Monday Memories--The Methodists are Coming, June 1995

The Methodists were coming to Lakeside for their Annual Conference in June 1995--thousands descend--first West Ohio and then East Ohio, or the other way around. One used to be German speaking the other English, but I don't remember which is which.  It is the only time we rented, and it meant Spring cleaning and putting all our personal effects away.  I must have gone up and down the basement steps 50 times (would have been smarter to just go to the laundromat) with bedding, blankets, rugs, and towels. The house is tiny, but the basement is even smaller, and the steps are at a terribly steep pitch. And spiders love it there, so I also swept and debugged the basement. The plastic cover on the deck furniture looked scummy, so I washed that in the machine with Clorox, then the deck looked sort of greenish in spots so I scrubbed it with a Clorox solution. Bob spent the day mowing, clipping, weeding and washing windows. The closets and drawers were stripped and their contents go into the cedar chest. Phoebe and Mark had a few items stashed under beds, so those were removed to a box on the front porch. Two shelves in the linen closet were emptied for the guests, and the medicine cabinet cleaned out. Cupboards were emptied so the Methodists have room for food, and somehow, it is just a good time to make a clean sweep of things, which meant 4 bags of trash. How we accumulated so much in a house we don't live in, I don't know. We finished about 6 p.m. and cleaned up and walked down to the Patio Restaurant for dinner, because I'd had to clean out the refrigerator, too.

The cottage was Grand Central Station that June day in 1995. I decided I should get hot, sweaty and dirty more often, because company shows up. Mike and Donna Conrad had purchased a lovely wooden bench at Wal-Mart and couldn't get it in their car, so I drove Mike there in our van to pick up the bench. Bob had to measure a cottage for which he's doing construction documents, and two unhappy clients showed up (not unhappy with him but with the contractor). And a contractor stopped by. Then Mike showed up with a plate of cookies from Donna, and a another neighbor brought over a kitty litter container she thought we'd like. Her husband, who is an auctioneer, had picked up a bunch of them.

So I've decided what I need in Columbus is a visit from some Methodists! Once a month, say the 15th, I'll declare it "The Methodists are Coming" day, and I'll do one area a month. Five areas upstairs, and seven areas downstairs. I haven't seen my kitchen counter since Phoebe and Mark's wedding, so in honor of the Methodists, I'll probably start in the kitchen. Today I washed 175,000 margarine tubs. I could swear they reproduce. I didn't start buying soft margarine until after the kids were gone, but those babies sure do accumulate!

On Memorial Day Week-end, Mark's parents had stopped by at Lakeside, so we had 8 for dinner. We created a "children's table" on the deck and Phoebe and Mark and Phil and Tiffany sat out there, and Paul and Marylyn and we sat in the kitchen. Marylyn is going to a workshop for choir directors the last week in June, so they had driven over from Cleveland to look for a cottage to rent.

(Notes from a letter to my parents in June 1995)