Saturday, December 5, 2009

The trials and tribulations of our host


As mentioned earlier, Miss D. and I are staying with Oleg in Nashville, TN for a week or two. We've been joined by two more guests, a man known to many on The High Road forum as 'Twoblink' and his wife, who've just returned to the USA after several years abroad.

Yesterday Miss D. and Twoblink hatched a plot to reorganize Oleg's home (well, actually, his whole life - he's a bachelor, after all!). I enthusiastically joined in as soon as I heard about it. While they went to the range today, I went shopping, and came back with snap-together shelving, lots of plastic storage boxes, file folders, cleaning materials, and so on.

As soon as everyone came back from the range, and Oleg had disappeared into his study to work on some photographs, we struck. His kitchen was the first to 'feel the heat', with every drawer, cupboard, nook and cranny being ruthlessly emptied, cleaned, reorganized and restructured. Miss D. wielded the vacuum cleaner with merciless efficiency, sending Gremlin the cat (shown below) into a fit of frustration because he couldn't figure out how to kill the roaring monster she was pushing.




When Oleg came downstairs and found new shelves gracing his dining-room annex, filled with boxes, and the rest of his kitchen looking remarkably different from its previous state, his face was an absolute picture! I'm sorry I didn't have a camera ready to capture the moment. Anyway, once he got over the shock, I think he decided that he likes the idea.

I cooked jambalaya and red beans with rice for supper, and a good New Orleans-style feed rewarded the hard labors of all concerned. Tomorrow, Miss D. is threatening to wreak havoc among the papers, bills and envelopes that are stacked on one of the kitchen counters, and file folders and sleeves are ready to hand for the mayhem to commence. I'm looking forward to Oleg being able to actually find the bills he has to pay for once!



Peter

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