laundry

it's pouring out right now...lots and lots of rain, cooling the creek and turning the animas river a deep, rusty brown...and completely soaking my line-dried laundry for the second time in two days. i'm never home in the window of minimal moisture, where my clothes are perfectly free of morning dew and basking in the bit of sunshine that precedes the afternoon thunderstorms. contrary to popular belief, "fresh rain" is not the scent you want on your clothes. it smells like multiple applications of mildew and bee pollen. it's potent and distracting.

so, to tell the truth, i probably could have been home in time to take down my laundry pre-rain shower, but i took an invitation to have few beers a friend's house. i tossed football with a pack of boys and some dogs. of course, i got to know the dogs first. poet, the black lab, was recently featured in the town's weekly, answering the editorials. lauren (aka dizzy lauren mills), the chiuaua, kept lapping at my pint glass while 'pone (short for capone) strutted his pit bull belly around the yard, chowing down every chokecherry and apple that fell from fruit laden trees. the boys eventually settled down from hitting tennis balls with golf clubs and mocking the skateboarders across the alley, and we discussed politics in zimbabwe and last week's beer fest at the ski resort. miles, charmingly funny with his jim carrey-ish looks, told the story of his bus ride home from the 20+ microbrewery tasting event. "there was this girl sitting next to me, and she kept touching my leg," he started. "she said, 'you're so pretty, don't you want to come home with me?' and, since i was mighty buzzed and didn't want to get into anything in that state, i said, 'no, i think it'd be better if i went home alone tonight'. but she was persistent. 'it's okay,' she said, 'you don't have to worry. i'm a dyke!' ".

well.

can you blame her? the ratio of men to women here is 2 to 1. and when you line dry during monsoon season, sometimes even laundrymat dryers are tempting.