laundromat – Catching Marbles

Evanston was an interesting experience. I had nothing to do that day but had to stay in the area. I had a couple loads of laundry to do so I headed to the nearest Laundromat, which at the time was full with all sorts of people, muttering all sorts of grumpy things in numerous languages. There was a dude with obvious anger issues grunting at one of the machines, a couple of Hispanic women cheerfully folding laundry that obviously wasn’t theirs, and a most interesting family. It contained two teenagers, a tenish year old, and a four year old wearing vibrant red lipstick. The eldest, a boy, reminded me of the apocalyptic children I saw in Joshua tree, same stupid non-haircut and attitude. They were led in by a woman who couldn’t have been more than 35. She was dressed like a teenager herself, smacking gum and talking on her phone like she’d never grown up. She was feeding her kids some sort of junk food she’d just purchased. I thought these kids were her children until the youngest started calling her Nana. The two girls with her were not old enough to have a four year old so I’m guessing this brassy woman popped out her first kid at 14-16 only to have it repay the favor by doing the same and letting her take care of the grandkid. Either way she was doing a miserable job, as both a mother and grandmother. Currently she was doing no less than ten loads of laundry, all personal, which had probably been building up for some time. Even the attendants were asking her if she was doing someone else’s laundry because she was taking up so many machines.

Whenever this very special family failed to keep us entertained we could always look back at the guy with anger issues. He was stomping around the place throwing his laundry around like it had a personal vendetta against him when it fell to the floor. Even when he was waiting he was scowling at the world with an expression so intense one got the sensation he might knock you out if you even so much as batted an eye in his direction. He stormed out of that place like no one’s business.

I waited patiently for the laundry. I was half-asleep and wondering if this horrible place was where I had to wait for two days.

I was about to be pleasantly surprised. I decided to go for a walk down the little strip mall in town. I ended up entering a huge store run by two sweet elderly women, one of which greeted me and told me this place was a boutique, an antique shop, a book store, and a flea market. She also pointed me towards some “unique” jewelry. Oh my were they ever unique! I had never seen real stones used in something so ungodly garish. Then again the boutique had old lady clothes, maybe the jewelry matched.

The antique store was mostly odd bits of furniture and scary dolls, an odd set of hand operated egg-beaters. The flea market just had old crochet things no one would have bought anyway. It was all very… interesting, though I loved the friendly atmosphere. It was the exact opposite of the Laundromat.

Next I went to an adorable little art gallery in a JC Penny’s. It had all sorts of local talent, amazing pieces of wildlife paintings. I admired everything but not being rich had to leave even the coolest pieces there.

After this I somehow wandered into a little Chinese history/koi park. It had a little Chinese gazebo and a plaque stating that the Chinese had been instrumental in building the area, putting down the train tracks that the town settled on, though they seemed strangely absent now. Beyond the gazebo there was a garden and a little koi pond, with two lonely koi and some goldfish. I sat back and watched a little sparrow kvetch at me from the gazebo roof. I wandered from the shade, into the warm sun, and back into the shade before I decided to lie on one of the benches in the gazebo. I was so very tired and my back ached, as I hadn’t slept on anything flat for a month or so now. I lay there until a gardener came out and I decided I didn’t want to accused of being a vagrant and swept off. I walked to the little bridge over the koi pond, until the gardener finally left. He took his sweet time, and I am not sure what he accomplished in wandering around. I decided to go to another fossil and rock shop down the road.

The fossil and rock shop, Antares Fossil & Minerals, was a sight to behold. It had big colorful dinosaurs wandering the tiny yard. I walked past a woman watering the plants at the behemoth creatures’ feet. She soon followed us in. It was a tiny place absolutely stuffed full with pretty rocks and fish fossils. Apparently this place was run by a family who owned their own local quarry and traded fossil fish for other pretty rocks. It was an interesting idea for a business.

The woman I was talking to, Lily, owned the shop next door, The House of Light, something I passed not knowing what it was. She was a free-spirited woman, what I’d call a hippie. Her shop sold crystals, gemstones, metaphysical books, and Reiki treatments, practiced by herself. She led me through the shop trying to explain things. She even showed me her little Reiki room and pointed out some of its elements. I was rather confused by it all but that’s alright, I nodded politely. Reiki is just one of those things I know nothing about, but I have been curious about. She claimed she was a Christian woman by birth, God and Jesus and all, until Reiki showed her there’s so much more to the world. I could respect that.

Before I knew it she told me her whole life story, including her heritage, born to one Indonesian and one Dutch parent. I told her of my own journeys and she in return insisted I take a lucky rock home with me, from a basket of colorful rocks. I picked one that fit my hand perfectly, a nice fidget. I put it in my purse next to my lucky flea-sized trilobite.

To finish my wandering I decided to check out a park called Bear River. They had a paved path alongside the riverbank, paddle boats for rent, and swimming in one of the calm parts. I walked behind a big black standard poodle for a long time before its elderly owner turned around. I didn’t really see any wildlife but it was a nice walk.

I wanted to get dinner after this so I went to the local grocer’s, Smith’s, and ordered an assortment of goo. In their salad section of their deli they had pink goo (Strawberry Cheesecake salad) green goo (pistachio salad) and orange goo (Ambrosia.) I found the texture of goo to be repulsive and stuck to the normal salads. Party pooper.

From here I went to a McDonald’s to update the blog and answer e-mails. I sat there for four hours. I was falling asleep in my seat and not feeling that great by the time I left. This was the longest I’d ever stayed at one McDonald’s in a stretch.

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I drove to Tucson to find a place to sleep, grocery shop, do laundry, and take it easy for a day. I didn’t really realize that this is the perfect city for that. All the buildings are one or two stories high and everything is very spread out. The roads are not crowded, there isn’t any traffic, the people are friendly and relaxed. I stopped at Wal-Mart to restock on food. I used the bathroom there as well and found a girl with an uncontrollable bloody nose. She was an older teenager, trying desperately to get it to stop. She’d filled the waste basket with blood soaked paper towels. I asked if she needed me to call someone. She declined so I left her. I had heard of someone else who had a nose bleed like that… she ended up at the hospital where she tangoed with a cauterizing tool.

I drove on to find a battery store (to get a battery tester) at goodwill, and then the Laundromat which was right across the way. It was called Dean’s Village Laundromat. The place was almost empty, spacious, and very bright. We were immediately greeted by the attendant and set up doing two loads of laundry. There was a nice little spot outside to go, with a playground for the kids. Inside was a lovely little waiting room with two vending machines, lots of magazines, and a TV. I also used their bathroom and it was very clean.

I sat back and just lounged for awhile. This was a welcome respite, not to mention a cheap one. This was the cheapest Laundromat I’d come across at $1.25 per load of laundry and $1.00 (four cycles) to dry my clothes.

The store owner came in to refill the vending machine, which soon became possessed and decided it’d dispense two of every snack it had onto the floor as he tried to figure out what was wrong. It also beeped angrily. This went on for quite some time and I was both laughing and joking with the poor guy, along with some of the regulars who had come in. Apparently the guy changing the vending machine was the owner of the place.

I ended up talking to the regulars. They all had travelled various amounts to and pointed out some places I could go. When asked where I going next a slightly fuzzy-sounding “Phoenix?” was offered, to which they replied with disdain, “Phoenix, why on earth would you want to go there??” This is never good, when locals from a surrounding town give such a vividly concerning response. On that note, Hi Fitchburg MA! God knows I love ya!

I finished my laundry and went on my way to check out the local park, Saguaro National Park. Apparently they had cactuses, lots of them, the kind you see in cartoons that stretch to the sky and have two outstretched arms about to hug any passerby. However driving there I saw in residential neighborhoods every cactus conceivable even these big iconic ones, which as it turns out, do not look anything like they are normally depicted. Instead of two perfectly symmetrical arms they had arms jutting out from every corner and angle and growing in such odd fashions, some growing sideways, some upwards, and some even downwards. These cactuses looked like the eight-legged frogs that kept showing up in the 90’s. They looked like mutants! Still they were very big, some stretching over telephone poles and roofs. People had cactus gardens in their front yards filled with bright pink cactuses and all sorts of odd shapes and funny colors. I even found one house, surrounded by a six foot fence, which seemed to be in the process of being eaten whole by a huge forest of overgrown cactuses.

In any event when I finally reached the park there was a $10 admission for seven days but I didn’t want to stay seven days and I saw everything there was to see just driving there. I turned around and instead spent the $10 to help pay for a dinner at Chipotles. This was my first time there and I was so hungry I ate it all! Life was good. I moved on.

Tag: laundromat

Evanston Wyoming

Tuscon Arizona