You know, I thought to myself yesterday while cleaning out the back of the fridge of stuff that had been ignored while I was sick from Thanksgiving until a week ago, The chances of someone showing up at the door go up astronomically when you wash something really stinky down the sink (turning on the disposal to try to be fully rid of it and debating tossing the washable Rubbermaid containers. Where’s the baking soda.)

Those were pretty bad. The stuff in them should never have been saved over the five days we were going to be out of town at the time, much less since then but were because I had been too flattened to do any kind of a deep dive in there after we got home.

It felt so good to get to it and have a clean fridge at long last–even if the kitchen didn’t quite smell like it yet. Yow.

I stepped out of the room a moment and didn’t hear that doorbell and wasn’t the one who answered.

I am told it was the new next-door neighbor, showing up at our door for the first time, bringing oranges from her tree and not just homemade chocolate chip cookies but ones with grated peel from that tree and man were they good.

There’s a pocket door between the front door and that sink but it’s almost never closed, so we’re talking a few steps apart. First impressions and all that.

I imagine it’ll be a story to laugh over with her and her husband for years to come.