Where Ya From?

I believe in miracles. For starters, my dad's existence is definitely a set of miracles. And last night, I realized that miracles also come in very, very small packages.

I was giving our apartment a good cleaning for the first time in months. (Note: this is a terrible thing to do when you have a cold, as snot and sweat will be pouring down your face in equal measures as your elbow grease kicks up dust and dirt.) My bookclub is coming over this evening, and I wanted to pretend that Husband and I are not dirty people. (Also note: Being dirty is very different from being filthy. Once when I was in San Francisco, I visited a friend from high school. He lived in the most vile, disgusting place I had ever set foot in. It was the first time I went inside a building and thought, "So this is what a flophouse is." Seriously, I was afraid to sit down.)

Vacuuming piles of crumbs, dust, hay (from Tycho our pet rabbit), and god knows what else from the floor, I realized that it was a true miracle that we were not hosts to vermin. To some extent, every apartment in NYC is subject to roaches. It's just a way of life, and you accept that. People who live on the ground floor facing the street, where the entire building's trash gets piled on the curb every garbage day, and that curb is about 4 feet from your window, only increases your chances of having uninvited multi-legged guests. Throw in Husband's inability to eat trail mix without getting sunflower seeds all over the floor, plus our reluctance to clean on a regular basis (or even semi-regular, as long as I am being honest), and you have a real recipe for roach/mice disaster. Yet our apartment is about as pest-free as they come.

Major props go to the building staff for having higher standards than we do. Either that, or it is truly a miracle.