The last couple of days I’ve been getting ready for visitors. Preparations involve cleaning, tidying up, decluttering ,shopping and watching the weather forecasts. The cleanup should have been ongoing like a routine already established but it is easy to overlook cleaning when I’m mostly reading during the day and watching international cooking programs well into the night.
Suddenly, with the realization that things need doing and how I have interspersed my reading through the day and food show watching during the evening with laundry, scrubbing the shower with a toothbrush, polishing up the cutlery, hiding old pots and pans, considering buying new pots and pans, buying nice fresh stuff to eat rather than making do with whatever surfaced, cleaning out the refrigerator, attempting to de-ice the sidewalk, buying extreme de-ice melt salt, giving up on improving the miserable chunky ice on the sidewalk and realizing that although things are significantly cleaner, better organized and presentable I could go on like this for several days before reaching the desired level of whatever I hope to achieve.
Considering that the weather is turning slightly foul and my visitors are travelling a far distance it is chancy whether or not that they will arrive tomorrow or postpone until next week. Either way, until they get here I can continue to move piles of neglected tasks around, scrub more corners with a toothbrush moderately improving my environment while finishing up reading the current three novels I’m engrossed in and binge watching foodie programs.
If this pace is maintained I will soon be worthy of starring one of those trendy home makeover programs that shame the messy culprit with the before scenario and then praise the final results. Not only that, but another showcased skill I could aspire to also would be a so called expert on cooking in New Zealand, Iceland, England,France, Singapore, and diners and dives in the States, lifestyle and cooking tips from Toronto, Canada and a soon to be informed individual on African cuisine. Not only that but I could discuss the merits of older style books by Thomas Hardy,Margery Sharpe, Willa Cather and Laurie Lee, just to name a few. I think the program would have an appeal, especially among those of us truly glad to have visitors, only once in awhile.
An Embarrassment of Freedom 
You’ve written the story of my life, starting at about two weeks before Christmas-every year. I tell myself that friends and family come to see me, not the house, and that seems to lessen the pain somewhat.