Living the Can of Worms Theory

Proving the can-of-worms theory to be true, last fall a contractor was looking at the back of our house to get a feeling for where the fireplace addition would go.  He stared at our 100-year-old barn then turned to me and said, “It’s none of my business, but do you know your barn has serious structural issues?” Indeed, the steep roof was spooning and the eaves were bowing out.  Before we started the fireplace project, we had an internal skeleton structure built in the barn loft, but with the help of a contractor, that only took a week.  It should be good for another 100 years, and now we have formally started the fireplace addition.

On April 3rd, the second day of excavation, the foundation crumbled under a corner of the house where it shouldn't have.  A big post is supporting the corner so the roof doesn't collapse.  The floors are on some other support system.   Apparently the use of mortar wasn't deemed necessary in 1880 when the house was built.  One rock was removed by hand from the foundation and the stones simple rolled away.  Kind of like the end of the game Jenga.

There should be a new corner wall of support tomorrow.  Meanwhile, the digger continued excavating our new basement, which will be under the fireplace addition.  And, as I write this, the boys are sleeping in our room on the futon, away from the corner supported by the wooden post.

A Can of Worms

We have passed the demolition stage and are now in full excavation mode at our house with The Beginning of a Fireplace.  It’s taken several years to put this plan in motion, but it’s finally happening. Our hesitancy in jumping into this fireplace project stems from a leaky faucet.

The bathroom faucet started to leak while we had guests visiting one summer.

A few weeks later, we found a new faucet and Bill set out to install it.

But the old faucet was solidly glued onto the pink sink.

The only way to get the faucet out was to take the sink out.

But the sink was firmly glued to the tiled vanity top.

The tiles in the vanity top broke when the sink came out.

With a new faucet, the same pink sink (no, we weren't lucky enough for THAT to break), a new tiled countertop, and a new backsplash, we had functional a bathroom sink -- four months later.

We are all too familiar with the can-of-worms theory.

The Page of Accountability

In seven weeks, I am walking 26 miles over two days. I started walking in February, logging 10 – 15 miles a week.  I need to kick it into high gear now.  I’m going to update this page over the next seven weeks.  It’s my running log of training.  The one on my fridge isn’t cutting it: it’s covered in construction dust since The Beginning of a Fireplace. Part of me wants an audience for this page.  Then another part of me wants it to sit quietly racking up mileage.  I hope the daunting title keeps me in line with training.

So, here goes…

Training for the Avon Walk Boston May 19th & 20th.  I'm In It to End It.

Monday, April 2, 2012  -- 1 hour pilates; 4-mile walk on treadmill at 3 mph: 80 minutes.  Inspiration: my pilates instructor who kept me company on the treadmill next to mine.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012 -- 6-mile walk on the Charles Esplanade in Boston: 105 minutes.  Inspiration: A friend's mom was recently diagnosed with breast cancer; she had surgery today.  My friend and I both have 6-year-old boys, so I set my goal for 6 miles... and did it.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 -- 1 hour pilates.  Inspiration: It felt good afterwards -- but I nearly got sucked into the day without going to the class.  Like so many other things, once I get there, I never regret going.  Why is getting "there" so hard?

Saturday, April 7, 2012 -- 90-minute walk in Iowa, probably about 4 miles, but my $2.99 app said 18.5 miles.  I'm in 2g territory not 4g.  It felt like 18 miles.  Wind from every direction.  Piles of horse poop to dodge.  Dropped my camera and broke the lens.  Inspiration (before the walk): walking on gravel roads.

Sunday, April 8, 2012 -- (Still in Iowa) 4+ hours working with Mom & Dad outside trimming 10-foot high bushes, transplanting flowers, and cultivating a 20-acre field.  This morning, Monday the 9th,  I decided yesterday could most definitely count as cross-training, particularly the trimming and digging:  my upper body had a great workout.  As for cultivating the cornfield, I convinced Dad to let me do it.  The cultivating was much easier than the convincing.  Inspiration: a pick-up truck, electric hedge trimmers, long-handled trimmers, and a big International tractor.

Monday, April 9, 2012 -- (Still in Iowa)  60-minute walk.  Inspiration:  A visit with my friend Ada at the half-way mark.

Friday, April 13, 2012 -- 8-mile walk around Lake Q, 2 hours and 45 minutes.  Inspiration: to see if I could make it to 8 miles.  I did.  Definitely need to add more conditioning walks during the week -- and take ibuprofen before walking.

Spring Break Week -- Short walks on the beach, family bike ride, and the four of us playing baseball outside... Friday, the 20th, did a quick 3.3 miles around Lake Q.  I tried to pick up the pace:  Instead of a 20-minute mile, I did the walk in 52 minutes.

Monday, April 23, 2012 -- 1-hour pilates

Tuesday, April 24, 2012 -- 3.3 mile walk around Lake Q, 53 minutes  Inspiration: new cushioned walking socks -- at end of walk: 1st blister

Wednesday, April 25, 2012 -- 1-hour pilates

Friday, April 27, 2012 -- 3.3 mile walk around Lake Q, 53 minutes, followed by 20-minute cool down walk.  Inspiration: Advil, new shoes & new n0n-cushioned socks: no blisters.  I bought two new pairs of shoes and will alternate wearing them on training walks between now and May 19th... The walk is in three weeks!

Early May update: I'm walking 3 - 5 times a week & 4 - 6 miles at a time.  I did another longer walk a week ago: 8 miles.  Pilates is hit and miss.  I've used that time to walk this week.

 

 

The Beginning of a Fireplace

Planning the move from the Midwest to the Northeast seven years ago, we made a list of what we really wanted in a house: to be close to work, to have enough bedrooms, and to have wood-burning fireplace.  Then, we found a barn and bought the house that came with it. Since then, we’ve been working out how to get that fireplace.  Bill nor I relished the idea of moving again.  We bought at the top of the market in 2005; we like our neighbors a lot; and we like our location.  Plus, we need our barn.

Three years ago we sat with an architect and drew up fireplace plans.  Then pushed them to the back burner.  Last spring we started again and came up with Fireplace Plan II.  Then we looked for a builder last fall.  Finally, two weeks ago we started work on the fireplace.

And the first step in adding a fireplace to the house?

Why, plant a 30-foot dumpster under the window of the barn loft and start chucking things out of the loft over the rail, of course!

It can only get more interesting from here as we work toward celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary roasting s’mores over a fire in our new fireplace come October.

The Hills Are Alive...

…with the sound of heavy breathing. If you enter Breakheart Reservation at the NE Voc School and take the path to the right, you may hear it. As you work your way up and down the hills, you might see leaves on the trees move back and forth when there appears to be no wind.

If you see a glowing in the distance, a red round moving object, that is probably my face going uphill. The noise you hear is me sucking in huge amounts of air making the leaves move to and fro.

Don’t worry, on the downside of the hills, I regain the ability to breathe rather normally.  But I’m sure my face stays red.

To walk 26 miles in the Avon Walk Boston over two days – May 19th & 20th, I need to raise $1,800.

Please move down the page a bit then click on my pink wig to the right (my walking cheeks are a deeper shade of red than the wig…) and help me reach my goal. Or, if you prefer to donate by check, email me at linda@lindamalcolm.com and I will send you a coupon.

Thanks SO VERY MUCH to those of you who have already donated!

The Avon Lady (aka: Linda)

Swiss Chard with Cod -- a long fish story

Some people eat to live. Some people live to eat. Today, without guilt or remorse, I say I’m part of the latter bunch. Last summer I orchestrated a symphony in my Dutch oven. Swiss Chard with Cod. I first tasted it as a gift from a friend while going through chemo two years ago. Kate had the base done; all I had to do was toss in the cod and Swiss chard then boil it for ten minutes. I was doubtful looking at the big pile of Swiss chard, but it is one of the most memorable meals I had while on chemo.

Last summer, I picked up Swiss chard at the CSA. Having misplaced the paper copy, I searched on-line for Kate’s recipe: one with onion, fennel, tomatoes, chicken broth and – the two stars – cod & Swiss chard.

The power and confidence I felt while concocting this delicious dish independently, it was a belly punch. A friend made this for the bald me. Now – decked out with a full set of curls and cancer-free – I’m making it for myself.

My Swiss chard from Tuesday’s CSA was a bit wilted when I get out my Dutch oven on Friday. Heck, what does that matter? It’s going to wilt in the pot anyway.

My big wooden chopping board surfaces and in short my kitchen starts feeling the warmth of the prep smells. An onion finely sliced. A fennel bulb finely sliced. A few Yukon gold potatoes thickly sliced. I think it needs garlic to complete the chopping board warm-up. The rawness of aroma wasn’t complete until the garlic was finely chopped.

Into the pot goes a glug of olive oil, enough to wet the onions and fennel, speckled with salt and pepper. Those vegetables, nearly identical in looks but unrelated in taste draw strings of memory. Until I met Bill I didn’t cook with onions. Until I sat around the table in an Italian woman’s kitchen for a 4-hour cooking class with Gail, I didn’t know what fennel was, nor had I ever eaten so much olive oil in one sitting. The garlic, another Bill-introduced ingredient, was hopping on the board, waiting to join the 10-minute sweat. It must wait: that over anxious chopped bulb would burn and ruin the whole pot. It gets 30 seconds after the onions and fennel finish their sweat – and just before the tomatoes enter in the second movement.

Two pints of drained whole tomatoes that Mom had canned. If you aren’t one of Mom’s sons or daughters, sorry. Make do with what you can. As for me… My fingernails are just long enough to curl under the seal and pop off the lids marked ’09. Instantly, my left arm rises like a spring pulling the Ball jar to my nose. I close my eyes and I inhale Mom’s summer kitchen in Iowa. The second inhale is her winter kitchen. The smell of her chili prep. There is no sloshing these tomatoes from jar to pan. I smell until the memory is complete. Until the strength of the aroma dissipates. Damn, two more jars closer to the end of my stash. Someday I MUST drive home to replenish my stock, or I could learn how to can my own. An ominous thought.

The tomatoes dance with the onions and fennel , uncovered, for ten minutes. A great harmony rises in the steam. Popping bubbles make me think of a web of people. Kate, Gail, Bill, the Italian cooking teacher, Mom.

Then the next layer: the potatoes over the base, a twist of pepper and pinch of salt, enough chicken brother to cover, then lid on for a 10-minute simmer. My stock is made from a bouillon granule base, another trick of Bill’s from 20 years ago.

And here, at the very top, those ingredients newest to my repertoire: fresh cod from the Atlantic & Swiss chard from my CSA. Local ocean meet local farm. The cod waits patiently covered with a squeeze of lemon juice. Finally, the buzz of a 10-minute timer. Cod nestles on top of potatoes and an enormous bunch of chopped chard fills the pot to the top. Lid on for ten more minutes.

“This dish has lots of protein with cod and Swiss chard.” Kate, there was so much more than a healthy dose of protein to give my chemo shocked body a boost.

Ten minutes later the layers come out in reverse order. A plop of chard on each plate; a flaky, moist piece of cod next to the chard; potatoes fished out of the sauce complete a trio on the plate.

The pan goes back to the burner with a lump of butter to add a little velvet. Boil it like hell for two minutes to take some of the liquid out and force the flavors into the ravished onions, fennel, and tomatoes. Burner off. Scooping a handful of chopped basil into the sauce then ladling it over the trio creates a crescendo to this dish too simply named “Swiss Chard and Cod.”

This is entertaining every sense, lulling, teasing. Seeing the ingredients. Feeling the burn of the onion in the eye. Feeling the veg give way from whole to slices under deft movement of a big knife. Smelling the oils released with each slice and Mom’s kitchen with each pop of a Ball lid. Hearing the sizzle in the pot with olive oil. Hearing the bubbles pop.

Taste. Yes, taste, but it’s… it’s the last and nearly the least fulfilling. The other senses. Wow.

Heaped in a pasta bowl & served with multi-grain bread and butter, this is “Swiss Chard with Cod.” I have many guests joining me for this dinner: Bill, Kate, Gail, Mom, the Italian cooking teacher, a Gloucester fisherman, a local farmer. Some I know more intensely than others, but all have a hand in creating this meal.

This is living to eat.

Midwest Girl Goes Fish Shopping

... from a summer journal entry ... I was doing a special grocery shop for Bill’s sister and her family who are visiting from England. She had asked me to pick up some frozen cod that was already in a butter sauce. It would be a quick, easy meal for my nephew.

I couldn’t find cod in the frozen section of the local super market. I approached the fish counter. “I’m looking for frozen cod. Where would I find that?”

The look and the pause from the fish counter man was more saying than the words “Why would you want that?” uttered with his Boston accent.

Hmm... Exactly why am I standing ten miles from the Atlantic wondering where to find frozen cod?

“Well, maybe I’ll just take a big fillet, cut it up, and freeze it myself.”

The look. The pause. Followed by, “Why would you want to do that?”

I give. I’m buying a packet of Knorr’s Hollandaise sauce and a big ole fillet. Tonight everyone is having fresh cod brought in from the Atlantic this morning.

... end of journal entry ...

(Then Midwest Girl went fishing! Check out A Reel Hairy Tale...)

Bunny Hill Confessions

If you have read FEBRUARY BREAK BOY QUOTES, consider this an addendum. The day after Bill closed the Bunny Hill chair lift for several minutes, I had my own episode on said hill. I have not skied since 2000 or before. With the boys on skis for the first time this year, well, I had to get back on, didn’t I? It came back pretty easily. So was I hot dogging on the Bunny Hill? I don’t think so; just skiing with confidence. And at the end of that confidence burst, down I went.

Having laughed at Bill for hours the day before, I had to get up before he saw me down. That’s when I learned I now have someone else’s arms. Mine could push a pole against the side of a mountain and pop up, just like my ski instructor (Bill) had taught me years ago. I was on my left side – aha! The weak side. I did the windshield wiper thing with my skis to roll to my right side. Unfortunately, my right arm is not my own either. I continued with the windshield wiper roll from side to side, desperately looking for an ounce of power in my chicken wings.

From above I heard, “We’re coming to help you, Mom!!!” My 8-year-old was calling out as he and Bill flew over me on the Bunny Hill chair lift. Well, between that and imagining what I looked like doing this windshield wiper thing, I fell into a laughing binge. Still, I needed to get up before they skied down to me. Bill loves to whip his skis and spray people with snow. He knew better than to do that on the big mountain, but here: I was Bunny Hill fodder.

Suddenly, it clicked. I can take my skis off and stand up!! I did. It worked. I was up by the time Bill and Will came to my rescue. I didn’t get it done before they saw me, but I didn’t need to be picked up off the side of the Bunny Hill.

The Bunny Hill score is now even.

P.S. I promised I would write this for Bunny Hill Bill.

There's a new Avon Lady!

My earliest memories of my great-grandma are of self-serve graham crackers in her oven drawer; the big grate in the middle of the living room floor; an over-sized wooden rocking chair; a small box of old toys kept under the china hutch; her small figure always in a dress covered with an apron; and her clicking dentures. For the sharpness of this memory, I know I spent quite a bit of time with her. Only within the last couple years did I realize what Mom was doing while I was staying with Grandma. She was out selling Avon. Bubble bath in those pink bottles with bubbly edges or at Christmas time in tree-shaped decanters. For me, the smell of Skin-So-Soft goes further back than mosquito repellant era of recent years – after all, it was once used in bathtubs!

I still use Avon’s Care Deeply lip balm, and occasionally the little tubes of lotion that Mom still gets for us at Christmas time. And I can drum up the smell of Avon bubble bath and Skin-So-Soft without opening the bottles. At 3 a.m. in mid-February, another Avon product drew me in. I found myself on the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer Boston website. I looked at the training schedules. I looked at the walk route. I looked at 30 pounds still hanging around from that breast cancer year. I hit “Register.”

I woke up the next morning, wondering, “Why?” Because it’s no secret: I am not a huge fan of pink, particularly in October. You can imagine my relief when the white t-shirt arrived in my welcome packet. On the front of the shirt it says: “I AM POWERFUL BOLD PASSIONATE UNSTOPPABLE.” I can wear a white shirt with those pink words.

To walk 26 miles in Boston over two days – May 19th & 20th, I need to raise $1,800. Please click on my pink wig to the right and help me reach my goal. Or, if you prefer to donate by check, email me at linda@lindamalcolm.com and I will send you a coupon.

It’s March 2012. There’s a new Avon Lady. Ding, dong!  Avon calling…

Linda

My mom

I’m not going to give you her phone number, but you can have her famous recipe for thin crust pizza dough. ½ c. warm water. 1 t. yeast 1 c. flour

Mix water and yeast together and leave a couple minutes for yeast to dissolve. Add flour and mix with fork. Dump out onto sprayed pizza pan and work dough to cover entire pan (HINT: Mom makes this look easy. I order out.)

Per Mom... Cook with love.

February Break Boy Quotes

“You can’t judge a woman on her looks.” Liam after watching the Berenstain Bears Halloween episode: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” Apparently the message stuck.

It’s been a week of Liam hovering three inches from my hip if I leave a room. “I can’t be by myself. Remember my bad dream? Skeletons…” Berenstain Bears Halloween episode.

“Look, Mom!” Liam is playing tonalization from piano lessons. On his toes. (We are in Vermont with no piano.)

“I just love being on vocation!” That’s just so darn cute none of us can tell Liam that it’s really “vacation.”

“Cool, we have the roll out bed!” At age 8, Will is not heavy enough to feel every spring and rod in the pull-out sofa.

“I never want to get off my skis!” Liam, after his first-ever ski lesson.

“Did you see me come straight down that hill?” Will, after his first-ever ski lesson, exiting the chair lift and zipping down the hill, leaving me at the top. He’s become one of those little guys on the slopes.

“I think I really hurt my knee…” Bill stated after the 45-second-long wipe out on the entrance to the bunny-hill chair lift – a scene leaving me laughing so hard I couldn’t stand up straight. After all, I am married to Alpine skier, Bill Malcolm, who regularly picks me up off the sides of mountains.

Happy Hump Day…

Eat Your Frog

Love these Mark Twain quotes:

“If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, the rest of your day will be wonderful.”

“If you have to eat a frog, don’t look at it for too long.”

At 6 a.m., the laundry maven went down to the laundry room; stumbled over the dirty clothes; sorted those into organized laundry piles; and put a load of laundry on.

That frog didn't taste too bad!

Happy Hump Day…

Taming an Elephant

I’m traveling through my journals looking for a story to polish and post today. That’s my usual pattern.

It’s not working. I’m distracted.

Until 4 a.m. this morning, I was trying to tame an elephant so we could keep it as a family pet. It understood my words. I got it to sit back on its rear legs with the bribe of a run through the sprinkler if it did what I asked. It was going well until Bill pissed it off. Then it turned into a cartoon elephant, flipped upside-down, and pounded my cartoon family with its head. Disturbing.

Ahhhh… just this minute I worked out where the elephant came from: we had friends over for dinner last night, and we talked about elephants being afraid of mice! Enter the elephant into my dream.

I’m pretty sure the house is my elephant. I can’t tame it all at once or even one bite at a time.

So this is it. I’m out of words for the day. And, again, I will be out of the house for most of the day, giving the elephant more time to grow even bigger.

But starting tonight, like every Friday night, I will be nibbling away at it right through the weekend.

Little Black Dresses

Giving up on my little black dresses from the 90’s, I was bagging them up for the Vietnam Vets. Will came in to see what I was up to.

Will: “Are those dresses from college?”

Me: “A little after college… they are too small now.”

Will: “Wow, you are getting so strong, Mom. Big and strong – that’s why you can still lift me!”

Thankfully, between a size 10 and now, I became a mom.

Happy Hump Day…

MRI Happy Dance

My last radiation treatment was in April of 2010. My follow-up: Alternating every six months, I have a mammogram and an MRI.

Friday, January 13th was my MRI. Driving to the appointment, I thought how crazy it was to schedule an MRI on this day. But, hey, Bill was flying home from China today. What the hell, we live on the edge of superstition.

With my whole being, I try to keep these appointments like a regular dentist cleaning or a physical. And it works – to a certain point. On that Friday it was all calm until the transfer ceremony of the blue Johnny.

Damn. I hate blue Johnnys. They are a transfer of power – away from me.

The same tech has set me up each time I’ve been in for an MRI. And after questions about any metal implants or fake eyeballs in my body, she says, “OK, let’s get your IV set up.”

Damn. I forgot about that needle. But my veins are from a line of women who hand-milked cows and carried 5-gallon pails of feed. “Wow, look at that vein! That’s a nice one.” My veins always excite phlebotomists.

A tiny, tiny prick and we are set. I don’t watch the needle entry or the taping or anything. I strike up conversation, reverting to that good old safe Iowa topic: the weather. Unfortunately, while protecting the visionary sense, another one kicks into high gear.

“Damn! I forgot my gum! I can taste the saline.” And the tech says, “Yeah, that happens to some people.” I thought she should understand a bit more. “That sends me right back to the infusion suite, hooked up to a chemo IV.” “Oh…”

We move from the IV center to the MRI chamber. “What radio station do you want in your headphones?” Country. It would be nice to hear bits and pieces of a story in between the jack-hammering magnetics.

“I imagine you remember the drill: Put the girls in the two holes.” We get “the girls” placed; then I get a panic buzzer in my left hand and hold the IV string in the right hand. Looking down, I should be able to see the wall with the magic mirror. But I’ve already decided I’m going to close my eyes because I don’t want to see a red curl flung over the mirror. For my very first MRI, the curl and I talked quite a bit about its impending travels away from my head.

The techs leave the room and turn on the music. “…I went sky-diving; I went Rocky Mountain climbing; I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu; And I loved deeper; And I spoke sweeter…” Are you fucking kidding me? “Live Like You Are Dying” crooning in my ear as I roll on into the cancer-seeking chamber?

“OK, are you ready, Linda?” Sure. “The first test will run for 3 minutes.”
BANG, BANG, BANG.

“You are doing great!” I’m not afraid of tight places. I’ve dove down to 100 feet in the Caribbean and communed with turtles and Rock Beauties. My body lies there, but my mind goes for a scuba dive. One of the most tranquil places on earth.

Three more… four more sets of BANG, BANG, BANG tests, then, “We are going to start the IV now.” Another quick hit of saline in my mouth. And I don’t think it’s my imagination that the tracer liquid has been kept at -32 degrees prior to running cool through my arm.

Finally, “OK, Linda you are all set. We’ll bring you out, but remember you are up high, and we need to lower you before you stand up. And move slowly, you might be light-headed.”

Farm girls, you know the scene of the cow being corralled into a livestock trailer? And the ambitiousness of her attempted escape? My feet flew to the ground and my horns popped up ready to gore anything in my path, with a smile on my face. The techs just looked at me. “I’m fine,” I assured them. I focused on the table with my glasses and moved to it. I thanked the techs, but one walked with me to the dressing room.

“Are you OK?” “Yup, I’m fine.” “OK, good luck!”

What the hell does THAT mean? Is that the kind of thing you say to someone after an MRI on Friday the 13th? After an IV to the ear of “Live Like You Are Dying?”

I stuck the Johnny in the bin, stood up straight, got to the car, and called my sister. I recapped the morning’s events. “Linda, she says ‘good luck’ to everyone.” We laughed.

I still think the tech needs a better sending off line. And I couldn’t think of one. “Good bye.” No good. “Have a great day!” It may be one of your last. “See you next time!” Bad omen.

“Good luck” it is.

And it was.

On Monday I got the message on my cell phone. “Linda, I’m just calling with good news about your MRI…” And this time I was in a public place, I held it together.

I rarely collapse to my knees in tears on the kitchen floor. That's an over-acted scene in a bad movie. I don’t think I ever did that in the middle of the cancer year.

But those calls that say, “You’re OK”… Boom, down. They take my breath away. They open flood gates.

They give me six more months of living cancer-free.

A Hump Day Short

One of the best conversations I have had this month was with 4-year-old Ellen. While visiting our house, she noticed a coloring page Liam had made that was hanging on the wall in our kitchen.

Ellen: “Hey, I know who that is! Martin Luther King!”

Me: “Why is he famous?”

Ellen: “He had dreams.”

Me: “What were his dreams about?”

Ellen: “Love.”

Happy Hump Day.

The Laundry Maven

The writer is in the house...and the house desperately needs the laundry maven.
The writer, looking for time to scoop up as her own, has been negotiating with the laundry maven. The writer believes she can cope with laundry by doing a load every other day.

When I opened Liam’s jean drawer on Wednesday morning, it was empty.
“You did the wrong load on Monday!” shrieks the laundry maven. That woman is downright crazy.

But I KNOW there is a pair of clean jeans here because Tuesday night I asked Liam to fold his jeans and put them in the drawer. We are trying hard to break the wear-it-once mode. The maven questioned Liam. He was clueless and confused and not concerned. “They are not in your drawer!” accused the laundry maven. We both looked and could find them nowhere – not in the dirty clothes basket, not on beds, not in the wrong drawer. We scrambled to the “wrinkled” basket and found a pair of sweats.

Anticipating the writer’s long overdue return, the laundry maven had been working overtime: First moving her mindset from having toddlers to having capable 6- & 8- year-old boys, then delegating responsibilities. The art of changing sheets can be enjoyed by the entire family, with the help of Bill’s long arms for beds against walls. The challenge of inside out clothes has been handled accordingly: However it goes into the wash is how it returns clean. The crew needed tips on handling inside out shirts, jeans, and underwear, but after a few practice sessions on solving these puzzles, it’s working with only occasionally tags on the outside.

After the Wednesday morning school shuffle, the maven returns to determine the most advantageous load of laundry.

Oh my dear lord, she can’t see the floor in the laundry room. Walking on the mounds, toward the washer, she begins the double sort. With Liam’s eczema, the boys’ clothes need to be washed separately without Downy. This doubles the number of loads to go through one cycle of Doing Laundry.

She digs through the bins. Grown-up jeans sorted on top of boy jeans! The mysteries of her world begin to unravel as she lifts the lid to toss in the boy jeans. But there’s a spun-out wet load in there. Sighing, she takes the headband from her jeans and pulls her hair back into a ponytail; then she mechanically opens the dryer to help the wet load continue its journey. Behind door #2 is a load of dry wrinkled clothes – boys’ darks. Translated, that means ten shirts and 300 little dark blue socks. Since it’s already wrinkled, it can easily be dumped into a laundry basket.

Honestly, why would she expect an empty laundry basket to be in the laundry room? The maven hand-carries the load to the guest bed and finds her way back to the laundry room by following a trail of little blue socks. At last, both machines are happily whirring away.

The laundry maven must retire as the chess club organizer needs to get to school. The laundry maven hands her a pair of sweatpants. “Remember? Will has karate before chess and you couldn’t find any sweatpants this morning.”

After chess, I herd the boys’ out of Will’s classroom and eye a rumpled pair of jeans lying in the middle of the floor. I recognize them as belonging to the Malcolm household. I snag the jeans and the laundry maven proudly smiles at my discovery. She does not like missing clothes. While the boys settle in the van, she picks up the jeans, turns them right-side out, and holds them up to fold them.

She’s stunned. Dazed. Confused. “Will… where did you get these?”

“I took them out of Liam’s drawer this morning. There weren’t any in my drawer.” The maven belly laughs and shakes her head, delighted that he is such a resourceful 8-year-old.

At home that night, the exhausted laundry maven hands the writer her pencil and journal. The writer looks at the blank page not knowing where to start.