WotD: [clothes] dryer

1. der Wäschetrockner
2. de wasdroger
3. la secadora
4. l'assecadora
5. la chéseuse (CF), le sèche-linge, le séchoir
6. y sychwr
7. an triomadóir
8. suszarka
9. 건조기(乾燥機)
10. 烘乾機 hōnggānjī
11. 乾燥機 kansōki

Notes: Not much of interest here. The European languages agree in using derived agent nouns (masculine in Germanic and Celtic, feminine in Iberian Romance and Polish). Only French opts for the more popular Romance verb-headed development, and then only in some varieties. (Cajun chéseuse is transparently a metathesised variant of SF sécheuse, which is also in use.) Chinese 烘乾 is literally "to dry over fire, to dry by heat"; it's amusing that Korean and Japanese seem to invert the two elements, but actually 燥 (PY zào) is an unrelated word meaning "dry".

The clothes dryer was delivered on Friday morning and I really can't complain about the installation from Abt[*]: Professional, on time (ten minutes into a two-hour window), efficient (in and out in 25 minutes), and reasonably tidy. (The junior workman made a bit of a hash of taking the door off its hinges but we've needed to get that trim repainted for a while anyway.) If I hadn't struck up a conversation with our Nova Scotian in the hallway I would've been able to get a decent nap in before heading out to my appointment.

The new unit is...functional. No frills--one dial and one button--but the settings we gave up were ones I never used anyway. I preferred the location of the old lint screen, at the bottom of the door. It seems I can't clear this one without sprinkling the top of the machine with fine particles of lint. The one solid improvement is the lack of an alert buzzer when a load finishes. Honestly, I would've paid extra for that; it was the only thing that truly annoyed me about the old one. Unfortunately, a low-end model means low-end moisture sensors. I tried it three times on the "automatic" setting and each time I found damp clothes.

I also had hopes that the Roper would be more powerful than our aged GE. (The repairman said he was amazed it had lasted as long as it did; he gives them about 5 years and this one had been in use for at least ten.) Jury's still out on that: I was drying the nicer clothes on "low" until I knew how hot the "high" setting would be, and they took about as long as they used to on the previous "high" setting. I used "high" for the socks and underwear, but then I got distracted by Conan the Barbarian and didn't notice when the cycle ended because, you know, there's no buzzer.

[*] Or "A.B.T.", as they perversely insist upon calling themselves.

The story of your life

Last night I had a choice between catching up on my NetFlix by watching 24-Hour Party People and talking to my dad. Ultimately Dad forced the issue by sending me an e-mail asking "What are your Xmas plans?" For a short while I entertained the idea of fulfilling both goals, but once Dad has you on the phone, he'll fill an hour even if he has to talk about the weather to do it.

Naturally he asked me if I'd read his memoirs and naturally I fudged my answer by asking detailed questions on the 18 pages or so I have read, starting with, "Where was the pig? You know, the one born without an asshole?" "Oh, I guess I left that out." Wait for the next edition, ladies and gents. He said he's still adding to the text and wasn't sure if he should send the revisions as he goes. "You can show them to me at Christmas," I said, "and we can talk about them then." I figure we'll have a lot of time for that since he revealed that he and his wife are driving up here on the 27th, the same day I was to be flying back. So I guess I'll cancel my flight reservation and ride up with them instead.

I let him know that I'd retold one of his stories at our dinner party on Saturday, the one about the fer-de-lance in the refrigerator. It made me reflect again about how incident-poor my life is compared to his. Of late, I've been watching a lot of Graham Norton on YouTube. His show features a segment called "Stories in the Red Chair", where members of the audience are given a chance to relate their most entertaining anecdote to the assembled guests, who toss them out before they finish if they deem it too boring. Last night I tried to think what story I would tell and, well, I've got nothing.

This isn't the first time I've come to that realisation. Dara Ó Briain likes to start his comedy shows by randomly picking people in the front row and asking them for "the most interesting thing you've ever done". I remember watching that and thinking, Jesus, if I ever score first row tickets to one of gigs, better have something prepared and then straining and straining to come up with something, anything. I may be an interesting person (it's not for me to judge, really) but I don't seem to end up doing a lot of interesting things. (This journal is testimony to that.)

The solution, naturally, is to go out and do more. And I've made some modest effort recently. But, at the end of the day, I don't have my father's panache. He says we're more "successful" than him because we didn't take so long to figure out what we were going to do with our lives, but when I asked him what he meant by "success", he defined it monetarily. That's not my definition. I mean, if money was my primary goal, I'd have a helluva lot more than I do now--and I'd most likely be a much more miserable person on account of it. But Switzerland isn't an exciting place to live and a life of bourgeois security and ease doesn't lend itself to raconteuring.