ago. I did realize that upon moving out, we'd probably need to clean these beasts. So this morning, before Salvatore's 8am arrival and gung ho work ethic took over my yard, I spent 45 minutes, a roll of paper towels, and half a bottle of cleaner wiping down every single, horizontal bar on my front door, 8 foot tall, metal shutters. I certainly didn't get every speck of dirt, but they were looking good. Now only nine sets to go.

My walk into the village. From this, you can see why I am greatly looking
forward to moving to a town with wide sidewalks, even a waterfront
boardwalk with NO traffic. But you can't beat the view here of
Pozzuoli, known as Puteoli in antiquity. Oh...if you think those are
sidewalks on either side of the road, think again. It's trick photography.

For lunch, I walked into the village. Actually, I was walking to the rosticceria to pick up a chicken. Then I realized that we have dinner planned for the next four nights and don't need a chicken. So I decided to walk on to Baby Ciu Ciu, this super fancy, baby clothing store - Baby Armani, anyone? Only 156 euros for a dress! But last summer, I stopped in one time, not realizing they were so fancy, and discovered that they have a sale room where things were 5 and 10 euros. Much more my speed. Yet for some reason, I haven't been back. One last visit to Baby Ciu Ciu netted Nora a pair of totally cool, harem style blue jeans, a hippie top, and a baby bandana that is too cute for words. Then we went to La Piazzetta for pizza, my favorite pizza near our house. Naturally, Nora fell asleep for her afternoon nap when I was on my next to last bite of pizza, necessitating a 30 minute stop on the way home at the gelateria while I waited out the rest of her nap. The things I have to do for that Baby.

A nicer view of the village.

When I got home, Salvatore caught noticed me sneaking entering into my front door and called me around to the front of the house to show me that he was power washing all the bars. Yes, including the front door, the one I'd spent 45 minutes of precious, precious free time cleaning. Dang it! But my bedroom window was open, so he hadn't been able to do that one and wanted me to close the window immediately. I did so, then got busy playing with Baby. And a little thought finally worked its way into my brain that reminded me of our totally crappy windows. So horrible that in the winter (i.e., rainy season), we have to keep towels in the windowsills to soak up all the rain that floods around the edges. I started going through the house, and sure enough, every single room had floods of water in it. Salvatore is extremely thorough in his power washing. And since we no longer have any of our stuff, we also do not have scrap towels to clean up messes. I went outside to get Salvatore, he called Guiseppe, the two of them grabbed a mop and some towels they found somewhere, and they started mopping up all the water.

And that's how I got the inside of my house cleaned, too! Since our house cleaner has had some family, medical emergencies going on for the past six weeks, we've been a little on the dusty side. But not anymore. Sparkling floors, compliments of Salvatore's fastidious power washing. I know it was fastidious because he told me so. Fastidioso. He told me that he is fastidioso with his own home. I'm not sure if he was remarking that he ALSO (as in, like me) is a fastidious cleaner, or if he meant that in HIS home, it is fastidiously cleaned (as in, completely unlike mine). I don't really care. All I know is my floors are now clean and I didn't have to clean them. Salvatore can stay as long as he wants. And Singing Guiseppe, too.