Weekend Tide

Monday is cleanup day. The day I dig out from under the party-down fun of the weekend. Because it’s the only day of the week I enjoy a small measure of control over my universe, Monday is important to me.

It’s also the day I find leftover weekend party favors, strange, eclectic, odds and ends tucked under couch cushions and floating in bathroom . . . sinks. I find sticks and stones and toads in Rubbermaid bowls and wads of flowers wrapped in banana leaves and rubber bands and pirate eye patches and sippy cups and whoopee cushions.

And binkies. Lots and many binkies.

I pile everything up and sort through it.

The rocks go back to the garden.  Sticks to the fire pit. Toads back to their mommies.  The flowers go into glass vases where they’ll dissolve in tiny showers of pollen and petals. The sippy cups and binkies get stuffed back into kitchen cabinets for emergencies and next weekend and the next, when the toddler tide will drag it all back inside and dump it on the shoreline of my house—again.

On Monday I throw it all right back into the ocean, and the next Monday and every Monday from now until the day that I won’t find a single stick or stone or toad.

And on that day, I’ll sweep, mop, vacuum, dust, and wish for pirate eye patches and whoopee cushions.