Christmas 1998

My Christmas letter this year begins were last year's left off. I realize that you have been on pins and needles to know the Continuing Saga of the Washing Machine. As you recall, last year's big event was the purchase of our second used washer. As the year drew to a close, that antiquarian creature was sounding mildly like a locomotive. Another year has passed and miraculously, our locomotive continues to wash. The mild inconvenience of it is that we can only wash one pair of jeans or one towel at a time, or else the spin cycle does not work. Needless to say, doing laundry was much faster when, as a child living in the jungle of the Solomons, I helped my mother wash clothes in the river by beating them against a rock. Ah ... modern conveniences.