My in-laws are in for the weekend. They’re downstairs chilling out on the sofa recovering from the gluttony of the weekend. I’m Italian. I’m good at feeding people.

What I am not good at is clean my house with regularity. I need the pressure of guests to make the place shelter-magazine ready. Incoming guests force me to clean the tub. I am very good at keeping clutter in order. I’m very bad at cleaning messes that I can’t see without glasses or contacts.

Anticipating a Blitzkrieg clean the morning before they arrived, I conserved energy and let the bathroom sink get fuzzy for a week or two. Okay, three.

The Grand Clean commensed on Friday night and into Saturday morning. We vacuumed two floors, wiped up two bathrooms, hit the kitchen stove with Fantastik, and moped down the linoleum. We were very efficient. In fact, we peaked too early, and had to televize the kids for two hours until the in-laws came in. We didn’t want the savages to undo our good work.

A lot more tomorrow.