Laundry Day at Coho

A couple of days ago, several kids came to the door and asked if I had any laundry they could hand-wash. I had just done the laundry, and to be honest, wondered about the wisdom of handing over delicates to the kids (ranging in age from 4 to 7 years old) to wash. So, I said I did not have anything. They looked so dejected that I felt terrible. (And, as I recently read in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, I had violated the first rule of improvisation: never say no.) After they left, I went to the laundry basket and found one sport top/bra that was not too precious and asked Jessica (four years old, and wringing the devil out of an article of clothing) if they were still accepting laundry, she said yes, and came upstairs to retrieve the top. The other kids were going door to door looking for more laundry. They had a laundry station set up across the path from our building: a soapy tub, a rinse tub, and a drying rack. Jessica, the mom, said that doing laundry was their latest thing. (In the past, Katie (5) and Shoshanna (7) have come around dressed in identical plastic aprons, as the cleaning ladies, with a broom and dustpan, asking if we have anything they could clean. That's an easy one, we can always find something to clean.)

Later in the afternoon, when I returned from a class, I found the laundry rack full of wadded up laundry. I figured they probably needed the lesson about how to hang laundry to dry best, so I only flattened my piece (which was heavier than the others). Later in the day when they were delivering laundry, I received a really cute raspberry-colored linen camisole top, the same color as my sports top. I located the owner of the cami, and I am still hoping my top turns up.

Moral of the story: to have more fun, look for a way to say yes.

Yummy Path!

It is a gorgeous day. Lots of clouds and sun. Took a walk to the river, then began cleaning up some of the slimy, messy vegetation that had frozen in my garden a week ago. As I was walking up the path, getting ready to go inside, I ran into Skya and Jessica (both 4-5 years old) picking leaves off the rosemary and lavender plants in Jude's yard. (They had been doing this in the dark the evening before.) When I asked what they were doing, they said "yummy-path!" Then I could see that they were scattering the herbs on the path. They are trying to create a fragrant path. It is winter, the herbs are not releasing a lot of smell, they will turn to mush on the path - it is true.

When I was four years old, a friend and I gathered lots of cattails and shredded them all over the back yard to make it look like it was covered in snow. We gleefully giggled, danced and sang our way through the yard, trying to cover every bit of earth with the soft, white fluff. Mr. Ganzhaur, the next-door neighbor, quietly looked on with a scowl on his face. When my dad got home I got a big spanking. This was the most unjust spanking I had ever had. I could not understand what I had done wrong - I had made the yard beautiful. It was my first (and only) installation.

Yummy Path - the newest coho installation. I brought in a sprig of the lavender that was dropped on the path, as a souvenir.