Working Weekend

Friday I had choir practice. Not much to discuss.

Saturday I was planning to go on a trip to La Rochelle, but slept through my alarm or turned it off in my sleep or something... at any rate, when I woke up I discovered that it wasn't six o'clock unless you turn the clock upside down. So I procrastinated the morning away, trying to get myself to do homework and instead wasting a lot of time and cooking. That was fun. Then I opened the windows, put on my iPod, and cleaned my apartment.

(In this next paragraph, I'm going to ramble... the purpose of this rambling is to ensure that the photo will not be near the top of the entry, because my homemade gas mask looked ridiculous.)

This was a true Spring cleaning. Like I'd never done before. I cleaned the shower and sinks. I swept. I washed the kitchen floor. I scrubbed the kitchen counters. I moved the stuff off my pantry shelf and dusted it. I cleaned the toilet. I washed my dishrags and towel. I took the sheets off the bed. I flipped the mattress. I sprayed everything with Febreeze. I washed all the dishes. I organized the dishes. I washed the dish drainer. I dusted the radiators. I organized my desk. I hung up some photos. I figured out how the curtain rods worked and switched the ugly bedroom curtain with the pretty kitchen curtain. I reorganized the medicine cabinet. I put all the papers from my desk in a neat, though unorganized, stack. I took in the waist of a pair of pants (and then amused myself when I thought "Wait, these fit fine, they don't need to be taken in... oh." when I tried them on to test the fit). I charged my cell phone. I arranged the pens and pencils neatly in their pencil mug. And so on.

However, during the "scrubbing the kitchen and degreasing the work area" step of the Spring cleaning process, I used a cleaning spray. It was the cheapest one that said "Degreaser" on the label, and it would be more honest to call it a "noxious toxic gas that will degrease the counters but fill the apartment with a horrible stench, make you wonder if you'll choke to death, and leave residue that has to be washed off." So I made a classy looking gas mask out of two headbands and a tissue, and for your amusement I include a photo:


Anyway, Saturday was very productive. I felt really good about all that I accomplished, and I finished off the day with a carrot soup (seasoned with ginger, cinnamon, cayenne, soy sauce, and lime) and fresh strawberries dipped in chocolate pudding fondue-style. Even though it was cleaning, it was a lovely day.

Sunday I got up at eight, having resolved to finally make it to Mass at that domed building a couple blocks away. I was absolutely exhausted, and getting up was really hard. I was so tired that when I glanced at my watch an hour after getting up and saw that it read eight o'clock, my first thought was "Haven't I been up more than zero minutes?" rather than "Oh yeah, today the clocks go forward an hour." Good thing my computer, and therefore my alarm clock, changes automatically.

Mass was beautiful. There were seventeen people in the congregation, four priests, and about fifty nuns who were singing in absolutely perfect unison. It was Tridentine Mass, so most of the responses were chanted in Latin, but the readings, homily, and important prayers were in French. I sang along when I knew the chants, hummed when I just knew the melody, and did my best when I knew the words but not the melody. The priest had some interesting thoughts on Thomas: that he wasn't a doubter, per se, but that he was a realist and afraid of disappointment and for that reason needed to see Jesus to let himself believe. He was very attached to the guy, and seeing Him executed wasn't a picnic. He was thrilled to see Jesus alive again, and note that he didn't actually need to touch the nail holes or anything, he was already ready to believe. I'm planning to go to this Mass regularly, the least of the reasons being that it's a five minute walk rather than a forty-five minute one.

And this afternoon I finally got around to doing my homework! I'm amazed that I spent so much energy avoiding it yesterday, because one translation took five minutes and the other took ten; I spent ten minutes rereading didactics notes and it only took half an hour to read a chapter of the book I have to write a paper on (I still have to read the last chapter today, so that I can start writing the paper, which is due in a week) and about five minutes to finish learning the Mendelssohn solo. It feels so good to have accomplished so much this weekend!