Part 3 in a series comparing cooking to cleaning.
So why can't I arrange a cleaned-up house and present it to my family (and myself) with as much satisfaction as I would present, say, a pan of brownies baked from scratch with best-quality chocolate and real butter and real buttercream frosting? I made those brownies for Mark's birthday cake on Tuesday, and it was a fair amount of work, and I suffered from a terrible sugar buzz from licking the mixer paddle, too.
First of all, the house isn't really analogous to a single dish, especially not something special-occasion like brownies. It's more like our family's overall diet. Which isn't entirely made up of dishes that I have fun cooking.
Breakfast in our house is often a solo affair. Mark pours himself some cold cereal most mornings, while I scramble some eggs for myself. The kids get cold cereal or peanut butter toast or oatmeal or eggs, whatever I feel like putting together for them when they get up, usually an hour or so after I've eaten. And lunch is usually leftovers from dinner or else it's sandwiches. It's not very exciting, but it's generally healthful.
And that's what a clean house is: day after day, not very exciting, generally healthful.
Back to the diet. On the whole, reasonably enjoyable, healthful, unexciting. Break it down into individual meals, however, and the picture is different. Ordinary, good food most of the time. But there is a good deal of variety in every week: some chicken, some beef, at least one vegetarian dinner, fish twice. And a lot of different vegetables, too, changing with the seasons.
So break down the housecleaning to individual rooms, individual tasks. Some stuff people notice right away, like a freshly mopped and sparkling floor, or polished silverware, or the kitchen when I clear the countertops and wipe them all down from top to bottom with hot soapy water. That's more like a nice dinner, not a particularly special one but a well-executed one, like black-bean enchiladas. I don't do these things often, and it's pleasurable to see the results.
On the other hand, some work is barely noticed until it doesn't get done---then we all suffer. Like laundry. Nobody ever says, "Wow, that's great laundry. I love the way you folded my pants." But we do say, "Damn it, I have to leave in ten minutes and all my pants are wadded up wet in the dryer." It's kind of like oatmeal. Not very exciting. But if there isn't anything to eat for breakfast, some oatmeal sounds pretty good.
And even oatmeal can be taken to the next level. There's oatmeal soaked overnight to make it extra creamy and, in the morning, simmered in fresh milk with a pat of butter melting on the top, chopped walnuts and raisins stirred in, and a pitcher of warm maple syrup on the side.
What's the next level in housecleaning? Fresh flowers in a vase? Maybe. Depends on the room, probably.
I start planning meals by constructing a sort of bare-bones foundation (beef. green vegetable. yellow vegetable. salad.) and then I work backwards from the presentation, the details that make it special (dried cherries in the salad. that lovely zinfandel.) to the recipes. Maybe I should approach housekeeping tasks by thinking of the finishing details first.
<draws blank>
OK, fine. Today I have to put away two baskets of clean laundry. (Other stuff too, but let's take that to start.)
Prerequisite: Make bed, in order to have surface on which to sort laundry.
Minimum requirement (cold cereal): Laundry exits basket, winds up in correct drawers and/or hangers.
Improvement (hot-water oatmeal with sugar): Clothes are actually folded into drawers and/or hung on hangers reasonably neatly.
Well-executed (creamy oatmeal with pitcher of syrup): Several options. I pick dresser tops are cleared off and smart-looking.
I wonder how much more time it will take me to do this then simply stuffing the clothes into the drawers.
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