After spending friday night alone in this old, creaky, 1700's farmhouse (along with frightening dreams of Jack the Ripper), I was none too pleased to descend the stairs saturday morning and hear loud, frightened screechy noises, coming from Flora's apartment. Two possibilities were flitting through my mind: either that a child was being tortured, or there was an angry cat behind the door. Luckily the second turned out to be true, although not so lucky for Flora's room. Apparently the cat jumped in through a small window in the kitchen, and then went ape-shit in her room....knocking over dishes, spilling bottles, and generally scratching the hell out of everything. I felt bad for not investigating more- I actually thought she was cat-sitting!
Fast forward to sunday- where one of the au pair families opened their home for me and 4 other girls to cook a "traditional American Thanksgiving," which was amazing and included all the staples (giant turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potato custard, cranberries, green bean casserole, and of course, pumpkin pie)- I returned home stuffed to the gills, and just passed out in my bed for a long Thanksgiving nap/sleep.
This morning, I woke up, took the boys to school, and came back for a powernap (napping does seem to be quite a theme for this blog...hmmmm). I woke up refreshed, rejuvenated, ready to start my day. I noticed my sheets smelled funny, and thought, "man, I must be sweating A LOT during the night...." I grabbed the duvet to remove the sheets, and then it caught my eye. Two dimpled, cylindrical little presents from the renegade cat, resting on my pretty pink sheets. I immediately went into panic mode- grabbed paper towel and disposed of the offending caca, as they would say here, then frantically tore off all my sheets and deposited them straight into the washer.
If nothing else, at least the kids (and Michelle) found this story hilarious, and now want me to tell it over and over again, getting particularly excited at the part where I am about to discover my "two little presents." Before I picked them up from school, I had taken my sheets from the dryer, leaving them in the laundry room so I could iron them later (another fun fact of European living- dryer's are small and nothing escapes unwrinkled). Me attempting to learn how to iron a sheet and duvet cover could practically be an entire entry in itself, suffice to say I almost scorched myself, my sheets, and Flora, as she was attempting to position my body and arms into the correct motions to help me succeed in making my sheets less wrinkly than before they came out of the dryer. After dinner I went into the laundry room, prepapred for battle, and was confused when I didn't find the sheets hanging from the line where I had left them. I looked around for a second, until my eye caught the neatly folded pile of red, blue, and pink fabric resting on the ironing board.
I picked them up, still damp from the steam, and breathed in the fresh, laundered scent. Flora had already had 3 loads of clothes to wash, dry, iron and put away, not to mention the rest of the cleaning and cooking she does everyday. Yet she still found time to do me a favor, to save me an hour of time and possible serious bodily harm. Even though for her it probably took a mere 5 minutes, that was still 5 minutes of her time in an incredibly busy day, that she spent doing something to make my life a little bit easier.
Touched and grateful, I remember that mere hours ago these were the sheets I wanted to burn. Now they hold a sweet memory which will be cherished every time I lay in my bed, and am reminded that no matter how busy or stressed I am, that going a small bit out of your way for someone else can really brighten their day- even if their day didn't start with their head in the litter box!
No comments:
Post a Comment