Confession: I don’t miss my dryer. Yes, I know how towels are fluffier if they are put in the dryer or how amazing it feels to have warm laundry fresh from the dryer dump on you. However, the dryer as an appliance was only a recent thing that I started using before leaving the States. All my life, I’ve hung up laundry outside. The Wurth household had a dryer, but it was prehistoric and used only in dyer needs. Regardless of the season, we hung up the clothes. In the warm months they went on the clothesline outside, and in winter we hung them up with hangers on a pole close to the furnace. Mommy always washed the clothes, and by the time they were finished, we were expected to help her hang them up outside.
We learned simple things like putting the whites in the sunny part of the clothesline will allow the sun to bleach them. (The colored clothes usually went on the shady part.) We also learned to keep a watchful eye on the sky. I can’t tell you the number of times when summer showers popped up, and we dropped whatever we were doing and raced to the clothesline before the clothes got soaking wet. Or if our neighbors were burning their garbage and the wind shifted directions, once again it was time to get the clothes in. Or if the dog decided it was time to yank something off the line, it was time to discipline the dog and rewash whatever he had gotten dirty. It was a lot more work than simply moving the clothes from the washer to the dryer, but I never minded it.
Despite those little hiccups, there’s something that I really, really love about hanging clothes outside. It makes my nostalgic for my childhood and makes me feel domestic to watch the shirts and linens flapping in the breeze. I enjoy the fresh outdoor smell that they take on after spending the afternoon in the wind. I feel like the sunshine adds extra bits of love to my clothes. Plus, it’s a TON cheaper to do that instead of running a dryer all the time. (SERIOUSLY. A dryer uses a RIDICULOUS amount of energy.) I love the fact that we currently have a clothesline, and I can hang my clothes outside. I told Ian that once we get our own house, I want to have a clothesline outside.
“No way,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“It’s so much more work.”
“Ian,” I said, looking him square in the eyes, “I’M the one who does the work.” Silly boy!
Anyway, on to other things: apparently there are a few American judo players coming to Yunomae next week. Whaaaaaat??? The first I heard about it was yesterday at the ES. My 5th grade teacher was trying to explain…..something to me about it in Japanese. I could only get bits of what he was saying, but it was enough to piece together that a couple of Americans are coming to town! Hurray! We spent the last twenty minutes of class yesterday preparing questions to ask them. The kids would ask me what something was in English, and then they’d write the sentences in katakana so that they could read it with English pronunciations. A couple of the kids asked me to help them finish during recess, so I did.
Then later that afternoon, the 4th grade teacher approached me and asked for my help. Since he is the best English speaker at the elementary school, he was going to have to be the translator. In truth, his English is really good, but when he gets nervous or flustered, he (reasonably so) tends to make more mistakes or has difficulty speaking. He was asking me how to word some self-intro sentences and asked me what to do if they couldn’t understand his English. People not being able to understand you…..story of my life, sir! I told him to try to reword it or use gestures if necessary. I asked him more details about the people coming….how old they were, where they were from, why they were coming to Yunomae of all places. I told him that that day was the first I’d heard about it. Apparently these players coming to Yunomae is A BIG DEAL in town because he was completely baffled about how I knew nothing of it. Guess I missed the memo on that one…..
Anyway, my work day is wrapping up, so I’ll stop here! More tomorrow!
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