The albatross mop

I am not crying over spilt milk. The inflection there, by the way, as you read that sentence, must be on 'crying'. It must also necessarily be delivered in a whining tone. This tone complements the whingy 'y' in crying. You might better think of this first sentence as having been delivered by a whirlwind mother of two who is not not crying, but crying about a broadranging organic kitchen collage.

For, neither am I crying (here it again, that wincing 'y', eyes gone all squinty and pathetic in their condescention) over the tin of curry powder little E_ has managed to infuse the kitchen with. No, it's not some delightful, gourmet Korma by Kurma, built to nuanced perfection by a two year old culinary prodigy. It's just curry. The whole tin. Splayed from the fridge to the sink in piles like raging iron ore dust, the amount akin to a quantity required to adequately nourish, say, a 2000 acre wheat crop.

I'm sticking everywhere I tread. There's also the pulsating berry mush dotted about the dining area beside the kitchen. Momentarily masticated then offered like dollops of change cascading plop, plop, plop into a wishing well.
And then there is general Pilbara about the space. You know, Pilbara. Supposedly means 'dry' in aboriginal language. Should also mean 'vanquishingly dusty' and 'inextricable' and 'radiant against white' and 'incomprehensibly clever at infiltrating hitherto unknown cavities'. Like behind the back of the fridge. Beneath the dirt that's been mopped, mudlike, from the terracotta tiles. Between my teeth. I need dental floss to de-Pilbara on days like today, when I am not crying over spilt milk which has sat unloved, perched precariously on the dastardly corner of the dining table just waiting for small child to suggest its descent into the dry, sticky and too pungent ravages beneath.

Then, there was macaroni and currants for maths this morning. The perils of homeschooling. Or freefalling through the wonders of craft. Craft. Craft has a way of being crafty, all right. I think we might call it conniving instead of craft. In a sentence, we have connived our morning away. Of course, we would thus have to add it to our list of 'c' words. 'C' is for 'conniving': Tricky, sneaky, underhanded, dastardly, sticky, gloopy, gargantuan in its terror. Crunch crunch crunch, after a morning's conniving. And then, if the activity involves, say, tins of Spam, or making collages out of last night's lasagne, then conniving becomes carnivorous. Carnivorous canniving and and Italy's left overs are all over my tiles too. Oh bugger, they've just spilt the split pea and corn soup leftover from lunch. It's lunging, langourously, abseiling in slow motion off the edge of the mountain ash precipice. This dining table's loving it too...A conniving carnivorous cornivourus chorus.

Food is fun. Ha.          Ha.          Ha.

Returning to my beginning (which has become my near end indeed Mr Eliot), I must cite the wondeful tale of five animal friends in Pamela Allen's children's book, Who Sank the Boat?

Was it the milk which poured on the floor?
Was it the curry, cascading, what's more?
Was it the berries all sluggishly stuck?
Or just macarone and currants? Oh fuck.

Who sank the boat? All at once, mish mash and splish splash /I'm sunk and I'm gone, insanity's spawn. (And I'm certain beyond a blackberry's thorn that Pamela Allen's decorum, with her delightful tales of misplaced logic, prevents her from considering 'insanity's spawn' a possible rhyme for any adventure's digressions, any character's transgressions).

As least if my proverbial boat were a'leakin', I could tip it up and simply pour out the milkcurrymacaroniberrycurrantPilbarabechamelminceabseiling corn through the front door and off down the sewage corridors of the street.

Did I mention we need rain here? It's so my turn.

Instead, I am resigned to fill the mop bucket and attend to the misery.

Luckily, it's a clean mop bucket, so when I fill it with wine and dippeth in my fine crystal to partake of its wonder, I'll be the queen. That idea's floating my boat right now. But nay, I believe a good splosh of mop will suffice, and to such duty I now resign my tears. I hate mopping. Mops are grit and grunge and give far too much away. I wish I could kill my mop.

So, ship ahoy. My mophead albatross awaits. An albatross which, unlike Coleridge's foppish neckbrace, is given regular opportunities to redeem itself in the name of ephemeral domestic purification.

So who DID sink the boat?
It was, quite simply, just me, after all, the one left in charge of defeating the squall.

I should have mopped days ago.