Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound.  This weekend’s “to-do” list was to clean the house from top to bottom.  Housecleaning is not the most fun thing to do over the weekend, but it must be done and, besides, I kind of consider it a form of exercise.  I mean, all the stretching, reaching and bending could be some kind of yoga position, and you can even throw in a little martial arts with the “Windex on” and “Windex off” moves.  

What is really frustrating about house cleaning is that the house seems to fight me or at least make its best attempt to show its contempt for my cleaning efforts.  For example, mini blinds: I have a horrible time getting them to align just right at the base of the window.  Either the right one is too high or the left one is too low and then the strings get tangled and nothing will move.  Or, if I try to dust them with a feather duster, no matter how I do it or how lightly, a set of the blinds will turn in the wrong direction, forcing me to stop and manually reset them so they are all facing the same way.  

Even worse are the vacuum cleaner cords; no matter how careful I am, I will eventually step on the cord, stopping the vacuum cleaner dead in its tracks, or it will get tangled around my foot, requiring me to stop and step out of the vacuum’s snare.  Then, there is the little frustrating thing where the brushes will not pick up that piece of lint on the floor no matter how many times you run over it, but run over a cord or an edge of a rug and, quicker than you can say “Jack Flash,” those items are quickly sucked into the rollers, forcing an immediate stop before you burn the engine up.  

Then there are the hair balls from Max’s fur.  He has this real fine undercoat that is almost white and is virtually invisible to the eye until the hairs decide to collect together for show and tell.  It is like some big black hole of dog hair is able to attract from far and near all the loose hairs from around the house and force them to grow in the corners like mushrooms.  Thankfully, I only have to go through this full-scale assault once a month, which allows time for my blood pressure to return to almost normal levels.

As always be good, play safe and remember to keep thinking that housecleaning is good for you.  

JR and Max