clean up on aisle five! and high tea......

I was sleeping in my bed when a loud clatter woke me up. A clatter, a whack, a thud and a crash........oh dear.  A normal person would get up asap and go see right? 
I laid there and listened to the running paws of little boy cat Rio.......he flew through the house and hid under the bed.  For all of one.......two.......three seconds.  Then he raced to the top of the bed and announced his bad self!  "YO........YO YO.........I said YO.........check me out Momma!  I'm a bad bammer jammer.........!"
I squeezed my eyelids tighter and thought by all rights and purposes this should be a dream.  Dreams require no clean up and no discipline action on the part of the commandant.  Poor Rio lost his stripes and got busted back to buck private early today. 
I finally dragged my sorry self in there to view the scene of the accident.  Nice.  Really nice.  An even distribution of dirt on the sill, counter, in the sink, in the silverware drainer........on the floor. 
Lovely.......I thought the microbead spatter was bad, this is also baaaaaaaad.  If you missed the microbead spatter incident, I overstuffed the washing machine and it resulted in a double homicide.  Two hot pink squishy pillows filled with microbeads were both found in the machine slit open and the tiny little beaded spatter was in my washer, dryer.........all over the floor and I'm still cleaning it up.  Microbeads are light, super fine and blow everywhere.  The local DA reduced the charge to manslaughter II, but still, it will be forever til I see the green green grass of home.........sigh.  I miss my pillows.
But back to today........I started clomping things out of the way.  As a show of my early morning displeasure. Rio came flying into the kitchen.  I gave him the look as I sat the big pot on the counter with a loud clomp.  Rio skittered under the chair.  I continued to stack things on the counter.......Rio now moved cautiously to the seat of the chair.......still hiding under the table.............but like any curious cat, he cannot resist being at the center of the action.  Annie..........darlin' Annie sat in the doorway and watched Rio watching me & me watching Rio.....she declined to comment, the flick of her tail could have been a sign of support or disgust for either side.
Soooooooooo, I took the snapped off broken plants and found small bud vases for them.  Hopefully they will all re-root and the healing will begin.  Rio managed to knock bits and pieces off of three plants, poor bruised babies.  Now they have all been fussed over, watered and tidied up.  There are seven pots total......4 small and 3 even smaller pots so colorful and bright.  The kitchen window adorned with green leaves is so cheerful........
I got everything washed, hosed down and wiped up.......then I shook the dirt out of the rug and swept.  I haven't mopped........it's just too early.  I wish I had a pot of tea.  Who is the proprietor of this hotel?  I would like some lovely tea and a warm scone.  I have rarely had scones, but they were quite good. 
I went to high tea once at the Ritz Carlton in the very swanky Buckhead area of Atlanta with some friends.  We all dressed to the nines, wearing white gloves, but our modern sensibility drew the line at hats.  We shouldn't have.......how often do you get the opportunity to relive a moment from 1960's America meets Camelot.......wish we had worn pill hats with elegant veils. 
High Tea makes you feel like such a combination of elegant lady and worried klutz.  My pinky extended as I lifted the cup like I had been training to sip perfumed steaming brew out of delicate china for the whole of my life.  I was dainty, I was polite.  My legs were folded demurely to one side at the base of my chair.  I graciously acknowledged receipt of one lump or two.  Everything in silver, handled just so, poured perfectly, served with a fine hand. 
I wanted to emulate the ladylike graciousness of my beautiful Momma......back straight, shoulders just so.......to look poised and graceful and prayed not to do anything too stupid.  The Queen of England had years of training and it is high tea everyday........but not for this Iowa native.  My Dad liked to drink instant Sanka out of his saucer as he dunked his donut in the brew......while my mother clucked at his audacity and atrocious manners.  Even in the elegance of that surrounding I wanted to giggle and do something wrong the whole time.  I resisted.  It was hard. I am my Mother's daughter and I am also my Father's child.........so I am ladylike and irreverent.  Silly and sometimes serene.  Prayerful but earthy and more than manage my share of sins..........it is I think time to go rest awhile. 
No worries...... Rio will be out of the doghouse soon enough..........yeah a body wants to type cathouse, but it always sounds WRONG ya know?  Poor Private Rio........he came near me and I told him to drop and give me twenty.......both cats took off for the stairs.  Seriously do they understand what I say or ????
Life is a mystery.