That time of year again

(About my annual blog post: Twitter seems to better suit my A.D.D., which is why I don't come 'round these parts too often, but it's probably good for the soul to sit back and reflect every once in a while, no?)

Kyle and I spent our Valenversary this year filling our gullets with comfort food via trips to Tip-Top, Dirty Frank's, Pistacia Vera and The Dube; sharing a Holiday Inn with a swarm (flock? school?) of biker dudes and biker ladies; and mucking about Columbus' finer big box stores in search of kitchen organization tools.

Ah yes. Because we bought a house. Bought it Oct. 30, Moving Day was Dec. 6, Get All of The Rest of Our Shit Out of There Day was Dec. 31 (because what better way to spend New Year's eve then by sweeping--while weeping--at 9:30 p.m. that night?). Jan. 1 was No, Seriously, Let's Get That Lamp and That Chair Out of the Old House Day, and we've been at our new house ever since. Seventy-five percent of the time, I manage to give people the correct address for the new place. Homeownership is lovely, for the most part, except for when I look into my bank statements and find that 90 percent of my income is going straight to Lowe's.

Last year had its highlights--the aforementioned home purchase, the celebration of our one-year wedding anniversary--but mostly it was one of intense heartbreak. Sollie died, suddenly, awfully and on Kyle's birthday, and just thinking about him and how much I still miss him makes me ache. Not in a metaphorical way--my muscles tense up and my bones hurt in the way the arm I broke as a kid hurts before a spring storm. I miss that damn dog so much.

So, yeah, there's that.

And then there's the job stuff, and well, let's just say I am fond of the people I work with and am happy to be working with them; in the interest of personal preservation I'll stay mum on the rest.

Yeah.

But to leave this post on a similarly sentimental note to the previous post, I would be remiss if I didn't talk--or, more accurately, gush--about Kyle. He has been tremendous through the madness of the last 365 days. He is a strong, kind, honest and fundamentally good person, and is a source of measureless comfort and support. Each day I am with him--even the days where we inevitably work each others' last nerve--I feel my love for him grow and our relationship strengthen. It is a joy to be his partner.

Commercial Interruption

OK, I will stop harping on the writers' strike for a moment ...

So, Kyle is promoting a big show tonight featuring one of his all-time music heroes, Eric Bachmann. And while it is sure to be awesome (Bachmann, performing for several years as Crooked Fingers, and before that, as a member of the seminal indie band Archers of Loaf, has this gravely voice that digs down under listeners' skin until it pierces their hearts, an experience that is much more pleasant than one might think. And, oh yeah, he does the best Prince cover I've ever heard.), I think we both are pretty anxious about it. You see, Kyle's put down a pretty big guarantee on this thing, meaning he needs about 50 people to come to this show, a daunting goal considering a.) It's Tuesday, b.) The cover is $12.

But perhaps the scarier thought is that Eric and another bandmate might be spending the night at our house. And that possibility has prompted a cleaning frenzy over here at Friendship Village. There has been sweeping, dusting, de-cluttering, dishes-doing, animal hair removal, and shortly, fridge-cleaning and a total household vacuuming in our effort to trick him into thinking that we don't live in filth. And by "we," I mostly mean "me," as anyone who has checked out my desk at work can attest.

So, anyway, as part of the cleaning madness, I decided to clean that daggone mesh screen in the hood of the stove, even though I totally know it is one of those things that only I would notice. Man, was that thing nast-tay. It was brown, like the brown of an acorn, of milk chocolate, of certain types of poo. And, also thanks to years of neglect, it was rubber cement-sticky. I decided to let my fingers do the walking, and used dear ol' Google to find a cure for the gross. Happily, I quickly found a site that had what I was looking for: A number of postings on different screen-cleaning techniques. Most suggested the use of harsh chemicals, which, although I am no fan of such things, I would have totally employed, had that not required I make a trip to the store to buy 'em.

Because, duh, I am lazy.

So, after a brief -- and failed -- experiment trying to bake the grease off in the oven, I tried another suggestion, and I soaked the thing in a mixture of OxyClean and hot water in our kitchen sink. Man, I have no idea what was in that shit, but it worked amazingly well. The water bubbled and fizzed and turned ever more brown as the screen came clean. Within 30 minutes -- and with no scrubbing -- it was was a shiny silver color and no longer sticky to the touch. Magic.

So, yeah, my new plan for life involves scrubbing down every surface with the stuff, including my own skin. I can only imagine the wonders it will bring.