Adventures in Window Washing

Mom has been fixated on the remaining two windows in her house that haven't been washed since storm windows were installed twenty-five years ago. Twenty-five. Years ago. My bil Mark washed the dining room and living room windows when he was here for his "vacation" earlier this year. Evidently, things have changed in storm window design in the last twenty-five years, and Mark found Mom's windows to be a little archaic. Hard to work with. There is surely an extra jewel in his heavenly crown for the effort he put into cleaning Mom's windows.

And, as I started to disassemble the first of the remaining windows on Tuesday, I wondered, "Did my bil cuss loud enough for Mom to hear?" Because that is one aggravating job. Worse than Christmas lights, I would say. The panes and screen were terribly dirty and took three washes, but they did begin to sparkle. Mom popped outside every so often to offer help (?) and to ask if I would be able to finish the window that day. No thanks and yes.

Then I began to reassemble the clean window. I could not get the top portion of the storm window to butt up against the frame. Mom came out and tried to help from the outside while I tried to finagle it into position from the inside. It is so like Mom to want to help, to do, to get-er-dun, but it was a dubious situation at best. Her strength of course is waning, but the funniest part was her hearing. Mom is really losing her hearing, so communicating through two panes of glass was not effective. At all. At one point, I just held onto the window, dropped my head, and laughed and laughed! Mom laughed too. I'm sure we were a picture.

When the storm window starting pulling out of its frame, I gave up and called the guy who installed the fool things, so many years ago. David has been a friend for years and years. He took the youth group waterskiing, snowskiing, and camping when his girls were in youth group and Dave was the youth pastor. His girls babysat our kids. And now his wife Shari is fighting the effects of a tumor in her brain. I really hate cancer. Anyway, it worked out perfectly for him to come over. A friend who had been visiting Mom had just left to take Shari shopping, so David had a few free moments. He came over, showed me how to put the window back together, and took apart the last remaining window for me.

I window washed a little bit more on Thursday, then finished the job on Friday. With my new-found assembly knowledge, I didn't even have to have my ninety year old mother help me put the window back together! Now, Mom is happy and I won't have to do that job for another twenty-five years. Or so.