Hands and knees and claws

I finally got around to a job I've been procrastinating about. Waxing the floor! I mean how many of us think of this as a fun job?

Yesterday was a nice day. I didn't have anything special to do til evening classes. Tetsu and I had both commented about how bad the wood floor looked. BUT... What is the point? Think of all the claw scratch marks it gets. There are 18 claws per cat (I think my cats only have 4 claws on each hind foot... At least that's all I clip) and I have 5 cats. That's 90 claws!!!!! And Chip and Toi think the house is a race course so there is a lot of scrabbling and sharp turns in their daily chase. (But granted, Velvet adds very little to the wear and tear. He tip-toes if he comes downstairs at all). Choco is the worse. She is also a scrabbler and comes bounding into the house scaring cats this way and that, and she will enjoy a race and a slide and then a bump into the wall. Then the same routine in the other direction. Why do we allow it? Because she is such a crazy dog and she looks like she is having fun. But Choco adds the major damage to our floor.

So the floor was looking very bad! But even if I wax it, in a few days it will get the same claw treatment. And I'll just be angry at the animals for messing up a nice floor. Forget it. Resign yourself to a scratched and scuffed floor. Oh, Tanya, you only do this job once a year anyway. Just get down there and wax it!

Gather up all the cats and stick them out on the upstairs veranda. Go right ahead and complain to your hearts' content because you are stuck out there for the next two hours. And of course Choco hearing the cats had to add her noise too.

Here is a picture of my house with some of the furniture out in the driveway. Can you see some cat heads up there on the balcony? And Toi is sitting on the ledge watching the work progress while Cleo is debating jumping onto the car...

Open up all the doors and windows, change into shorts and start in! There IS such a thing as a mop in Japan but I've never used one and instead I'm down there on my hands and knees. Maybe this is because I gained any housekeeping skills at all after I came to Japan and Japanese believe getting down on the hands and knees to clean is important. Children wipe their classroom floors and corridors down on their hands and knees. Pregnant women wash the floors on their hands and knees (supposed to strengthen the stomach muscles.) And in many of the churches I've attended, the ladies' group would always be down there on their hands and knees.

So I washed and waxed and now I have a lovely shiny floor.

Chip threw up on it right after I let her come back in the house. Too bad. I'm not doing it again until next year.