La Vague de Chaleur (Aug. 2003)
A Blue Flag Adventure (Aug. 2002)
Patio Talk (Aug. 2002)
Decoder Rings (Sept. 2002)
Eeyore and Tigger (Oct. 2002)
Wonder Woman Hangs from a Wire (Dec. 2002)
Serves Two (June 2003)
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Patio Talk
August 2002
At dusk our patio is often home to a group of American expatriates sipping wine and beer. The conversation is easy and familiar. We laugh at the oddities and inconveniences of our new home and wonder at the cultural differences that present themselves daily. We exchange stories about this and that, usually ending with a belly laugh over the peculiarity of it all.
One topic that never seems to lose its steam is Laundry. Salomon provided all the new families with an Italian-made washer/dryer combo. The "Candy", as we fondly refer to it. On the Candy Website you can find a public relations statement such as,
"Dedicated to product quality." ... "From the beginning, the Candy Group management has stressed the importance of creating products which were not only reliable and functional but also attractive."
Now the Italians are wonderful and I am sure the Fumagalli family from Brugherio, Italy means well. The above quote is conceptually appealing but anyone having spent one day in Italy knows that between cappuccino and espresso there is no time for dedicating oneself to product quality. Please, let's admit that it is mostly about being "attractive."
What could be so bad about "The Candy" system? First, it is not a stackable system, as you undoubtedly first assumed. In fact, the washer is the dryer, and vice versa. Does it work? Yes and No. It does get the clothes clean... but the problem lies in how it goes about that process. Does it get the clothes dry? Yes and No. I'll explain.
The cycle for both wash and dry can be as short as two hours and as long (if you really want clean, wrinkled clothes) as four hours. A couple of the results of the wash/dry combo cycle are (a). The clothes aren't ever totally dry or "bone dry" as we might say but they are definitely (b). Wrinkled. During the dry cycle the machine turns the clothes three revolutions right, pauses for ten seconds, then turns the clothes three revolutions left. The heat is so intense that the clothes are steaming and the only escape for the moisture is down the water pipe that feeds into the washer. (Can steam go down a pipe?) It can take hours to dry a load and in the end, all you have are moist and wrinkled clothing. Wrinkles so tough that not even our Philips iron (company issue) can press it. Wrinkles so strong that it will take two more washings (skip the drying) to remove. It's a problem. and obviously a problem worth discussing. Yet, I must say that the whole time the "Candy" is in operation it is "also attractive."
Most of the couples here are traditional. That is to say that the male works as far away from the laundry room as possible and the female works in the laundry room. At the aforementioned patio gathering the discussion of laundry was female dominated with a few emphatic nods and "Ohs" from the beer sipping sympathetic males. The males who do the laundry while their wife is at work didn't participate in the discussion but you could tell by the way they gripped their beers that they secretly had a list of gripes they wished to add.
After the discussion I was thinking that perhaps we need a shift in the American laundry paradigm. Is there really any benefit in quick washing cycles when life is supposed to be enjoyed, taken slowly, and savored in-between meals? I mean really, what else are we to spend our days doing? Are exercise, reading, exploring, reflection and writing really worthwhile activities in this day and age? If they are, why can't they be experienced during long days of laundry? Anyway, maybe unwrinkled machine dried clothes are not what we really want. The sun dried and then crisply ironed sheets of our grandmother's house are often our fondest memories, and yet we now prefer the dryer-sheet smell of electrical tumbling. Maybe we should stop approaching the job from the perspective of time. Maybe we should see it as a process of life and a continuum of our days on earth, a reminder that we are alive if we always have a pile of laundry to do or a patio decorated with drying clothes.
I haven't completely given up on the idea of electric drying but I have purchased and am in full implementation of the "drying rack". It is an ugly contraption that has replaced the unobtrusive clothesline. Ironically enough, on a sunny Annecy day the sun beats the electrical dryer hands down. The wrinkles don't exist, if barely, and the clothes are kissed with the many aromas of the day; sun bleached freshness, rain sprinkled meadowness, or smoky burning trashness. Outdoor drying suffices, and we can successfully present ourselves as tidy citizens.
Here's the riddle. What happens when all these sunny days in Annecy give way to autumn when the fog locks in for days and the moisture drips or pours from a multitude of clouds wedged between the Alps? What happens in winter when the snow falls and the air is so cold that the possibility of stiff frozen undies is at its highest risk? What about my drying rack then? Simple, you say, bring the rack inside. In addition, perhaps I should string a clothesline from the dining room to the office. Right. Maybe I should bring the pig and horses in. How about the car? I wouldn't want that pretty paint job to get wet. What else can I bring inside; bikes, patio chairs, sensitive summer plants, the neighbor's cats, the village drunk? Do you see where this is headed?
You would think after all this I would have come to some sort of solution. I have. I am going to return to the patio committee with a list of possibilities. My first is to replace my archaic bidet with a dedicated German or American made dryer. It will lightly toss my clothes in a constant heated revolution, evacuating moisture down and out without switching back and forth. My second is to ignore the hassles and challenges of my new home and accept it as one of those unique experiences of living abroad. So that when friends from home ask me how life is I can secretly know the answer and then make up something like, "Oh it's wonderful, we travel every weekend, we speak French fluently with all the locals in nearby cafes, and our life is one big fat buttery croissant!" They will nod and actually believe me! I can't wait.
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