Too Much Talk About Cleaning

Got up this morning with some extra energy in the tank, so I cleaned the refrigerator. (I don't know why it's such an odious task to me--I'd rather scrub the toilet--but it is.) I took out all the shelves and drawers and washed them and tossed all the expired things and wiped down all the jars and bottles and such that were going back in.

I'm always surprised at the amount and variety of condiments that we have. Seriously, we have both Marmite and Vegemite, jars and bottles of mustard, ketchup, mayo and vegan mayo, about six kinds of vinegar, ponzu, black bean and sweet chile sauce, soy sauce and liquid aminos, vegetarian Worcestershire sauce, kimchee, pickles and pickle relish, two jars of capers, three jars of bouillon, a bottle of ginger syrup,  and on and on. The whole door is filled with condiments, all of them absolutely necessary of course.

We don't have a lot of ordinary things in our fridge like butter or milk, but we do have coconut milk (sometimes flax or rice or soy milk) and coconut creamer for coffee. We don't have meat or meat products, but we do have soy deli-style sliced "meat" (a rarity actually) and usually lots and lots of cheese. We have chia seeds, of course, and low-sodium V-8, and San Pellegrino (which I started drinking by the case when I gave up soda) in glass bottles.

One of the two drawers intended to hold vegetables instead holds bottles of beer and a large bottle of stupidly expensive tonic water and a bag of medication, pills and such, for both cats and humans.

Anyway, I've been on a bit of a cleaning jag recently, but a slow-motion one, tackling one or two big cleaning tasks per day. The Brain hates to clean, mostly because The Brain has always hated the routine aspect of it. (Though really, The Brain hates routine in any form--not just the tedium of it, but the ridiculous self-imposed goal of perfection that makes any routine task too heavy to even contemplate. Like today for example, The Brain almost threw in the towel when it came time to put all the shelves back into the refrigerator. The Brain wanted to vary the normal configuration of shelves, but then couldn't come up with the perfect configuration, one where the tall carton of coconut milk fits on the top shelf and the tall bottles of San Pellegrino fit on the bottom shelf without making the shelves in-between two inches apart. We finally compromised by laying the San Pellegrino bottles down on the sides, but that is not entirely satisfactory.)


Tomorrow's task is rearranging the kitchen cabinet that holds dry goods, pasta and baking supplies and spices and such.  (I started to do it today, but after throwing out four half-consumed boxes of taco shells and accidentally dumping cornstarch and lemonade drink mix on the counters and myself, I decided to wait until tomorrow to finish.) After that, the top of the refrigerator needs to be de-cluttered and then I want to go through the dishes and such that we have stored in the lower kitchen cabinets. Then I'll get started on the big closet, tossing out the clothes and shoes that I haven't worn in a long time.

Dinner: We ordered a pizza (for Dave) and wings (for me). Heartburn, here I come.