Mar. 27, 2002 - 22:57 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

So Seasonal

Sweeping this and scrubbing that isn't so bad nor is any of the other stuff -- except -- cleaning the damn pantry.

Every year it is about the same. Its a walk in pantry that by the end of the year, one has to swing carefully in on a grapevine. Mea culpa equally, too, also. Just seems that stuff begs to be set down on the floor to begin with and then stuff to be stacked on the stuff on the floor.

My mess in my area I can handle that pretty quickly, redd up and toss out the stuff I haven't had use for the last year. But the pantry ? Holy cow Muriel, what chaos. This time around we unearthed a cast iron meat grinder with a broken handle. It was either my Mother's or Heather's Mother's, it matters not. It was totally unfixable and for the most part our Cuisinart Food Processor is in use for the same purpose now. But it has hung on for ages, you know you don't throw away a pal because a broken limb is involved. Biting the bullet this time, with honors out it went. Also some canned goods that were older than dirt were tossed.

Doug ever the diplomat because the pantry is Heather's bailiwick and she rules with a whim of steel, occasionally makes a timid suggestion, that this, that or the other be given to some one, taken to Goodwill or tossed. This year some progress was made.

A stack of long saved butter tubs (plastic) and gallon ice cream tubs - also plastic, after a prolonged conference we decided that since neither of us could remember which year any of them were last used, they were carefully placed in file thirteen too.

Most folks are pretty familiar with the process. Everything on the floor put out somewhere. Contents of the top shelf put down, somewhere else. Shelf is washed with a soapy rag and rinsed with a wet rag - while this is going on each item from that shelf is dusted and if washable it is done. We sit and rest a bit, shelf dry we try to put the stuff back the way it was to begin with. If not that, trying to stack it in a sensible compact mode. Rinse and repeat for all the stuff and all the shelves. Then sweep, mop the floor and wax it when dry. Hopefully having accomplished much when the operation is final and everything put back it is again a, "Walk In Pantry," for a while at least.

We kept trying to fit both of us in there and work, when there is only room for one. So one of us had to be the gofer and the lucky one gets to unload the shelves and hand stuff out to the victim. I would rather work inside the pantry than find a place to put something outside of it 'cause there is no where to put it. The stuff from the floor already has the near space stacked high and it is too far to walk to put it anywhere else. Who ever heard of putting canned goods on the bed ? It is after all a small apartment with a big pantry.

That's why they call all this work instead of play I suppose and we usually get the job done without beating knots on each other's heads. There is one bonus though, being able to heave a sigh of relief, slap the dust off our hands and say, "Phew that's it for another year." Things are pretty well done up for Easter now, with a spick spick here and a span span there, owee my back wow!

I guess with stuff like that I should be happy for the breathing space in between, but it is like waiting for the other shoe to drop it is with the knowledge the task will return, but oh, it is So Seasonal . . . . . . . . . .

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