Tag: chores

Sundaz Wandering Thoughts

This is just a weird household fact. Weird isn’t even the right word. Really, just something noted.

Here in our household, the clothes washer is just called the washer, or the washing machine. But the dishwasher is always fully said with both words, even though it’s been morphed into one. Examples:

“I’m going to put some stuff into the washer and do a load.” That would be the clothes washer.

“Should we turn on the dishwasher?” Self explanatory.

And now, as I’m writing it out to understand what I think about this, I see how much context plays into the whole scheme. Like, we don’t collect dirty clothes into the washer and then announce that we need to do a load. No, that’s all more systematic. We put the dirty clothes into a wheeled basket. When it’s full or one of us has a specific need for something to be washed.

I’d attributed it to our upbringing. I’m 69. My wife is a year younger. Her family never had a dishwasher. Dishes were always washed by hand. My family acquired their first dishwasher when I was eleven. Mom bought it on sale at Sears for Mother’s Day. So I thought that my wife and I grew up with clothes washers but dishwashers came later. Hence the difference.

Could be a bit of both, I suppose. As a final aside, my wife announced on Friday, “I’m going to wash clothes. Do you need to put anything in there? I’m doing darks.”

“No, I have nothing.”

I went off and did something in the other room. When I came back, she accosted me. “We had so many dirty clothes that I had to split it up into two loads.” She gestured back at the machine. “Why are you wearing so many clothes? Where are you going? What are you doing?”

“I’m just following the norm,” I replied. “You know, clean shirt, clean underwear, clean socks. Just one of each a day. Except socks. I wear a pair of them. I usually wear my pants a few times before washing them.”

“You need to be less clean,” she replied.

I laughed. Being told to be ‘less clean’ was definitely a first.

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Mundaz Theme Music

Munda, September 15, 2025, has settled in against a backdrop of clear blue skies and warm sunshine. Summer is hanging on, taking us from overnight lows in the lower fifties to an 85 F high. All things end, though, and summer’s last days are coming on in the northern hemes.

I spoke to Dad this morning. He’s still in the rehab center. His voice was not strong. This latest ordeal really seemed to suck his life energy out of him. But…it might also be that he had just gotten out of a very hot shower and said he was sleepy. On a more positive side, my wife seems over her illness. She ate yesterday, picked up a book and read, and went to exercise class this morning.

Had a storm of dreams again last night. Went from being in the military trying to get a haircut to being in charge of a process with IBM and ISS, the Internet security companies where I worked, to recover and shut down security equipment. The latter was a messy, disorganized affair, and no one had done anything, so I was taking it on. Out of the blue toward the end, three young women, teenagers, really, appeared to help me with the computers. They weren’t much assistance at first, as they lacked knowledge but they were eager and energetic. With their help, I began wrangling the mess into something bearing some coherency.

Back to some rock ‘n roll for Munda. I was singing “Honky Tonk Kitty” to Papi this morning after he chirped appreciation for the food being delivered to him. Naturally, my song inspired The Neurons to fire up memory of the Rolling Stones tune in the morning mental music stream, as it’s quite similar to what I was singing.

Today’s project is about getting tree branches cut back from the neighboring apartment complex. I’d do it but realized that some of the branches are higher than my reach, even if I’m standing on a pile of books on top of a ladder where they tell you not to stand because it’s unsafe. I’ve reached out to the apartment complex to start a dialogue about my needs and intentions. They were out of office, so I left a message. Next steps would be to talk with them and then get estimates and get ‘er done.

Hope peace and grace find and lift you up today and every day. Coffee is doing some heavy lifting in me today. Time to bounce on into the day. Cheers

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Monday’s Wandering Thought

When he did chores at home, he always challenged himself with time limits. Vacuum the floors or wax the furniture by such and such time. What will you give me if I do, his neurons always answered, as he rushed about, intent on his artificial goals.

Other people would probably find it silly, maybe childish, making these fake goals, but these small goals helped prop up the day’s structure and keep time from getting away from him. It worked for him, so what did he care what they cared?

It’s not like anyone knew.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

A sublime rollout of sunshine woke the valley at 7:21 this morning. True, large swaths of the valley’s population were already awake or now retiring to sleep. Depends on your species and intentions, doesn’t it?

October 13, 2022, has arrived, a Thursday in the common era. A mountainous presence lowered the air’s temperature to a pleasant mid-fifties Fahrenheit overnight. Our meteorologic oracles say temperatures will climb to the high eighties. They said the same yesterday but our sector never saw anything above 81 degrees F. Not that I’m complaining. It was coolish but sunny, comfortable weather for short sleeves and short pants. The lower temperature seems to be a collateral impact from the Cedar Creek smoke veiling the sun. Not too smoky, it’s a moderate haze that manages to pull our air quality to less than ideal level, 63. The solar system’s movement will bring us sunset at 6:32 PM.

Now it’s up to the daylighters to decide what to do in this time and environment. I have a variety of chores and actions needed to catch up with modern demands, which is often known as ‘paperwork’ even when it comes in electronic form. We had a celebratory beer for our departed member, Chris, and planned our annual celebration of being which will be in November this year. Paella is the featured dish.

Of course, I’m sitting here as sunshine completes its morning takeover thinking, okay, it’s time to do this and that. Time to get cleaned up and dressed. Time to make some phone calls, check some emails, read some blogs, write some fiction. Time to watch the Jan 6 hearings, time to —

Well, the point has been driven in, hasn’t it? It was ‘the time’. The Neurons leaped onto the words. “Oh, oh, oh,” they shouted. “Here’s a song about that.”

They began playing “It’s Time” by Imagine Dragons from 2012. That delivered me to now, where the song continues rolling through the morning mental music stream. And here I am.

Yes, the coffee is brewed and ready to drink. It’s time to get on with the day and get things done. Stay positive, test negative, and carry on with what you need to do. It’s time, don’t you know.

Cheers

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thought

He realized that many things needed to be done, and that he was the person who needed to do them. A list was made and priorities established, good initial steps. Critically, he would need to remain focused and ignore the call of books and computer games, and keep his energy marshalled.

That was always the challenge.

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One Piece

When you’re vacuuming, you ever notice there’s always one piece, usually lint, but typically a clump of cat fur in our house, that has supernatural powers to resist the vacuum? You run the sweeper over it repeatedly, but it defiantly stays on the floor, sometimes moving around and pretending that it’s been sucked up, only to re-appear a few moments later. Then you’re forced to other courses of action to get it up, even stooping to pick it up and feed it to the vacuum, just to prove who has the power.

Yeah, that’s so annoying.

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