Putting love on the line
Crisp sheets. To my knowledge there’s only one way to get them. Hang ’em out on the line to dry.
My wife Marsha and I bought a jungle jim sort of thing for our grandaughters to frolic on, learn their limitations of daring do and test their Tomboy temptations. It has two turquoise colored tightrope-type bands that are taut between the two trees that are about 60 feet apart in our back yard. There’s a variety of brightly colored things to climb, balance and and hang on and they love it.
The weather is too hot now to play on it and the contraption has become more of a 60-foot-long hurdle, and, being no kid anymore, I have to take care for if I’m not paying attention hiking the 14 inches or so over the bottom strap, I can clothesline myself on the upper strap. Walking around it is just annoying and there’s a low-ish hanging branch that is head-conking height and connecting with that at even the slow pace I walk is a real bell-ringer.
So, I took the 409 and a sponge and cleaned off the dust and what not off the upper strap and presto, it’s a clothesline. And after washing the sheets and pillowcases, I hung them up and in about 8 minutes, maybe even 5, they were all dry.
Marsha was out during all this business so I made the bed and never mentioned it. Last night when she slid in between the sheets a look and a warm feeling came over her, both of us actually. It was love, people. And if we had just a bit more agility than two sideways turtles, we could have acted on it. Being enveloped in crisp, clean sheets felt just about as good. It was heaven.
Who in Phoenix or any city line dries their clothes anymore? Oh, how we are converts now! Still, it isn’t luxurious, it’s not roses and candles or anything like that. It’s comfort, the type of comfort that in many little ways, times and places love is found. They add up to a good thing that after 65 years and more we’ve learned to recognize and appreciate.
That being said, lord knows Marsha and I have discussed our differences, the type of differences that can fray that good thing part. Fort instance, take the counters in the kitchen and bathroom. Marsha likes them cleared off, putting everything away, but not necessarily where they can be found. Ever again. In the kitchen, she’ll put things from the counter and into the sink, but when I’m ready to prep a meal, I have all these things in the sink to move onto the counter (where else?).
“What are all these things doing on the counter?” Because I’m getting dinner ready. “Why couldn't you just wash them and put them away?” Well, why couldn’t you? I didn’t leave’ em in the sink.
Line-dried sheets (can) offset moments like that.
We have new countertops and Marsha was admiring the kotchkes or whatever they’re called she “needs” to dress them up. To me? It’s really just (nice) crap. I can’t leave the toothbrush, paste, or anything we actually use on the counter. No, that’s not allowed. Those things get put away in any one of 12 cabinets and each night the hunt goes on. Why should it take two minutes or even 5 seconds to find what I need in the bathroom and kitchen. I mean I know our organizational skills clash from having none at all to being persnickety about it. And as calm and as anything goes as I am on the outside, I’m the short-fused persnickety one. We have our swear jars in there, too. In plain sight.
But Marsha knows that as much as I’ve assimilated to married life, I’ve still got a ways to go. Before we were married, when she first came over to my house, she caught me using a battery-powered leaf blower to tidy up the joint. Clouds of doghair and dust came flying out the front door. I’m not even making this up. So she knows, fifty-plus years living in Slobovia means that I’m still a slob and given an inch, this slob will take a mile. If I start leaving a few things on the counter, soon all my stuff, including yesterday’s whiskers, will be there, too.
So, I’m telling you. Line dry your sheets, they smooth out that stuff. At least I think it will.
