Wednesday New Laundry And Finding Normal

I rose later on Wednesday because I had been up late the night before. I rolled over at 7 and managed to rise just before sunrise. Coffee was waiting for me. My bread machine had danced through the night (more a cha-cha-chá than disco), and I sliced the still-warm bread it finished, rustic French-style but without the hard crust (that requires an oven), put it in a large ziplock bag, and added it to my freezer. Bread turns moldy for me too soon when homemade. Later, I would clean the bake/mix pan and put the bread machine, a cheap but working Amazon Basics version, away until I need it next month. Last night I set the machine on the stove top on a towel. The small lip on the smooth top of the electric range stops the machine from jumping off the surface when it dances.

With some toast (I took one slice of the new bread) with just butter and coffee (Sleepy Monk, supplied by the Most Rev. Steve (Defender of the Realm) and AJ; thanks!). I returned to my usual morning task: Remembering the day before and turning it into a story. Today, I added commentary about various grumpy items. It has been a chaotic week.

President Chaos-Battleship confused Greenland and Iceland in a speech in Europe today and seemed confused and lost a few times. And while I disagree with most of his policies, I hope that he can get help or can retire and make his victory lap. I am worried he will have to be removed against his will as he gets worse. It is clear that his staff is propping him up, a familiar experience for us on the liberal side. It is difficult to wish him good health, but I do. I hope the Republicans and their supporters can find a better solution than we liberals with Biden.

I moved Air VF the Gray to the street and ensured that the garage was available for the new laundry delivery. I checked that way was clear (“Make the way straight for The Laundry” to misquote the bible and other ancient texts). And returned to writing the blog.

I also connected with a dermatologist’s office that took my insurance but no longer takes new patients; the provider is also booked into 2027! Ugh! I tried the next one, score, and have an appointment on 30Jan. Yay!

I completed and published the slightly grumpy blog and headed into the kitchen. I needed to bring some control back to my life. Time to cook something! Trader Joe’s Shiitake Mushroom Chicken and making some rice to go with it sounded perfect. I am happy to work with prepared, cooked chicken instead of slimy, raw chicken or chop-until-you-drop for veggies. I added more frozen green beans, along with the chopped onion and celery that I froze a month ago. I had made too many chopped veggies for my last jambalaya. I washed and cooked basmati rice to go with it. Just a 1/2 cup (rice is bad for my diabetes and my weight–I cannot resist it).  It was hot and fun, but the taste was just average. Still, it gave me back some control.

I watched more of Pluribus on Apple+. It is an amazing show, a SciFi fantasy with a slow-running horror build, with an incredible lead, Rhea Seehorn. The show is now (episode 6, season 1), finally covering some thoughts I was wondering about. And the horror is rising. Wow!

Time runs away from me again. I start on some church paperwork and also start collecting Tax 2025 documents. Portland and other taxing authorities are starting to send out their 1099s. I am expecting to owe the federal government and a refund from the state of Oregon, which is going for another record Kicker. But this is my first year with no income other than transfers from my IRA, interest, apparent refunds, and dividends. Time to learn how retirement impacts taxes. 2026 is my Social Security income year.

It is always strange to reach checklist items (i.e., apply for Social Security) and then do it. It feels so unreal and a bit of a letdown. No longer planning and waiting. Off to the next thing.

The Costco folks arrive, and an hour later, I was running the New Laundry (GE Profile with separate washer and dryer; not a combo machine). The sad LG went the way of appliances via a free haul-away option. The delivery truck was loaded with questionable laundry from previous deliveries and haul-aways.

The process reminded me of many deliveries I did for Wild’s Furniture and Appliances, Inc. I remember delivering and hauling away a washer from an old basement. It was hard work. I was thinking about the delivery guys, Dad Wild, and Grandpa Wild, and about loading up trucks and taking trips to Saginaw, Michigan, to get more stuff. All good memories.

I ran towels in The New Laundry, and everything worked. I started to look at the instructions, surprisingly unhelpful, and just found my way. Later, I learned from the instructions to pull out the pour area to find the detergent tank, which I filled, and to remove the red light indicating the tank was near empty.  The New Laundry is less Internet-based and uses buttons and nobs, unlike The Machine, which required various updates (and allowed you to download various screen changes and sounds).

Again, my closet doors will not close for T he New Laundry. The front-loading doors prevent this. I think I can replace the doors with a curtain later. All good.

Dinner was more Trader Joe’s items, Frozen Chicken Tikka Masala with rice. Just enough to fill you up. Excellent and tasty. Not as good as mine, but it takes about 5 hours to make my version.

More shows, then some Kaggle, without much progress. I returned to Eric Cline’s lecture, a favorite lecture and writer for me on the ancient Middle East, on the Kedem YouTube channel. Mr. Alex Tseitlin hosts the channel; his accent is heavy but understandable, and he is based in Israel, visiting various sites there and interviewing archaeologists at their dig sites. I enjoyed Dr. Cline’s discussion of the Amarna letters, a recorded Zoom meeting with edits. Here is more information if you are interested.  Here is Eric Cline’s new book.

Watching a recent video on Kedem (here), filmed at Tel Hazor in Israel (ancient Hazor from the stories of the Canaanites in the Hebrew Bible — the bad guys in those texts), the hope is that the site may reveal another set of letters, possibly contemporary with the Amarna letters. But one of the Assyriologists working on the site interviewed warned that there are many reasons to believe that the letters are lost. I also learned from the video that the suspected site of the letters, if they exist, is under many excellent Iron Age structures, and that they would be lost if the dig continues. A plan is in place to save as much as possible and limit the size of the destruction. It was an interesting video if you want an up-to-date status of digs and findings.

I checked that the Tel Hazor digs are published, and they are. A complaint from my professors (back in the 1980s) that the digs were for tourists and political purposes. These, at least, were well documented and peer-reviewed.

Aside: I remember my first introduction to these letters and texts in college. There, my professor thought that the chance of finding more lost library of clay tablets was low. In his view, unless the library is burned hot enough to bake the clay, there was little chance of finding a new, partial, or intact ancient library, as the clay would just dissolve in the rains when exposed to the elements or when buried under a new city. Also, the tablets would be junk (later, the text became unreadable when the scribes disappeared from history) to the ancients, and they would not spend any resources keeping them. The Amarna texts were left in the desert and buried when the city was abandoned and overtaken by the desert. Not something that will be repeated anywhere else, my professor pointed out. Now, ancient Hazor was likely burned, and maybe the letters are there. Fingers crossed, but set expectations low (famous sites like Troy and Megiddo have also not yielded libraries, but they are now being sought out).

It was late, and I read for a while in my PJs in bed before taking off my glasses and sleeping. Sleep finally came after a few restarts; best not to describe it here. Thanks for reading!