Quarters in Laundromats

Back to the blog. Nothing blog-y has happened for a few months. But now, my broken washer has me using laundromats.

They've sure changed. It is now possible to wash three, or five, or even seven loads in one run of one washing machine. Seven loads! It's a huge machine.

Many are front-loading washers. Those are water saving -- the clothes tumble through the water rather than being agitated in a tub of water. They work great, too, with cycle times of only 25 - 30 minutes. In 25 minutes, seven loads of laundry can be ready for the dryers.

Using that huge machine costs seven dollars. With all these machine innovations, you'd think it would take dollar bills. If candy machines were made to do that, surely these super swift machines would have been designed that way. But, they weren't. No bills. This super washing machine that can wash every piece of clothing you own in one 25-minute run will only start after 28 quarters are pumped in one after another after another after another after another after another. . . .

One woman washing there had just had her eightieth birthday. Another must have enjoyed her reading time, because she put all the clothes from all her four washers into one dryer, fed it many quarters, sat, and opened her book.

Many people must be "winter cleaning" -- they washed only comforters and bedspreads and scatter rugs.

One man there was the really nice guy who works at my favorite grocery store. Another man had an English accent. On TV, people with that accent don't wash their own clothes. Maybe he was a valet to some other, TV sort of person with an English accent.

I'm not planning to replace my washer any time soon. The laundromat works better, and it's more fun, too.

Flyer's Fever

The Stanley Cup hockey finals several years ago between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Detroit Red Wings made things a bit nuts in the Philadelphia area. I don't want to be too harsh, but these hockey fans seemed to have some serious psychological maladaptations.

Here's the evidence. One place around Philadelphia had an old red car in a roped off area--a car to stand for Detroit and red for the Red Wings, I guess. Before the finals, people could pay, go inside the rope, and hit the car with a sledgehammer.

People actually paid money to do this.

One man ripped the door off the car, held it in the sky with both hands, and repeatedly hammered it into the top of his head.

Is it any wonder some women think male sports fans are a few teeth short of a working gear?

The money raised went to charity. The report didn't say which, but an Idiotic Brain Injury Association seems like a good choice to me. I.B.I.A. would be pronounced "ih-bee-uh", which must have been the only sound that car door guy was able to say for a while.

I was afraid to tell this story for years--I might have been blamed for jinxing the finals. (The Flyers lost.) If you never hear from me again, ask the police to look for a speech-slurred, flat-headed man with a car door as a hat.

Weighty Perspective

One of the most memorable visits to a physician I ever had was because of a nurse. She weighed me, then glanced at me out the side of her eyes, so fast I almost didn't notice, and shook her head. "I remember when I weighed that. I thought I was huge. Now I'd give anything to be that small again."

I've gained weight since then, and I see her point. I guess how a person feels about his weight depends on if he's come up to it or gone down to it.

A Robin's Lesson

A few days ago, a robin was singing loudly on the roof. The building is L-shaped, so I could see him from my top floor apartment. I had the front door open to let the breeze in, heard him, and turned.

There he sang, his red breast sunlit against the shade trees behind him. I could see his chest working as he sang. His head pivoted in quick, jerky movements between songs, but never while he sang his three notes, descending in pitch and echoing around the space formed by the balconey and the roof overhang.

For most of his calls, there was an answering song in the distance. What was he saying? "Are you there?" "Am I alone?" Or, was his intent lascivious, "Hey, Baby, let's nest."

In all my decades and all the many, many robins I've seen, I've never associated a particular song with one before. Why? Am I unobservant? Probably. Maybe, also, it's that I see them in suburbia, where they move along quickly to avoid pets. Birds are usually obscured in the trees a lot, too, so it's hard to associate one song with one particular bird.

His song was good company. I wish I could understand his language.

After hearing that robin, I wonder what else has always been going on around me that I don't notice?

Literary Analysis

I'm an idiot about literary analysis, but I'm trying to get better. A discussion on an electronic mailing list has me confused about some things.

What is being analysed? My guess is it's the work, which is what is what is on the paper. That would mean what was/is in the author's mind isn't rightly a part of that analysis. It would be rightly part of a discussion of that work, but not the analysis.

Is it appropriate to assume the author has control over, or even awareness of, all the literary aspects of her work? Confusion about the role of a "muse" in a work's creation has me wondering this. Would an author never feel something is right without knowing why? Or, would the writer ever feel it is right for one reason when it is right for another reason?

My last confusion is about who analyses. (One author made the point on-list a little while back that his responsibility to a work is only to write it. Interpretation is an interplay between what was written and the reader, and he leaves it to each reader to decide meaning.) Each reader will bring with her a different life and glean meaning by laying that writing over a different interior landscape. In that case, how could every reader come away with the same interpretation? How could one be right and another wrong? One might be more sophisticated, I guess. Maybe that's what scholars mean by "right" and "wrong".

Maybe these kind scholars will answer some of these confusions in follow-up posts.

Is Desire to Be Charitable Just Another Power Grab?

Odd things seem correct when one spends time mostly alone.

It hit me a while back that my desire to help others is a desire for power. I want the power in order to help others, but does that matter? It's still a power grab.

It's probably also a desire to be strong; to be so strong that there is extra to give to others.

There is, too, an element of pride, of not wanting to be the weak or needy one.

Seems like charity would always be a virtue, but it seems even that can be corrupted by intent.

Although, the recipients probably don't care.

Wallet Find

I found a wallet on the side of the road during a walk recently. It was filled with money and credit cards and identification, so it had been dropped not stolen. Easily returned. No problem.

The owner insisted on giving me a reward. I know this is a common expectation among some people--to give or receive a reward in this situation--but I don't understand it.

What am I being rewarded for? Is it an incentive for honesty? Since you didn't steal the money, you can have some of it? That doesn't seem effective--if money were my goal, stealing would have netted more.

Is it a reward for accomplishment? Maybe, but I'll admit right up front, it was no challenge to bend at the waist and pick up a wallet. Rewarding that seems bizarre.

Should I see it as condescending? If his boss had found and returned it, would he have insisted on a reward? His next-door neighbor? His sister? It's hard to imagine. His manner, though, wasn't at all condescending.

His manner was both relieved and celebratory. He talked a lot and fast, with no gaps for me to refuse. So, maybe his intent was to celebrate his good fortune that a small mistake didn't turn into a large one. That fits his demeanor. It's a pleasant thought, so that's the one I'll stick with.

It seems appropriate to donate the money so the celebration is spread around the community. That's what I'll do with it.