My Dear Mahri,
We ate Blueberries today at lunch. They are my favourite food in the world. I could eat Blueberries all day. And I usually just eat them frozen because I can’t wait for them to defrost. It turns out you like them too.
But today was a glorious day for another reason. The Repairman came (on time) and fixed that heavenly invention we call the “dishwasher”. Halleluiah!
The dishwasher has been out of commission for 5 days and the kitchen is a disaster.
In this family, I’m the Dish Pig. Your Mom cleans the bathrooms and sweeps the floors, but I do the dishes. I like this simple task because I can plug my brain into the radio, or a lecture on CD (Michael Polanyi and N.T. Wright, most recently), or a Canucks game. (The dishes always get done during the playoffs.). I enjoy the feeling of doing repetitive work with my hands while listening to something interesting. It’s also a small, contained task that I can feel good about completing each day.
So why am I happy that the dishwasher is fixed? Well, it does the bulk of the plates and glasses and utensils. I do the Big & Uglies and the plastics by hand, which takes a surprising amount of time at the end of each day. When I add what the dishwasher does to my plate (pun fully intended) it creates a workload that I have a hard time keeping up with. But today the kitchen will be clean! (←Say this with a deep, echoing, superhero voice to get the full gist of its meaning.)
So your Old Man’s the Dish Pig.
And he wears an apron now.
Much Love,
Dad
