What I Learned In My Apartment When I Moved Out of It

Gosh, it's June already. My friend Susan has already made batches of strawberry jam. And here I haven't had a thing to say since April.
Well, I've had stuff to say, but it's largely been mutterings to myself while I've been in process of sorting...packing...schlepping...unpacking... positioning...giving away...you know the moving drill.
I've finally completed the move from my wonderful New-York-style apartment in Los Angeles to an extraordinary casita up the coast. Me and Cakes.
Yesterday was our last day in the apartment. I'd been there four years, and my last few days I made some discoveries that charmed me. You might as well find things that charm you when you work for three days (the cleaning lady twice failed to show) in hopes of getting your hefty security deposit back.
First discovery was when cleaning the stove top, I couldn't figure out how to get under the top...then with a little tug, the whole damn thing lifted up and I could clean under the burners! Amazing.
Next I discovered that if you spray oven cleaner on 4-year-old muck and leave it for two days, the muck wipes right off. Also amazing.
Then I learned (from the manager) that you're supposed to keep dog fur and city grit off the tops of the baseboard molding. Never ever noticed, never ever cleaned there. Big shock. Also a shock to find baseboard molding in places I never saw (behind the day bed, behind the magazine rack).
Speaking of magazines, though, when I was recycling two years of "New Yorkers," as I heaped the last bunch into the bin, I heard a little clink. I looked down and there was the little gold Celtic ring my husband bought me in Edinburgh castle. I'd been missing it for months, hadn't a clue where it had got to. It was nestled in the "New Yorkers." So that was a happy beginning to one of the cleaning days.
Next I discovered something called Magic Eraser. My granddaughter who was helping that afternoon said she already knew about it. She picked up a ballpoint pen and drew a squiggle on a kitchen drawer--I gasped--then with a sweep of her arm she wiped it off with the spongy white pad. Where on earth has that invention been all my life? Maybe it's new.
Next I learned about 409. In the cleaning aisle at Ralph's, I couldn't decide which cleaner to buy--alas, I already knew that if it said, "Natural" in the title, it didn't work. Wowzer. 409 is as amazing as Magic Erasers.
Oh, and at the cleaning aisle I unearthed a tool that looks as though it should be sold on late night television: it's still in the car (haven't had the strength to unload the last boxes) and I forget its name, but its a battery-driven brush (it says "sonic" in the name but I doubt it's sonic--it's just strong) with various brush-heads you can twist in or out of the base, and it cleans like a son of a gun. Some gummy orange deposit at the bottom of the fridge--stuck stuck stuck hard hard hard--with a spritz of 409 and a concerted whirling of the cleaning brush--came off beautifully. One of the brush heads is tapered to a point so you can whiz out the icky years-old (in my case, surely not in yours) deposit around the base of faucets. Or in the crevices of the panel of the dishwasher (why do designers add so many nooks and crannies that have no function but you've got to get the gunk out of them? most annoying). As I say, the brush is typical of the gizmos demonstrated in the middle of the night on television, but this is the real deal.
Next I was amazed to find loose change all over the place...a penny here (some were heads up, good luck), a quarter or two there (probably fell out of my pocket on the way to the laundry room), a few errant dimes and nickles. Why was there so much money slopped around?
What else did I learn? Well, for the past year the paper guest towels in the bathroom had the cartoonish drawing of a woman in a 40's outfit--high heels, fluffy white apron, bright red lipstick--leaning over a tub with a rag and the logo said, "A clean house is the sign of a wasted life."
My apartment is clean now. But I'm no longer in it. As I say, I was gratified discovering magic erasers and powerful solutions and ingenious tools and how my apartment should have looked the past four years.
But I'm glad I didn't waste more than a few days of my life in the process...