Saturday, August 7, 2010

Cleanliness.....is it really next to Godliness?

One of the things people accuse us old folks of is, of course, forgetting things (like the  the names of your children) and also of, let us call it, a lack of cleanliness like for instance forgetting to bathe.  Now I must admit that I have occasionally called one of my cats by the other cat's name in a fit of extreme frustration, but thank heaven I have never really forgotten which is which..  (Besides, I come from a family where one overburdened  Mother had so much of said frustration that my father thought his name was "JerryEstherFreddie" for many of his young years).


But, as far as forgetting to bathe is concerned.......nope.......if I fail to bathe it is a matter of choice.
For years I  have suspected that I am different  from some of my friends  who have been known to turn down an invitation to a free gourmet meal and a nite of frivolity  with a groan and the inexplicable utterance, "Oh, damn,......I can't.....I have to wash my hair."  Not even my most earnest protests that their hair was fine when I saw them  several hours earlier could ever prevail.  "No, no", they would intone,"I couldn't sleep if I didn't wash my hair......it is filthy."   Filthy?  How filthy can a person's hair get in one day unless their profession is, let's say, Mud Wrestling?  Obviously there is something going on here which I do not understand and must simply accept as normal behavior in everyone but me.  (Were I  invited out to a free Gourmet meal and were I the said professional Mud Wrestler, I would sooner simply turn the hose on myself fully dressed and go off with damp but clean face, hands and garments than miss an opportunity like that.... ..hmmmm, could that be why I have not had such a classy invitation for quite a while?)

I must admit that I sometimes do choose to not bathe regularly (i.e. every day or twice a day) .    I try to blame it on the  fact that feeding all  the critters,  cleaning kitty boxes, washing critter dishes,   cooking up batches of hummer nectar and  filling hummer feeders takes almost all of my time, except for that which is reserved for  eating and sleeping. But that would be a prevarication........the truth is I simply hate to waste time scrubbing my poor dry, saggy skin if I do not consider myself to be overly soiled, grungy or odoriferous and then have to cream, grease and oil it back into bearable, bendable  condition thereby immediately rendering me sort  of unclean again.

Because of my lack of the Clean Gene  I regularly  ask anyone forced to spend  time  in close proximity to me whether I smell bad or offend in any way and they always assure me that I do not.  Now, the idea  that anyone would lie about this is beyond me so I must assume that they are either aroma masochists or are telling me the truth.   So, I assume my slothful condition is not too obvious or too offputting and I can safely continue in my indecent ways..

And yet........I do not have any aversion to water..........take, for example, my wild cavorting in my pool, sans swimming garments  because I love the feel of water on my skin.   Further, witness the fact that I spent large amounts of capital on redoing my master bathroom in order to  install a deep, deep, deep soaking tub that not only enables me to cover my boobs with water, but could easily allow me to drown myself if I  were crazy enough to attempt suicide by piling my set of cast iron Wagner skillets on my tummy while soaking in said tub........ with the candles flickering and the incense wafting hither and yon.....(what a scene that would be for CSI - LA!)

I can only attribute these odd behavior deviations to the possible fact that the Pig is one of my favorite creatures and I adore watching them wallowing in their mud baths.....mud and dirt do not terrify me......I have no fear of contamination by nice clean dirt and have even been known to eat a morsel of food that has fallen on the floor AND SURVIVED!

Sometimes I look out my window and watch my neighbor driven to sweeping the Street because she has already beaten into submission every morsel of dirt in her house and on her property.   I recognize that there is a huge gulf between us..............as to whether either one of us is closer to heaven in our reaction to dirt I cannot say, being too close to the subject to be objective.  All I do know is ..............I'd rather be me.

Here Piggy, piggy, piggy.........

15 comments:

  1. Your pool sounds lovely and a bit sinful all at the same time..I know what you mean about dry skin. In the winter I put so much lotion on after a bath. I wonder was it really worth it:)

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  2. Let all of us who have a limited acquaintance with the clean gene, all of us who believe that life is too short to spend all of it in the bath, and all of us that have a outright admiration for pigs, celebrate together. It will be some party.

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  3. I had a neighbour who changed her girl's clothes three times a day. I told her my girl was waterproof. She didn't laugh at all...
    Clean people do not live as long as us people connected to the earth.

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  4. Delightful and I see myself in many of the descriptions of you!

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  5. Dirt is my life. Dirt in the house, dirt in the yard. There is nothing that makes me happier than getting extremely dirty working outside and then coming in and taking a shower. I like both sides of the equation.
    Before reading this I just went into the kitchen to get my broom to try and sweep some of the dirt off this back porch into the yard where it belongs. It is a never-ending battle and the dirt always wins.
    And you should see my feet- they are so permanently dirty, even after scrubbing, that I am too embarrassed to get a pedicure.

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  6. I shall never beat any of the dirt in my house into submission, nor will I wash my hair every day unless I have, indeed, been mud wrestling. So, do you want to grab dinner, Lo? I've got the time and I don't smell TOO bad.

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  7. A bit of dirt never hurt anybody. Ask my children, who managed to grow up even though they played in it constantly.

    If you aren't dirty, and don't stink, why bother? Yes, we do bathe too much, taking all the natural oils and elasticity from our skin.

    Wagner cast iron? I can't find much of that around here, everyone carries Lodge (when I need a piece that I didn't inherit from my grandmother).

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  8. I remember years ago my mother, who is now 87 ,telling me that when she was growing up she only washed her hair once a week. I was horrified, being of the 60's generation "shining, streaming, gleaming, flaxen waxen" hair was a must. I also read something a long time ago that it was quite normal for our ancestors to go months with a bath or washing their hair. One diary entry read something like"Hope to wash Emilys hair soon"(it had been 6 months since the last washing)

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  9. As my grandmother used to say, "You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die"...and I'm sure that I've made my quota! ox

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  10. My mom, who is now 80, always says "a little dirt never hurt anyone". Before I was old enough for school, she used to send me out into the back yard wearing clean underwear, where I proceeded to grade roads and fiddle with the sprinkler until the lawn was muddy. Then she called me in, stood me in the laundry tub and hosed me off, put clean underwear on me, fed me lunch, and sent me back out. I did this every day, and I grew up to be a civil engineer who specializes in...wait for it...grading roads. I love to hear my mom tell the story of the neighbors wondering why she didn't dress her little girl when all they saw was undies haning on the clothesline week after week. I made a career out of loving dirt. You go, Lo!!

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  11. I've just discovered your blog, Lois, and I just can't put it down (so to speak). How wonderfully witty and lovely you are!

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  12. This is wonderful - what a marvelous bit of writting!

    I too, can skip the daily bath and often do so, especially on weekends if I don't work up a sweat.

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  13. I can't comment on your latest post! But I love you. And it's okay if you like jazz. It really is. In fact, it's quite awesome. I think that all generations have their own tribal music and it is meant to be misunderstood and despised by all the other generations. Or at least not liked very much.
    Except for classical, of course.

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  14. Geez - as I began to read I wanted to suggest to you to grab a camera and insert some photos to your post. Heck no. Your words paint great pictures (deep soaking tub that not only enables me to cover my boobs with water).

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