thisendoftheswamp

Other than the two years I lived in Section 8 housing, I’ve always gone to the laundromat. When the girls were all at home, we could do eight loads of laundry, washed, dried, folded and on hangers, plus get the grocery shopping done, and be back home in two and a half hours. I was working full time then and didn’t have the time to hang the clothes on the line, but that is what I prefer. It’s a very Zen thing – bend and stretch, bend and stretch – and do the same when they are dry. I can take them down and get them folded into the basket in the order they get put away. Bath towels on the bottom, sheets next, then The Squire’s things, my stuff, the ironing, and finally the tea towels and dish clothes. I walk through the house, putting things away as I go, tea towels in the kitchen, leaving the ironing in the sewing room (never to be seen again!) and finally stowing the towels in the linen closet and putting the basket beside the dryer.

The weather is still too cool and damp to hang stuff out, so we use the dryer. What might take two half-hour bites of time now takes most of the day. Put a load in, drag it out and dump it on the dining room table. Over and over and over. Different settings, different times. Yeesh.

There’s more to it than simply preferring to do the laundry out. We have a well, and we live fairly close to the Chesapeake Bay. We can really tell that the water levels are rising, as our water now has a lot of iron in it and turns stuff pink. We also have a septic system that won’t handle an automatic washer, and I simply refuse to run grey water into the yard – and the stream.

And The Squire and I still stop and get the groceries on the way home!

Or something.

We always line our trashcans with plastic bags, and I prefer to use bags from a particular grocery store in the bathroom because they are brown, as is that can. We don’t normally shop there, as it is A) pricier than we like, and B) it’s about five miles farther than at least two other stores. However, whenever The Squire is headed that way, he’ll swing in and see if he can “liberate” at fistful of them.

Last week he came home with three grocery bags, each stuffed full of even more bags! I spent the better part of a morning, folding and stacking those fool things Fortunately, I found a box that was a suitable size, and stuffed six months’ worth in there, but I still have a bunch falling off the dryer.

What was he thinking?

Oh, I know about the birds and the bees and all that jazz, but I will wipe the counter clean, and two seconds later, there is an ant – right in the middle of the counter! I never see them walking from wherever they are sneaking in, so I can put down Terro. They just appear – poof! – out of the air. And never more than two at a time.

Weirdest thing ever. Can ants teleport?