First I fill a utility tub with soapy water, into which I then submerge whatever laundry is to be piloted that day into the land of Clean. "Give me your whites, your darks, your cottons and polyesters yearning to be free." Purveyor of liberty, I take up a plunger in my hands: an item specially engineered for laundering, elegant and effective, with wooden handle and molded plastic end-piece of cerulean hue.
Next, in order to agitate the clothes within the soapy water, I plunge the plunger into the water, up and down, up and down, preferably while listening to an energetic movement from a Bach concerto, so that the beat of the music may become the rhythm of the wash, and Beauty worm its nutritive way into the sterile soil of Labor. The D minor keyboard concerto first movement is a fine laundering piece: manly and serious, a favorite of the romantics such as Schumann. The brows cannot remain unfurrowed while laundering to anything that Bach composed in D minor, and this furrowing of the brows renders one's thoughts as you know much more profound. Plus hey the whites come out clean.
After the requisite number of returns of the ritornello theme, the plunger may be laid aside and the dirty soapy water drained. This at Sunnyside is accomplished by means of a human body named Harlan taking up a cheery orange 5-gallon pail. Further procedures follow, but in the interest of preventing both reader and writer from falling into a catatonic state of boredom, their minute, minute-by-minute explication is hereby curtailed.
To proceed then, a few nuanced admissions. First, to those readers who have seen me at the Laundromat and Bahama Tan facilities down Lincolnway in Valparaiso, comfortably seated and thumbing a book, you are absolutely correct to observe that I am no hand-wash laundry absolutist. No, I do not begrudge myself the use of a machine, or even two and even three machines, at least once in awhile, in what you might call exceptional laundry situations. Say the family has been travelling, or say I've been sick for a few days, and the clothes are piled up in the wicker hamper such that the lid slides off the rumpled mountain of them, and with a wicker thump falls to the floor to roll down the stairs like a dog in search of a walk; well then I figure it might be best to take the clothes to the laundromat, and make use of all those expensive, power-hungry, but fabulously muscular machines, devourers of Washington quarters, but willing slaves (once fed) to my laundering will.
Next, in order to agitate the clothes within the soapy water, I plunge the plunger into the water, up and down, up and down, preferably while listening to an energetic movement from a Bach concerto, so that the beat of the music may become the rhythm of the wash, and Beauty worm its nutritive way into the sterile soil of Labor. The D minor keyboard concerto first movement is a fine laundering piece: manly and serious, a favorite of the romantics such as Schumann. The brows cannot remain unfurrowed while laundering to anything that Bach composed in D minor, and this furrowing of the brows renders one's thoughts as you know much more profound. Plus hey the whites come out clean.
After the requisite number of returns of the ritornello theme, the plunger may be laid aside and the dirty soapy water drained. This at Sunnyside is accomplished by means of a human body named Harlan taking up a cheery orange 5-gallon pail. Further procedures follow, but in the interest of preventing both reader and writer from falling into a catatonic state of boredom, their minute, minute-by-minute explication is hereby curtailed.
To proceed then, a few nuanced admissions. First, to those readers who have seen me at the Laundromat and Bahama Tan facilities down Lincolnway in Valparaiso, comfortably seated and thumbing a book, you are absolutely correct to observe that I am no hand-wash laundry absolutist. No, I do not begrudge myself the use of a machine, or even two and even three machines, at least once in awhile, in what you might call exceptional laundry situations. Say the family has been travelling, or say I've been sick for a few days, and the clothes are piled up in the wicker hamper such that the lid slides off the rumpled mountain of them, and with a wicker thump falls to the floor to roll down the stairs like a dog in search of a walk; well then I figure it might be best to take the clothes to the laundromat, and make use of all those expensive, power-hungry, but fabulously muscular machines, devourers of Washington quarters, but willing slaves (once fed) to my laundering will.
Furthermore, even here at home, as I go about my laundering, I do not entirely eschew the society of the machine. For instance, before hanging the clothes on the drying racks, I make use of an electric spinner, charmingly marketed as "The Charming Spinner." I cannot therefore lay claim to any knowledge of the fine art of wringing or wrangling, any more than I can take credit for the work of sun, which does most of the drying, and also cheers me on as I hang the items on the drying racks. Really we can never give enough credit to the sun. It is the first numeral of our natural existence, the unity of light from which we all proceed and are sustained. Just ask Pythagoras. He made it a special point never to urinate in the direction of the sun, and for obvious reasons. The sun is way way too cool to pee at. The sun dries your peplos or chiton, as well as your himation. Or if you're Diogenes, and prefer to wear nothing at all, then still, you should be grateful and reverent to the sun because after you bathe, or once the rainstorm passes over, it is the sun that dries off your patootie as well as (not to mention) your et cetera.
(To be continued)
(To be continued)
HB
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