1/28/10 FML

Yesterday, I Froze My Laundry.

Froze it solid.

This has happened to me before. Given the low-angle winter sun and the short days (shorter even than astronomers would predict, because the high mountains on all sides of me mean that the sun is behind a mountain for hours when it's technically above the mythical "horizon"), we don't get a lot of sunlight up here.

What sunlight we do get is intense - enough to make a 20-30 degree difference between sunlight and shade - but it's brief.

So in winter, I often leave my laundry on the line overnight, in hopes that the second day's rays will prize the last of the water drops from my clothes.

This usually works (which is why I do it), but sometimes we get snowfall overnight, so the clothes get re-wetted. Other times, it gets so cold that the clothes freeze solid, and then the morning rays have to thaw them before they can start to dry them.

But this, yesterday, was something new.

Something not good.

I got a late start to the day, and didn't get the clothes on the line till almost 11am. At least they'll catch the highest, most direct sun angles, right? I went back out at 12:30, to check how that high-angle sunlight had fared...and my clothes were crispy. They bent, but didn't ripple.

I froze my clothes.

In direct sunlight - sunlight that felt warm on my back when I hung the clothes, sunlight that made me want to spend the afternoon basking on my roof - they froze.

My trusty thermometer claims that it's 35 degrees outside (in shade) and in my bedroom.

Maybe it's not as trusty as I thought.

'Cause at 35 degrees, nothing freezes.

At 35 degrees, my clothes have a chance to get baked by the sun.

Instead, I Froze My Laundry.

...FML...