Construction, and housework, in the time of COVID-19

A trip back in time

Sunday, March 29, 2020
I called up my aunt a few days ago, and during the course of our chat, mentioned that our washing machine had died, and I might be doing the laundry in the bathtub, with a washboard.

"Oh," she said, "We used to do that. We had a machine -- you had to change out the tubs of water -- but it died and during the war [World War II] they weren't making any more. So my mother would wash the clothes in the bathtub. Now sheets -- when you get them wet, they're heavy! So my father would do those, and then my mother would do all the rest."

It transpired, she told me, that one day -- either during or immediately after the war was not clear -- my grandfather was walking about the town when he came upon an appliance store, with an automatic washing machine for sale.

"So he asked the guy, 'how many machines have you got in there?'" my aunt said. "And he told him, 'just the one.' Well, he figured that, by the time he walked home, told my mother about it and walked all the way back, he might have sold it. So he bought it, right then. And then when he got home, he said to my mother, 'Guess what I did for you today. I bought you a washing machine.'"

It was delivered the following day.

It was, she told me, their first automatic washing machine, a front-loading Bendix. The first time they loaded it, she said, "we didn't know what we were doing," and during supper, were surprised to see water running into the kitchen, from under the door. Upon checking the washing machine, they found bubbles coming out the top, due to putting in too much soap.

After that initial mishap however, they loved the machine.

"That must have saved a lot of time," I said.

"Oh, yeah!" she told me emphatically. "It was all automatic; you didn't have to change out the tubs of water."

Having now completed a load of laundry in the bathtub, with a washboard -- and no sheets -- I can appreciate my grandfather's point.

We have also purchased a new washing machine, via mail order (I so wish I could say, "from the Sears & Roebuck catalog," but alas, it was from Lowe's) --  but since it won't arrive until mid-April, there will be more washtub scrubbing in my future. My husband nobly offered to take all of the laundry to the laundromat, but I declined. I'd rather he didn't take the risk -- and there's something meaningful to me about echoing my grandmother's wartime making do, even if only temporarily.

You will apprehend, from this intelligence, that we have now installed the bathtub. We have also had baths -- real, immersed in hot water, lovely soaks, such as we have not enjoyed these two and a quarter years. Divine.

In other housework news, I have just baked my third batch of cookies in three weeks. Ridiculously indulgent, but I have decided I do not care. To paraphrase James Taylor, my body's aching and my mind is fried, and if cookies can help me through, so be it. I might not make it any other way.

Though I might think differently, when none of my jeans fit anymore, and I can't go clothes-shopping.

On the construction front, work continues, somewhat hampered by the present circumstances. Gone are the days of nearly daily trips to the hardware store, and we order what we can online. Online orders are hit and miss- some things ship immediately, and some -- well, the floor nail gun we ordered some two or three weeks ago still hasn't shipped, though they did, helpfully, send us the nails for it.

The original plan was to rent one, but instead we'll probably do without, for the ground floor, at least.

We presume that it will arrive at some point, hopefully in time to assist with at least some of the flooring.

There are, however, some things we cannot obtain by mail order and so once in awhile I have ventured forth to procure them -- practicing my decidedly un-ninja-like avoidance skills dodging down side aisles and leaping through floor displays to avoid customers and store employees bent on approaching within six feet of me. Strange times these are, and all of America -- or at least this corner of it -- has overnight acquired a new social nicety. There are no more polite "Have a nice day," wishes, instead, "Stay safe out there," we all, even strangers, say emphatically to each other in farewell.

Stay safe.

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Another laundry day; I've gotten better at it, I think. In the afternoon, I put laundry to soak in a bucket of sudsy water, and after logging out from work in the evening, set to scrubbing.

Our little terrier has been in sore need of a bath for the last week, so he went into the tub first, to be sudsed clean of the yellow tinge he had acquired, and restored to his usual snowy white. His little face was very dirty, due to his habit of sticking it into gopher holes, and so I took a warm wet washcloth and gently scrubbed it, too. He loves having his face washed.

After being dried off and gobbling his treats, he lay on a towel on the warm bathroom floor while I scrubbed the laundry, and DH rinsed it and hung it on the drying rack. Quality family time. Finally, when everything else was clean, I climbed in the tub and scrubbed myself, too.

It occurred to me today, as I knelt there scrubbing, that it has been just about 80 years since my grandmother knelt in front of her bathtub, doing the same thing. I am in awe of her ability to keep her entire family in clean laundry. There must have been, in that particular period, four or five of them.

Did she do her washing just once a week, fitting it in around her job as a seamstress? How many hours did it take her? And was it as hard on her back and knees, as it is on mine? How on earth did she manage to do that and also cook the giant meals I'm told she served?

 A tough woman, that tiny Italian peasant girl. I seem to be spending a good deal of my life attempting to emulate her.

 It is too rainy to hang a clothesline, and so I am washing only enough at a time to fill the drying rack. It is a workout. Perhaps it will burn off some of the cookies.

And heavens, does this technique use up soap. I wonder if she knew some tricks for that. It's far too late, now, to ask her about all the skills she developed over the course of her long life.

DH today began working on the flooring; the first job is stapling down an underlayer of heavy paper, or felt, or whatever it is. So naturally, the staple gun promptly turned up its metallic metaphorical toes. A month ago, that would have occasioned a trip to Lowe's, which used to eat our paychecks like candy. Today, it occasioned a trip to Amazon, which is now the one receiving a great deal more of our patronage than I would like. For a fairly detestable company, it has certainly made itself indispensable. What a tiresome godsend, and how weary I am of endless moral quandaries.