Monday, April 07, 2008

Laundry

Sunday, I did a ton of laundry. Not a metric ton, and not at once, but about seven loads. I'm guesstimating that I haven't done laundry in about a month, or if I had, it wasn't a very organized affair. I think I squeezed in a couple of loads that I never bothered to fold. I'm slightly bothered by the wording, "squeezed in a couple of loads," but I'll trust you to draw the right conclusion. It's an incredible feeling to look into your closet on a Monday morning and see a nigh-endless vista of possibilities.

One casualty: I had to part with one of my favorite pair of khakis, whose pocket I had ripped beyond repair. Holes in legs I can forgive. Shredded cuffs look pretty cool. Pockets, though, I use. You may take my life, but don't force me to surrender my pants with the extra pockets at the knees. If I could get away with parading around in a flight suit with pockets from neck to shins, I think I probably would just buy a pair of goggles and have done with it. But a ripped upper pocket means you can't hold your cell phone, or your wallet, or have to transfer one or the other to a dangerous back pocket (which for cell phones means potential crushing, wallets, stealing) or to a knee pocket (which can cause damage to your knees when you run). I've thought this through entirely too thoroughly. At any rate, the pants now rest in peace in the kitchen garbage, the closest large garbage can to the laundry.

In the middle of the laundry, Brandi and I took a trip to Best Buy, where I bought a USB network adapter for my Mac Mini, the better to hook our newfangled flatscreen television up to a computer, which we could then network and do videoconferencing from our couch. Surprisingly enough, this vision of a networked den worked on the third try, and we had a nice midday chat with Brandi's parents in Florida, marveling at our ability to say "hello!" and "what's up!" and other things of not much of consequence through 1800 miles' distance, and for nearly free. It was at Best Buy where we snapped the above picture, which is also an homage to my father in law, Eric Kleinert, author of "Troubleshooting and Repairing Major Home Appliances." The t-shirt comes courtesy of our friend Marla, who toured America on behalf of a major hotel chain and returned with free snarky tees for friends. The saying on it looks a bit like a surreal caption: who, after all, wouldn't wake up after finding himself trapped inside a washing machine? And why do we need reassurance? Shouldn't we be helping this chap?

Brandi looks way cooler in her shot:

2 comments:

Karen said...

We need to get a copy of Eric's book. Our washer has been leaking oil for like forever. I drool openly over the beautiful brightly colored front loaders when I'm out at home improvement stores. While felting can supposedly be done in a front loader it is even more difficult and mystical then when felting in a top loader. I loves my felting so no pretty front loader for me. :-(

Love the pics of you and Brandi out and about having fun. ;-)

Matt said...

We have stacked front loaders at home, but no gorgeous clear fronts, so we can only tell laundry is done by the beeping, or by it stopping, whichever we're paying attention to at the moment. Brandi's comment when we were walking out of Best Buy was, "Hey, want to buy a second washer/dryer set?"

"Sure!" I said. But I didn't mean it. Luckily, neither did she.

I love your felting, too. It's kind of like your superpower, and nearly as powerful as flight or invisibility.

Thanks!