A Lava Load of Laundry

It has been sorted into 12 loads. That's three loads of hang-up-out-of-the-dryer, three loads of towels & washcloths, two loads of T-shirts/shorts/knits, a load of blue jeans, two loads of socks/undies, and one load of a couple of blankets.

And that doesn't count the small load of dye session towels that are in now. (See the KFYS Club blog for pictures of yarn I dyed.) Those towels have to be washed in hot water in a load unto themselves lest the dye decide to migrate to other items. (The dye on the towels has not been fixed as it has been on the yarn. I'm not going to waste vinegar on towels that are for mopping up dye and other disgusting spills.)

The laundry has been accumulating for a few weeks due to illness (2 weeks ago) and a massive clean up (last weekend). It will probably take all week to get to this stuff. I'm going to take the load of socks/undies over to my mom's tomorrow so I can attend to them in between sewing and visiting and playing cards with her. I'm looking forward to getting away!

Pyramids of Z Street

I married an archeologist, so it should be no wonder that cleaning up our house is somewhat akin to the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamen, with the exception that these are remnants of 20th century culture we're discovering.

"Honey, just how many Walkmans did you own?" I ask, picking out two of them from a cardboard box at the back of a closet.

"I kept breaking them," he says.

"You got the sport model," I observe, noting the bright yellow plastic casing. I don't ask why he didn't discard them. Archeologists don't discard anything; they leave them to be catalogued, tagged and stored, even if there are just pieces remaining.

"They were supposed to be stronger," he says.

"Can I turn this into a rag?" I ask, holding up a small t-shirt from B.R.A.N. 7 (the Bike Ride Across Nebraska in 1987). It's a size to fit a 10-year-old and it's full of holes.

He gives me a pained expression, the one that asks, How could you possibly think I would even consider it when it cost me a week of hard riding? I fold the shirt reverently and add it to a neat stack on the top shelf with his t-shirts from other bike rides. He doesn't wear them (they wouldn't fit any more anyway). They are trophies of a different place and time.

We were able to agree on some things to go into a garage sale: Some old lithographs that had belonged to his parents that he'd never much cared for in the first place, a dusty grey fedora that had been his father's, the bamboo torches (the kind that use lamp oil) we'd received as a gift 15 years ago but never used. I'll be putting in some skeins of yarn, an old punch bowl, some stuffed animals, and other craft items. There have enough to hold a nice garage sale and maybe we'll make enough to buy a textbook or two.

I'm embarrassed a bit to think how bent out of shape I got yesterday about money and costs and fancy dinners and absent fairy godmothers. As I go through the house and learn that we're well enough off to be able to get rid of some things, I know that I have nothing to complain about. We're making it; we will survive.

Considering my mother is near enough to death's door that she doesn't have to shout for God to hear her (and I tell her to remind Him that she'll be there soon enough to give Him what-for if He doesn't get off His heavenly arse to answer her prayers), it's nice to know she's praying for us every day.

Yep, I think we're going to make it through this.

This Mess is a Place

This is the wreckage that is my kitchen and dining area. Brace yourself. I have more photos of the carnage:

It should make a reasonable person blush with shame. Dishes, papers, miscellaneous stuff, foodstuffs . . . Ed has the responsibility of cleaning up the kitchen area, and I have to clean up the dining area.

Oh, yeah, here's that detail photo:

Believe it or not, I've actually done some work on that area since taking the photo. I've got the trash bin half full with stuff thrown away and from emptying the shredder twice. I was thinking of using all of the shredded stuff for a papier mache sculpture -- you know, something as an homage to the mess, but I think these photos are enough.

Right now I'm contenting myself with throwing away what I can right away (catalogs, old magazines, old flyers) and setting aside the rest to go through. There are old statements that can be shredded, for example, and those silly "Pre-Approved" offers. Some letters and cards, of course, I am keeping. And I'm finding various odds and ends (packing tape, pens, glue sticks, buttons) among the mess. I might just have to bag up the stuff to be shredded and take it someplace because my lovely little home shredder is going to be overwhelmed, to say nothing of needing to be emptied every 10 minutes.

The best laid plans . . .

This sinus infection has really put me down. Nothing has been done to improve the condition of our home since August 2-3 when I cleaned out a back room. The dining room is still overflowing with papers and crap that needs to be sorted (throw away, shred, and keep). I think I'll set up the TV so that I can watch Olympics stuff while I do that, presuming I can keep my head from exploding. Gawd, I feel like hell.

It's an exercise in faith for me to be among this mess without doing anything about it -- faith that I will feel better, faith that I will be able to tackle this soon, faith that it can be done without losing my soul in the battle to bring a bit of orderliness to our lives.

In my lucid moments this past weekend I've been enjoying some of the Olympic Games. I watched a bit of women's fencing (sabers) as well as women's sand volleyball and learned a little more about those sports. It seems that when it's a sport that doesn't get much air time on the networks you get to hear more informed commentary.

Last night I watched a bit of women's gymnastics qualifying, one of my favorites, and I was awake for some of the swimming races. I found myself rooting for the 4th swimmer on the US Men's 400 meter relay team. He looked to be bringing in the team at 2nd place, then he moved ahead and touched the pad at just .08 seconds before his rival on the French team. It was a spectacular finish, and an upset because the French team was expected to win.

Just before that I saw one of the women's team swimmers lose by .07 seconds to a rival on the Great Britain team in a 400 meter swim. Again, it was a beautiful and exciting contest. A swimmer from Italy was the favorite to win. A swimmer from France had the lead in the beginning, then the US swimmer pulled ahead after 250 meters. In the last 25 meters she was failing, and here came the swimmer from Great Britain who wasn't expected to get a medal at all. It was a great match -- a disappointment for the girl who worked so hard for that lead, to be sure, but a great match.

In an odd way, I find that this sinus infection has sidelined my plans and my progress on getting the house in order much in the same way an athlete gets sidelined for injury. I saw the utter frustration and sadness on the face of one of the US team gymnasts because she couldn't compete in floor exercise due to an injury that happened at the end of practice. She couldn't compete in that event and therefore would not qualify to compete for a medal in that event. (I saw on the news that she was able to compete in the uneven parallel bars.) She was prepared, but she ended up sidelined. Well, that's me. The difference is that I'll get better and be able to tackle this. The difference is that I'll never get a medal for dealing with this mess (but I'll be happier for it).