Washing Things the Hard Way, Goodbye to 2016

I visited my mother on laundry day, joined her in the basement to hang up pieces from the previous wash.  She had about five 5-gallon buckets filled with sudsy water she captured when the washer emptied.  She lifted the lid to stop the water so that we could switch to a new bucket.

When the rinse cycle completed, new laundry filling the tub,  I used 2-gallon buckets to pour the saved, sudsy water back in the washer. The last inch of water at the bottom of each bucket she poured through a sieve to catch the loosened threads.

Then again, capturing the suds, allowing the rise water to fill, lid up so there would be more time to soak. She had another bucket filled with starch to soak tea towels and soak.  She had saved the cooking water from her homemade macaroni for this purpose. She read my face, saying I looked dissatisfied by the process.  I suppose I foolishly and hopefully thought she let the washer complete an entire cycle by itself.  I told her I was worried about the strenuous nature of her lugging 40 pounds of water multiple times.  I have offered to wash for her or collect dirty laundry to wash at my home and then redeliver. She declined each time I offered.  I can see that it was because it wouldn't be done her way.

She has a sturdy top loading washer from the mid-1980s.  Also a never used dryer, unless you count it a a surface for folding. My brothers, then, had disposed of her old, perfectly working wringer model, as a way of saving labor. As long as I lived at her house, she and I washed successive cycles from whites, to light colors, darks, to work clothes and socks in the same soapy water.  Rinsing and wringing by hand in two sides of a cement sink.  Then hanging up to dry outside in fair weather, the basement in foul. When the weather was changed back and forth, the laundry went in an out multiple times as well. That made me a little bit annoyed.

At my home, I wash in a low water HE front loading washer.  I have to completely prewash certain food- or blood-stained things because the stains would only redistribute themselves onto everything else. I hang things up to dry outside.  Clotheslines travel up 3 flights of an open air back porch, diagonally along the railings, straight along the outer fences.  A small, metal folding rack is permanently positioned outside our back door.  Sock, napkins, undies, tea towels dry there.  Two, possible 3 loads will fit along all the lines.  For sanity's sake I try to do one load a day. Two is ok. We rarely use the dryer.  Once on a cold, snowy night I did, only to gnash my teeth at how much white, fluffy fiber was removed from our towels onto the lint trap. So I'll go along, doing things my way.

Pre-Thanksgiving Halloween recap

Welcome Great Pumpkin.  Winners in front. Losers cowering in back.

 

Last year when Wisteria asked me what she liked best about Halloween, I guessed candy. 

She told me it was the people.  Meeting people.

This year even though it was not so warm outside, quite a few dressed up grownups sat out on their stoops parceling out candy.  Snow White and Captain America made a cute couple.

 

 Light hearted welcome, except for the evil clown.

 

 Knock, knock, I know you're in there.  I can see the lights.

 

The rust makes me think this is a permanent fixture. My mother had a washtub like this.  Rolled it out from a corner of the kitchen, filled with hot water through a hose to do the towels first, increasingly darker, dirtier clothes in the same sudsy water.  Eventually it ended up in the summer kitchen of the basement.  Each load was wrung near dry, watch your fingers, please, then rinsed in 2 cold rinses in the 2 sections of the cement sink, wrung out by hand, hard twists, hung out to dry on clothesline outside in fair weather in the basement in inclement weather, sometimes switching between both places as the weather changed. That kind of drove me crazy.  Now I am of 2 minds, if my laundry gets rained on when I'm away, I leave it up. It will dry soon enough.  If I'm home, I'll bolt out of bed in the middle of the night to get it laundry in before it gets soaked. High winds that usher in rains wake me like no alarm clock can. Don't want our clothes and favorite clothes pins to get blowed away.

 Golden hour.

 

Golden leaves.

 

 The Green Lantern soldiers on.

 

 Moderne spook shrugs.

 

 

 

Will o' wisps.

Good night.  Sweet dreams. Or are they? Hmmm...

 

 

 

 

Letting our wet laundry flap in the breeze

Onward and upwards and downwards and crosswise.

Let your freak flag fly.

Eyesore? or neighborhood sight of mild interest? 

Husband's friend passes by on bike daily, joked about whites not being white enough.

At  one visitor to loud, rowdy neighbors took pics from the alley.

There is no such thing as an energy saving gas or electric dryer. 

Clement says this looks like a scene from the 1400s.

Another time he said hanging laundry was for poor people. 

One time when he was a toddler,  he told his grandmother he saw an animal way downstairs at the baement level.  See that dark crack? She thought he meant a toy animal.

I came home from work to water our container garden, hear a thud,  and screamed when I  saw a yellow glowing eyes on a bear sized ball of fur, come limping out of the darkeness.

 A huge racoon skittered out through the narrow slats of the door leading to the alley.

Undies and socks would usually go on one of several half broken, jerry rigged drying racks I found abandoned in the alleys.  Usually no clothes pins except on super windy days, so less effort for hanging.

Inside out to prevent fading and so that inner pockets of jeans, etc, dry well.

Mated and mateless.

I have my favorite wooden clothespins with strong hardware.

Each batch is has a different personality. 

Do not like the bamboo (which splinters.)

Hope that you've enjoyed this little tour of our clotheslines on the back porch.

High winds

It's a beast, it's a bear, it's tugging at my hair, not so chill and not so balmy, but certainly ferocious.

November winds have descended on our corner of the concrete landscape.  Brings to mind childhood story book illustration with North Wind with puffed up cheeks swooshing out a tremendous, forceful burst of wind (of course) with plenty more where that came from.  He is howling now. Portends rain, sleet, hail.  Anything can happen.   In July, ice balls, the size perfect for cooling off drinks, pounded down.  My dentist's car suffered $9000 of damage. Car sirens all around bellowed for salvation.

Now, today, our windows are shaking in their frames.  No hatches to batten down. I hope the roofing holds.  I hope the girls in their high heels and short dresses are safely blown home from the bars.  I hope their beaus hold on to their wads of cash money. 

Windy, rainy weather shakes dollars loose.  A tenner outside the darkest bar (now sadly closed and beautiful, sinister building demolished and replaced with crammed into the spot moderne mansion.) A $20 in a clump of dried leaves.  Folded into quarters, looking like a trick, but real for sure.  Eighty summthing coiled up tight in a rubberband.  Pay$ to look down sometimes.

Twig fencing, "yard" art flamingos, mystery lady mask all casualties.  Went out before midnight. Glorious full moon with blue clouds flowing past, choppy like waves. As I dreaded, noticed wide gaps on the clothes lines where this afternoon I optimistically used the usual 2 clothes pins per garment.  The good new was that most of the remaining clothes, even thick sweaters  and blue jeans were whipped dry.

Will have to conduct a search tomorrow in the daylight in the alley, neighbor's patio, didn't see anything on the nearby rooftops.  Must hold on to hope.  Last week, I  distractedly dropped favorite, worn sheepskin mittens in an alley.  Discovered their missingness at work. Retraced my steps in the afternoon.  Found them soaked and clinging to the ground almost the last place I could have looked.   Sometimes it's the small things that can sink a person or pick her up.