October 17, 2003

• THE FOX AND HIS BOX OF SOX

  
  

  All day yesterday, as Doug slept and Greyfox, fifty miles away, carried his “SALE” sign back and forth by the highway to lure in customers, I worked in the back room, unpacking, sorting, moving things around and stowing stuff away.  This week I’ve made a lot of progress in the effort to turn that room into a library/dressing room, after having moved Doug into the room that used to be Greyfox’s.  Greyfox now shares the front-room bed with Koji (dog), Pidney (cat), and me (primate).  This means that our closets and dressers are at the opposite end of this 55′ trailer from the bed.  It’s not that there’s no room back there for a bed, but the woodstove is out here.  Sleeping in the front room keeps us warmer and makes for a better chance of keeping the fire burning through the night.

  
  

  My work went well.  I’m still the mucus queen, and the interesting flavors and colors I’ve been getting suggest that there was more to it than simply an allergy.  My current theory is that the antihistamine pills I took for the allergy dried out my membranes and opened the way to an infection.  Who knows?  My immune system is functioning in high gear, so all is well–except me, but I’ll get better I know.

  
  

  [Greyfox just brought me a warm muffin.  Reading over my shoulder, he laughed at the "mucus queen" line.  He said it sounded like something from an Aliens movie.  Doug chimed in with, "Or a bad B movie, at least:  (in a deep, dramatic tone) Blaze Firestormer and the Mucus Queen... and her terrible Snot Troopers."]  Ain’t it great that my nasal discomfort and dysfunction can be such a source of levity for my family?

  
  

  Anyhow, I got a lot of work done yesterday, with the help of a box of Kleenex® in each room.  I just kept plugging away at it.  When Greyfox moved out of his little cabin in Wasilla and back in here a few weeks ago, he asked me where to put his clothes.  I thought about it and answered, “the bathtub”.  I knew if he put his bags and boxes back there where I was working, they’d just be in my way, impeding my progress.  Since the bathtub was already full of old milk crates, some empty and some full of the things I’d brought from our old place across the road in them, it seemed like the best choice.  The fact that we don’t have running water here and take our showers at the laundromat was also instrumental in that choice of location.  Doug and I had gone over and collected half a dozen or so crates in anticipation of the need for more shelves when Greyfox moved back in.

  
  

  After having set up a big hotel-type rolling garment rack in the back closet–this after having failed to find a replacement for the missing hanging rod that originally must have been there–and moving his hangered pants, shirts and jackets onto it, I started in on the accessories.  I was already getting a bit weary of pairing his odd socks (especially the ones that had been balled up into unmatched “pairs” by the Old Fart) when the box of socks I was collecting fell off the unsteady stack of crates I’d set it on.  His tight round balled-up socks bounced and rolled in all directions.  I chased them down and retrieved them, even from behind the big garment rack in the closet.  I think I got them all, but who knows?

  
  

  My husband’s sock collection is a mixture of his roundish blobs of socks, both matched and unmatched, and the pairs that I match up and fold in the flat military fashion.  Mine are soft, sorta square, compressible and easily arranged in a box, trunk, drawer or shelf.  They don’t roll off shelves, and dammit, if you drop them they DON’T BOUNCE AND ROLL INTO THE FARTHEST CORNERS OF THE ROOM!  After a second sock spill a bit later and fortunately smaller than the first, I decided I would try to teach the old fox how to fold sox.

  
  

  I had taken him to the back room this morning for a consultation on where he would like me to put what, when I spied the box of sox and recalled my decision of the day before.  I took a balled-up pair from the box as I explained the problem (bouncing and rolling clothing being against my religion).  I unballed them and, talking the whole time, giving a running explanation of what I was doing, turned them BOTH right side out.  I straightened both socks, folded them midway, about at the heel, and smoothed them.  Then, having many years ago turned this routine into an unconscious routine, I watched what I did next so I could explain to him how to do it.

  
  

  I said, “grasp them here, turn that end down over the hand holding the socks, push with these fingers and pull with the other hand and–VOILA!”  Then I reached back into the box and handed him a ball of socks.  Only one of them was inside out, so he had it easy from the start.  He did approximately what I had done and when he was done he had a hard ball of socks… how does he do it?!?

  
  

  I said, “let’s try that again.”  I went through the motions… or tried to.  That time I felt like the centipede who had been asked how he managed to walk with all those legs.  I was thinking about how I did it, and found I COULDN’T DO IT.  Switching back into the conditioned unconscious mode, I finally did it and watched myself do it.  Presumably, Greyfox was watching too, so I handed him another pair of socks to try folding. 

  
  

  He took them reluctantly, with a sour look on his face, and made some whining comment about his stomach being tied in knots.  When I tried to assure him that it wasn’t such a big deal to get all upset about, he said he hadn’t mentioned the stress diarrhea he felt coming on.  How does someone get his bowels all balled up over some small sock ball business, anyway?

  
  

  I spoke in soothing tones as I did another pair of socks and encouraged him to watch.  It was about that time when he looked up at me with a sickly smile and said, “You’re going to blog about this, aren’t you?”  The thought had never occurred to me, but sounded like a good idea when I heard it.  When I handed him the next pair, he talked his way through it, got them right side out, folded midway, smoothed… and then he pulled on the open end of one of the socks, and instead of the pushing and pulling thing I do, he rammed his whole hand down to the end of the sock, slipped it out again, and VOILA!–he had a neat flat pair of socks.

  
  

  I congratulated him, told him he had found his own way to do it, and gave him a big hug.  He said something to the effect that the hug made it all worth it.  Then I tickled him on the tummy and told him to calm that old belly down.  He answered, “How about I just go to the outhouse, instead?”  And then he did.

  
  

  

  • 3:34 pm
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