Spring Cleaning

It’s unavoidable, isn’t it? In spring, as Mother Nature embarks on her annual spit and polish of The Great Outdoors, many of us turn our attention to The Great Indoors, washing windows, clearing clutter, organizing closets, etc..

Well, not so much over here.

So thank goodness for Charlotte, her love of heavy machinery, and Gordian Knot approach to spring cleaning. When I heard rumblings overhead late last night and went upstairs to investigate, there she and Daisy Mouse were, happy as clams behind the wheel of a small bulldozer, clearing out the mess in my younger sister’s room. And all just in time for Julie’s visit next week!

My own strengths lie more in the “special touches” department, which includes such things as hand-drawn welcome home signs, a vase of flowers, or some pillow mints. —Which made me reflect back on the welcome-home cat doodle I made for my little sister when she visited last summer.

I still smile whenever I see it, because of how wrong I got it, despite my good intentions. Julie has a condition called Williams Syndrome, which causes her to experience and process things a little differently. For instance, people with Williams tend to have heightened verbal-auditory skills (and she does), but also decreased visual-spatial abilities (which in my sister’s case means that a complicated drawing crammed full of hand-written copy might not be much fun to decipher).

Plus, even though Julie has an excellent sense of humor, she can be a stickler for accuracy in certain situations. So when I asked her how she liked her drawing, she replied (a little sternly, I thought), “Cats say ‘meow.’”

I had to laugh—making it “less talky” was not only a great editorial suggestion, it was one I definitely should have seen coming. (I think she’s going to prefer today’s drawing when she sees it, as I’ve left out the word balloons entirely.)

Meanwhile, I hope all of you fellow night owls are having a good and/or productive evening tonight as I write this, and that my early bird friends are all having sweet dreams—uninterrupted by the sound of heavy machinery.