washen - to launder
no i'm not laundering money. that would be a much better story.
today i embraced my role as hausfrau and cleaned. now, i clean at home too, but there is a dog that makes a lot of mess and it's a bigger place - so it just doesn't look like i do. really. but if there is one thing that satisfies my need to just get something done around the house, it's laundry. probably because the machine does it all for me. here, not so much.
first of all, our landlady works for the spanish embassy (and is spanish) so many of the things we have in our apartment are in spanish. this is a good thing, as my 5 years of spanish has really come back as i try to cram german into my head. so, i think, i can do laundry in a spanish machine. no prob. i know what "lavado" means. in fact, the language is not a problem at all. it's the freakin' symbols on the machine!
these are not symbols i have seen anywhere. they are not international washing instruction labels, they are not pictures of clothes, detergents, temperatures, water, on/off - nothing i recognize. but i'm a smart hausfrau with wireless internet. i get online and download an english version of the machine's manual. i am brilliant, i think, for the 30 minutes it takes to download.
apparently, i'm not as brilliant as i think i am, or the manufacturers are dim. there is a picture and an explanation of every aspect of the machine - except for what the symbols are! how can they skip that? now i am frustrated and thinking - no wonder europeans wear the same thing every day! they can't figure out laundry either!
so i call the woman upstairs, who also works at the embassy and has said we should call her with any questions. if there ever was a time - the cat has decided she likes to sleep between the sheets but she is also too fat to clean herself in *certain* areas, so really, laundry isn't an option at the moment.
the woman from upstairs makes an appointment with me during her siesta time to come explain the washer. she comes down, she apologizes for her english being rusty (it's not) and we look at the machine. she explains all the spanish to me, which i am happy to say i was completely right about. "so," she says, "now you understand." and i say, yes, but it still isn't working. i ask what the symbols mean. she says she has no idea.
then she reaches under the sink, turns a knob and the machine starts to work! the water had been turned off only to the machine and not the rest of the apartment. now i know. and knowing, of course, is half the battle. (anybody with me?)
there is no dryer. i wasn't expecting one. so the challenge now is to figure out where to hang things as one sheet takes up the entire drying rack. as of now there are 2 chairs draped with a sheet next to the radiator, a bunch of socks and underwear on the radiator and jeans hanging off of the kitchen counter which is over the radiator. it's a bit of a war zone in here. but at least we now have clean laundry. crispy drying, 4 hour long taking, cold, damp, laundry.
today i embraced my role as hausfrau and cleaned. now, i clean at home too, but there is a dog that makes a lot of mess and it's a bigger place - so it just doesn't look like i do. really. but if there is one thing that satisfies my need to just get something done around the house, it's laundry. probably because the machine does it all for me. here, not so much.
first of all, our landlady works for the spanish embassy (and is spanish) so many of the things we have in our apartment are in spanish. this is a good thing, as my 5 years of spanish has really come back as i try to cram german into my head. so, i think, i can do laundry in a spanish machine. no prob. i know what "lavado" means. in fact, the language is not a problem at all. it's the freakin' symbols on the machine!
these are not symbols i have seen anywhere. they are not international washing instruction labels, they are not pictures of clothes, detergents, temperatures, water, on/off - nothing i recognize. but i'm a smart hausfrau with wireless internet. i get online and download an english version of the machine's manual. i am brilliant, i think, for the 30 minutes it takes to download.
apparently, i'm not as brilliant as i think i am, or the manufacturers are dim. there is a picture and an explanation of every aspect of the machine - except for what the symbols are! how can they skip that? now i am frustrated and thinking - no wonder europeans wear the same thing every day! they can't figure out laundry either!
so i call the woman upstairs, who also works at the embassy and has said we should call her with any questions. if there ever was a time - the cat has decided she likes to sleep between the sheets but she is also too fat to clean herself in *certain* areas, so really, laundry isn't an option at the moment.
the woman from upstairs makes an appointment with me during her siesta time to come explain the washer. she comes down, she apologizes for her english being rusty (it's not) and we look at the machine. she explains all the spanish to me, which i am happy to say i was completely right about. "so," she says, "now you understand." and i say, yes, but it still isn't working. i ask what the symbols mean. she says she has no idea.
then she reaches under the sink, turns a knob and the machine starts to work! the water had been turned off only to the machine and not the rest of the apartment. now i know. and knowing, of course, is half the battle. (anybody with me?)
there is no dryer. i wasn't expecting one. so the challenge now is to figure out where to hang things as one sheet takes up the entire drying rack. as of now there are 2 chairs draped with a sheet next to the radiator, a bunch of socks and underwear on the radiator and jeans hanging off of the kitchen counter which is over the radiator. it's a bit of a war zone in here. but at least we now have clean laundry. crispy drying, 4 hour long taking, cold, damp, laundry.
posted by jordan at
4:52 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Jordan! When I was learning German, my brain always seemed to revert to Spanish when I struggled for a word, that being my "foreign language vocabulary bank" I guess.
As for the sheets, try hanging them over the edge of an open door--that's how I dried sheets without a dryer in my old apartment.
By
Anonymous, at January 25, 2006 8:19 PM
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