Whoops.
Tip:
Don't replace people's toilet brushes without asking, even if the brush looks dead to you.
I was a little too zealous in cleaning the house I'm moving into, yesterday.
Not that it didn't need it,
but it was a little awkward when Patti came home and asked if I'd thrown out her toilet brush.
I had. I'd replaced it with a new one I'd bought.
She'd liked that old brush, she said.
Chagrined, I said I'd get it out of the garbage can, but she laughed and said not to bother.
Nobody likes a home improvement invasion.
(Well, mostly not.)
My intention was not to improve Patti, but to start to make room for me and my ways in her house.I had asked if she'd be OK with me cleaning, and she'd said yes.
But I know the idea and the reality are not the same (and neither are realities).
For now, I'm going to focus on making my room my own.
There's lots to do! Definitely good I officially have until October 1, though I expect it'll be ready much sooner than that.
I will finish scraping up the carpet in the closet, and Patti will sand and seal the floor;
I'll try to remove the scene Patti drew in oil pastels years ago (ideas? 409 Cleanser?), and plaster, prime, and paint the walls.
_________________________
II. Spirit in Action
Speaking of improvement invasions, I'm reading an interesting biography, Jane Addams: Spirit in Action (2010, Louise Knight) about the Great Improver.
[Good overview of Addam's life in the Chicago Trib review.]
Coming from a wealthy family, Addams took a while to figure out that poor people don't want you to come into their homes and, as it were, replace their toilet brushes without their permission.
She started Hull House in Chicago, thinking poor people needed their spirits enlivened with Music and Meaning. She figured out that they needed self-determination and garbage pick-up.
I admire that Addams did figure that out––not everybody does.
At the thrift store, I see a lot of policing or paternalizing attitudes.
(I'm happy at the store because Big Boss, coming from the streets himself, doesn't think like that. I sense he's limited as a leader, however, by a lack of understanding of the rich.)
Addams wrote,"Much of the insensibility and hardness of the world is due to lack of imagination which prevents understanding the experiences of other people."
Humorless when young, Addams loosened up. When she was almost my age, the Daughters of the American Revolution revoked Addams' membership because of her outspoken opposition to World War I.
Addams joked, 'I had supposed at the time that (my membership) had been for life but it was apparently only for good behavior.'"
