{"id":807,"date":"2010-02-17T06:18:36","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T12:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/2010\/02\/17\/the-full-jerry\/"},"modified":"2010-02-17T06:18:36","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T12:18:36","slug":"the-full-jerry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/?p=807","title":{"rendered":"The Full Jerry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today has been a bit annoying.<\/p>\n

My modest goal for the day was to get my clothes washed.\u00a0 This is always a challenge — usually I haul a giant laundry bag on the metro (attracting the ever watchful eye of bomb-wary passengers) down to Orchard Road to the ONE PLACE IN SINGAPORE that offers wash-dry-fold service with less than a 4-day turnaround.\u00a0 (Why am I in such a hurry?\u00a0 Because if I waited 4 days for my clothes I would have to own twice as many clothes.\u00a0 Why don’t I wash my clothes myself?\u00a0 Because there are no coin-laundries in Singapore.\u00a0 Doesn’t the yacht club offer laundry service?\u00a0 Yes it does, but not to me.\u00a0 Reasons unclear.)<\/p>\n

So, anyway, I trucked down to the ONE PLACE IN SINGAPORE\u00a0 that does same day laundry.\u00a0 It’s called ‘Laundry Day’ and it’s a 45-minute trip, but the folks that run it are very friendly, and it’s next door to a nice noodle shop.\u00a0 They will be closed all week, it turns out.\u00a0 (Probably holiday-related… Saturday was Lunar New Year.)\u00a0 I sat down and did some googling, and located a vague internet rumor about a second laundry place (possible coin laundry!) a mile or so away, so I hiked up there hauling my increasingly-heavy bag.\u00a0 Alas, in keeping the spirit of constant renewal, the address is no longer there and has been replaced by a high-rise construction site.\u00a0 Optimistically I asked for directions from a passerby, and he pointed out that there was a sign advertising laundry service barely visible through the window of a shopping complex across the street, so I headed over there.\u00a0 In the shopping center there’s a nice shoe-repair shop with two little counters, one for cobbling and one for laundry.\u00a0 The cobbler (predictably) offered to have my laundry done in four days.\u00a0 Then he sent me on a wild-goose-chase to a different rumored laundry in the same shopping complex which I never found.\u00a0 (I would say that 50% of the stalls in the building were either maid-service employment agencies or overseas-remittance counters.\u00a0 So that’s how normal Singaporeans get their laundry done.)<\/p>\n

I should mention here that Singapore will never let you sink too deeply into despair.\u00a0 I had a nice ice-cream sandwich (‘sandwich’ as in, ice cream on a slice of bread) somewhere during that last hike.\u00a0 And after my final despair I sat down at a mall food court* to have some papaya juice and within a few minutes a woman pushed a dim sum cart up next to me and provided an un-sought-for snack.\u00a0 And, admittedly, I probably passed about 80 foot-massage operations over the course of my day, so it’s my own fault for not taking it even easier than I did.<\/p>\n

Anyway, now I’m back at the marina, and facing my last laundry option:<\/p>\n

\"washer.jpg\"<\/p>\n

That’s been in my bathroom all along, but when I moved in I was advised against using it, for reasons that will become clear.\u00a0 These are desperate times, though.<\/p>\n

\"jerry5.jpg\"\"jerry4.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The feed line is even more broken at the other end — it’s impossible to hook up without torrential leaks.\u00a0 Solved by dragging the washer into the shower stall and filling the tub with the shower head. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"jerry2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Home-spliced power plug.\u00a0 It came with the place! <\/em><\/p>\n

\"jerry11.jpg\"<\/p>\n

When you live on a boat you don’t need a laundry tub, just a window. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"jerry3.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Door propped shut with a table just in case things go horribly wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"showerdrain.jpg\"<\/p>\n

OK, turns out that I can’t drain out the window because the washer doesn’t have a pump and only drains with gravity.\u00a0 By this time the washer is in the shower anyway — hope that none of the electronics are close to the ground! <\/em><\/p>\n

So, that all worked pretty well.\u00a0 I even have these special clothespins that are made for clipping things to a railing.\u00a0 I’ve been using them for weeks to hang up my swimsuit and towel, but today they decided to be dramatic — a few minutes after hanging up my socks I heared some springy\/snappy sounds and found that the clothespins had failed and broken and (in some cases) leaped overboard.\u00a0 So far my clothes have remained out of the drink though.<\/p>\n

\"clothespin2.jpg\"\"clothespin1.jpg\"<\/p>\n

* This food court was on level B4 of a shopping center.\u00a0 That’s two stories below<\/em> the\u00a0 subway line and a good 60 feet below sea level.\u00a0 Is that a normal city thing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today has been a bit annoying. My modest goal for the day was to get my clothes washed.\u00a0 This is always a challenge — usually I haul a giant laundry bag on the metro (attracting the ever watchful eye of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}