Old-fashioned laundry
Apr. 18th, 2004 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosYesterday I cheerfully did a couple loads of laundry. It's nice, now that the dryer is fixed. Without it, I could only do one small load at a time because everything had to be hung to dry around my apartment: on the hall banister, over a drying line strung in front of the bathroom door, over the shower rod, over the rungs of the bunk and on a drying rack Danny salvaged. Doing two loads yesterday meant I could catch up on a pile of towels and place mats I seldom use. Towels come out of the dryer much fresher than after hang-drying indoors. It was heaven.
To do laundry I have to go through the back of the florist shop downstairs to reach the basement. The woman who usually works there, Joanne, is pleasant to chat with, but occasionally someone else comes in to replace her. Sometimes it's a nosey and irritating blond woman in her twenties. Yesterday it was an elderly couple in their seventies; I think they're the owner's parents.
The sun had come out when I went downstairs at noon to check the dryer. As I passed through, the woman said, "The rain has stopped. It's a nice day for doing laundry now."
I said yes or something, but the statement didn't make sense to me. Frankly I would just as soon do laundry on a rainy day. Her comment was one of those puzzling things that gets filed in the G section of my brain, but sometimes comes sifting out later.
This morning it occurs that she probably remembers a time when a housewife's delight was a sunny spring day when she could hang the laundry out.
It reminds me that Mom once told how her hands were always sore in the winter when she was a young woman, and she couldn't figure out why. Eventually my parents got their first dryer, and Mom's winter hand aches stopped. It wasn't until then she realized it had come from hanging out loads of diapers and other laundry in cold weather.
I'm still doing housework, expecting a friend to drop in shortly, but wanted to record this while it was on my mind. I like when people give hints of what everyday life was like in a by-gone era. We shouldn't lose these cultural memories. Maybe someday I'll have a chance to write some of them into a book.
To do laundry I have to go through the back of the florist shop downstairs to reach the basement. The woman who usually works there, Joanne, is pleasant to chat with, but occasionally someone else comes in to replace her. Sometimes it's a nosey and irritating blond woman in her twenties. Yesterday it was an elderly couple in their seventies; I think they're the owner's parents.
The sun had come out when I went downstairs at noon to check the dryer. As I passed through, the woman said, "The rain has stopped. It's a nice day for doing laundry now."
I said yes or something, but the statement didn't make sense to me. Frankly I would just as soon do laundry on a rainy day. Her comment was one of those puzzling things that gets filed in the G section of my brain, but sometimes comes sifting out later.
This morning it occurs that she probably remembers a time when a housewife's delight was a sunny spring day when she could hang the laundry out.
It reminds me that Mom once told how her hands were always sore in the winter when she was a young woman, and she couldn't figure out why. Eventually my parents got their first dryer, and Mom's winter hand aches stopped. It wasn't until then she realized it had come from hanging out loads of diapers and other laundry in cold weather.
I'm still doing housework, expecting a friend to drop in shortly, but wanted to record this while it was on my mind. I like when people give hints of what everyday life was like in a by-gone era. We shouldn't lose these cultural memories. Maybe someday I'll have a chance to write some of them into a book.
