Laundry improvement, bit by bit.

Lynne Cantwell 2024

I was very much hoping to give y'all a before-and-after report on the redo of my laundry closet this week, but we'll have to settle for a before-and-during.

It all started when I looked up the manufacturing dates for all the major appliances in the condo I bought in 2021 and realized they were all seriously old. So I began replacing them all with new machines. This fall, it's the washer and dryer's turn. 

Ever since I first used the old machines, I'd hated them. The washer was a top loader whose lid opened the wrong way for the closet configuration, and the dryer never heated up enough to suit me. Built in 1997, they still worked, but I felt justified in getting rid of them on the grounds of annoyance alone. 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

That towel on the floor was there to block the draft from the dryer vent.

The closet clearly hadn't been updated in many years -- maybe since before these machines were installed -- so the plan was to donate the beasts to Habitat for Humanity, thereby clearing out the closet so I could paint, get rid of the wire shelf in favor of something nicer, and redo the flooring (whoever installed the Saltillo tile in the bathroom stopped at the threshold to the laundry closet) before the new machines arrived.

Pickup of the old machines went off without a hitch. Demolition consisted of taking down the wire shelf (which, as it turned out, was pulling itself out of the wall anyway) and pulling up some suspicious-looking duct tape from the vinyl sheet flooring. I was worried that somebody had duct-taped over a floor drain, but it was just a hole in the sheet vinyl; if there had ever been a floor drain there, it was covered in plywood, and I wasn't inclined to undo the whole floor to find out. Instead, I patched the hole with a piece of peel-and-stick tile and called it good.

Then I painted the closet a sunny yellow. Well, it was supposed to be a sunny yellow -- it's more like an aggressively cheerful yellow. Pulled off the baseboards, put down some of the leftover luxury vinyl plank flooring from last summer's water leak mitigation, painted the baseboards black to match the frame around the closet doors, reinstalled the baseboards, touched up the baseboard paint from the reinstallation, capped off the dryer vent (I'll explain below), installed a piece of quarter-round to finish off the edge along the Saltillo tile, caulked (I suck at caulking -- please make a note), installed a fun new switchplate cover, and it was done. All I needed were the new machines. 

The yellow color in this pic is off. See the one below.
Lynne Cantwell 2024

Then I got a message from the vendor: delivery of the new machines is delayed until mid-October.

It would be an understatement to say that the thought of hauling my laundry to a laundromat for the next six weeks dismayed me. But then I remembered how I'd done laundry while I lived in that tiny apartment near the plaza during the pandemic shutdown, back when we had a coin shortage so I couldn't get quarters for the coin-op machines in the apartment building. 

So call me crazy, but a week ago today, I went on Amazon and ordered a teeny washing machine. It was delivered Thursday. The Amazon delivery guy, bless his heart, even brought it up my miserable stairs for free. Take that, Best Buy! 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

The little box on the bench by the door contained a dolly for the teeny washer -- a necessity in the apartment downtown where I had to store the washer at the foot of my bed and roll it into the bathroom to wash clothes, but not as critical here, as this washer fits in the laundry closet with lots of room to spare.

It works just fine. I even went ahead and moved into place the little rustic cabinet I'd bought for the closet a few weeks back. Tigs seems to like it. 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

For the new machines, I decided to go with compact units, largely to make sure that they'd fit in the closet. The dryer will be a ventless condenser dryer, hence why I capped the vent in the wall (although it was also a strategic move to keep a certain curious kitty cat from seeing where the tube would lead). The new machines will be a lot smaller than the elderly ones I got rid of. But I figure they'll feel luxurious after this teeny machine: 1.38 cubic feet of washer, plus draping all the wet stuff over a drying rack, compared to 2.4 cubic feet of washer and an electric dryer? Yes, please!

I sold the teeny washer I had downtown when I moved here, and I'm figuring on doing the same thing with this machine when the new washer and dryer finally arrive. But I might keep it, just in case.

There's more to come with the closet: I have a pendant light on order (the lighting in there has always been stupid); I want to rig up a taller and deeper countertop for the cabinet; and I'm going to need either an upper cabinet or a shelf, plus a lint bin and a place to hang my octopus. I've put off all that 'til the washer and dryer are in. So as I said, this is a before-and-during instead of a before-and-after. Stay tuned.

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Yes, the little sign at the top of this post is destined for the laundry closet, whenever everything else is installed.

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Oh hey, I should update y'all on the sleeper sofa. Pickup of the broken one and delivery of the new one both went off without a hitch. Here's the new one:

Lynne Cantwell 2024

At least something is going right...

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These moments of bloggy home improvement have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Make your voting plan now!

The ongoing demise of the old journalistic hegemony.

 

One of the most interesting sidebar stories to come out of the Democratic National Convention last month -- to me, at least -- was about complaints from mainstream journalists that they were kind of given short shrift this year. In their view, the Harris campaign gave preference to social media influencers: meeting with them separately; giving them opportunities for access to the candidates at the same time that mainstream outlets were complaining that the candidates hadn't given any interviews yet; and so on.

Asawin Suebsang covered the convention for Rolling Stone, and he wrote about this kerfuffle last week: 

Much of what I witnessed and heard about during my time in Chicago reinforced my preexisting beliefs that far too many so-called elite members of my profession — national political media scribes who fancy themselves as speaking truth to power, but more often just speak words to financially destructive Google algorithms — are mollycoddled hogs who are doing everything they can to fail to meet the enormity of this moment.

"There were times," he goes on, "I thought I had been teleported back to 2010, when we as an industry were debating how to treat bloggers." And he relates how "multi-lanyard-wearing, sweat-flecked envoys of the U.S. media elite berat[ed] the lowest-level convention volunteers to let them into their seats at once" when security cut off access to the press section due to overcrowding on Thursday night: 

I would be naming names at this point, if I could tell you with certainty who any of these people were, other than the fact that their respective demeanors suggested that they were accustomed to bellowing: "Do you know who I am?"

All this, he says, in an atmosphere where "much of the mainstream political press has been (correctly) programming its audience to believe this year's race is not a normal presidential election, and then too many in that media elite get upset when the public points out that they're covering it like a normal presidential election...".

Amen, brother, amen.

Alert hearth/myth readers know of my journalistic background, and of how I've been gradually coming around to the realization that the business has changed radically since I last sat before a microphone to deliver the news. I mean, I knew the business was changing; that's a big reason why I got out. But the coverage of Donald Trump from 2015 on has made it abundantly clear to me that journalists now see themselves as stars first, deliverers of eyeballs to advertisers and ad dollars to shareholders second, and purveyors of truth third, if at all. Here we are, at another inflection point in the history of our country -- the third election in a row in which democracy is threatened with extinction in the United States -- and these people in my previous profession are all butthurt about their privilege.

Honestly, it doesn't surprise me that the Harris campaign is stepping around them to get its message out. Political influencers command huge audiences, and they're inclined to give favorable coverage to the campaign -- unlike the mainstream folks, who call it hard-hitting journalism when they fall for every made-up controversy promulgated by the other side.

About that: I saw a comment not long ago, although I don't remember where now, from someone in the news business who was asked why journalists aren't talking about Trump's age and obvious decline, the way they did President Biden's. The newsperson's answer? The Democrats have to make an issue of it first -- then they'll cover it.

That's utter bullshit. In no universe ever has a real journalist passed up a story because nobody else was talking about it.

I'm appalled at the state of political journalism today. C'mon, you guys -- do better. Our nation's continued existence -- as well as your continued relevance -- depend on it.

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These moments of bloggy journalistic exhortation have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe! And be sure to vote!

The demise of my sleeper sofa.

When did furniture become so cheaply built?

When I retired from the big DC law firm in 2020, the firm graciously offered to buy me anything I wanted, up to a certain price point. I opted for a full-size sleeper sofa. I figured it would be a great way to have both seating in the new place in Santa Fe and sleeping accommodations for overnight guests. Plus a full-size sofa would fit best in the 500-square-foot apartment I was getting. Genius, right?

Here's the sofa I asked for:

Stolen from Wayfair's website

Here's the sofa I got (I bought the throw pillows just recently): 

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You'll note that it has three sections across the back, not two. That's because what they sent me is a queen-size sleeper. It pretty much dominated the living room of that little apartment. It fits better in the condo -- but that has become a moot point since this happened a couple of weeks ago:

Lynne Cantwell 2024

See that little stubby piece of metal sticking up at the bottom of the picture? It was once welded to the pipe that I'm holding. The bed part still works fine; the sofa part, not so much. 

The two-by-four is part of my attempt to support that loose pipe so that the weld on the other side doesn't also break. It's working about as well as you'd expect.

The sad thing is that the sofa was actually pretty comfy. That's unusual for a sleeper, in my experience, and it runs counter to a recent trend that consumers have complained about: reasonably-priced sofas that look good online but are super uncomfortable once you receive them. I could blame the pandemic for my troubles -- I did take delivery of the sofa in the middle of 2020 -- but it turns out that people had been complaining about the quality of new furniture for years before the supply chain broke. 

What's the culprit? Cheap imported furniture, which caused sales of US-made furniture to crater, causing those manufacturers to lay off their workers and sell out to hedge funds -- which have done what they've done to every other part of the manufacturing sector they could get their hands on. That's how you get the Broyhill name attached to crappily made furniture sold exclusively by Big Lots. The made-in-the-US furniture companies that have survived, according to the article at the link above, are building much more expensive products for affluent customers who can afford to hire interior designers to do their shopping for them.

As for the rest of us, it might be worth haunting thrift and consignment stores for well-made pieces from the past. But who has that kind of time?

If I knew someone with a welding setup, I suppose I could get my sofa repaired -- but I don't. And taking it to someone's shop seems problematic. So I'm biting the bullet and buying a replacement from Apt 2B. The company has good reviews (which, hopefully, they didn't pay for), the furniture is made in the US (they claim), and the mattress will definitely be full-sized. It was three times the price of my retirement gift, but hopefully it will last longer than four years. 

It sucks to have to get a new sofa so soon.

Anyway, I'll report back.

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These moments of bloggy planned obsolescence have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe! And make sure you're (still) registered to vote!

Native voting is pretty new, actually.

This weekend is the annual Indian Market in Santa Fe. It's huge -- there were 1,000 artists displaying their work this year -- and it was hot and crowded when I went yesterday afternoon. Collectors come from all over the country to see the best in Native American art. The artists come from all over the country, too; I met one who's a member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi (which, coincidentally, is Darrell Warren's tribe). (I wish I'd grabbed his business card so I could tell you his name. He tattoos his art onto buffalo skins, which you've got to admit is pretty cool.)

Along with the art, this poster caught my eye: 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

(The phrase is from Reservation Dogs, which ran on FX until last year. The photo is of Zahn McClarnon, who played a cop on the show. He also plays a cop on Dark Winds on AMC.)

It wasn't surprising to see a get-out-the-vote effort at Indian Market; we are in an election year, after all. But then I ducked into the Palace of the Governors in an effort to beat the heat, and I found an exhibit that explained why voting is a really big deal for Native Americans.

Here's the thing: Even though Native tribes were here first, the U.S. government treated their members as foreigners for legal purposes (along with treating them as stupid savages and less than human, but I digress). Birthright citizenship was not extended to Indians. They were allowed to enlist in the armed forces and fight for the United States, but they weren't citizens until Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924. In that legislation, Congress left it up to individual states to decide whether to allow Native Americans to vote. Here in New Mexico, it took a court ruling to grant them suffrage. 

The case, Trujillo v. Garley, centered on Miguel Trujillo (Isleta Pueblo), a World War II veteran. After returning home from the war, Trujillo tried to register to vote in Valencia County, NM, but the county registrar, Eloy Garley, refused his request because he was an "Indian not taxed" -- a provision in state law that took advantage of a loophole in the U.S. Constitution. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Congress of American Indians, Trujillo sued Garley in federal court in 1948, disputing the state's contention that he did not pay taxes -- and providing receipts. A panel of three U.S. district court judges agreed with Trujillo and ordered the county to register him to vote. For the panel, Judge Orie Phillips wrote: 

[The constitution of New Mexico] says that "Indians not taxed" may not vote, although they possess every other qualification. We are unable to escape the conclusion that, under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, that constitutes a discrimination on the ground of race. Any other citizen, regardless of race, in the State of New Mexico who has not paid one cent of tax of any kind or character, if he possesses the other qualification, may vote. An Indian, and only an Indian, in order to meet the qualifications to vote must have paid a tax. How you can escape the conclusion that makes a requirement with respect to an Indian as a qualification to exercise the elective franchise and does not make that requirement with respect to the member of any race is beyond me.

Two weeks earlier, the Arizona Supreme Court had overturned the law in that state that prohibited Native Americans there from registering to vote. 

You'd think that would have been the end of it, but no -- Utah didn't extend the franchise to Native Americans until 1957. And all of these actions only allowed Native men to vote; Native women weren't allowed to register until 1965, when Congress passed the Voting Rights Act.

(Contrast that with the 15th Amendment, added to the Constitution in 1870, that enfranchised Black men. But I digress.)

Barriers remain, of course. Many reservations are vast, and people have to travel long distances to get to a polling place. In addition, some states require those who register to vote to have a street address, which disenfranchises folks on reservations whose homes don't have street addresses. The New Mexico legislature enacted a law last year that, among other things, allows tribes to designate their tribal offices as a legal street address for members who don't have one.

The issue, as always, is control. The powers-that-be have never been comfortable with granting rights to large groups of people who they have mistreated and who might just vote to turn them out of power. There's evidence that it actually happened in Arizona in the 2020 election: turnout was high on the Navajo and Hopi reservations, and President Biden won the state by about 10,500 votes. 

White folks have had the right to vote in this country for a long, long time. We shouldn't take it for granted. We've recently had a federal right taken away from us and left up to state legislatures to decide whether to grant. (You know which one I mean.) And there's that Project 2025 thing looming. So don't be a shitass -- vote!

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These moments of historical blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Check your voter registration early and often!