Happy Day

Well, a good day anyway. It’s rare that I get the whole day to myself in the house, but today was one of those days. Someday I’d like to see what it feels like when I have the day to myself without having a pile of dirty laundry up to my knees. Laundry has been kind of hit and miss for the past couple months since I had my surgery. It was obvious the first month that there was no way I was going to be able to do it, so the guys did their best to keep the clothes washed. Ian is a pro at that. I taught him well. The second month got a bit iffy, since I was able to move around a bit more, but I still needed a lot of help since I wasn’t able to lift much. It’s only been the past couple weeks, really, that I’ve even felt comfortable doing the laundry without help. Of course, by then there is quite a pile of sheets & towels & stuff, in addition to the regular things that get washed weekly.

But then, believe it or not, the weather report had me get my rear in gear and try to get *all* the laundry done. As some of you know, from late September until the first rains hit in November is when we have our hottest weather in this area. It’s not unusual to have temperatures here in the mid to high 80s. I know, you’re probably thinking “rough life, Linda,” but it’s not quite like that. When it’s in the 80s here - two blocks from the ocean - it means that it’s in the 100s and above for most of the rest of the area. San Francisco goes up into the 80s & 90s, and it’s just plain miserable to be there, because the humidity is also that high, combined with buildings that do not have much air conditioning in them, if any.

So, what does that have to do with laundry, you ask? More than you might think. You see, you need electricity to run a washer & dryer, and when the temps go up, the air conditioners go on, the power grid gets overloaded, and we end up without power. Sometimes for a rather long time. And when there *is* power, there is much pressure to conserve it as much as possible, so as to at least delay if not outright prevent the power outage. As if a brown-out is much better. Anyway, I don’t want to be struggling to wash clothes when the power is so iffy, so I’m motivated to get it done this weekend.

I’m about half way there, I’d say. I have two loads of clothes left, and probably four loads of sheet & towels & stuff. I did seven loads of clothing today starting at about 11:30 this morning. You wouldn’t think that three people could make that much of a mess, but somehow we do.

But, other than doing laundry all day, it was rather nice. I sat downstairs and read and played on facebook and relaxed.