2012 - The Year of Clean(er) Floors

In the deep pile

I recently celebrated the 49th anniversary of my birth. The week between Christmas and New Years is a perfect place to hide your birthday if you want to discreetly celebrate. But, I do have family and friends who are quite good at remembering the date. I began my celebration the evening of December 29 at Tir na Nog (discovered a great local band Wylie Hunter and the Cazadores), where I kicked into high gear at midnight with a few shots generously provided by my favorite bartenders. The celebration continued the following evening with friends, culminating in a quite festive celebration of New Year's with Niki and Steve. So, for me, this year's birthday was a bit of an extended celebration punctuated throughout with well wishes by phone and Facebook.

To make the day even more special, some exceptionally generous family and friends also remembered my birthday with Amazon gift cards. For friends and family in far away places, these gift cards are my gifts of choice. You can get anything from Amazon and after the holidays, the shipping was free. I pooled together my gift cards and purchased a robotic vacuum (Roomba) as a means to stay on top of Roxy's continuous shedding. 

Alert? Looking for an escape plan? Or plotting revenge?

And, several weeks later, I am still thrilled with the purchase. 

Roxy on the other hand is not so happy that her afternoon nap time is promptly interrupted at 2:00 PM each weekday; however, I am very happy not to see tumbleweeds composed of white, fluffy hair rolling along the floor two days after I have cleaned the entire house. So, Roomba does a great job of maintaining the floors in a hair-free state during the week.



There have been a few times when Roomba has stranded itself in the deep pile area rug, or driving over the back of a chair support. I have rearranged a few pieces of furniture to clear its preferred paths a bit. I have also set up a virtual wall to keep Roomba from straying onto the area rug.

Since its arrival, I have been trying to come up with an appropriate name to bestow upon our new family member. A friend named his "Rosario," and while I appreciate the Will and Grace reference, I am afraid that there is something just a little too stereotypical in that choice. I was thinking perhaps "Rosie," which was the name of the Jetson's robotic maid, but that sounds a little too close to Roxy. Then I had a brainstorm - how about Robby from Lost in Space? Robby Roomba.