{"id":131,"date":"2004-05-31T07:27:19","date_gmt":"2004-05-31T12:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/wp\/?p=131"},"modified":"2004-05-31T07:27:19","modified_gmt":"2004-05-31T12:27:19","slug":"with-friends-like-these","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"With Friends Like These&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Who needs the Merry Maids?<br \/>\nWith a guest coming for part of the Memorial Day weekend, I was trying to figure how to fit a normal two days of cleaning and errands into about 6 hours this past Saturday.<br \/>\nLuckily, I have friends who were happy to help out, one of whom volunteered to vacuum while her 4-almost-5 year old helped me scrub counter tops with &#8220;sugar stuff&#8221; (Ajax).  The other mowed my lawn, a task I normally enjoy but just didn&#8217;t have time to manage before my guest&#8217;s arrival.<br \/>\nThen, while I was doing the second transfer station run of the day with Peter, they set up a charming Hamptons\/Newport-style bistro arrangement on my porch.<br \/>\nMeanwhile, my washing machine decided to blow a gear or something in its overworked motor, so last evening, the second friend let me do laundry while I grilled some chicken on her barbecue.<br \/>\nSo, today, I have a clean house, clean clothes and memories of a most pleasant visit with my out of town &#8220;gentleman friend&#8221;, a person of immense charm who entertains as well as enlightens with his well-honed and wide-ranging conversational skills.  A Cape Cod postcard weekend altogether, with perfect weather and reasonable traffic to boot.<br \/>\nHow&#8217;d I ever get so lucky?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who needs the Merry Maids? With a guest coming for part of the Memorial Day weekend, I was trying to figure how to fit a normal two days of cleaning and errands into about 6 hours this past Saturday. Luckily, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/?p=131\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecapeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}