Cleaning for Company

I’m an excellent cleaner.  When we move out of an apartment (which is seems like we’ve been doing a lot of lately) I clean in such detail that it looks better than when it was new.  I won’t let my husband come anywhere near the kitchen or bathroom, because I know he won’t meet my standards (and he’s not a bad cleaner himself).  Does that mean our apartment is always spotless?  Not a chance.  The kitchen is usually in good shape because I hate cooking in a mess.  The bathroom?  It’s generally disgusting to the point that if someone were to stop by unexpectedly I might lie and tell them we were having a plumbing issue to prevent them from setting foot in that room.  It’s not that I like living in filth; it’s that it sneaks up on me.  One minute the toilet is perfectly clean and the next time I enter there are new life forms who have made their home in the bowl.  I try and ignore the small population of bacteria, but strangely enough, they don’t go away on their own.  They multiply.  Soon the small town becomes a city, the city develops suburbs, and there is no controlling the exponential growth from there.

Which brings me to today.  We’re having company over for dinner this evening.  Since someone might like to use our facilities at some point this evening, I have to raze slime city.  We just moved in three weeks ago (how has it gotten so disgusting in three short weeks?!) so we don’t have a toilet brush yet.  I spent the morning wasting time relaxing and reading other blogs; I didn’t make it to the store.  Brush or no brush, it needed to be cleaned.  What did I do?  Grabbed our dishwasher soap (we don’t have regular cleaners right now either) and a rag, dumped some in the bowl, and plunged in.  With my hand.  Oh my.  The result?  A sparkling clean toilet.  I may or may not have gagged in the process.  I’ve already washed my hands three times, and I’m not sure that’s good enough.  Oh, what we do for company!

Onto the dinner portion of preparation for the evening.  I love to cook and think I am pretty darn good at it (if I do say so myself).  But cooking for company?  I hate it.  When it’s just me and my husband, I never worry about what to fix.  He’s easy to please.  We have a lot of “one pot” meals and rarely have more than one dish at dinner.  When we have company I feel the need to have a main dish and sides.  I never know what to make since those are not the kind of meals I usually fix.  Tonight I’m thinking soup, cheesy bread, and a quinoa salad.  Now it’s time to execute said plan!