… do I get out my iron, plug it in for getting rid of wrinkles. I can live with clothes, sheets, most anything that appears to be ‘rough dried’ as my mom would say. Even though she trained me, taught me how to use an electric iron by patiently getting all the wrinkles out of simple squares like handkerchiefs and rectangles like pillow-cases, as a general policy I do not iron anything. Amusing now to think: first the article has to be dry, then you have to dampen it, then you apply the hot iron to dry it again and smooth out all the wrinkles so you can put it on and get it wrinkled again?
I decided it was time to iron today. There was one small napkin sized square that has been sitting on the kitchen counter for weeks, waiting for me to plug in the iron and get it smoothed out. Needing to be returned to the church to be used for communion next week. Since this is fairly imminent, it seems like a good time to do that unpleasant task of ironing. While I have the iron out, and hot, I might as well do those cotton-fabric pillow cases that got washed with sheets last week.
The pillow cases all came from my aunt’s house. A ton of household things went to the thrift shop for resale. But the pillowcases had been monogrammed, with my aunties’ initials. I could not give them away – that needle work was done by my grandmother, who could do beautiful hand work. I have lots of things I my house from the fingers of my grandmother, many examples of the exquisite needle skills she developed over many years. The initials on the pillow case were done many years before anyone would have had a machine that would zip through the letters in the font of choice, but look as pains-takingly done, and as precise as if done by a robot/machine.
I am so opposed to ironing, I don’t even own an ironing board. If forced to get the iron out and plug it in, I have to put a terry-cloth towel down someplace, usually kitchen counter, to use as my flat surface to lay out the items in need of pressing. So here I am in the kitchen doing my housework…
a cup of stone soup 