Laundry

What am I doing today...? Not very much... I've got a lot to do but am not too motivated. Clean the house... Okay, go air out the futon. That sounds like it would be a good job. I'm having a guest this weekend so it would be nice if the futon were aired out. Be right back...

Okay. I hung out the laundry while I was upstairs too. And hanging it out reminded me of my first few months of being a bride.

In Japan people don't use dryers very often. It isn't that there aren't dryers. Japan is so technically advanced that there are such things as washers that will even continue after the spin cycle and go into dryer mode. A couple of my friends have these futuristic machines, but they don't use the dryer mode very often they say. In my case, I've had a dryer for nearly 16 years but I use it once or twice a year and for the past four years it has been my storage area for cat food (my cats can open any and all drawers and cupboards). Housewives in Japan hang out their clothes. The fresh air smell is important and just the idea of using electricity to dry clothes when the sun and breeze is out there is unthinkable to them. Japanese friends often are amazed when I tell them that maybe except for farm wives who hang clothes on a line, most American women will use their dryer.

For the first 13 years of marriage we didn't have a dryer at all. When I first got married I had to pull the sopping laundry from the washing part of the machine into the spin part of the machine, then back to the wash part for rinsing, then back to the spin part! Yes, and how old am I? Not THAT old but thirty years ago that was the technology. Japan has come a long way. Now washing machines practically talk to us! All laundry was and is hung out on the small balcony of the apartment. The shirts and sheets and underwear vie for hanging space with the futon and pillows that are airing out there too.

I went at my new housewifely role with gusto. Toodl-ie-do, drag the wet laundry out to the balcony, take a bunch of plastic hangers and clothespins and drape things over the laundry pole (we don't use a line or rope either. It is always a sturdy pole. Actually this is a very good invention. Weight doesn't pull anything to the ground.) But wait! My mother-in-law caught me hanging out laundry and declared that I was doing it the WRONG way. One was supposed to spank the laundry first.

Now I had had no training in house care whatsoever and I had NEVER seen my own mother hang laundry ANYWHERE so mother-in-law must be right. She showed me how to take wet laundry out of the basket, fold it lightly in my hand or my lap (sitting on our knees here) and then SPANK it. Spanking wet laundry drives the wrinkles out of it... Ah.. I think that was what I was trying to do when I SHOOK out the laundry but mother-in-law's laundry did look better than mine. I was also instructed that laundry should always be turned inside out (so the sun doesn't bleach it) and hung upside down (so that the clothespins don't leave marks on the shoulders).

While we lived with my mother-in-law I did it her way. Or else just left it for her to do (bad daughter-in-law!) After 28 years of marriage I am back to lightly shaking and hanging it any ol' way, but on the occasions Tetsu hangs out the laundry for me he does it his mother's way. And it looks much less wrinkled in the end.

The sun is shining. The birds are singing. It's a beautiful day. The futon are airing and the laundry is out. Tetsu is going to look at this post today and think.

"Why on earth is she showing our wet laundry!?"

Hmm. I little wrinkly there I see. I should have spanked it first...