Another Day in the Country
Doing it yourself
© Another Day in the Country
Yesterday, my sister and I, entrenched do-it-yourselfers, painted a second coat on railings and posts of my house’s porch. What a tedious job!
Spindles are the worst part, defying you to get every nook and cranny and to leave no drips of paint behind. This is one of those once-every-15-years jobs, and I was so pleased when it was done.
After supper, I loaded my dishwasher and pushed its magic button to begin the cleaning process.
Nothing happened. How could this be? Something was wrong. It worked yesterday. Why not today? What happened in the meantime?
My mind began reiterating reasons for something to suddenly quit working.
There weren’t any power failures. There’ have been no strange noises from the machine — only the usual trickles, swishes, humming, and draining sounds.
I’d only emptied the dishwasher, refilled it, closed the door securely, and pushed the “On” switch. I expected it to power up and begin the cycle, but nothing happened — complete silence in the kitchen.
This morning, I tried it again. What was I expecting? Perhaps I’d hoped that the machine just needed a rest, as I did, and that miraculously in the morning we’d both be up and at it, ready to go the next day.
On closer inspection, there wasn’t even a light coming on, so I checked a breaker. Nothing wrong there.
Resigned, I became a dishwashing do-it-yourselfer. I emptied the dishwasher and washed the dishes by hand, the good old-fashioned way, using empty racks in the dishwasher as a drying rack. I call it Korean-style dishwashing.
My Korean extended family often uses the dishwasher as a dish drier instead of running it to wash the dishes.
Sometimes it is because there are too few dishes to run the whole machine. Sometimes there are too many for one load, so they wash the dishes by hand and stack them in the empty dishwasher racks to air dry.
“It saves electricity,” my daughter’s husband says.
Today, at my house, I’m washing dishes Korean style while I figure out what to do next to solve this problem.
Will anyone that I know be able to solve this dilemma? Are dishwashers even fixable these days? Or do I just cut to the chase and buy a new machine?
“Which is more economical, more feasible?” I ask Google.
Accidentally, I click on a “sponsored site” for my answer,
“We have three trained technicians to solve your problem,” the chat box read. “Just give us your email in case we lose connection.”
Ah, the wonders of AI when what I really need is a good old, real live fix-it guy, who’s harder and harder to find.
Then there’s the old story of new equipment, with supposedly new and improved features, being harder and harder to fix when something goes wrong.
So, today I’m giving thanks for all the things at my house that are still working — including me!
Every morning, I wake up and do a head-to-toe assessment before I get out of bed. Then, I head for the bathroom and give thanks for indoor plumbing and running water — hot and cold.
I can still remember the days when all that was not standard equipment in my grandma’s house, which still sits on the fringes of Ramona.
I’m giving thanks for the sewer system that is still working in town and the lights that are still on and the marvelous air conditioning system that is still working. The computer is still humming; the keyboard still charged enough to function; my fingers still supple; the internet still up.
The layers and levels of things we take for granted and yet depend upon for our daily existence are mind boggling.
Our lives are co-dependent with people we don’t know, can’t see, and may never meet, who enable us to spend just another day in the country.
CorrectionS
And clarifications
Farmer’s award
Last week’s paper noted that farmer Lewis Unruh received an award for soil conservation. The award was from the American Soybean Association.