Laundry

The cat almost snores on the clean sheets, papers and books under his head, and the next load of laundry is almost done. American washing machines are SO much faster… and bigger. And the dryers. If you’re even lucky/rich enough to have one in Paris, (usually a washer/dryer combo) you have to wait two hours for jeans and a couple of towels. I still air dry plenty of things—undergarments. My favorite tops, those new fuzzy sock slippers I got in my Christmas stocking, which I’m sure would combust from the heat or at least lose all the sticky dots on the bottom of the feet. Filou loves these socks but only when I’m wearing them.

He also “loves” the corner of the bedspread when it hangs long enough for him to hump. When it doesn’t, he looks at it, then at me, and whines. He also loves the throw blanket on the sofa.

I have a sheet fetish. Pure cotton. Mix-n-match. Folding fitted sheets so neatly you can’t tell they’re not flat. But I can. The worst part of doing the laundry is the socks, never coming clean enough, forever losing their mates, escaping the pile, all that pairing and tucking and stuffing into the only drawer I can spare for them. No. I prefer sheets, even towels, their plush stacks on the shelves. Something like my grandma’s linen closet, but never quite.

All of my (current) favorite blankets come from France, each with its own little history—where it came from, which beds it has dressed in which apartments, who slept beneath it. All of them increasingly soft and supple from use. I left only one behind, but it was as much his as it was mine. It was the only one that ever felt like “ours.”