I have several Friday 5s to catch up on. Here are two.
From April 27: Know When to Fold ‘Em
- What did you last place into a file folder?
I’m not usually very good about keeping things filed, but I’m trying to keep my space at work tidy, so I take a little bit of time each week for filing. The most recent thing was a couple of receipts for money orders. I pay my rent via money order. I keep the stubs for a year or so, just in case. - What do you know how to fold a piece of paper into?
Origami cranes, of course, but I can also do boats, the fortune-telling flip-flop thing, that triangle that makes WHAP! sounds, and a mobius strip. Why did the chicken cross the mobius strip? To get to the same side! - What’s your laundry-folding procedure like?
Okay. For reasons I don’t want to get into, I take my laundry with me when I visit my folks on Sundays. I can usually cram the whole week’s worth into my gym bag, but it works better if I fold the laundry. So all week, my dirty laundry piles up in my living room. Then Saturday night, I stack my work pants in a neat pile, fold the pile and put it in the bag. I next stack all my dress shirts, fold them neatly, and put them in the bag. Then my shorts and jeans similarly, then all my t-shirts the same way. Stack, then fold as one. Then my boxers. My socks just get shoved on top, then my bed linens if I decide to wash them.When I get to my parents’ house, I take each pile out, unfold it, shake the individual items loose, and start the machine. Yes, I do not separate my items because I just don’t have enough laundry for that.When it’s clean and dried, I put everything back the same way. Stack, then fold as one. When I get it home a couple of hours later, it comes out of the bag and then hung. I hang everything except my socks. Dresser drawers do not work for me; I’ve given up on them completely, at least for now. Instead everything is put on a hanger and hung on a rod in my living room. Socks go into a gift bag I keep next to my desk, since I sit at my desk to put my socks and shoes on each morning.
Yes. I live alone. Why do you ask?
- When do you next expect to invite someone into your fold?
The next Camp NaNoWriMo is in July, and we Honolulu writers usually welcome at least one new person to the evening Skype sessions. That’s probably the next time I expect to welcome anyone new to any of my folds. - When have you slept on a foldaway bed?
When we were kids, we had a foldaway bed for our friends’ use whenever someone slept over. It was such a novelty that we loved being allowed to sleep on it when visiting relatives took our beds. That was a very long time ago. I’ve slept on many folding futons as an adult while visiting friends. When i lived in Hilo, my regular bed was a nice folding mattress I put on the floor of my closet so the rest of my bedroom could be for desk space. After two years of sleeping on it, it was pretty flat and no longer comfy. I have a folding futon in my living room that I never use anymore. The futon has worn thin enough that I can feel the slats of the pallet right through the mattress. I plan to get a new one in the next year or so. The last time I slept on it was maybe ten years ago. Maybe longer.
This one from April 5: Aloon Again, Naturally
- With which Looney Tunes character do you have the most in common?
You know what? I hate Tweety. But I think it’s Tweety. Every optimistic. Passive but safe. Naive. How do I even stand myself? - Who or what are your metaphorical Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote?
My metaphorical Road Runner is literary success, on which I still haven’t given up hope. Of course, I’m not pursuing it as doggedly or as single-mindedly as Mr. Coyote (Genius). My Wile E. Coyote is death, at least for now. Can’t catch me, Mister Death! Oh wait, I’m changing my first answer. My Road Runner is a good night’s sleep! - What’s up, doc?
Attended my friend Momi’s doctoral dissertation defense today. She did a great job, and I was really proud. I’m suuuper tired right now (slept great Friday and Saturday nights, but terribly Sunday and Monday nights) but seeing if I have enough in me to have dinner with her and her (new) husband while they’re still in town. I’m not thrilled about the husband part, but for the sake of this friendship whatever. And now that she’s not still working on this doctorate, she doesn’t need to come to Manoa from Hilo anymore, which means who knows when I’ll get to see her again? Ugh. I think I just talked myself into it. - When did you last hear some opera music?
Man, that’s a good question. It’s been quite a while. Maybe when I saw Renee Fleming with the Honolulu Symphony, which was more than ten years ago. That can’t be right, but maybe it is. - What’s a good life lesson you learned from Looney Tunes?
Watch where you point that thing, and I shoulda made that left toin at Albakoykee.
Before getting started, I keep forgetting to ask. What was the public reaction to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s konnichiwa response to Senator Mazie Hirono’s request to restore two million dollars in grant funds to preserve history of the “internment camps”?
1. What did you last place into a file folder?
Went to renew my driving license and upgrade to the new USA REAL ID at the DMV which is almost as good as carrying a passport. Had my driving license, birth certificate, passport and Social Security card stapled to the original unfolded Social Security stationery. Except it isn’t my Social Security card. It is the perforated card from which my Social Security card was removed and never returned when I applied for an after school job as regional distribution manager for a major oil company. (Pump jockey and the region was the full service island at the gas station which doesn’t have the same cache on a resume.) Arigato gozaimashita, Mobil! Because I put off going to the DMV until the afternoon of my birthday , I didn’t have time to go to the Social Security office to correct the problem and was forced to settle for an ordinary driving license. When I arrived back at home, I slammed my ID stuff in the filing cabinet in an uncharacteristic fit of emotion because taking it out on inanimate objects means never being court ordered to attend anger management classes. Dewdrop Inn School of Law Class of ’95.
2. What do you know how to fold a piece of paper into?
Japanese. Origami.
3. What’s your laundry-folding procedure like?
I don’t. Everything comes out of the dryer and separated into Rubbermaid Roughtotes storage containers or hung on hangers in closets. All my towels, sheets, footies, etc are white so yes to chlorine bleach with All hypoallergenic laundry detergent with no scents or dyes and NO FABRIC SOFTENER. I hate fabric softener. Makes clothes feel waxy; towels do not seem as absorbent. And it usually perfumes the laundry. I love the smell of chlorine. Sometimes a color load for socks which are light grey, medium grey, dark grey or black all in the same model or sexy things but not very often as I have so many.
I think I get these ideas from serving hard time in parochial school wearing uniforms. You may control our minds but you cannot control our shoes and socks! Or hair color but that’s another story.
Heavyweight oxford button down shirts, trousers, short pants, blouses, skirts, dresses go to the laundry. Light starch and folded on the shirts, please.
4. When do you next expect to invite someone into your fold?
Usually this is done by someone other than me who brings an interesting new person to a tailgate or party.
5. When have you slept on a foldaway bed?
Japanese. Futon.
Martha Stewart tells us to make our beds every day. I pull mine out from the closet and make it every night.
1. With which Looney Tunes character do you have the most in common?
Egghead, Jr.
2. Who or what are your metaphorical Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote?
My current Road Runner is KFC drumsticks dunked in a kilogram tin of osetra caviar. Then Wile E Coyote steps in and reminds me that would cost $6000. And a methuselah of Veuve Clicquot is $800. And I’d need all the accoutrements for serving caviar such as mother of pearl spoons and a sterling silver Reed and Barton Francis Ist punch bowl ($60,000) filled with ice to place the tin for serving the caviar. Reservations at Momofuku and a round trip flight to New York, a little over a grand. Think of all the money I’m saving!
Hold your horses. Do I have that backwards and Road Runner would fly to New York?
Clearly, I do not know what I’m talking about.
3. What’s up, doc?
Funny how you never see Bugs Bunny and Alan Alda in the same room at the same time.
4. When did you last hear some opera music?
Funny you should ask. Made a CD of opera music and a CD of T-Model Ford’s blues for my late night jaunts across the countryside. Nope. The Rolling Stones or SCANDAL.
Besides, if I wrap the roadster around a tree at 150mph, I don’t think the EMTs are going to appreciate prying my lifeless body from the wreck while listening to Vesti la giubba from I, Pagliacci.
5. What’s a good life lesson you learned from Looney Tunes?
Beware of anthropomorphic cartoon animals with frying pans.
My own response was to shrug my shoulders. Almost nothing a Congressman does is any shock to me anymore, and when ignorant people say ignorant things, why should that surprise anyone?
There was the usual social media fury around here. It died down rather quickly.
It’s interesting the transformation Mazie has made in recent years. She used to be liked, sorta respected, but mostly just tolerated. Like many Democrats in this most Democratic of states, she knew that as long as she didn’t stir the waters, she could hold office. She did both adequately (not stirring the waters and holding office), until she lost a big gubernatorial election to a Republican candidate. It was a good example of how uncharismatic and uninspiring she was.
Then somehow she got elected to Congress, and now she seems to have a few things to say. People who don’t dislike her (for her party, for example) think she’s pretty badass now. I know I do.
Thank you for helping me understand.
I pasted and copied incorrectly. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa was greeted by Zinke with konnichiwa. I thought she showed subtle restraint by correcting him.
It was Sen. Hirono who tweeted [Zinke’s greeting was] “flippant and juvenile. The internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans is no laughing matter, @SecretaryZinke.”
In related news, a girl named Isolde posted to a Facebook group of which I am a former member that she thought silent film star Sessue Hayakawa’s name and most Japanese names in general sound like a sneeze. Usually I remain ladylike and don’t use vulgar language but responded Isolde sounded like a wet fart.
Surprise! I was the one who got kicked out.
Thank goodness they can’t read Japanese ’cause they’d have had a field day with Katsumi.
So. My resolution is to be more like Colleen Hanabusa. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Or maybe Mohammed Ali.
Hanabusa is almost certainly going to be our next governor, something that does not please me, but we’re a resilient state. We’ll be okay. I hope!