What You (Didn’t) Miss(ed) – A Fascinating Glimpse

I had a bit of a modern dilemma, which I resolved by writing this blog post. Just blurb it out, Petty. If nothing else, it will describe a typical, if busy, evening in the life of your beloved chronicler. A good way to keep the folks at home up to speed, or at least illustrate the little differences.

So after a pretty regular day at the office on Monday, when we were told that budgetary constraints have been lifted so we can carry on working, I went home via the grocery store. I sometimes go to the Albertsons off University, but it does get a little bit ghetto in there. I also go to Trader Joes on University and Vermont, which is more my style (middle class drone “individual human being” that I am). There’s a Ralphs there that I’d never been in, so I gave that a try. In fact I went to both, because they’re next door to each other. Give it a whirl, eh.

Got the usual stuff. I somehow managed to buy a bottle of “green” dish washing liquid at both stores, so that’s me set in case of earthquake. In TJ’s (as I don’t like to call it) I got some extremely girly-girly lavender sachets to put in the dryer. There is a good reason for this. When using the dryers in the laundry at the apartment complex, I don’t like using those dryer sheets cos of the chemicals (all chemicals are bad). I use these knobbly blue rubber balls that tumble around, and help the stuff to dry while making them soft. They work great, but Cassie doesn’t like the lack of fragrance, hence me putting a herbal teabag in my laundry. My underpants now smell like a rural craft shop, and I am a giant pansy-boy.

So I got home with my haul, opened the squeaking, rattling, rolling garage door with my remote, parked in my underground spot (that git in the white Infiniti SUV who always parks over the line wasn’t there, so I could get into it) and lugged the shopping the two flights upstairs, pausing to grab my mail from the mailboxes by the gate.

Once in, I unpacked some of the shopping, changed out of my work clothes in to something a little more… comfortable. Then I gathered my laundry, including my bedding, and lugged it downstairs. There was one machine (out of five) free, which was a pain because I had whites and coloreds to do. The other machine displays said they only had a few minutes to go, so I hung around talking to Cassie, who had called while I was elbow-deep in dirty pants (so no change there). I loaded one machine, slotted in my $1 in quarters, then when a neighbor came out to empty their machine, I nipped in there. The two loads laundry set going, I went back upstairs and while waiting for the 30 minutes to pass, I ate a TJ’s nicoise salad, which had altogether too many capers in it. It was delicious, but too many.

Salad eaten, I washed up while listening to some old Nitzer Ebb and Front Line Assembly (it was the Industrial playlist, in case you were wondering). Warning: you may need to wipe up splashes after washing up while listening to Let Your Body Learn.

By this time, the laundry was done, so I went down and transferred my damp wash to a dryer, adding my blue rubber balls and the aforementioned lady-man lavender sachet. I could fit both loads into one dryer, but I played it safe and paid $1 for a super dry, rather than just 75 cents, because it was a double load. I didn’t put a couple of pairs of cotton linen trousers in the dryer, because they need ironing and it’s easier to do when they’re damp. So having set the machine going I went up and did this, which was extra-fun!

While I was on this crazy domestic kick, I started to polish my shoes, using the fun “set fire to the polish method”. You spread out your newspaper, or the brightly colored advertising freesheets from the local supermarkets that infest my mailbox every day, then get your tin of polish, and light it (it catches quite easily). When it’s merrily aflame and melting, you extinguish it by dropping the lid on it, then open again and breathe the delicious fumes. With a tissue, smear molten polish over the shoe, rubbing it in well. Once both shoes are well rubbed in, leave to dry.

While the polish and clothes were drying, I managed to watch a bit of TV. An episode of Flight Of The Conchords only lasts about 10 minutes if you fast forward through the songs to the funny bits, so it’s good for quick viewing. Then I started to watch some dodgy looking cartoon which turned out to be Heavy Metal 2000, but I had to stop watching because the DVR told me it wanted to record Mobile Suit Gundam Double Zero, which was OK, because I wasn’t enjoying the shite animation and cack music, despite the buxom heroine. I watched a bit of the Japanese lunacy, before switching off and getting back to my chores.

Before that, though, I had to do my One Hundred Push Ups session, as if I wasn’t getting enough exercise schlepping laundry up and down apartment steps. See my progress here.

The time was up for the drying laundry, so I went down and fetched it, finding out that the lavender wasn’t quite as strong as I had feared. After folding the warm laundry, I finished polishing my shoes, which was just a case of taking a brush to them. The dull coating of dried polish rubbed down to a very satisfying shine – I like that. Then finally after a few more minutes of pottering and preparing for the next day, I made the bed with fresh new sheets, and finally gratefully climbed in. I managed a few pages of a Ballard short story before setting the clock radio (89.5 KPBS, Where News Matters) and falling into a nice sleep, safe in the knowledge that entropy had been staved off for one more day, and like a more successful Canute I had held back the tide of kipple.