Progress?

 Fiorella is in the somewhat uncomfortable position of sitting on the couch in her den while a husband-and-wife deep-cleaning team shine up everything in sight. Apparently. it's the way one prepares houses for sale nowadays, but it makes Fio nervous, like that she has guests she can't entertain--especially since they are deaf.

Okay, Fiorella admits that she isn't much of a housewife. Husband commanded the kitchen more and more as he grew older, but neither he nor Fio did much cleaning, i.e, the oven is a crusted over mess, which has never bothered your girl because all she uses it for is to warm up her daily tin-foil-wrapped salmon paddy. And tomorrow--sigh--just think...she'll have a sparkling clean oven that will have to be kept that way in order to attract buyers. (Maybe she'll eat out more.)

Selling a house has become a lot more complicated than when Fiorella and husband sold their first home. Sure, there were a lot of papers to produce and statements to sign, but no one even checked out the kitchen--and they got a good price for the place even though they hadn't hired anyone to do deep cleaning.

But what is Doggie doing during this process, you ask. Well, Fio was afraid Sonia would go whacko with unknown people in the house, but all it took was an introduction and she settled down on the couch and fell asleep.Tomorrow might be a little more difficult because Son L and his wife's brother will be shining up the concrete floors, which probably means we'll all have to stay outside for a good time while it dries.

And what about Fiorella? Well, she's her usual self--she lost the list the realtor had written out for her, lost one of her credit cards, and can't fill out an information form because, although she duly pays her bills, she has no idea what each one is for. Pray for her.