Tales of a Migrant Launderer!

[lwood]

Laundry, in the current release of Snug Harbor (v8.0, code-named "Piedmont"), is done in the apartment building's basement. It's only open for laundering from 8AM to 9PM. Worse, it's $2 to wash and $2 to dry, which I find just short of usurious.


So I am become a Migrant Launderer, wandering each weekend from friend to friend, prevailing upon them to let me use their washer and dryer in return for goodwill and small favors. If I'm feeling sort-of flush and can't think of anyone to hit up that I haven't hit up recently, I take it to a local 24-hour laundromat called the 'Lectric Washouse (across from Young's, Where Everyone Buys Shinai!). If I'm feeling quite flush and/or can't leave the house for that long, I cave in and do it at home... as rarely as possible. It's principle, dammit.

Today, I went to a favorite stop on the Laundry Tour: Greyhaven, Diana's house. She's got a front-loading washer (less water! less energy! nicer to your clothes!) and it's not like I'm not there three or four times a week anyway. Besides, laundry is a task that's easy to interleave with envelope-stuffing, which was the real order of the day (see previous entry for hoary details).

Five loads... and we'd gotten half of the Idunnas stuffed the night before. Far more laundry than mail... what else was I up to?

Well, lately I've been encouraged to try my hand at various textile arts; it gives me something to do at meetings and rituals instead of fidget. But, well, being me, I couldn't just pick one... some of you will remember me with a crochet hook right around Yule. The first book I tried wasn't very helpful, but a week ago I caved in and bought The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knitting and Crocheting. Knitting's an absolute craze around here; the local Michael's (an arts and crafts supply store) had no knitting needles larger than size five for weeks, at none of the several times I've visited; according to the stock girl they fly off the shelves as soon as they're in.

I solved that by going to a place called The Knitting Basket up in Montclair yesterday, where I had the following conversation:

"So, what size needles would you recommend for a real beginner, someone who can barely spell knit?"

"Well, are they an adult...?"

*raises her hand, not at all sheepish* "It'd be me."

"Oh! Well... for beginners we recommend 7, 8, 9..."

Well, one does have a reputation to protect: size 9, of course!

So I started to learn to knit today--that was fun! I tried two different ways to cast on, and then knit three rows a few times while chatting with Diana and sundry others. Diana alternated working on a scarf for a friend with copyedits for her latest novel.

Also this week I've begun work on a futhark sampler in counted cross-stitch. An ulterior motive for me here is to finally get the proper order nailed down, as even after six years of study I get fuzzy on the order of the second aett and the first half of the third. I started this by doing up the futhark on a scratch piece of cross-stitch fabric to get an idea of how to proportion them all. Jera, Ingwaz, and Dagaz were hardest for me, so watch out if you get the idea to do this yourself. I'm also not entirely thrilled with Ehwaz, Mannaz, and Othala, so may make them wider in the finished product.

So, that was my day. Got the futhark cross-stitched, started learning to knit, finished stuffing Idunna 59 into envelopes, and washed, dried, and folded five loads of laundry, including the towels and bedsheets.

Tomorrow, I read my Rede e-mail, then back to Greyhaven to greet a pair of former Seidhjallr members who moved to Australia but are back for a visit. On Monday, I start plowing through the backlog of personal e-mail, which in the case of some correspondents is several weeks (shantak, This Means You), interleaved with knitting and working on the new server.

Anyone want to be my next stop on the Laundry Tour? Only three loads next weekend...

Whee!

-- Lorrie

Comments

[witchchild]

You could come do laundry HERE, but that could get fairly expensive with airfare.
If you get a good scale with the sampler, hang on to it. I started doing cross-stitch last summer and adore it. I also used to knit, but stopped because the shuttle-lock of the needles when my mother knit would drive me batty. I should take it up again someday.

(and I am glad I have not sent you email about class yet. I shall today.)

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I'm finding that nine stitches tall with a maximum width of 7 is the way to go. I'll have to jigger the spacing between them to make neat, even aetts, but the runes themselves look pretty good.

(all on Aida 14, btw)

Thanks for the laundry offer, but you're right, the airfare would kill me. ;)

-- Lorrie

[witchchild]

Keep hold of the pattern, I have yet to try cross stitch with a pattern I make. ^_^

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Well, I've got the futhark down, and starfire6910 says she has some nice knotwork and interlace patterns to put around the sides so I can make a proper sampler.

We'll see what happens.

-- Lorrie

[dasubergeek.livejournal.com]

You're always welcome to do your laundry here, but with gasoline at $2.47 a gallon for 87-octane, and assuming 25 mpg, and the 357.65 miles between our homes, that's $35.34 EACH WAY just to do laundry in our machine that works but does not have a handle so you lacerate yourself just trying to turn it to the "Ultra" setting, that would negate in toto the principle of not spending the money on the washers at home.

Besides, you'll have a metaphysical crise every time you do the laundry at Snug Harbor 8.0, since there is a large sign saying that the aforementioned laundry machines do not, in fact, exist, so the fact that you are washing your unders in imaginary machines leads to a sort of logical disconnect... it's the Heisenlaundry Principle.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have no problem with the fact that the machines do not (according to The Management) exist; after all, I get my morning mental calisthenics out of the way by believing several mutually contradictory impossible things before breakfast... so a washer that exists despite evidence to the contrary is only a small stretch!

Explanation:

In another building owned by the building's previous landlord (the building was just sold), there was a problem with people breaking in and looting money from the laundry machines. So, there are now prominently placed signs declaring that COIN OPERATED LAUNDRY MACHINES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THIS BUILDING.

These signs are both less than twenty feet from the actual machines, mind you.

Not that you'd get much money out of them if you did knock 'em over: judging by how rarely I have a conflict for their use given that there are 18 apartments in the building (one unoccupied), I'm not sure anyone much uses 'em...

-- Lorrie

[shantak.livejournal.com]

"shantak this means you"
Ha ha ha ha (oops I'm at work, gotta keep it down) ahem.
Lorrie Does Laundry. I still chuckle at that when I fold my laundry. My mom looks at me funny and I tell her, "you had to be there".
Glad to hear the knitting bug is biting you too. I've got some patterns to show you the next time I'm in town. (saving up for next trip, Pantheacon?)
Aloha

[hilarypoet.livejournal.com]

We live in the House of Many People. Laundry rooms (2) are open 7:30-10;30, but the real problems are (a) someone else has always gotten there first or (b) someone else lurks and pulls your stuff out the second it stops while you -- that is me -- being on another floor do not hear it stop.
I can never do more than one load of laundry at a time. And I can never COUNT on getting laundry done on a given day. Causes far more aggro that perhaps it should, but you need to have clean clothing sometimes! Ya know?