Saturday, October 27, 2007

Tea for Two

A couple of weeks ago, I went out to the Gerry Ranch and helped my friend the Blueberry Lady do some cleaning. We enjoyed our time scrubbing, vacuuming and sweeping. Blueberry Lady and I have a long history together, cleaning. We were friends and singers in a women's trio, roommates after college, and we have kept our friendship alive and interesting in various ways during the decades since then.
I asked her to reciprocate in the cleaning last week, so she came over and we scrubbed, vacuumed and swept for awhile.
Then we had tea. I grabbed my camera and took a quick photo before the muffins and scones disappeared.



Blueberry Lady and I are charter members of an exclusive club, CA or Cleaners Anonymous. It's true, we like to clean. We realize that this may be an illness, a chronic sort of disability. When we meet for tea (and cleaning) we start our meetings like this: "I'm Willow and I like to clean."
This afternoon, Blueberry Lady and I took a little walk on the ranch with her sister who is visiting. (We promised we wouldn't clean anything or even talk about cleaning.) The lemon trees are truly gone now, pulled out and chipped up. We did not expect to find any ripe blueberries along the rows and rows of plants, but there were a few, just enough to pick and pop in our mouths as we completed our tour of the fields.
We were fortunate to have time for a circuit of the property during a dry spell. Yes, it's true. It is raining! We are so happy to have some precipitation! It will help so much to control the forest fires.
As I drove home, I thought I had been transported to the Pacific Northwest. It wasn't just the rain, the wet roads, the swish-swish of the windshield wipers, it was also the dry, brown leaves on the ground, filling the gutters, covering the sidewalks. The Santa Ana winds of last week had whipped the trees of their leaves and it looked just like Oregon in October.
By the time I got home, it was too dark to photograph the aran sweater. Photo shoot tomorrow!

9 comments:

Midlife Cycler said...

Oh wow..your tea picture is a bit more inviting than mine with those good looking desserts.

Willow said...

midlife cycler,
It's all about the tray, and Trader Joe's!

Mary said...

willow,

I'm sure you had a lovely time with the Blueberry lady. Cleaning with a friend makes it so much more enjoyable and fun.

The walk sounds so inviting. Here it is cold and windy but the sun is shining for the first time in two days. Glad you finally got some rain. I'm sure it will help with the forest fires.

Have a wonderful day.

Mary said...

willow,

If you want to learn how to add HTML code to your sidebar, please visit my blog. If you have any further questions or need my help, please don't hesitate to send me an email. I'm always happy to lend a hand.

Anonymous said...

I like your clean club! There's something less daunting about a project when you do it together.

Heather said...

Oh what a precious friendship. Cherrish it. And that tea and snacks looks devine.

Beatriz said...

I wish I enjoyed scrubbing and cleaning and gardening. No such luck.

roxie said...

When I visited your house I sort of suspected you had a cleaning problem. You are brave to face up to it and get involved in a program. but somehow, I don't think getting a like-minded friend to aid and baet you is going to help you over this addiction of yours. (grins and hugs)

kate said...

Oh my ... I wish I had this addiction. My house would love me. So would my son! Once I start cleaning, I enjoy it. Getting to it is the hard part.

I was glad to know that you had some rain. The Santa Ana winds must be quite something to strip the trees of their leaves!

Those scones and muffins look yummy!