All The Laundry

 Today I did all the laundry.  All the loads, up and down the basement stairs, sorting, washing and drying, folding and hanging.  I did it all.  Now I have to muster up the energy to put the stuff away.  Tomorrow.

Another pink zinnia shone out today.  Out in the heat and humidity and not a breath of a breeze.  It was like an oven out there.  You should see the grass, it's brown and crunchy.  There's a little tongue of green from the downspouts because we had ten minutes of rain yesterday but for the most part it's not going to need mowing anytime soon.  Even the weeds have stopped growing.

Two tomatoes are changing color.  See?  I knew if I put them on here all green and complained about them being green they'd hurry up and turn pink and I was right.

The next cucumber is growing too.  It looks like a couple baby ones on that vine have promise too but I've been wrong before.

I was knitting along on the Livingston Rib Lace scarf today and realized that I really don't like it.  The colors are all cockeyed and the lace pattern isn't doing anything for me and the yarn is kind of scratchy to be on a person's neck.  AND I don't want to knit six feet of this.  This is why I don't knit scarves, they take forever and they're boring.  I'll find another pattern to use with this yarn, maybe a pair of mittens like I intended when I bought the yarn.  Maybe I'll find a hat pattern and some different yarn to knit it with.  That's what I'll do tomorrow, figure something out.

23 August--Barbara Malcolm, Better Than Mom's. 

For a while the diner chugged along with nothing to mark one day from the next.  The employees got into a groove, Fay and Naomi’s morning into afternoon work blending seamlessly with Taffy and Marcus or James who worked late afternoon into evening.  There was a reliable supply of clean dishes and set ups, Fay never came in to start her day to find overflowing bus tubs or sticky tables covered with napkins and straw wrappers.  Taffy never came in to empty silverware racks and plate holders.  She appreciated Fay and Naomi’s efforts to start her days off well and returned the favor by making sure Marcus and James got everything ready for the morning before they left.  It was a happy little family, making good, rib-sticking food for a varied and interesting clientele. 

One of both Fay and Taffy’s favorite groups of regulars were a foursome of little old ladies who came in on alternate Thursdays to eat cottage cheese and peach half salad plates and then play cut-throat bridge the rest of the afternoon, sucking down amazing quantities of sweet tea while they passed nickels and crowed over every hand.  The four ladies: Maralee, Jackie, Connie, and Helen had all worked at the same paper mill as secretaries and played bridge together most days on their lunch break. 

Once the youngest of them retired they realized how much they missed playing with each other and met for lunch about a year ago at Better Than Mom’s to talk about old times.  Maralee had just happened to put a couple decks of cards in her purse with four tallies and mentioned it to the other three.  In a heartbeat, Fay was called over to clear away their lunch dishes, carefully wipe the table, and take the set-ups away so they could play.  Brady gave his permission for them to use a table in back for a couple hours in the afternoon, since that was a very slow time anyway, as long as they were finished by three-thirty, which was when Taffy began setting up for the supper crowd.  So on alternate Thursdays, except in the dead of winter when it was just too dangerous for four women on the shady side of seventy-five to be walking around on snowy parking lots, the back room buzzed with the snap of playing cards, bids of “Six no trump,” calls for more tea and maybe a square of Naomi’s to die for chocolate vinegar cake, and four old ladies reliving the days when they had their fingers on the pulse of the largest business in Stinson.

One Thursday on her way out of the diner, Maralee dropped a deck of cards and Raymond hopped off his stool to help pick them up

            “I can’t believe I was so clumsy to drop the cards.” Maralee said. “That’s the way my day has gone. First I finish last in the game and now this.”

            “Let me help,” said Raymond. “It’s good for my bones to get down here on the floor.”

            Their hands brush together as they pick up the scattered cards.  “Thank you, Mt. Tolliver,” she said.

            Raymond didn’t meet her eyes.  “Call me Raymond.  How have you been, Maralee?”

            “Good… Raymond.”

            “How long since you retired? Two years?”

            Her cheeks turned bright pink.  “Yes, two years, well, almost three years now.” She reached for the last card.  “I think that’s got them.”

            They helped each other to stand and didn’t let go immediately.  Raymond shuffled his feet and said, “Maybe one day I could buy you a cup of coffee and some pie?”

            She reached into her purse, put the deck away, and pulled out a business card.  “That would be nice, Raymond.  Give me a call.”

            Jackie reached out and took Maralee’s arm.  “Come on, time to go.”

Today's toss was a bag of coffee filters, an old quilt that my mother-in-law encased in muslin and over-quilted that has never been on a bed, and a bag of cake decorating tips, tools, and books.  My cake decorating days are long gone since half the people in my family don't like frosting.  Somebody will love the stuff.

--Barbara