Down By the River, Major Tom Shot Ground Control

How inordinately pleased with myself am I this morning?

Very!

I did two things yesterday, the contemplation of which had filled me with anxiety beforehand!

Social things, I mean: I didn’t nearly go down in a helicopter crash with Kamala Harris’s X-Boyfriend or encourage my cats to claw JD Vance’s favorite couch or anything.

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Accomplishment 1:

So, the washing machine here has been on the fritz since I moved in.

It’s a smart washing machine with more settings than Starbucks has latte variants and an IQ that’s probably higher than mine, so at first, I was mystified as to why, whenever I tried to wash my clothes, after an hour, they always ended up in a pool of water with the red light blinking, Rinse. What was I doing wrong?

But the third time this happened, I thought, No. You’re not that dumb.

So I told Iggy: Your washing machine is broken.

My dryer is broken, Iggy informed me sniffily. And I’ve ordered the part.

I will say this for Iggy—he is very handy. An excellent carpenter. A gifted gardener. And he bakes bread!

So, the next week Iggy was upstate, he fixed the dryer & set out to do the Spawn’s laundry—only to discover that the washing machine was broken. (Snort.)

Clothes coming out of that blinking red Rinse cycle were too waterlogged for the poor dryer, so he rigged up an impromptu clothesline. Even at temperatures over 90°, it took two days for the Spawn-garb to dry.

What am I supposed to do with my laundry? I asked him.

There’s a laundromat in Walden, he told me.

Right.

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The laundromat in Walden was a schlep! And not cheap. It cost $11 to wash & dry all my clothes!

When I got back from the laundromat, I reviewed the terms of my lease: Right there, in all that legal-ese that Iggy had cobbled together: The Landlord shall provide the following appliances… Blah, blah, blah… Washer (for laundry), all of which shall be on the Premises and functional upon the move-in date of the Tenant(s) ("Appliances and Fixtures").

SHALL provide, thought I grimly.

I have no doubt whatsoever that eventually, Iggy will find a YouTube that teaches him how to repair the washing machine, but until that time, why should I have to shell out nearly $50 a month in clear violation of the lease?

The smart thing was to negotiate a rent reduction for the amount I was spending on the laundromat until such time as the washing machine was fixed, right?

But I was petrified to do that!

What if Iggy (gasp!) got mad at me?

Most of the inner voices counseled, Just eat the laundromat expenses.

But one clarion voice dissented! Who gives a fuck if Iggy gets mad at you? it said. It’s the fair thing to do! You have a limited budget.

In the end, it became a matter of How much of a snit was I gonna have to work myself up into to demand what’s fair?

But I restrained myself. Channeled my inner Ichabod! Trotted downstairs, and in a pleasant, tranquil manner, confronted the Minotaur: “This is a kind of difficult thing for me to bring up! But…”

Iggy agreed to let me deduct laundromat expenses from the rent until such time as the washing machine is repaired.

New tricks, old dogs! Personal growth! It is possible!



Accomplishment 2:

When I first moved to Wallkill (five weeks now), I naturally Googled for every reference I could find.

Wallkill!

Who had ever heard of it?

And then there was the confusing thing of there being a hamlet of Wallkill (in the Town of Shawangunk in the County of Ulster) and a Town of Wallkill (in the County of Orange.)

Both named for the Wallkill River (pictured above), which is such a dominant water feature hereabouts that this whole area is known as the “Wallkill Valley.” I’m not even sure it considers itself part of the Hudson Valley.

I live in the hamlet.

I unearthed one New York Times article that gave the hamlet of Wallkill a terrible review: Yeah, real estate is cheap, and parts of it are pretty, but everybody is a TRUMP SUPPORTER—

Which is not quite true: Maybe 90% are Trump supporters.

The article mentioned a Wallkill booster organization called “Visions of Wallkill”—acronym: VOW—whose self-appointed mission was to raise community spirit.

So, in my relentless, never-ending quest to Make New Friends & Influence New People, I looked VOW up. Hmmmmmm. Meets the second Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m.

I marked the meeting down in my calendar.

Yesterday was the second Thursday of the month.

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All day long, I agonized about going. Did I really want to go? Nah-h-h: I didn’t really want to go. It was gonna take place in the Shawangunk Town. It would be really boring. It would be filled with Trump supporters. The Trump supporters would probably all be wearing secret MAGA underwear. And they would sniff out the fact that I am an unmarried elderly female cat owner—kind of the way Anjelica Houston sniffs out children in that brilliant Nicolas Roeg movie, Witches. They’d hate me on sight!

But how are you supposed to meet new people if you don’t—you know—meet new people?

So in the end I glammed up & went out.

Iggy was sitting disconsolately on the couch watching Olympic ping pong as I prepared to sail out the door. His eyes widened. “Where are you off to?”

I have mentioned in these pages before that I am one of those people who looks very different with & without makeup.

Iggy had never seen me before with makeup.

Maybe you & Iggy will fall in ❤️LUV❤️, I thought. And then you’ll get married, and he will die tragically intestate so all his money & real estate will go to you. And the first thing you’ll do after probate is settled is buy a new fucking washing machine.



The Shawangunk Town Hall was locked & dark.

I tried every entrance, even the ones marked, For use of Jailers only.

Perfect excuse to cancel meeting attendance, right?

But I didn’t!

Instead, I marched over to the Wallkill Library (next door), accosted the very pleasant librarians, and asked them if they knew how to break into the Shawangunk Town Hall.

They didn’t.

So then I explained about the meeting.

“Oh-h-h-h,” said one of the librarians. “That’s Julie [some last name goes here]’s group! Just a minute. Let me call Julie.”

So she called Julie and ascertained that the VOW website hadn’t been updated in six months, but anyway, they were all down at the pavilion by the river where VOW had commandeered a concert series on Thursday evenings throughout July & August.

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As I have been writing for wayyyy too long now, suffice it to say that the VOW members—all women: Larissa, Julie, Ellen, Donna & Debbie—were delightful & welcoming, and the band was a hoot: a David Bowie cover band that did Bowie hits in the style of other musicians, so that Ground Control to Major Tom came out sounding like Down by the river, I shot my baby. And I had a lovely conversation with a charming 85-year-old man who owns the oldest house in Wallkill (1755) and invited me to come by for a tour, and Ellen—a former ER nurse! like me—asked me for my phone number & texted, So nice to meet you Please let me know if you need anything as you get acclimated—

So, all in all, a fun time!

Oh! And every spring, VOW organizes a duck derby to raise money for Wallkill High School’s senior prom! How adorable is that?