Jon Paul visits the farm

It is mortgage renewal time, so another look at our property and house was necessary. An appraiser named John Paul called to book a time. I returned John Paul's message this morning. (not John, not Paul, not JP. John Paul).
My options for his home visit were a) one hour from now or b) Monday morning.

And, for some crazy fucking reason, I chose a) one hour from now.

My thinking at the time, I think, was simple - if I did it now and got it over with, I wouldn't have to worry about madly cleaning up on Sunday. Which I would do. All day.

About 8 short minutes later, I was kicking myself. I wanted SOOOOOO badly to just stop doing what I was doing (which was running madly from room to room, dropping stuff off and picking more stuff up, making the bed, clearing the laundry into baskets, collecting the bath toys in the steam room into their bath bag, blowing the pubic hair off that awkward-to-reach back of the toilet seat sort of place, rubbing out the dried up toothpaste in the sink with my thumb, and cleaning the dog prints off the parquet flooring with my sock, racing wildly about, vacuuming the entire house and mopping the main floor, cleaning toys from the living room, sunroom, basement and bedrooms, erasing the mascara from under my eyes with a Q-tip doused in soap and throwing on my Canucks baseball hat, even though they've just dropped out of a playoff spot with 4 games remaining, and just barely managing to get a happily naked S.Rube into some clothes as I saw John Paul's car turn into our driveway).

I was cleaning the house in the hopes that the cleaning would make it worth more.

I was sure, at the same time, though, that John Paul could see right through that facade. Right through to the wood finish EVERYWHERE, the pieces of parquet missing from parts of the floor, the original cabinetry and counter tops in the kitchen, the holes in the wall next to the bathtub that those Dora suction cup toys created, the missing ceiling in the basement where the toilet pipes from upstairs are in plain view, with the spider webs at every corner.

But, I still cleaned.

And, it looked pretty damn good.

John Paul's cute little Smart car drove bumpily up our long gravel driveway, coming close to tipping over. He had no problem on the bridge - a car that small passes over it with ease. He got out of the car, stumbled a bit trying to find the gate. His fashionable suede shoes traipsed through the gravel, wet and snow onto the lawn and then into the MUD to get to the house.

Welcome, John Paul. Welcome to the farm.

He looked a little stunned as I invited him in. He was probably upset about his shoes.
(I offered him B.Rube's boots for his outside tour and photo shoot - (you can see them in that mink post below; the one with his blue jumpsuit. John Paul refused my offer.))

He handed me a business card. Ooops, please excuse me!! It's Jon Paul, not John Paul. I've been referring to you as John Paul this whole time. I'll get it right now. I won't make that mistake again.

Jon Paul ( see! I've already smoothly made the transition) stood in the main room and looked up, after I asked him how he liked the snowy weather today.
"Wow! That's a lot of exposed wood! " he exclaimed.
(Of course, he could see through all that cleaning.)

( I hope your shoes never recover, JP)