Just For Fun

Splashing in the water on a 90-degree day. It conjures up delightful images of diving into waves from sun-kissed beaches, wading in rippling little streams, or running through sprinklers in the back yard.

Fill that water with half-laundered clothes, however, and suddenly the enjoyment factor goes down faster than the water drains out of a washing machine. Well, as fast as the water would drain out if the washer were actually working. Which, in the middle of the wash cycle for a large load, on the day before my partner was leaving on a six-week overseas trip, our washer stopped doing.

First I did the obvious things like checking the circuit breaker, trying to restart the machine, and plugging it into a different outlet. No luck. Then I thumped the washer a few times, hoping to resuscitate it with what a handyman member of the family calls "percussive maintenance." Nada.

The next step was to haul the sopping items out, dump them into a bucket, and lug them over to the big sink in the utility room. In the process, I learned an effective method to fish for floating socks at the bottom of a washer full of cold, scummy water. If you swish your arm around the tub a few times to start the water swirling in one direction, then move your hand against the current for a couple of cycles, you can grab those last few elusive socks as they swim by.

I filled the utility sink with water and rinsed the clothes by hand, twice. Looking on the bright side, I did discover that our big bath towels were every bit as absorbent as they were supposed to be. Judging from how much they weighed, they held a lot of water. Wringing them out by hand was probably wonderful for the triceps and shoulders, but by the end of the second rinse I wasn't fully appreciating the fitness benefits.

Once the clothes were finally in the dryer, it was time to deal with the water in the washer. For anyone who cares to know, a Kenmore Model 110 heavy duty washer, extra large capacity plus, holds approximately 15 gallons of water. This estimate is based on the number of scoops it took to bail the water into a bucket with a one-quart yogurt container. Unfortunately, anything bigger didn't fit between the agitator and the side of the tub.

Finally, it was time to sit down and rest, with chocolate in one hand, the phone in the other, and the yellow pages open to "appliance repairs." Of course, someone would be glad to come look at the washer. The earliest available appointment? Certainly. That would be 10 days from now.

On the wall of our laundry room hangs an old, well-used washboard. It's a reminder of just how much hard work laundry used to be and gives me a sense of appreciation for my grandmothers and great-grandmothers. I'll probably think of it, and them, a lot next week.

While I'm sitting at the Dew Drop Laundromat with my e-reader.

If the second Wednesday of a given month occurs one week, then the third Tuesday of that same month will obviously fall on the following week. That's simple logic and common sense. It's also the pattern that helps us keep track of the monthly meetings of two organizations we belong to.

We dutifully went to the every-second-Wednesday meeting last week. This week, then, we headed off for the every-third-Tuesday meeting. It always starts with a potluck, so we had prepared an appealing green salad in generous proportions. I followed my usual potluck habit of taking something conspicuously healthful while secretly hoping a lot of other people would bring desserts.

We left the house in good time, since the meeting was way over on the other side of town. In addition to all those theoretical desserts, we were looking forward to the program. It sounded interesting, based on the description on the reminder postcard we had received a few days earlier.

When we got to the building, it was dark. No cars out front. No lights on inside. No people anywhere. Okay, it was Valentine's Day, which is probably second only to Mother's Day in the number of people who go out to eat, so the turnout may have been light. Still, at least the speaker and the president should have been there.

That was when we figured out that the third Tuesday of a given month doesn't always fall in the week after the second Wednesday. Logical patterns are all very well, but sometimes it pays to look at the calendar. Since the first Wednesday this month was February 1, the third Tuesday won't be till the 21st.

Funny, when we got home and took a closer look at it, that was exactly the date on the reminder postcard.

The same date, probably, that we'll finally finish eating all that salad.

Crisp ribbons perfectly coordinated with elegant wrapping paper. Sharp, even corners. Edges of the paper perfectly trimmed and turned under. Tiny bits of invisible tape discreetly applied in precisely the right places. Some Christmas packages are so beautiful that you hesitate to even mar their perfection by opening them. The givers of these gifts are so skillful that they make gift wrapping into fine art.

I am not one of these people.

(Let's pause for just a minute to let all of you who know me get over your surprise.) Okay, that didn't take long.

I do, actually, have a piece of paper stashed in a closet somewhere certifying that I graduated from college with a major in art. It might seem logical, then, that I would be the artistic type when it comes to packages. Nope. I must have registered late the semester they offered Gift Wrapping 101.

My packages tend to come out lopsided. True, this may be partly because I never seem to have boxes the right size for the gifts. I tend to roll things up in several layers of paper or recycled plastic bags, creating odd-sized, lumpy parcels that I then try to camouflage with wrapping paper.

Even when I do use boxes, though, I never quite achieve that professional designer look. The wrong side of the paper always peeks out somewhere. The tape always shows. I never quite manage to cut the paper perfectly straight, even though my primary objective when I buy wrapping paper is to get a design with straight lines on it. And let's not even talk about ribbons. I think I used to have a bag of used bows somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it for several years.

I was intrigued, then, to read an article in this week's paper about decorator who teaches a class on creative gift wrapping. This woman makes her own boxes. She makes bows out of scrap ribbons. She creatively recycles materials from around the house. Among her suggestions for wrapping homemade canned goods was to use a hollowed-out piece of birch log. On her list of essential gift-wrapping supplies is something called "raffia ribbon."

I have no clue what raffia ribbon even is. I suspect from some of her suggested uses for it, however, that if I did encounter some I might commit a decorating faux pas by calling it "twine."

Obviously, this woman takes her gift-wrapping seriously. It's a good thing I didn't know about her class in time to sign up. I'd probably have flunked.

Or maybe not. She did have kind words for recycling by using the same gift bags year after year. And she said a popular style for wrapping this year is "shabby chic."

I don't know about "chic." "Shabby," though? That part, I can certainly do.

A long time ago, I remember reading something in a murder mystery that made me want to slam the book shut and throw it against the nearest wall. No, it wasn't a factual error, such as having a character load a clip into a revolver or locating Mount Rushmore in North Dakota. Nor was it a case of the previously strong-minded and capable heroine walking blindly into deadly peril when any person with an ounce of common sense would simply have called the cops.

This was even worse.

The author described the contents of a female character's purse. It contained a comb, a lipstick, a compact, a few dollars, and a handkerchief (clean, of course, and neatly folded). That was it.

A male author might possibly have been forgiven this editorial faux pas—though it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect him to have done a little basic research. This author, however, was a woman. She knew better.

The pristine purse she described had no odd pennies in the bottom. No wadded-up tissues, used and otherwise. No random grocery lists. No wrappers from restaurant after-dinner mints. No cough drops so old they had melted to their paper wrappers. No car keys. No bobby pins, nail file, or lip balm. No pens, working or not. No lonely mates to long-lost earrings. No napkins with mysterious phone numbers or to-do reminders written on them. Not even, somewhere in the bottom, a wallet or a checkbook. (No cell phone, either, but that was okay because they hadn't been invented yet.)

As I recall, the character was looking through her purse in search of something that might help her escape from a dangerous situation. She didn't find anything useful.

Served her right, too. A real woman would have been equipped to pick a lock with a bobby pin or fend off the bad guy with a nail file. Or at least try to choke him with a couple of stuck-together cough drops.