Posted tagged ‘Laundry’

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“Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day.”

June 11, 2013

Another early morning for me-this is a habit I have to break. I was up at 7, read the papers, even did the crossword and the cryptogram, then left for my library board meeting at nine. I just got home.

Last night it poured again. The world is green and lush but damp and chilly at only 64˚. It is supposed to rain again today. I have to go out later to do three errands but not until the afternoon. Yesterday I did my laundry, all three loads of it. The hall is now clear. I even took the clean laundry out of the dryer and put it away. Usually it sits there a while. I don’t know where all this industry is springing from, but I’ve had enough.

My landscaper and I discussed the flowers he forgot to plant last week. I was able to grab him for the chat as I up and about so early. He promises tomorrow he’ll plant and then mulch. I reminded him that last week he also promised Wednesday. He laughed. Sebastian keeps telling me he wants to take down the two pine trees and the two wild roses in the front yard. I keep saying no.

It has been a long time since I last cooked a fancy dinner, and I’m thinking it’s about time for another. I’ll have to do my flow chart such that I cook over a couple of days so my back will be okay. No big dinner of mine ever gets done without a flow chart. It always starts with the recipes in order: appetizers, meat, side dishes and dessert. Beside each dish is where the recipe can be found. I then make a list of the ingredients by category like fruits, veggies, frozen, meat and assorted to make shopping easier. The flow chart also lists the steps for each day and on the day of the dinner for each hour.. Some things I can cook ahead a few steps but not finish until the big day. After the dinner time is set, my flow chart works around that time so all the food is ready and on the table together. The need for a flow chart grew out of past bad experiences when the dishes were ready at all different times and some dishes, especially salads, were left in the fridge and never served. My flow chart and I get made fun of by my guests. Taunting the hand that feeds you is never a good idea.

Categories: Musings
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Comments: 14 Comments

“Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.”

June 6, 2013

On Tuesday, of all my errands and chores, I only managed to buy the flowers. The rest of the list was put on hold for no reason except I didn’t want to do them, my favorite reason of all. Yesterday, though, was my most industrious day to date. I was the ant, not the grasshopper. I planted in all the deck boxes, pots and baskets, all 16 of them, and was quite creative in putting together the displays. There was one which was red, white and blue and another with beach grass and pink flowers with a sea creature on a stick added to each pot for decoration. I put the herbs in their window boxes: the thyme, rosemary and basil. When I’d finished planting, I was filthy and sweaty but yesterday was the perfect day to be working outside. It was cool and sunny so when I had finished with the pots and all, I sat outside for a bit just to enjoy the day. When I came back inside, I went upstairs. The cat boxes got changed as did the bed. My last upstairs chore was the badly needed shower after all that dirt. I sat and read for a bit downstairs then went out. Poor Gracie didn’t come as this is too warm a season for her to be left in the car. I sneaked to the dump, the pharmacy, the drop-in clinic, Staples and finally the plant store for a small tomato plant for the hanging thingee which hangs the tomato upside down. When I got home, I collapsed. I figure I don’t have to do anything else for at least a week!

In front of my house the other day was the truck belonging to the irrigation guy. Later that same day Peapod delivered my groceries. Today Roseana and Lee will be here to clean. I have Skip, my factotum, who is always only a phone call away. Here I am with more free time than I’ve ever had, but time I don’t want to squander on the mundane, on cleaning or shopping. I already resent my laundry, one of the few chores left to me. When I worked, I did everything on the weekends. I mowed the lawn, went grocery shopping, changed the bed, did my laundry and went to the dump every Sunday. Now I have people and more sloth days than anything. I figure I earned them.

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“Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.”

May 11, 2013

The morning is damp and cloudy, and every now and then it rains a bit then stops. The whole day is supposed to be like that: a bit rainy, but I don’t mind. I have laundry to do, a bed to change and a book to read. It’s Killing Lincoln by Bill O’Reilly who’s not a favorite of mine but the book so far has been interesting.

I can hear lawn mowers: a Saturday sound ever since I was little. Now, though, it’s the gas mower and not the click clack of blades. Also missing is the sound of voices, of men talking to one another across lawns.  Mowing was traditionally a man’s job. Women worked inside the house except when hanging laundry and men worked outside. The yard was my father’s realm.

Saturday has always been my favorite day of the week. When I was a kid, it meant no early bedtime on Friday, a matinée in the afternoon during the fall and winter and staying up late until I was tired. This time of year it was a day to roam, to ride bikes, to have no destination in mind and no real plans. Saturday was spontaneous. When I was older, in high school, Saturday meant sleeping late, and Saturday night was reserved for friends. We’d go bowling or to a movie or just hang around together. My friend Tommy would invite us over his house, and his mother would make us pizza, great homemade pizza. When Bobby got his license and a car, we’d go to the drive-in, all of us. I remember laughing a lot.

College was a whole different set of friends and Saturday was party night. Sometimes we’d go to a hockey game and sometimes we’d party before but we always partied after. I remember going for breakfast around two or three in the morning at a local hole in the wall diner. Those were the best eggs I ever tasted. I’d get to bed around four.

When I was in Ghana, Saturday was sometimes go to market day and sometimes it was go see a really old movie outside at the Hotel d’Bull, like a drive-in without the car. Saturday was chore day for the students. They did their laundry and worked  around the school compound, but on Saturday night they had entertainment. Tribal dancing was one of my favorites. Usually Bill and I would roam all over to see the dancers. Peg usually stayed with the baby. Other nights we’d see a movie or a play completion or a singing competition among the houses.  It was, in its own way, a special day.

When I taught, Saturday was grocery shopping day and clean the house day, but it was still the best day of the week. I got to sleep late and I usually needed it. Friday was happy hour day, a day to celebrate the end of the work week, and Saturday was the day to recuperate from all that celebrating. Most Saturday nights I was busy with friends, sometimes we’d see a movie or just hang around together.

Now I joke that every day is Saturday, but there are still a few hold-over traditions. When it gets warmer, Saturday will be movie on the deck night. I love that. It’s like a return to the matinée days but without getting hit by a JuJu bead or having a flashlight shined in my eyes.

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Comments: 18 Comments

“I’ve buried a lot of my laundry in the back yard.”

April 6, 2013

My house was cold when I woke up this morning. I needed socks. Without warm feet, I’m doomed to feel chilly even in slippers. I felt a bit of a nip in the air when I went to get the papers. Gracie was quickly out and quickly back inside. She and the two cats are having their morning naps. After all, they have been up all of three hours.

I wonder who first decided toast was for breakfast. I toast sandwich bread too but mostly I don’t, except for BLT bread which demands to be toasted. I always toast my bread for breakfast so a toaster is a must in my kitchen. Was toast happenstance or a brilliant idea? That’s one of the mysteries of life. I hate crooked pictures. Why go to all the trouble of locating the right spot, finding a nail, hammering it onto the wall and then hanging a picture you totally forget about? Pictures by their very shape need to be straight. I don’t mind an unmade bed. I like a made bed better, but I’m okay if it’s unmade. I think that’s because I don’t go upstairs enough to be bothered by it. Sometimes clothes sit in my dryer for a few days or even a week until I do laundry again. Folding it and then bringing the laundry up two flights is one of my least favorite chores. The laundry rush used to happen when I ran out of clean underwear, but that’s no longer the case. I bought plenty for my trip to Ghana so the laundry can sit in the dryer for a while. I don’t care about wrinkles. No where I go has a sign which says shoes, shorts and no wrinkles. Dirty dishes in the sink drive me crazy. I wash them by hand every day as I don’t have near enough for the dishwasher, and I want my favorite coffee cup every morning. I hate bad grammar being spoken on a TV series. It perpetuates the downfall of the English language. I care, but other people don’t. I get the line,”You understood it, didn’t you? That drives me crazy. If a song is sung off-tune, I can still hear it. Is that enough?

I have to go out today. Gracie and I have a few errands, but I’ll have to wait until later this afternoon. I’d hate to disturb her nap-time.

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“There are no miracles on Mondays.”

March 18, 2013

Monday has always been my least popular day. Because work started again, the horrific sound of the alarm jolted me from bed, disoriented me and made me bemoan my fate of five more days until the weekend. I was always tired on Mondays regardless of how much sleep I got on the weekends. I don’t work now, but I am still not fond of Mondays. The papers are thin. It seems there is never much news on a Sunday to write about on a Monday. I suffer from lethargy, not as severe as on a work day Monday but it’s still a lack of enthusiasm to do anything of substance. I keep staring at the laundry bags sitting in the hall waiting to go downstairs to be washed. This would be the perfect time for laundry elves who would leave my clothes cleaned and folded. I have to fill the bird feeders, a small task grown out of proportion by the day of the week. I’m already tired or maybe I’m just still tired.

It was sunny when I woke up, a strange phenomenon, but the world has righted itself and now it’s cloudy. A rain snow mix is expected tonight. We’ll have mostly rain, less than a half-inch. North of us will have snow.

I could do an errand today, but I won’t. I’m staying home. I’ll get it done tomorrow. Tuesdays are nothing days which have no innate negativity, no descriptions of any sort and no nicknames. Nobody says TGIT and hump day is Wednesday. Tuesday is the forgotten day unless we count monumental events like Black Tuesday or Super Tuesday. I don’t.

Yesterday I watched a baseball game. It was the Sox and the Jays. The Red Sox wore green hats and green shirts for St. Patrick’s Day. Lester pitched six great innings. I was envious of the people in the stands who were dressed in summer clothes. I hoped they were hot and sweaty. I am not above a bit of spite.

My coffee this morning was monkey poop coffee my nephew brought back from Bali.

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“When you can’t figure out what to do, it’s time for a nap.”

March 7, 2013

The wind is howling and twisting and turning the pine branches which seem to bend enough to touch the ground. The rain began falling last night, and when I woke up, I could hear it on the roof and windows. As I’m writing, wet snow, slanted by the wind from the north, is beginning to fall, but it hasn’t the look of permanence. The rain will be back, and the wind will howl all day into tomorrow.

The wind is the sort which is the backbone of every tale told by the fire, tales of creatures who roam the night, their sounds muted by the wind. Branches against the windows become scratches made by disfigured hands or even hooks. I remember those stories my father told us. We knew they weren’t real or at least pretended to know, but fear is more easily muted in a warm house with lots of lights and closed doors and my father to protect us.

We did a couple of errands yesterday and today we’ll stay home. It is a day not fit for man nor beast. I had to push Gracie out the door this morning, and the trauma has kept her napping on the couch for hours. Maddie and Fern, neither of whom had any trauma, are also napping. I imagine theirs are gestures of solidarity.

Today is laundry day maybe. I did bring it down from upstairs, but that doesn’t mean anything. The laundry bag can sit against the cellar door for a day or two without me caring. The old me, the before I retired me, would already have had the laundry washed, dried, folded and ready for upstairs. The retired me just dropped it by the door.

The day is ugly. I have no ambition, but I don’t really need any. I have a new book that seems to want my attention. I didn’t make my bed on purpose, not out of laziness but rather because the thought that today, a dark, dismal, rainy day is perfect for a nap in a cozy, warm bed.

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Comments: 10 Comments

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

February 24, 2013

I heard the most welcome of sounds when I woke up this morning, the sound of rain on the roof. I didn’t hear people shoveling or a plow working its way down the street. I heard heavy rain, and I was glad. The day may be dismal and dark, but the rain is a bright spot, sort of oxymoronic I know, but that’s the way it feels.

I am going to Hyannis today. It is really not very far, but I sometimes think of the journey as a trek of sorts. I’m attending a luncheon with the Cape Cod Returned Peace Corps group. We get together every now and then. The last time was in October for the dedication of a stone we’d purchased with a plaque on it celebrating fifty years of Peace Corps and honoring all who served. This luncheon is to recognize Peace Corps week. It starts early so I should be home early which is perfect as I have promised Gracie we will go the dump even if it’s still raining.

When I was younger, not young, but younger, never did I imagine I would pamper myself so much. My groceries were just delivered by Peapod, and they’re already put away. I didn’t have to go up and down aisles silently cursing the aisle hogs or make three or four trips from the car to bring the groceries into the house. When snow fell the last two weekends, I waited for Skip who plowed out my car, the driveway, the mail box and the place in front where I usually park. He shoveled two walks. My front lawn is covered in small, broken pine branches felled by the winds. The back yard has several larger branches on the ground, also victims of the wind. I know in a few months my landscaper and his crew will come and spring clean both yards. Roseana and Lee will be here this week to clean the house. They come every two weeks. I do cleaning in the off-week but usually as little as possible. I have had cleaning people for years, even before I lived here. They date back to when I had a roommate and we shared a house. We both worked, and that was our excuse for housecleaners. She got married and sold her house so I bought my own house. For a long while I cleaned it myself due to finances, not a work ethic, but as soon I could afford it, I hired housecleaners again. When I stopped working, I still kept the housecleaners. Age and a bad back finished off my shoveling career. When I redid the yard, I used a landscaper and decided he was the best choice to keep the grass green and free of weeds. I am, for the most part, a woman of leisure though I am still stuck making and changing the bed and doing laundry. I guess we all need a bit of suffering to keep us humble.

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“After enlightenment, the laundry.”

November 15, 2012

The house is dark; outside is uninviting. It is an ugly, raw day with a cloud-filled sky. The yard got cleaned this morning, and the guys let Gracie escape through the back gate. They opened it without checking, and off she went. It was a catch me if you can game. Gracie would stop and wait until one of the guys got close then she’d run, stop to wait then run again. Finally I called my friend at the end of the street, and she went right to him.

I still haven’t grocery shopped yet, but today I must as the last of the dry cat food was used to fill their dish this morning. The wash, though, got done yesterday, but it is sitting in the dryer. I’ll get to it sometime.

I remember laundry stiff from the cold hanging on the lines. My mother would brave the weather, bring in the still damp laundry and hang it in the cellar so it would dry. She always hung up her laundry in the same way. Shirts were clothes-pinned to the line by their bottom edges and one shirt was attached to the next so three clothespins hung up two shirts. It was the same with sheets though she’d double those over the line. I don’t remember us having anything but white sheets back then. The clothespins were wooden. My mother would slide the clothespin bag along the line as she hung the clothes. She’d have a clothespin in her hand and one sticking out of her mouth, and then she’d maneuver being careful not to drop the clothes. It was like sleight of hand to hang and pin. My mother was a master.

No one around here hangs clothes anymore. The house next door, a summer rental, has a clothesline hanging between two pine trees, but I only see towels and bathing suits on it. My sister uses her clothesline in the warmer months. It saves money and the clothes, especially the sheets, smell wonderful.

I still remember getting into a bed freshly made with sheets smelling of the sun. It is one of my favorite sense memories, that smell. It is right up there with burning leaves. When I first moved here I had a clothesline, but my allergies didn’t take well to the pine pollen so I had to buy a dryer. I’m still sorry about that.

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“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

November 12, 2012

Today I am an advocate of brevity. It will be a short post with nothing earth-shaking, witty or thought-provoking. The reason is simple: the day is gorgeous, warm and lovely. When I went to get the papers, I stayed outside for the longest time and struggled to force myself back into the house. I really wanted to get my keys, jump into the car, put the windows down and go wandering; of course, I’d have gotten Miss Grace to be my companion for the trip. She appreciates a nice day and a good ride.

A load of laundry sits in the downstairs hall waiting to go to the cellar to be washed. It will wait a long time. I stripped my bed this morning and haven’t yet made it and won’t before I leave. For some strange reason, I think leaving the mattress bare is the house equivalent of wearing the dirty underwear our mothers always warned us about, but I’ll take the risk.

Tomorrow I have designated errand day. I have a slew of them. I, of course, am assuming that a bunch of errands is called a slew though I wouldn’t be averse to using a murder of errands. The crows won’t mind sharing. I have already showered so all I need do is brush my teeth, get dressed and go.

Enjoy your day. I will most assuredly enjoy mine!

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“I’d like to be tidy, said Hen, I try, but I guess you can’t be what you aren’t.”

October 8, 2012

I woke up to a blue sky and a sunny morning. It was late, as late as I’ve slept in for a long time, but I didn’t go to bed until close to three. It was just one of those nights when Hypnos and Morpheus were elsewhere. I didn’t mind. I kept busy.

It’s a stay home day with lots to do around the house. I have to pay the bills, a drudgery I hate, and I need to take the screens off both doors and replace them with glass as the back door stays open so Gracie can come and go, but it was really chilly last night so I eventually had to close that door. Gracie, of course, then wanted out over and over again. She rang her bells and kept ringing them until I got up. Sometimes she didn’t even go out. The rest of my chore list includes changing the litter boxes, watering the plants and doing the laundry. It’s a long list, and somewhere in there I’d like to fit in a nap, maybe I can put off the laundry.

It rained most of last night. I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, and I could hear the rain on the roof. It wasn’t a heavy rain, but it was a steady rain.

Last night, with all that time on my hands, I went into my memory drawers and thought about when I was in grammar school. I remembered my first couple of grades when we had desks which probably dated from the opening of the school in 1910. The desks were wooden and were attached to the floor by screws through the bottoms of their metal legs. The chairs were also wooden but had metal parts which ended in circles flush with the floor and these were either screwed or nailed into the floor so they didn’t move either. We had trouble finding our books which were stored inside those desks. We had to bend over to look and sometimes we’d have to pull out a book or two before we’d find the right one. On the top of the desks were the grooves for our pencils. We didn’t use pens in the early grades. On the floor, below the chair, was where we’d put our lunch boxes. Our jackets were always in the cloak room.

When we got older, our rooms had newer desks. Those desks were also wooden, a blond wood, but the tops lifted and we could see everything kept inside but then so could the nuns. They weren’t happy with messy desks, with desks filled with crumpled papers or pointless pencils, so we had periodic clean our desk afternoons, usually late on Fridays when the nun had probably already lost our attention. One boy would slowly walk up the aisles holding the basket, and he’d stop at each pair of desks to give us time to throw everything away. The basket would get filled so the basket boy would have to take it to the basement to the trash barrels then he’d come back and do it all over again: up an aisle and stop, up an aisle and stop then back to the basement. I always wanted to be the basket person who got to leave the room, and I’d raise my hand and wiggle it in the air hoping to be chosen, but the nuns never chose me or any other girl. It was not a fit job for a  young lady.

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