All I want for My Birthday is . . .

Julie, being the wise money manager that she is, has started to drip dry our clothes. We have a dryer available to us on our floor but it costs a couple of bucks per load. So she bought a rack (once again, thank you Ikea) and has been drip drying ever since.

Besides, air drying your laundry is definitely the Hong Kong way. (The really Hong Kong way would be to hang the clothes out our window, but we’re not quite ready to go that far, yet.)

The clothes get dry but they have a decidedly different feel and smell to them. Not better; not worse. Just different. A little stiffer and lacking that Bounty–fabric-softener smell.

Annika has a birthday coming up after the first of theyear and we asked her what she wanted for her birthday: games, party, DVDs, clothes, music. . . . After thinking about it for a minute, she said the thing she wants the most is to have all her clothes washed and then dried in the dryer.

. . . with fabric softener.

Yesterday, Annika found at the bottom of her dresser drawer a shirt that she hadn’t worn yet here in Hong Kong and therefore has not been washed since we’ve been here. It still had the softness and smell from the last time it was washed at Grandma Oskarson’s. Annika refuses to wear it or allow Julie to wash it.

Every so often she goes into her drawer, holds the shirt up to her face to feel and smell it.

Then she puts it back into the bottom of her drawer.

-Jack