;)
;)
;)
;)
Magical machine
I kind of love Mondays. As much as I adore the weekends, it's a lovely moment when everyone is off to school and work, the house is quiet, and I start trying to conjure order in our weekend-blitzed house.
Usually, this means laundry: gathering, sorting, loading, unloading, folding. That makes it sounds so busy, so work intensive, doesn't it? But my great grandmother Elsie's laundry day was exponentially more taxing. With 9 daughters, a husband, and herself in one household, her laundry piles must have been massive. She soaked, scrubbed, twisted, wrung, and ironed at least 45 dresses and dozens of underclothes, sheets, towels, etc. Hers, no doubt, was a very active and exhausting laundry day.
This morning as I waited (waited! luxurious extra time!) for the washing machine to do its thing, I came across this TED clip by the marvelous Hans Rosling (one of my personal heroes: co-founder of Doctors without Borders Sweden and Gapminder, public health guru, and no one makes data more clear--I salute you, Hans!).
We do take it for granted but I think Rosling's right: this was a game changer for women. Let's hear it for all the books read, children played with, and interests pursued while the magical washing machine chugged away.
Folding these mounds of clean clothes doesn't seem like such a drag today, you know?
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Reader Comments (4)
I watched this while I folded laundry. Today I did 6 loads of laundry at once (I'm in an apartment building with a laundry facility on every other floor). How amazing is that?
By the end of my 18 month mission in Ecuador I had learned to wash one load of whites in 45 minutes. ALL BY HAND. I'm proud of how efficient I became but I still wish everyone could have the use of a washing machine.
Shennie, what a joy to hear from you! Using 6 washing machines at once is definitely high on the decadence scale, globally speaking.
I'm pretty sure I would be all thumbs in getting a load of wash done by hand, let alone in 45 minutes! Hats off to you.
Washing Machine = More time to read! Somethings never change...Alivia loves to push the buttons on the washing machine. Great post, Annie :)
I think about the washing machine all the time! Really, I am so lucky.
You know what else I think about? Tampons.