Tired Grasshopper

Wax on, wax off, right? Right. I have resumed work after 6 short months of overspending and leisure time, back with my former property manager here in Telluride, GiGi with Pride and Joy. She oversees a handful of houses here in town, up in the Mountain Village, on the mesas, all over the area. So I spent the last 3 days working on a Quarterly Clean of one of the most incredible homes I have ever seen in my life. There are 16 printed pages of the Quarterly Clean, compiled by the brother of the owner, the architect, and designed to care for the high quality of the home's contents and its materials.

Now let me pause here and say: yes, I know that I am cleaning houses for a living. And there is a smallish part of me that is thinking whilst on hands and knees waxing a floor, "What the fuck?" HOWEVER there is another part of me that knows these things as well:
1. I need money. Now. And GiGi pays me well. And has unlimited work.
2. This is temporary. I think.
3. There are some sacrifices I have to make to live in a place as incredible as Telluride. This may be the chart topper.
4. My work environment is a range of huge beautiful houses with incredible views.
5. I get to work alone a lot. With kick-ass stereos cranked.
6. My work schedule is incredibly flexible.
7. I need money. Now. And Gigi pays me well.

That being said, here are some of the ways I cleaned this home over the past 3 days:

1. Place throw pillows in large plastic garbage bag. Insert vacuum and vacuum air out of bag and any dust that my reside inside pillows. Remove pillows. Place upholstery wand on vacuum. Vacuum surface. Return pillow to couch. Vacuum all couch surfaces when all pillows are finished.
2. Take photos with digital camera of shelf. Place white artifact gloves on hands. Move artifacts to nearby shelf. Remove gloves, clean first shelf. Put gloves back on, clean artifacts. Reference photo in camera and place artifacts back on clean shelf. Move over 3 feet. Repeat.
3. Plug vacuum into central vacuum socket in Great Room. Wrap head of vacuum with nylon stocking. Have Cleaner #1 hold bottom of 17 foot curtain away from window with pleats spread. Vacuum top to bottom, removing all 3 threads that are loose. Repeat on back of curtain. Rub neck. Move to next window.
4. Feather dust with "Media Room Only" feather duster, aspen trees that line the walls and ceilings of home theater. Attach upholstery nozzle to vacuum and remove any (2 pieces) of dust that may have been disrupted since last cleaning from navy blue felt walls. Follow this with paint roller-sized lint roller. Literally lint roll the ceiling of media room. For real.

I could go on but I need to take some more Advil for every muscle from neck to ankles. I will have to try and get some photos if that is legal, but this house has a nest of fossilized dinosaur eggs!

So anyway, Geoff and Erica are here this weekend from Vail, to check out MountainFilm, our cool Memorial Day Weekend Film Festival. Also known as the "Me, Myself and I" Festival. Or the more descriptive "Hey Dude, Look What I Did While You Were At Work" Festival. We are headed up Bear Creek for a hike this morning, and then I will be picking out my garden plot for the summer! Very excited about that, the town or some community thing has smallish plots behind the high school on the sunny side, so hopefully when we go to the Ridgway and Montrose farmer's markets tomorrow I can buy some already sprouted seedlings to throw in and see what happens. I think my best bets will be kale, collards, lettuces, squashes, some hardy herbs and maybe sunflowers? I will ask around before tomorrow, but it will be tough with the growing season so short and the nights so cold. I know potatoes and beets and carrots do well, I will see what other farmers say.

Paid for my car and am trying to arrange shipping, sort of a pain in the 'okole, and expensive, but I think it will be worth it for my Forester. Anyway, it is cool and gray today, sort of nice even though a bluebird would be nice for the hike.