L'shanah tovah, Mr. Clean!

I spent the better part of two hours today cleaning my bathroom. This undertaking was partly to have at least one part of the house clean for the new year, which begins today at sundown, and partly because, well, it just needed it.

Those of you who have seen my bathroom may be wondering how it could take so long to clean a space so small (visual hint for those who haven't had the pleasure: think Amtrak's Coast Starlight, coach class). The irony is that the room's very smallness makes cleaning it take extra time; the amount of backing up, backing out, opening and closing the door, moving cleaning supplies hither and thither and general running into myself every other minute adds time as well as frustration.

But the real reason it took so long is that I scoured every inch of the place, an undertaking involving sponges, scrubbies, cleaners, and brushes large (toilet) and small (tooth, which I used along the baseboard and around the base of the toilet). Did you know that the underside of a toilet tank gets dusty? News to me, but indeed, it does. No dust there any more! Tub, toilet, walls, sink, baseboards, floor Washed the insides of the windows (have no idea when I last did that, wiped down the tiled windowsill. Scrubbed out the aluminum window tracks. I even washed the toilet brush holder.

When I got through, I took down the rather tattered rice paper/bamboo roll-up windowshade and put it outside on the deck to be taken downstairs to the trash. Then I got on my bicycle and rode to Cost Plus to purchase a brand-new one, the piece de resistance, the finishing touch to my sparkling clean bathroom. Except that Cost Plus didn't have any of the dang things. Seems the FDA or some other meddlesome guvmint agency recalled all of them, apparently over a concern that children would become ensnared in the cords that raise and lower the shades (and if someone could please tell me how any of us boomer-aged types managed to survive our childhoods I'd be grateful), and until the manufacturer(s) figure out some other probably more cumbersome and less attractive method, I am outta luck. Not completely out, however, as my old shade was still there on the deck. So I retrieved it and hung it back in its spot. It's still tattered, and a bit dusty, but what the heck—the rest of the room looks swell. Happy new year!