The World According to Barb: August 2021

Many of you have been questioning why there have not been any recent blogs. My answer to this is that I've simply been having too much fun on the weekends to write. Writing is something I do in my day job so taking away any "play time" on the weekends to write a blog just never seems like a good idea.

The summer has been full of tennis, music festivals, bike rides and just a whole lot of fun. Went to AND survived Lollapalooza with my daughter as well as the Hella Mega Tour with my son a few weeks later. I was so happy to be hearing live music again, definitely my happy place. All and all an amazing summer and sad to see it soon coming to a close.

Today, however, it's extremely soupy and hot out, giving me two options: cleaning my condo or writing a blog. Condo cleaning can wait!

Ben and I seeing Weezer, Fallout Boy and Green Day at Wrigley. Note: I'm wearing the shirt I bought him after taking him to his first Green Day show at 13.

Love Life Update

Not much in the way of an update. Jon and I are still enjoying each other's company, and next month we celebrate the one-year anniversary of our first date, which took place at the Hopleaf, one of my favorite local bars. To this day, Jon has my number saved in his phone as "Barb Hopleaf."

As you all know we met and started dating during the pandemic so I must say I did worry about what would happen when Jon--who is quite the snappy dresser--realized that my pandemic wardrobe and my schlubby chic normal wardrobe are sadly one and the same. He seems to have dealt with that reality.

The year has flown by and we have had a lot of fun together. Lots of adventures and certainly more on tap. He is a very active guy so we are always doing something, although he definitely also enjoys activities that are not at the top of my list of fun things to do.

For one, he's a camper and while I love campfires, s'mores, hiking and being outside, the whole sleeping outside thing isn't my bag. I can hike until my legs are jelly, but at the end of the day I want clean sheets, a hot shower, and a meal I don't have to forage for. Period. Sadly, I know he hasn't given up trying to convince me to give it a try. "We don't sleep on the ground; we have cots." Oh boy!

While I know his intention is to alleviate my concerns, the last time I was on a cot was in the 6th grade when I was feigning a stomachache to get out of the long run in gym class. I don't remember enjoying it, although it did beat running.

Now, can I imagine a scenario in which I would willingly sleep on a cot...in a tent? Well, sure. But most of those scenarios involve the Red Cross and some type of natural disaster, like a tornado or hurricane (highly unlikely), or maybe a plane crash.

One of his trips over the winter, he and a group of equally nutty, but physically fit friends walked up a mountain in skis with skins on and all their gear for 8 miles!! I'm not even a fan of carrying my own suitcase. The end goal is a hut. A hut. Not a bougie hotel suite, but a hut. Backcountry skiing is the real reward.

For real, I would have made it maybe 2-3 miles before someone put me out of my misery. Our relationship could not have weathered the amount of bitching and complaining that would have been emanating from me.

Call me crazy, but I prefer skiing in areas where ski patrol can come rescue me, if needed, and where magical chairs take you to the top of the mountain. Not areas where you have to wear special devices to survive avalanches and where you have to walk uphill to get to the top.

They don't build them like they used to...

I might be in the market for a new washer/dryer. I truly hope you were all sitting for that shocking news. To be honest, I don't want to buy a new set as I am well aware that the appliances they make today don't hold a candle to the quality of the ones of yesteryear.

When my ex and I got married, we financed a washer/dryer set from Sears. When I moved out of the family house nearly 25 years later, both were still in perfect working condition. I gave them to a friend's son and his wife so they might still be washing and drying like champs. Update: my friend Mary reports they are still both functioning perfectly 32 years later.

When I moved into my condo, there was a rather old washing machine and dryer already there so I didn't rush to replace them. At one point the dryer started making an odd, clunking sound. Turns out of of its fins (probably not the technical term) on the inside had become detached and was flinging around. The screw to keep in place had fallen into the drum of the dryer so I just tore it off. Works like a charm again. Not a McGyver-esque fix, but it worked.

It's not that I can't afford a new pair, but why spend thousands to replace them with some space-age, computerized contraption that won't last a quarter of the time these other super-senior appliances do? I don't want a motherboard on my washing machine. I really don't need them to be "smart." Just like dogs, you don't want the smartest one. They are too much work. Same theory applies with appliances.

Washing and drying clothes is a very simple task. That's why the older models didn't break much; there wasn't much to break. Simple mechanics; no electronics, sensors, or microprocessors. I'm not asking it to solve differential equations; I just want it to clean and dry my damn clothes. Have clothes become more complex? I don't want to me able to communicate with my washing machine.

Older ones are also much easier to operate. My current dryer offers me two options: Normal and Delicate modes. So my options are: hot or surface-of-the-sun hot. Easy peasy. Don't put anything in there that will shrink. Same with my washer. A few options but 90% of the time, I go with normal (warm wash/cool rinse). The newer ones offer a million different features, a myriad of different configurations to choose from. My clothes don't require any advanced settings.

I had a lot of friends who ran out and bought those front-loaders and then had to deal with mildew and other issues; there were class action lawsuits from furious owners. My mom bought a new fancy top loader a few years ago, which to this day I can't figure out how to operate, and it's so deep that she quite literally fell into it one night and couldn't get out!!! Fortunately she eventually escaped it; thankfully she's a nimble and athletic old lady.

When she finally liberated herself, she came up excitedly to tell my dad what has just happened. His response was, "well, thank God you got yourself out of there, because I have no idea where the camera is and I would have had to find that first before I came down to help." Image below is her demonstrating what happened. Notice the stool.