Moonlight and Roses...

...and dishwashing.

Well, thank goodness we didn't have that kind of shock at the wedding.

On the other hand, my goodness - housework.  Even in an empty apartment, it does take up one's attention, doesn't it?  The first harbinger of the avalanche of stuff to come arrived yesterday, three stout cartons of advance air freight that means we now have a few dishes, pots, pans, towels, and other basic necessities (along with, like an ominous sign of the future, a generous supply of office clothes, for it's all too soon back to the grindstone).  All of it was one way or another the worse for the long journey from the Sandlands (although not a single thing broken, so kudos to our movers, and encouraging in terms of all the rest that's one its way), and so today I've been laundering the linens and washing the kitchenware and generally missing Mrs. Galapatti-da Silva very, very much.

At least I still remember how.  Actually, being rather domestic has always been a point of pride with me, for I was raised to believe that even if you weren't necessarily going to do every single thing around the house, it was important to know how, if only so you could be sure that it was being done right.  Grandmother Muscato especially had very definite opinions about things like ironing, silver polishing, and bed making (well, really, she had very definite opinions about just about everything, now that I think about it), and she was a strict taskmistress, and enough of it has stuck with me all these years that I'm not entirely lost now that we're on our own.

Whether that holds up once there is a great deal of bric-a-brac to keep tidy, we shall see, but for the moment I'm braving the possibility of getting my hands all rough due to coarse dish soap and keeping us relatively spic-and-span.  It being Ramadan, Mr. Muscato is mostly napping, but once we have a full set of kitchen equipment, he'll more than carry his share as the chief cook.  We don't at the moment have a single jar of jam in the fridge, nor any fresh cheese, nor even a hint of good vegetable soup, and that just ain't right.

No, it's not all moonlight and roses, but mostly it's pretty good fun even so, even with the dishes to be done...