Tag: washer

Don’t Stop the Music

Ah, it’s marvelous having a dryer again. And it’s an upgrade from the last one, which actually cost more, so winning on chore fronts here in the Lost Apartment.

Which says a lot about how spoiled I am. My grandmother used to wash the clothes in an agitator on her back porch that she had to fill with hot water and had a ringer to crush excess water out of the clothes before hanging them on the line. IMAGINE how long that must have taken, and how long it took for the clothes to dry in the heat and humidity of an Alabama summer when it could also rain at any moment without notice. Modern conveniences are quite marvelous, really, and I don’t think we appreciate how much time they actually do save us. Granted, I could load all the laundry up in the back of the car and go to a laundromat and get it all finished in about two hours; but that’s two hours where I would have to sit in a laundromat and either read/ or stare at my phone…and it’s never really quite comfortable in a laundromat anywhere. Also, the one around the corner closed due to the pandemic so yeah, I’d have to get in the car and take it somewhere, and have coins and all that nonsense; although I suppose with all the marvelous modern technology that has sprung up since the last time I went to a laundromat (when the washing machine was broken and we were waiting for its replacement) would enable people to use electronic payments? I don’t know, and I’d prefer to never find out, quite frankly.

But you know something? Sitting at my desk doing data entry to the washing machine agitating and the dryer tumbling and heating was weirdly comforting; a return to my normal Friday routine of chores and day-job duties–almost like the world has been slightly tilted off its axis for a while and has finally settled back into the way it’s supposed to be around here. I also wound up having to run my errands after work yesterday, because I remembered (fortunately, thank you, Facebook) that today is the St. Patrick’s Day parade, which makes access to everywhere I would need to go nearly impossible or an enormous time-consuming pain in the ass. So I picked up the mail and made groceries after I finished work yesterday, and will see about washing the car on Sunday (and possibly a trip to the Fresh Market, since it’s right there). Saturday will be my day of not leaving the house, which is probably for the best–although I do need to take clothes to the dry cleaners. Hmmm. They aren’t open on Sunday. Hmmm. *adds dry cleaning to Saturday to-do list*

I had to disassemble the bottom shelf of the laundry room so they could remove the non-heating dryer and install our new one, and once I finished my work for the day I started putting the room back together again–I have framed covers of my books on the walls in there, and I had taken those down too. I started putting the covers up not remembering where they were originally and I thought well, who wants it to look the same again for the next ten years anyway and so I just started hanging them wherever. The same with the books. I had to put the shelf back and then the books; so I started reorganizing and pruning, and then started working my way through the upper shelves to make it at least look neat, if cluttered. The fun thing about doing this sort of thing is you start unearthing treasures–“oh, there that is!” and “Oh, I’d forgotten about you!” and “oh yes, I still want to write that story this was research for” and “Oh, yes, definitely want to reread that sometime” and “Oh, I am so far behind on her series!” that makes it kind of like an adventure and less like an odious chore.

Plus, making it all neater looking to the eye pleases my OCD, and I can fold my arms with a smug sense of satisfaction when I look at them. Now if only I can accomplish the same in the living room…

I slept really well last night, and even stayed up later than usual. Paul came home last night (!!!) and we watched the LSU-West Virginia gymnastics meet, which was way fun, and then this week’s The Mandalorian. I did wind up staying later than I would have preferred–not sure how that happened, to be honest–but I feel very rested and relaxed today, which means I think it will be a good and productive day. Paul has his trainer later this morning and then will head off to the office, so I have the day to myself to clean and write and read and do Gregalicious things. Once I finish this I am going to repair to my easy chair with my coffee and Cheryl Head’s Time’s Undoing, which I am looking forward to finishing–it’s sooooo good–and getting my act together. This week I am seeing my doctor about my toe (appointment on Thursday afternoon) and I need to make the ENT appointment as well as try to get my dentistry needs taken care of, and I should probably make an eye appointment, too. Maintenance becomes increasingly important the older you get, you know. The toe is much better–still hurts, but not throbbing –and of course, by the time I see the doctor, it’ll probably be all fine and he’ll think I’m completely insane, not that he doesn’t already.

Most people do, at any rate.

But the new dryer just beeped which means the last load from yesterday has finished drying, and I am going to go fold some clothes, perhaps put some dishes away (there’s a load in the dishwasher, too, clean) and then read while I swill the rest of my morning coffee. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I may check in with you again later.

Sabotage

So, yesterday was new washing machine day. Thursday evening I took the laundry room apart, went outside and measured the places that looked like they may be too tight for the washer to get through, etc. I also had to move some things around outside as well. But it was finally delivered and installed–right at the end of the window I was given–and then I ran a few errands before coming home to get caught up on laundry and, well, reassemble the laundry room. It didn’t take long, for example, for me to realize that rehanging the doors was a two person job, so the doors will stay down until there’s a day when the handyman is here and I see him outside; he’s very nice, so I can’t imagine he wouldn’t come in and screw the bolts back in while I hold the doors in place.

The new washer is lovely, really; but it is also computer-operated (the dreaded motherboard–which always makes me think, “oh yay, something else that can break”) and it is much more complex and complicated to operate. It also doesn’t have a traditional agitator inside; it’s hard to explain how it actually agitates the laundry, but it does somehow–and the spinning is so strong that the clothes feel merely damp rather than wet when they come out. I also have to get used to the new and different noises it makes–its sounds are vastly different than its predecessor’s, and since the flood when its predecessor broke last week, I am paranoid about washing machine noises.

It’s going to take some getting used to–as well as learning how to use it. My old washer was relatively simple–you chose the water-load size and then selected what kind of cycle and what kind of water temperature you wanted, pulled the dial out, and were done with it until it was finished. This one you choose the water temperature you want, the kind of load (at least eight options) and then the kind of cycle–again, eight options. The basket will spin one direction and then back the other a few times for the sensor to determine how big the load is and how much water it needs–you can also manually ask it to add more water, once the sensor has determined how much to use–and well, yeah, it’s complicated. It’s also “green”–it conserves energy and water, based on those afore-mentioned sensors. (And yes, every time I think “sensors” in the back of my head something whispers something else that can break….)

It also made me curious–when the old washer was taken out and the new one put in, I was able to retrieve some things that had fallen behind it or been knocked underneath it by one cat or the other over the years–we had it for sixteen years and two cats, after all, it was a miracle there weren’t more things underneath it–but the floor was filthy beneath, just disgusting–and of course the delivery guys were on a timetable so I could hardly ask them to wait while I cleaned the floor beneath; which makes me wonder, do people clean regularly beneath their washer and dryer? Considering, in my case, I would have to disconnect them completely and move them out, neither of which would be easy, I am resigned to having a disgustingly filthy floor beneath the two appliances (now I am also wondering about beneath the refrigerator). I would imagine most people probably don’t regularly clean beneath their washer/dryer sets; but I am willing to go out on a limb here and say that my mother probably does.

While reassembling the laundry room I also picked out books to donate to the library, and found lots of books, buried behind stacks of others, that I’d forgotten I even owned. “Oh, yes, I did buy Gloria Steinem’s essay collection, didn’t I? Oh, there’s Rabbit, Run, and that biography of Cardinal Richelieu I was wondering about a few months ago.” So many books–and of course, one of the delivery guys was like, after looking at the shelves in there, the stacks of books on the living room floor and the book cases, with books crammed into the shelves and stacked on top, in a voice of clear wonder, have you read ALL these books?

The answer, of course, is no–one of the things I’ve reluctantly been doing is donating the books I’ve already read to the library sale; figuring that I will never have time to reread them and if I do need to reread them, well, The Reread Project definitely taught me I can certainly reread books in Digital form, even if I may not necessarily want to read them that way originally.

It’s gloomy and raining outside this morning; thunder woke me in the midst of a downpour around four this morning, but the rain lulled me back into a very deep and comfortable sleep, and I suspect it’s going to rain all day–at least it looks that way right now. I haven’t gotten any emergency alerts, so flooding isn’t happening–it’s steady now, not torrential, which usually means the drains and pumps can handle it–but it is indeed a gray morning; perfect for curling up with a book. My emails–ignored yesterday–have gotten a bit out of control (as they always do) and so I am going to have to go through there today. The emails are an endless nightmare for me from which I never seem to be able to either wake up from or get caught up on…but I also kind of snapped this week about them; as always, the stress builds to the point where something in my brain just snaps and I think to myself, it is what it is and I can only do so much per day.

Like, right now I am thinking, go sit in your chair and read for a while—face it all later when you’ve had more coffee and are more awake, and it actually sounds like the plan for the morning. I have to do a ZOOM thing later today for the Northwest chapter of MWA–a question and answer thing for like half an hour about MWA–and I am also going to need some time to prepare for that. There’s also more organizing and cleaning to get done today, and I also started wanting to map out/work on Chlorine this weekend as well as some short stories, and I am going to get back to the gym tomorrow–no desire to walk there today in the rain, frankly–and I also need to start working on the edits for Bury Me in Shadows at some point this weekend. Heavy heaving sigh.

It truly never ends, does it?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader.

Vicious Streak

I skipped posting yesterday because we had to have Paul at the hospital for his colonoscopy by 6:45 am. We were home by nine, but I was completely exhausted–undoubtedly in no small part by turning in the manuscript on Monday–so I decided to just kind of take the day off from everything. I read for a while, Paul and I finished season 3 of Mr. Mercedes, and then a Jeffrey Dahmer documentary, which was creepy as hell and then we found a weird docuseries on ID network in which convicted killers talk about their crimes….also creepy as hell.

Which could explain last night’s insomnia. I slept for about four hours straight through before waking up, and just kind of drifting the rest of the night before the alarm went off. I imagine I am going to be incredibly tired after work tonight; I was thinking about heading to the gym, but I am going to see how I feel when I get home tonight. I’ve not been to the gym in over a week–I correctly recognized going to the gym inevitably wears me out and unable to write (the voice of experience speaking in my head) and so I skipped until the book was finished. I should have gone yesterday, but again–was very worn out and tired for most of the day.

Sunday night as we finished watching The Clown and the Candyman, I kept thinking, some of these neighborhoods and suburbs sound familiar. Constant Reader may remember that I grew up in Chicago, and moved out to the suburbs when I was ten, where we remained for another four and a half years. I grabbed my iPad and typed in the name of our suburb, then asked for the distance between it and Des Plaines, which was Gacy’s stalking ground….and he was thirty miles away from where we lived. I don’t think he and his recruiters ever ventured that far outside their area, but it was still kind of scary and chilling.

I would have been the right age and the right type they were hunting for during the time they were killing.

I think subconsciously that’s why Gacy–and by extension Dean Corll (I’ve been spelling it wrong) in Houston–have always been so interesting in a macabre way to me; if we had lived in that neighborhood in Houston when Corll and his recruiters were killing, again, I was a bit on the young side for Corll when he started killing but would have just squeaked in before he was killed and the spree came to an end.

Yikes.

I also found my copy of Jack Olsen’s The Man with the Candy: The Story of the Houston Mass Murders, and there’s an idea about this story forming in my head for a future book…because of course. It’s been nagging at me since we started watching the Gacy/Corll documentaries; today between clients I will probably scribble down some notes for it.

My new espresso machine arrived yesterday, and I was able to use it this morning. It’s much simpler and easier to use than the previous one, and it works just fine. Huzzah! (It also takes up less space on the counter.) I also got an email that our new washer shipped yesterday, so it should be arriving on Friday. I am really looking forward to having everything in the apartment operational again–the electricians still haven’t come out about the fuse that keeps tripping, though. But the new washing machine will make me feel less like I’ve lost a limb, which is kind of how I feel about it now.

And now, back to the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader!

Your Silent Face

Hello, Thursday, how’s it hangin’?

Yesterday was kind of strange, really. In the morning I had issues with my espresso machine–no worries, I ordered a new one–but since the problem was the water was turning to steam rather than coming through the ground beans, I think the smaller amount of actual coffee produced had a much higher octane than I am used to having in the morning. Since the second cup–which is usually the cappuccino I sip off the rest of the morning at work–was also somewhat smaller than usual, I made a small cup of regular coffee with the Keurig to add to it so I would have enough for the morning.

It was about nine, I think, when I realized I had made a horrible mistake with the caffeine dosages and was essentially bouncing off the walls, over-caffeinated, with the whole eyes burning thing that usually means I am really tired and have had too much caffeine to compensate, and yeah. I was too jittery to do much of anything, and I was talking a mile-a-minute with my clients All. Damned. Day. And of course, on my way home, I had the inevitable caffeine crash…I had intended to go to the gym, but it was also supposed to rain. When I got home, I decided to do a load of laundry, and while that was going, I’d work on some emails, possibly the book, and if it hadn’t started raining by six when I switched the laundry from washer to dryer, I would then head to the gym. As I sat here, being constantly pestered by Scooter (and frankly, being annoyed) I heard water running–loudly; so loud it couldn’t be the washer, so I thought, ah, it’s raining, so the gym is out. But it kept get louder, and finally I looked out the window and realized, to my horror, that it was not, in fact, raining….so I spun around in may chair and saw that not only was the laundry room floor under water, it was spreading into the rugs into the kitchen. I immediately ran (splashed) into the laundry room, lifted the lid to the washer….and there was no water in it, and the sound of running water, naturally, stopped when I lifted the lid. I dragged the sopping wet rugs outside and draped them over the fence to dry, and then gathered up all the towels from inside the washer–oh yes, I was doing a load of towels–and they weren’t enough. I had to get all the towels from the linen closet upstairs to mop up and dry the floor. (Dragging the sopping wet rugs outside had also resulted in pools of water being formed wherever the rugs had passed–so the living room floor, the steps outside–and so I had to keep mopping.)

And of course, not being the most emotionally stable person at the moment–the stress of the deadline, any number of other things, the sense that I am just treading water in the deep end of the pool and getting very very tired–led to an almost amazing storm of emotions, swinging back and forth from a horrific depression (why does everything always have to be so fucking hard? What’s the point of staying positive when life just keeps shoveling shit on top of you?) to almost out of control hysterics (how are we going to afford a new washer? What are we going to do without a washing machine? So from now on every week I’m going to have to drag everything to a laundromat? Because I have nothing else to do? Something else stealing my time away from me?). Yeah, it wasn’t pretty, and when finally the pendulum stopped swinging–I was wringing out the soaking towels in the bathroom sink before putting them in the dryer–an eerie calm had descended over me, and I just didn’t care about anything anymore. This was even more disquieting than the swinging pendulum, frankly–I was worried something in my brain had snapped and the not caring thing was kind of, well, scary. When Paul got home, completely exhausted–he’d stayed up all night Tuesday working on a grant and working on a special project–he was also in that “mind has kind of broken” place, and we commiserated about everything and came up with a workable plan. We’re going to see if we can get a washing machine from Costco–figuring it can’t be more expensive there than it would be anywhere else–and we needed, ironically, to buy new towels anyway (I’ve just been putting it off, worrying about spending money), so we are going to also get some new towels while we are there. The carriage house is still unrented, and I think there’s a washer/dryer in there, so we are going to ask our landlady if we can use the washing machine in there until our new one comes–or else I’ll just have to go spend some time at a laundromat-and yes, it will eat up some time in my day, but at the same time, I can do all the laundry all at once, and I can read The Russia House while I sit and wait.

The book isn’t quite finished yet, either, so I am going to tell them I am taking the weekend to finish and polish and will send it in on Monday. Writing this book, I realized, as well as the one before it, has also taken a deep emotional toll on me (part of the reason last night’s meltdown was so intense, frankly), as did the one I wrote right before it. Writing back to back books that came from deep inside personal experience as well as facing up to those personal experiences has been emotionally exhausting and draining, to say the least.

I slept very well–I did wake up a few times during the night–but feel rested, if drained, this morning. One of the reasons I always try to stave off the meltdowns and the pendulum swings is precisely because it’s exhausting, and today I have a kind of hangover from it. The apartment is still a mess–it was a HUGE mess before the flooding; after the calm descended last night I told myself you know, the only thing you can actually control is how messy this fucking apartment is, and so I set to work on getting everything put away and organized and under control again. I didn’t finish–after Paul and I talked and he went to bed, I went into the living room and sat down, flipped on the DVR and went to my happy place–watching LSU game highlights, like the last five minutes of last season’s Florida and Mississippi games, with those amazing comeback wins pulled off in the closing minutes of each game–before finally retiring to bed.

Today is insane and all over the map. We have to take Scooter into the vet this morning for a follow-up on his diabetes as well as his “senior cat” blood panels, and then I am going to run uptown and get the mail, drop off a library book, and at some point we’re going to swing by Costco. I have six hours of data entry to squeeze in today around all of that, and I also need to do some writing (obviously); so it’s going to be a bit of a hectic day with lots of running around and utter madness. The towels hadn’t dried completely in the dryer, so I am running them through another full cycle–they’re dirty, too, since I mopped up the floor with them; but I also didn’t want to have to carry a load of sopping wet towels anywhere, whether it’s to a laundromat or to the carriage house. I’ve checked the rugs–they are dry, so they can be brought in and put back into place–it’s going to be sunny all day, so I am also liking the idea of them being aired out, and while they are draped over the fence I want to beat them with the broom (makeshift rug beater), and I like the idea of them outside air drying and getting whatever smells may be in them swept away by the sun and the wind and so forth.

And on that note, let me get another cup of coffee and brace myself for the rest of the day and whatever fresh hells it has in store for me. I will let you know tomorrow how it all goes, Constant Reader.