Love in the Rinse Cycle

I’ll readily admit that I’m a clothes horse. I love clothes…so much, in fact, that I’ve taken over the entire master bedroom walk-in closet…relegating my husband’s clothes (how can he survive with so few?!) to the closet in the guest room. In my defense, I’m an actor who also does cabaret…so I need to have a well-stocked wardrobe. Yes, I NEED a classic tux, a white tailcoat, a black tailcoat, a white dinner jacket, and all the yummy sport coats and suits that I’ve found at Revivals (our local AIDS charity resale shop). And that doesn’t include my extensive collection of leather gear (Yes, yes, my lovelies, I’ll write about that soon!) which fills up my office closet. Hmmmm…..leather! Oh, where was I?

Do you know why I found so many nice items at Revivals? Because, NOBODY dresses up here in the Palm Springs area. Semi-formal means, jeans and a nice Hawaiian short. Wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt for an evening out is comparable to wearing a tuxedo. Add a tie and a sports coat, and you might as well be wearing a ball gown. So why do I need so many clothes, which I rarely wear? Because…well…because I can’t help myself. I like to have options whenever I go to the theatre, even though I’ll be over-dressed. And, oh course, I love dressing up for the Desert Star Awards, the local theatre awards, which is, unfortunately cancelled this year due to the damn pandemic, with winners announced online. And this might be my year to finally win one, instead of being the Susan Lucci of the Coachella Valley. And, if you don’t know who about Susan Lucci….then I pity you.

On a personal level, I’m going to talk about laundry, or rather, the marital politics of laundry. Now laundry in our house has a certain protocol. Since we have solar power and dislike paying for electricity, we only do laundry when the sun directly hits the panels on the west side of our roof….i.e. in the afternoon, between the hours of 1:00 and 5:00. And NEVER EVER at the same time that the dishwasher running….and vice versa. So we only have a narrow window of time to run the washer (and dishwasher). The dryer uses natural gas, so it’s not really an issue. Since I do the majority of the laundry, I’ve been made VERY aware of this protocol by the hubby, who watches our solar energy usage online like a hawk.

I’ve come up with a few helpful hints to insure that your laundry doesn’t cause undue stress at the home front:

First, if your clothing item has a drawstring, for God’s sake, tie the ends together in a bow. Otherwise, you be threading that damn cord back into the waist of the clothing. Not a fun task.

Second, if you want the laundry done a certain way, do it yourself! For example, if a pair of underwear is white with a dark black waist band, should it be washed with darks or whites? I opt for the former choice; my husband opts for the latter. There’s no right answer….it’s like Schrödinger's cat. Both answers are correct.

Next, if you want to keep track of your own clothing, then fold you and your partner’s clothing and place in separate piles. Otherwise, you’ll find your clothing intermingled with each other’s. Now, if you and your partner are the same size and you don’t mind sharing each other’s clothing, you can ignore this hint. Me? Well, I don’t like sharing more personal items…..socks and underwear. For ease of separating, we have different brands. T-shirts are still an issue, especially plain colored t-shirts. Mine invariably find their way into my husband’s dresser bureau. You can further remedy the situation by opting for designs on your t-shirts. I have several fabulous Marina Mac t-shirts (see my blog entry A HAIRY SITUATION for more insight into Marina Mac). Anyway, my husband knows these t-shirts are MINE; I also think they frighten him! Of course, if I mentioned Marina’s award-winning performance as Norma Desmond in Desert Rose’s CHRISTMAS WITH THE CRAWFORDS, he would immediately exclaim, “Oh, She’s FABULOUS!”

Finally, you might just need to accept that….really….it’s only clothing. And, despite, these slightly eccentric, irksome foibles….that it’s better to have somebody’s laundry mixed in with yours….especially if the clothing belongs to someone you love. Besides, you can always rescue your clothing from your husband once you realize that something of yours has gone AWOL. This is especially true of cargo shorts in this house….I keep buying them and they keep disappearing and then reappearing covered with paint splatters. Speaking of disappearing, I have no guilt whatsoever in discarding my husband’s worn out socks, underwear and plain white t-shirts. He usually never notices and if he does, I always feign ignorance and purchase replacements from Costco!

Oops, the dryer alarm has just gone off! I think plays a phrase from some Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Our house is anything, if not GAY!