Slight Detour: Pickles, Leaves and Afghans

Not much beauty to be seen around here yesterday 'cept on the ground.

The unusually late and gradual release of leaves from trees and shrubs this past year has left us with some interesting scenes atop the snow and, in some situations, encased within ice pockets.

The leaves are still beautiful, only in a different and locations from when we admired them in the fall.

Come spring when they have to be removed from the lawn, I might not think they're so pretty.

For now, however, they add a touch of exquisite loveliness to the ground over which we walk, as does the ice in some cases.

Headline seen this morning:

Schoolchildren in Finland are being taught to spot misinformation.

A "novel" idea.

Why only Finland?

In the "How to Thoroughly Clean the Kitchen Floor" department, you can achieve this goal with just a few easy steps (not sticky ones either).

First, get distracted while putting away stuff after dinner. In your distracted haste, fail to completely screw on the lid of an almost full jar of bread and butter pickles.

Pick up the jar.

Its weight with all those pickles will immediately cause the jar to separate from the lid and hit the floor.

It's a good idea, while gasping out loud at the the resulting mess, to remove your shoes, lest you walk in the pickle juice and spread it ALL over the kitchen while grabbing a cloth to start the clean-up.

Rather than bending over and picking up pickles one by one, get the broom and sweep 'em up. Remember to wash the broom when you're finished with the pickle pickup.

Next, get a wet towel, throw it upon the pickle juice, and, if you're old like I am, forget bending over to scrub.

Just use you feet to guide the towel around the floor.

Plan to get a second towel and probably a third.

On the fourth go round, take extra time to guide the towel to all the nooks and crannies where pickle juice dares to flow.

Finally, take a fifth towel and dry up the mess, still guiding the towel with your feet.

Plan to wash your shoes that you did not remove.

Also, plan to discover your husband, a few minutes later pulling out the chlorox wipes immediately after his first trip through the kitchen.

Sometimes, pickle juice can be stubborn and refuse to leave its new place of residence.

So, one or maybe two people need to be persistent in the cleanup.

Obviously, when all this began, you had not planned to have a spanking clean the kitchen floor, but walking in pickle juice where we least suspect it can lead us to great achievements.