Dry Cleaners Quotes

The lampshade on my head is for my bright ideas. I won't be able to convey them until Monday, when my curtain gets out of the dry cleaners.

The wacky thing about those bad guys is that you can't count on them to be obvious. They forget to wax their mustaches and goatees, leave their horns at home, send their black hats to the dry cleaner's. They're funny like that.

A good place to meet a man is at the dry cleaner. These men usually have jobs and bathe.

I should open up a dry cleaners/pizza parlor. Extra Stain Sauce will be free, but removing it out of your clothes will cost you.

Amy adored both the new look and the new person it allowed her to be. Following the photo shoot, she wore her bruises to the dry cleaner and the grocery store. Most people nervously looked away, but on the rare occasions someone would ask what happened, my sister would smile as brightly as possible, saying, 'I'm in love. Can you believe it? I'm finally, totally in love, and I feel great.

Screw up my life?" He stared at me for a second and then said, deadpan, "I'm a five-foot-three, thirty-seven-year-old, single, Jewish medical examiner who needs to pick up his lederhosen from the dry cleaners so that he can play in a one-man polka band at Oktoberfest tomorrow." He pushed up his glasses with his forefinger, folded his arms, and said, "Do your worst.

An oncology ward is a battlefield, and there are definite hierarchies of command. The patients, they're the ones doing the tour of duty. The doctors breeze in and out like conquering heroes, but they need to read your child's chart to remember where they've left off from the previous visit. It is the nurses who are the seasoned sergeants -- the ones who are there when your baby is shaking with such a high fever she needs to be bathed in ice, the ones who can teach you how to flush a central venous catheter, or suggest which patient floor might still have Popsicles left to be stolen, or tell you which dry cleaners know how to remove the stains of blood and chemotherapies from clothing. The nurses know the name of your daughter's stuffed walrus and show her how to make tissue paper flowers to twine around her IV stand. The doctors may be mapping out the war games, but it is the nurses who make the conflict bearable.

Dry cleaners hurt water sources worldwide. Remember this any time you see a suit. A supremacist tradition.

I change clothes at least three times a day. It's the only way I can justify all the shopping I do. Prada to the grocery store? Yes! Gucci to the dry cleaner's? Why not? Dolce & Gabbana to the corner deli? I insist!

When it seems impossible that a deep connection with another person could just go away instead of changing form. It seems impossible that you will one day look up and say the words "I used to date someone who lived in that building," referring to a three-year relationship. As simple as if it was a pizza place that is now a dry cleaner's. It happens. Keep walking.

Over the course of your life you are actually hundreds of different people. You are a different person at the coffee shop than you are at the bar, and a different person for the dry cleaner than you are for your boyfriend, and a different person at work than you are on vacation. You are nobody in particular. But once somebody finds you and loves you, you have to keep being the person that they love. You want thier love. You need to keep getting it even if it means pretending...but no one loved her and so she could keep changing.

The Paddock was one of those medium-sized houses with a goodish bit of very tidy garden and a carefully rolled gravel drive curving past a shrubbery that looked as if it had just come back from the dry cleaner - the sort of house you take one look at and say to yourself, "Somebody's aunt lives there.

Whenever you give up an apartment in New York and move to another city, New York turns into the worst version of itself. Someone I know once wisely said that the expression "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there" is completely wrong where New York is concerned; the opposite is true. New York is a very livable city. But when you move away and become a vistor, the city seems to turn against you. It's much more expensive (because you need to eat all your meals out and pay for a place to sleep) and much more unfriendly. Things change in New York; things change all the time. You don't mind this when you live here; when you live here, it's part of the caffeinated romance to this city that never sleeps. But when you move away, your experience change as a betrayal. You walk up Third Avenue planning to buy a brownie at a bakery you've always been loyal to, and the bakery's gone. Your dry cleaner move to Florida; your dentist retires; the lady who made the pies on West Fourth Street vanishes; the maitre d' at P.J. Clarke's quits, and you realize you're going to have to start from scratch tipping your way into the heart of the cold, chic young woman now at the down. You've turned your back from only a moment, and suddenly everything's different. You were an insider, a native, a subway traveler, a purveyor of inside tips into the good stuff, and now you're just another frequent flyer, stuck in a taxi on Grand Central Parkway as you wing in and out of La Guardia. Meanwhile, you rad that Manhattan rents are going up, they're climbing higher, they're reached the stratosphere. It seems that the moment you left town, they put a wall around the place, and you will never manage to vault over it and get back into the city again.

If only someone else's flesh and brain and memory. If only they could have taken her mind along to the dry cleaner's and emptied the pockets and steamed and cleansed it and reblocked it and brought it back in the morning. If only...

I’m sorry, Chet,” he sobbed. “I can’t face the dry cleaners again. They know! They goddamn know!” They did, in fact, know. For a while there in the 90’ s I was getting a commission from two of the dry cleaners downtown…

You're having one of those days of accumulating misery when you argue violently with someone in a position of power: a bank teller, a dry cleaner, a three-year-old.

If only they could have taken her mind along to the dry cleaner’s and emptied the pockets and steamed and cleansed it and reblocked it and brought it back in the morning. If only . .

For folks who have that casual-dude energy coursing through their bloodstream, that's great. But gays should not grow up alienated just for us to alienate each other. It's too predictable, like any other cycle of abuse. Plus, the conformist, competitive notion that by "toning down" we are "growing up" ultimately blunts the radical edge of what it is to be queer; it truncates our colorful journey of identity. Said another way, it's like living in West Hollywood and working a gay job by day and working it in the gay nightlife, wearing delicate shiny shirts picked from up the gay dry cleaners, yet coquettishly left unbuttoned to reveal the pec implants purchased from a gay surgeon and shown off by prancing around the gay-owned-and-operated theater hopped up on gay health clinic steroids and wheat grass purchased from the friendly gay boy who's new to the city, and impressed by the monstrous SUV purchased from a gay car dealership with its rainbow-striped bumper sticker that says "Celebrate Diversity." Then logging on to the local Gay.com listings and describing yourself as "straight-acting." Let me make myself clear. This is not a campaign for everyone to be like me. That'd be a total yawn. Instead, this narrative is about praise for the prancy boys. Granted, there's undecided gender-fucks, dagger dykes, faux-mos, po-mos, FTMs, fisting-top daddies, and lezzie looners who also need props for broadening the sexual spectrum, but they're telling their own stories. The Cliff's Notes of me and mine are this: the only moments I feel alive are when I'm just being myself - not some stiff-necked temp masquerading as normal in the workplace, not some insecure gay boy aspiring to be an overpumped circuit queen, not some comic book version of swank WeHo living. If that's considered a political act in the homogenized world of twenty-first century homosexuals, then so be it. — excerpt of "Praise For The Prancy Boys," by Clint Catalyst appears in first edition (ISBN # 1-932360-56-5)

Screw up my life?” He stared at me for a second and then said, deadpan, “I’m a five-foot-three, thirty-seven-year-old, single, Jewish medical examiner who needs to pick up his lederhosen from the dry cleaners so that he can play in a one-man polka band at Oktoberfest tomorrow.” He pushed up his glasses with his forefinger, folded his arms, and said, “Do your worst.

I live in my neighborhood. My neighborhood consists of the dry cleaner, the subway stop, the pharmacist, the supermarket, the cash machine, the deli, the beauty salon, the nail place, the newsstand, and the place where I go for lunch. All this is within two blocks of my house. Which is another thing I love about life in New York: Everything is right there. If you forgot to buy parsley, it takes only a couple of minutes to run out and get it. This is good, because I often forget to buy parsley.

It's this feeling that you want to love strangers, that you want to kiss the man at the post office, or the woman at the dry cleaners - you want to wrap you arms around life, life itself, but you can't and this feeling wells up in you, and there is nowhere to put this great happiness - and you're floating - and then you fall down and become unbearably sad. And you have to go lie down on the couch.

I thought I should call a matchmaker. For me, this seemed like a radical step. It never occurred to me to hire a matchmaker when I was younger because I always believed I'd meet a man on my own. He'd be sitting next to me on an airplane, waiting in line behind me at the dry cleaner, working in the same office attending the same party, hanging out at the same coffeehouse. It seemed ridiculous now, when I thought about the odds of this happening. After all, we don't subject other important aspects of out lives to pure chance. When you want to get a job you don't just hang out in the lobbies of office buildings, hoping an employer will strike up a conversation with you. When you want to buy a house, you don't walk aimlessly from neighborhood to neighborhood on your own, hoping to spot a house that happens to be for sale, matches your personal taste and contains the appropriate number of bedrooms and bathrooms. That's too random. If that's your only method of house hunting, you might end up homeless. So you hire a real estate broker to show you the potential homes that meet your needs. By the same token, why not hire a matchmaker to show you potential partners?

In the early months of World War II, San Francisco's Fill-more district, or the Western Addition, experienced a visible revolution. On the surface it appeared to be totally peaceful and almost a refutation of the term “revolution.” The Yakamoto Sea Food Market quietly became Sammy's Shoe Shine Parlor and Smoke Shop. Yashigira's Hardware metamorphosed into La Salon de Beauté owned by Miss Clorinda Jackson. The Japanese shops which sold products to Nisei customers were taken over by enterprising Negro businessmen, and in less than a year became permanent homes away from home for the newly arrived Southern Blacks. Where the odors of tempura, raw fish and cha had dominated, the aroma of chitlings, greens and ham hocks now prevailed. The Asian population dwindled before my eyes. I was unable to tell the Japanese from the Chinese and as yet found no real difference in the national origin of such sounds as Ching and Chan or Moto and Kano. As the Japanese disappeared, soundlessly and without protest, the Negroes entered with their loud jukeboxes, their just-released animosities and the relief of escape from Southern bonds. The Japanese area became San Francisco's Harlem in a matter of months. A person unaware of all the factors that make up oppression might have expected sympathy or even support from the Negro newcomers for the dislodged Japanese. Especially in view of the fact that they (the Blacks) had themselves undergone concentration-camp living for centuries in slavery's plantations and later in sharecroppers' cabins. But the sensations of common relationship were missing. The Black newcomer had been recruited on the desiccated farm lands of Georgia and Mississippi by war-plant labor scouts. The chance to live in two-or three-story apartment buildings (which became instant slums), and to earn two-and even three-figured weekly checks, was blinding. For the first time he could think of himself as a Boss, a Spender. He was able to pay other people to work for him, i.e. the dry cleaners, taxi drivers, waitresses, etc. The shipyards and ammunition plants brought to booming life by the war let him know that he was needed and even appreciated. A completely alien yet very pleasant position for him to experience. Who could expect this man to share his new and dizzying importance with concern for a race that he had never known to exist? Another reason for his indifference to the Japanese removal was more subtle but was more profoundly felt. The Japanese were not whitefolks. Their eyes, language and customs belied the white skin and proved to their dark successors that since they didn't have to be feared, neither did they have to be considered. All this was decided unconsciously.

She was always a loving mother who did what she thought was best. Sometimes that included hitting us with clothes hangers when we were young, but I’m sure we had it coming. To this day I have flashbacks when the dry cleaner asks me if I want my shirts folded or on hangers. I love my mom dearly, and thanks to her all my shirts now come home from the dry cleaner’s folded.

Film and TV V.I.P, seeker of the peace, part time chandelier cleaner, a legend in his own time, oppressor of champions, soldier of fortune, world traveller, bonvivant, all round good guy, international lover, casual hero, philosopher, wars fought, bears wrestled, equations solved, virgins enlightened, revolutions quelled, tigers castrated, orgies organised, bars quaffed dry, governments run, test rockets flown, life president of the Liquidarian Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Don’t you know that you can’t ever keep walking down a path a black cat crossed?” “Yes, it’s a weird old Cajun thing.” Ashlyn talked right over her mother. “No one is freaked by it anymore except my mother.” “Well, your grandmother didn’t believe it. She laughed and sashayed right through that cat’s path and she got hit by a car,” Karen said, her voice filled with pure righteousness. “Pawpaw hit her with a car because he caught her cheating on him with their dry cleaner,” Ashlyn shot back. “Yes, but maybe she would have gotten away with it if she hadn’t crossed that path,” Karen argued.

and carrying a blue umbrella, stepped on a loose paving stone while crossing Bishops-gate and drenched her left trouser leg in dirty water. If she were the type to swear she might have let rip, and wouldn’t have been alone—the city was full of angry pedestrians, hooted at by angry drivers and sworn at by angry cyclists, while angry buses trundled past full of angry passengers, and the angry sky rained angry rain, and the angry morning would never end. But she kept any fury to herself. Her mind now throbbing with extra tasks—when to get to the dry cleaners, and what to wear on the alternate days of the week she’d earmarked these trousers for

Brian was known to value courage as the crown of the virtues, and he exhibited it by coming into work every day in the same clothes. To his credit, there was nothing malodorous about him - presumably he bathed and visited the dry-cleaners on a regular basis – but thirty years in a tweed jacket and khaki trousers was a long time. What made it doubly odd was that he also valued glamour.

She straightened up the trailer, ran the vacuum cleaner over the braided rug, spread a clean tablecloth and put fresh shelf paper in the kitchen cupboards. That was a little job. In the old days she would have stuffed the dirty paper in the stove and burned it. The electric stove was clean but it couldn’t dry socks, burn paper, raise bread or provide comfort. Cost money to run it. They called it progress.

She straightened up the trailer, ran the vacuum cleaner over the braided rug, spread a clean tablecloth and put fresh shelf paper in the kitchen cupboards. That was a little job. In the old days she would have stuffed the dirty paper in the stove and burned it. The electric stove was clean but it couldn’t dry socks, burn paper, raise bread or provide comfort. Cost money to run it. They called it progress. By nine there was nothing

I saw God wash the world last night With His sweet showers on high and then when morning came i saw Him hang it out to dry He washed it each blade of grass and every trembling tree; He flung His showers against the hills and swept the rolling sea the white rose is a cleaner white the red, a richer red Since God washed every fragrant face and put them to bed theres not a bird theres not a bee the wings along the way but is a cleaner bird or bee than it was yesterday i saw God wash the world last night ah would He wash me as clean of all my dust and dirt as that old birch tree!

Thus, no matter where you live in New York City, you will find within a block or two a grocery store, a barbershop, a newsstand and shoeshine shack, an ice-coal-and-wood cellar (where you write your order on a pad outside as you walk by), a dry cleaner, a laundry, a delicatessen (beer and sandwiches delivered at any hour to your door), a flower shop, an undertaker's parlor, a movie house, a radio-repair shop, a stationer, a haberdasher, a tailor, a drug-store, a garage, a tearoom, a saloon, a hardware store, a liquor store, a shoe-repair shop. Every block or two, in most residential sections of New York, is a little main street. A man starts for work in the morning and before he has gone two hundred yards he has completed half a dozen missions: bought a paper, left a pair of shoes to be soled, picked up a pack of cigarettes, ordered a bottle of whiskey to be dispatched in the opposite direction against his home-coming, written a message to the unseen forces of the wood cellar, and notified the dry cleaner that a pair of trousers awaits call. Homeward bound eight hours later, he buys a bunch of pussy willows, a Mazda bulb, a drink, a shine-- all between the corner where he steps off the bus and his apartment.

After all, no big business idea makes sense at first. I mean, just imagine proposing the following ideas to a group of sceptical investors: ‘What people want is a really cool vacuum cleaner.’ (Dyson) ‘. . . and the best part of all this is that people will write the entire thing for free!’ (Wikipedia) ‘. . . and so I confidently predict that the great enduring fashion of the next century will be a coarse, uncomfortable fabric which fades unpleasantly and which takes ages to dry. To date, it has been largely popular with indigent labourers.’ (Jeans) ‘. . . and people will be forced to choose between three or four items.’ (McDonald’s) ‘And, best of all, the drink has a taste which consumers say they hate.’ (Red Bull) ‘. . . and just watch as perfectly sane people pay $5 for a drink they can make at home for a few pence.’ (Starbucks)*

Aristotle very famously said in his Politics I.V.8 that some people are born to be slaves. He meant that some people are not as capable of higher rational thought and therefore should do the work that frees the more talented and brilliant to pursue a life of honor and culture. Modern people bristle with outrage at such a statement, but while we do not today hold with the idea of literal slavery, the attitudes behind Aristotle’s statement are alive and well. Christian philosopher Lee Hardy and many others have argued that this “Greek attitude toward work and its place in human life was largely preserved in both the thought and practice of the Christian church” through the centuries, and still holds a great deal of influence today in our culture.43 What has come down to us is a set of pervasive ideas. One is that work is a necessary evil. The only good work, in this view, is work that helps make us money so that we can support our families and pay others to do menial work. Second, we believe that lower-status or lower-paying work is an assault on our dignity. One result of this belief is that many people take jobs that they are not suited for at all, choosing to aim for careers that do not fit their gifts but promise higher wages and prestige. Western societies are increasingly divided between the highly remunerated “knowledge classes” and the more poorly remunerated “service sector,” and most of us accept and perpetuate the value judgments that attach to these categories. Another result is that many people will choose to be unemployed rather than do work that they feel is beneath them, and most service and manual labor falls into this category. Often people who have made it into the knowledge classes show great disdain for the concierges, handymen, dry cleaners, cooks, gardeners, and others who hold service jobs.

I am going to end up alone," he moaned. "Not in any conceivable universe!" One of Sadie's best qualities is the ability to say "Are you effing insane?" with such sweet conviction and nicer words. "I am going to end up alone in a one-room apartment over a dry cleaner." "A dry cleaner?" "He could have said a bar," I offered. "True," he conceded. Frankie was on a roll. "I am going to end up alone in a one-room apartment over a dry cleaner with a cat. Who bites me." "Oh,Frankie-" "I am going to end up alone in a one-room apartment over a dry cleaner with a cat who bites me and pees in my closet full of moth-eaten sweaters." "Well,maybe," Sadie said, reaching around to hug both of us. "But the sweaters will be Dolce & Gabbana." One of her other fabulous qualities is that underneath the sweet conviction, she does have a sense of humor. Frankie did laugh. Then he gave a sigh that I could feel all the way through me. I knew Sadie did,too. "I liked him," he said, very quietly. "I really did. And I thought he felt the same way. I bent and twisted and distorted everything that happened between us to fit my pretty little picture. God, I believed my own hype. How stupid, how incredibly stupid was that?" "Not stupid." Sadie squeezed. "Hopeful. And if we're not that, what's the point? El? Help me out here." I wanted to.I really did. But all I could think of was the fact that at home, exactly where I'd put it in my bag, which was still exactly where I'd dumped it on the floor, was the evidence that Edward had let me down. I was keeping that to myself, at least for the moment. Twisted it to fit my pretty little picture. I didn't think I could take Frankie's complete lack of surprise that a guy (even a dead one) had let me down-or Sadie's sympathy. Not on top of my own anger. Because,plain and simple,it wasn't okay to look at another woman like that, not when you met the love of your life and gave a big flipped finger to the people around you so you could be with her. Not okay even if she was dead, because I, Ella, really really want to believe that sometimes love does conquer all, and sometimes some things do last foever. Truth: Yes,I really am that naive. "You're perfect," I said to Frankie. And I meant it.

Subject of Thought Number of Times Thought Occurred per Year (in descending order) L. 580.0 Family 400.0 Brushing tongue 150.0 Earplugs 100.0 Bill-paying 52.0 Panasonic three-wheeled vacuum cleaner, greatness of 45.0 Sunlight makes you cheerful 40.0 Traffic frustration 38.0 Penguin books, all 35.0 Job, should I quit? 34.0 Friends, don't have any 33.0 Marriage, a possibility? 32.0 Vending machines 31.0 Straws don't unsheath well 28.0 Shine on moving objects 25.0 McCartney more talented than Lennon? 23.0 Friends smarter, more capable than I am 19.0 Paper-towel dispensers 19.0 "What oft was thought, but ne'er" etc. 18.0 People are very dissimilar 16.0 Trees, beauty of 15.0 Sidewalks 15.0 Friends are unworthy of me 15.0 Indentical twins separated at birth, studies of traits 14.0 Intelligence, going fast 14.0 Wheelchair ramps, their insane danger 14.0 Urge to kill 13.0 Escalator invention 12.0 People are very similar 12.0 "Not in my backyard" 11.0 Straws float now 10.0 DJ, would I be happy as one? 9.0 "If you can't get out of it, get into it" 9.0 Pen, felt-tip 9.0 Gasoline, nice smell of 8.0 Pen, ballpoint 8.0 Stereo systems 8.0 Fear of getting mugged again 7.0 Staplers 7.0 "Roaches check in, but they don't check out" 6.0 Dinner roll, image of 6.0 Shoes 6.0 Bags 5.0 Butz, Earl 4.0 Sweeping, brooms 4.0 Whistling, yodel trick 4.0 "You can taste it with your eyes" 4.0 Dry-cleaning fluid, smell of 3.0 Zip-lock tops 2.0 Popcorn 1.0 Birds regurgitate food and feed young with it 0.5 Kant, Immanuel 0.5

I went straight upstairs to my bedroom after Marlboro Man and I said good night. I had to finish packing…and I had to tend to my face, which was causing me more discomfort by the minute. I looked in the bathroom mirror; my face was sunburn red. Irritated. Inflamed. Oh no. What had Prison Matron Cindy done to me? What should I do? I washed my face with cool water and a gentle cleaner and looked in the mirror. It was worse. I looked like a freako lobster face. It would be a great match for the cherry red suit I planned to wear to the rehearsal dinner the next night. But my white dress for Saturday? That was another story. I slept like a log and woke up early the next morning, opening my eyes and forgetting for a blissful four seconds about the facial trauma I’d endured the day before. I quickly brought my hands to my face; it felt tight and rough. I leaped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, flipping on the light and looking in the mirror to survey the state of my face. The redness had subsided; I noticed that immediately. This was a good development. Encouraging. But upon closer examination, I could see the beginning stages of pruney lines around my chin and nose. My stomach lurched; it was the day of the rehearsal. It was the day I’d see not just my friends and family who, I was certain, would love me no matter what grotesque skin condition I’d contracted since the last time we saw one another, but also many, many people I’d never met before--ranching neighbors, cousins, business associates, and college friends of Marlboro Man’s. I wasn’t thrilled at the possibility that their first impression of me might be something that involved scales. I wanted to be fresh. Dewy. Resplendent. Not rough and dry and irritated. Not now. Not this weekend. I examined the damage in the mirror and deduced that the plutonium Cindy the Prison Matron had swabbed on my face the day before had actually been some kind of acid peel. The burn came first. Logic would follow that what my face would want to do next would be to, well, peel. This could be bad. This could be real, real bad. What if I could speed along that process? Maybe if I could feed the beast’s desire to slough, it would leave me alone--at least for the next forty-eight hours. All I wanted was forty-eight hours. I didn’t think it was too much to ask.

I had dried jizz on my pants, so I took it to my dry cleaners. My pants got clean, but it must have taken quite a few licks to get that stain out.

SHOE CARE To dust, use a worn-out sock. To remove salt marks, use the Basic Mix cleaner. To polish, use worn-out nylons. To protect, use the Multipurpose Balm recipe (see “Bathroom, Toiletries, and Wellness”). WATERPROOFING DIRECTIONS 1. Melt 2 tablespoons beeswax and 11/ 2 teaspoons oil in a double boiler (I use a small glass jar in an inch of water). 2. Brush onto leather. (The wax will streak the shoe as it cools during application. It might look scary but don’t be alarmed. The streaks will disappear when you dry the shoe.) 3. Use a blow dryer and an old sock to work the wax into the shoe or boot.

Another Mystery That time I tagged along with my dad to the dry cleaners — What’d I know then about Death? Dad comes out carrying a black suit in a plastic bag. Hangs it up behind the back seat of the old coupe and says, “This is the suit your grandpa is going to leave the world in.” What on earth could he be talking about? I wondered. I touched the plastic, the slippery lapel of that coat that was going away, along with my grandpa. Those days it was just another mystery. Then there was a long interval, a time in which relatives departed this way and that, left and right. Then it was my dad’s turn. I sat and watched him rise up in his own smoke. He didn’t own a suit. So they dressed him gruesomely in a cheap sports coat and tie, for the occasion. Wired his lips into a smile as if he wanted to reassure us, Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks. But we knew better. He was dead, wasn’t he? What else could go wrong? (His eyelids were sewn closed, too, so he wouldn’t have to witness the frightful exhibit.) I touched his hand. Cold. The cheek where a little stubble had broken through along the jaw. Cold. Today I reeled this clutter up from the depths. Just an hour or so ago when I picked up my own suit from the dry cleaners and hung it carefully behind the back seat. I drove it home, opened the car door and lifted it out into sunlight. I stood there a minute in the road, my fingers crimped on the wire hanger. Then tore a hole through the plastic to the other side. Took one of the empty sleeves between my fingers and held it — the rough, palpable fabric. I reached through to the other side.

I'm sure the American Association of Dry Cleaners would hate me, but the harsh chemicals used in dry cleaning will break down fabrics in the finest garments over time. Fibers that are dyed navy blue, black, or dark gray are already dressed by holding the dye. Dry cleaning dies the fabric out, which is why suits cleaned in this manner begin to shine. Unless you happen to sweat profusely, suits can be cleaned by dipping a whisk broom in cool water and gently brushing the suit. Put outside in fresh air but not direct sunlight to dry. It is essential that a suit or jacket and trousers be allowed to air out immediately after a wearing. Unless you are a slob, you should only need to clean a suit twice a year if worn in regular rotation.

William pondered over his argument with Annie. How did a simple statement turn into a full-scale fight? He didn't understand why it was wrong of him to assume Annie would run a simple errand for him. Sara had done all of it without complaint. All he'd asked Annie to do was pick up a suit from the dry cleaners.

It happens sometimes that you accidentally star in a little public performance of your very own comedy, tragedy, or melodrama. You’re running for your morning bus, briefcase swinging jauntily, when you trip and tumble playground-style to the footpath. You’re trapped in the heavy-breathing silence of a crowded elevator when your lover says something infuriating (What did you just say?), or your child asks a rather delicate question, or your mother calls on your mobile to shriek dire warnings. You’re shuffling past a row of knees in the cinema, caught in the spotlight of the previews, when you tip your popcorn into a stranger’s lap. You’re having one of those days of accumulating misery when you argue violently with someone in a position of power: a bank teller, a dry cleaner, a three-year-old.

When I started sixth grade, the other kids made fun of Brian and me because we were so skinny. They called me spider legs, skeleton girl, pipe cleaner, two-by-four, bony butt, stick woman, bean pole, and giraffe, and they said I could stay dry in the rain by standing under a telephone wire. At lunchtime, when other kids unwrapped their sandwiches or bought their hot meals, Brian and I would get out books and read. Brian told everyone he had to keep his weight down because he wanted to join the wrestling team when he got to high school. I told people that I had forgotten to bring my lunch. No one believed me, so I started hiding in the bathroom during lunch hour. I’d stay in one of the stalls with the door locked and my feet propped up so that no one would recognize my shoes. When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I’d go retrieve them. I couldn’t get over the way kids tossed out all this perfectly good food: apples, hard-boiled eggs, packages of peanut-butter crackers, sliced pickles, half-pint cartons of milk, cheese sandwiches with just one bite taken out because the kid didn’t like the pimentos in the cheese. I’d return to the stall and polish off my tasty finds. There was, at times, more food in the wastebasket than I could eat. The first time I found extra food—a bologna-and-cheese sandwich—I stuffed it into my purse to take home for Brian. Back in the classroom, I started worrying about how I’d explain to Brian where it came from. I was pretty sure he was rooting through the trash, too, but we never talked about it. As I sat there trying to come up with ways to justify it to Brian, I began smelling the bologna. It seemed to fill the whole room. I became terrified that the other kids could smell it, too, and that they’d turn and see my overstuffed purse, and since they all knew I never ate lunch, they’d figure out that I had pinched it from the trash. As soon as class was over, I ran to the bathroom and shoved the sandwich back in the garbage can.

Hey, this dress was expensive. I can't have you tearing it off me." "Give me more credit than that. I'd ease it off slowly," he said, planting sweet little kisses by my ear before lightly sucking on my left lobe. "And I'd place it gently on a padded hanger before even thinking of pleasuring you. You'd beg, tell me you want me, but I'd say, 'No, Naya, you know this dress is my first priority, and I'll be back in twenty minutes after I run it to the dry cleaner.'" I giggled and pushed against his chest. "That's all I ask.

dry cleaner’s. She’d been wanting to talk with

Neurodivergent Checklist Time Blindness: Many neurodivergent people have trouble properly perceiving time as it passes. It either goes by too quickly or slowly. The perception of time depends on the level of stimulation the neurodivergent person is dealing with. It also can vary depending on what you’re focused on. If you’ve ever found yourself unable to account for time, you may be neurodivergent. Executive Dysfunction: This is what you experience when you want to accomplish a task, but despite how hard you try, you cannot see it through. Executive dysfunction happens for various reasons, depending on the type of neurodivergence in question. Still, the point is that this is a common occurrence in neurodivergent people. Task Multiplication: What is task multiplication? It happens when you set off to accomplish one thing but have to do a million other things, even though that wasn’t your original plan. For instance, you may want to sit down to finish some writing, only to notice water on the floor. You get up to grab a mop, and on the way, you notice the laundry you were supposed to drop off at the dry cleaners. Stooping to pick up the bag, you find yourself at eye level with your journal and remember you were supposed to make an entry the previous day, so you’re going to do that now. On and on it goes. Inconsistent Sleep Habits: This depends on what sort of neurodivergence you’re dealing with and if you’ve got comorbid disorders. Most importantly, neurodivergent people sleep more or less than “regular” people. You may also notice that your sleep habits fluctuate a lot. Sometimes you may sleep for eight hours at a stretch for a week, only to suddenly start running on just three hours of sleep. Emotional Dysregulation: With many neurodivergent people, it’s hard to keep emotions in check. Emotional dysregulation occurs in extreme emotions, sudden mood swings, or inappropriate emotional reactions (either not responding to the degree they should or overreacting). Hyperfixation: This also plays out differently depending on the brand of neurodivergence in question. Often, neurodivergent people get very involved in topics or hobbies to the point of what others may think of as obsession. Picking Up on Subtleties but Missing the Obvious: Neurodivergent people may struggle with picking up on things neurotypical people can see easily. At the same time, they are incredibly adept at noticing the subtle things everyone else misses. Sensory Sensitivities: If you’re neurodivergent, you may be unable to ignore your clothes tag scratching your back, have trouble hearing certain sounds, and can’t quite deal with certain textures of clothing, food, and so on. Rejection Sensitivity: Neurodivergent people are often more sensitive to rejection than others due to neurological differences and life experiences. For instance, children with ADHD get much more negative feedback than their peers without ADHD. Neurodivergent people are often rejected to the point where they notice rejection even when it’s not there.

The ever-extended list of bans – before long it was forbidden for Jews to walk on the pavement on the side of the road next to the park, to go into a laundry or dry cleaner’s, or to make a call from a public telephone – all of this, I still hear Vĕra telling me, said Austerlitz, soon brought Agáta to the brink of despair. I can see her now pacing up and down this room, said Vĕra, I can see her striking her forehead with the flat of her hand, and crying out, chanting the syllables one by one: I do not un der stand it! I do not un der stand it! I shall ne ver un der stand it!!

My tears dry, my heart slows, and something settles deep into my chest. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s cold and hard and takes all of the feelings I had for Ryan and sucks them up like a fucking Dyson vacuum cleaner.

go to the bank Monday and Thursday at noon; and you will attend your professional seminar alternate Tuesdays at 6 P.M. Before you know it, these regular appointments take root in your subconscious. Thursday afternoon becomes dry cleaners’ time, and after a while you drive to the cleaners almost without thinking about it. Wednesdays and Fridays become work-out time, and not only does the time become automatically reserved for you, but also you do not have to worry about when you will find the time to work out. You have decided in advance, not impulsively, what you want to make enough of a priority to pre-plan, and where to put each such activity or obligation. You know that you will do these things, and you know when you will do them. This means you do not need to wonder every day when you will get to the dry cleaners, or if you will get to the bank, or how you will find time to work out, or whether you can ever make it to that professional seminar again.

SOLUTION: Make it a habit to give your jacket a quick cleaning every time you eat a banana. Leave the banana peel out to dry overnight. When ready, rub the inside of the peel against the surface of the leather. Follow up by buffing the jacket with the outside surface of the peel for a finishing polish. WHY THIS WORKS: The average banana peel contains 30 to 40 percent tannin, the stuff used in commercial leather cleaners. When dried, the peel makes a natural leather cleaner, and the outside of the banana peel contains wax, giving leather a perfect top coat. -HOW TO- KEEP YOUR SHIRT CLEAN

My mouth went dry as I tried to remember all of Poppie’s tips for kissing over the years. She told me no guy wanted a girl with a mouth as wide as a guppy, who sucked his tongue with the force of a Dyson vacuum cleaner first time, or licked him to death like an overeager puppy. She’d told me to just purse my lips and let him lead and take control. Don’t slobber, don’t slobber, don’t slobber, I chanted to myself as he got closer and closer

If I owned a dry cleaners, I’d open at 9 and clothes at 5. Ugh. That pun was spot on. I’ll try to remove it with bleach.

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One of my pet peeves about biblical epics was that the characters' costumes always looked like they're just out of the dry cleaners.

You’re having one of those days of accumulating misery when you argue violently with someone in a position of power: a bank teller, a dry cleaner, a three-year-old.

Encino is a small community in the San Fernando Valley smashed up against and completely indistinguishable from all other Valley communities. You can drive from one to the other, passing the same dry cleaners, dubious sushi restaurants, and gas stations, without so much as a sign to mark your transition. It does, frankly, matter much where are you. If anything at all marks Encino from its clone neighbors, it's that it isn't aging quite as well. Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills have kept their figures and shown up on time for regular collagen injections while Encino is really starting to let itself go.

It was the gravity of the place. In football the facility was designed to be difficult to leave. Everything was there for you. A barber came in regularly. So did a dry cleaner and a car washer. Three meals a day were served. And best of all, there was the built-in coterie of brothers and fathers and uncles and a mutual sense of binding purpose.

Despite an icy northeast wind huffing across the bay I sneak out after dark, after my mother falls asleep clutching her leather Bible, and I hike up the rutted road to the frosted meadow to stand in mist, my shoes in muck, and toss my echo against the moss-covered fieldstone corners of the burned-out church where Sunday nights in summer for years Father Thomas, that mad handsome priest, would gather us girls in the basement to dye the rose cotton linen cut-outs that the deacon’s daughter, a thin beauty with short white hair and long trim nails, would stitch by hand each folded edge then steam-iron flat so full of starch, stiffening fabric petals, which we silly Sunday school girls curled with quick sharp pulls of a scissor blade, forming clusters of curved petals the younger children assembled with Krazy glue and fuzzy green wire, sometimes adding tissue paper leaves, all of us gladly laboring like factory workers rather than have to color with crayon stubs the robe of Christ again, Christ with his empty hands inviting us to dine, Christ with a shepherd's staff signaling to another flock of puffy lambs, or naked Christ with a drooping head crowned with blackened thorns, and Lord how we laughed later when we went door to door in groups, visiting the old parishioners, the sick and bittersweet, all the near dead, and we dropped our bikes on the perfect lawns of dull neighbors, agnostics we suspected, hawking our handmade linen roses for a donation, bragging how each petal was hand-cut from a pattern drawn by Father Thomas himself, that mad handsome priest, who personally told the Monsignor to go fornicate himself, saying he was a disgruntled altar boy calling home from a phone booth outside a pub in North Dublin, while I sat half-dressed, sniffing incense, giddy and drunk with sacrament wine stains on my panties, whispering my oath of unholy love while wiggling uncomfortably on the mad priest's lap, but God he was beautiful with a fine chiseled chin and perfect teeth and a smile that would melt the Madonna, and God he was kind with a slow gentle touch, never harsh or too quick, and Christ how that crafty devil could draw, imitate a rose petal in perfect outline, his sharp pencil slanted just so, the tip barely touching so that he could sketch and drink, and cough without jerking, without ruining the work, or tearing the tissue paper, thin as a membrane, which like a clean skin arrived fresh each Saturday delivered by the dry cleaners, tucked into the crisp black vestment, wrapped around shirt cardboard, pinned to protect the high collar.

Since Paul wasn’t a big conversationalist—he was the anti-Mac, in other words, and today had been the longest she’d ever heard him speak in consecutive sentences—Jena watched the scenery for a while. Then she decided to study the inside of Paul’s truck to see what she could learn about him. Technically, it was exactly like hers and Gentry’s. It had a black exterior with a blue light bar across the top and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement Division logo on the doors. It was tech heavy on the front dash, just like theirs, with LDWF, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Louisiana State Police Troop C radios, a laptop, a GPS unit, and a weather unit. In her truck and in Gentry’s, the cords and wires were a colorful tangle of plastic and metal, usually with extra plugs dangling around like vines. Paul’s cords were all black, and he had them woven in pairs and tucked underneath the dash, where they neatly disappeared. She leaned over to see how he’d achieved such a thing, and noticed identical zip ties holding them in place. “Sinclair, I hate to ask, but what are you doing?” He sounded more bemused than annoyed, so she said, “I’m psychoanalyzing you based on the interior of your truck.” He almost ran off the road. “Why?” “Your scintillating conversation was putting me to sleep.” His dark brows knit together but he seemed to have no answer to that. She turned around in her seat, as much as the seat belt allowed, and continued her study. Paul had a 12-gauge shotgun and a .223 carbine mounted right behind the driver’s seat, same as in her own truck. The mounts had hidden release buttons so the agents could get the guns out one-handed and quickly. But where her truck had a catch-all supply of stuff, from paper towels to zip ties to evidence bags to fast-food wrappers thrown in the back, Paul’s backseat was empty but for a zippered storage container normal people used for shoes. Each space held different things, all neatly arranged. Jena spotted evidence bags in one. Zip ties in another. Notebooks. Citation books. Paperwork. A spare uniform hung over one window, with a dry-cleaner’s tag dangling from the shirt’s top button. Good Lord. She turned back around. “What did you learn?” Paul finally asked. “You’re an obsessive-compulsive neat freak,” she said. “Accent on freak.

Since we’re on the topic of stains, here’s the absolute best thing you’re going to learn from me: with the exception of mud and ink, almost every single stain will benefit from being flushed with cold water. Hold the stained area taut under a running faucet and let the water pressure do a lot of the work for you. If you have a sponge or towel nearby, that’s even better: use it to help push the stain out even more while under the running water. A small amount of soap—dish soap, hand soap, laundry detergent, whatever is close by—will also really help matters. If the stained garment is dry-clean-only and you don’t want to risk making things worse, you should point out the stain when you drop the item off with your cleaner so they can spot treat it.

Professional Dry Cleaning is a simple procedure of getting rid of stains and dirt from the dress. Penny wise Cleaners use natural products for professional dry cleaning as these products are better stain removal.

when my shirt feels tight it is because I have put on muscle in the gym, but when my belt feels tight it is because that idiot dry cleaner shrank my trousers. How convenient!

And as a rule, people don’t like to puzzle over how to do things. They enjoy puzzles in their place—when they want to be entertained or diverted or challenged—but not when they’re trying to find out what time their dry cleaner closes

She gave me a get-along pat on the back and turned to answer a tourist’s question about how often vampires needed to get their teeth cleaned. “Would you like to come very close and look at mine?” Pam asked in a sultry voice, and the woman shrieked with delighted fear. That was why the humans came to vampire bars, and vampire comedy clubs, and vampire dry cleaners, and vampire casinos . . . to flirt with danger.

Ambroselli blinked “What’s a daytime man?” “It’s sort of like having another assistant,” I said, leaping into the conversation. “Mustapha does the things that Eric can’t, things that require going out in the daylight. He goes to the post office; he picks up stuff from the printer; he goes to the dry cleaner; he gets supplies for this house; he gets the cars serviced and inspected.” “Do all vampires have a daytime man?” “The lucky ones,” Eric said with his most charming smile.

You’ll notice that I use these ingredients again and again in lots of different formulations, so it’s a good idea to just keep them in the house. 3% hydrogen peroxide (what you get in the brown bottle): a whitener, stain-remover, and chlorine bleach alternative. Borax: Borax, or sodium borate, is a naturally occurring mineral. While it is not as gentle as baking soda, it mixes well with lemon, vinegar, and water for cleaning purposes and does clean quite well when used properly. See here (bathroom) for my favorite Borax trick. Cornstarch: Used in glass cleaner; super soft, provides the most gentle abrasion, and wipes off streak-free. Cream of tartar: Can remove stains when combined with vinegar or lemon juice. Rubbing alcohol: A quick-drying agent for some of my recipes and a dissolver of oil and grease. It is also known to disinfect. White vinegar: Can be used as a deodorizer, degreaser, stainless-steel cleaner, glass cleaner, and it does away with soap scum and limescale. Lemon can do almost anything that vinegar does, but there are practical reasons why I recommend vinegar, not least of all the ridiculousness of having to juice a bunch of lemons before cleaning. You can always sub in lemon juice for vinegar if you want to, but be aware that a product with lemon juice in it will go rancid, where vinegar will not, so any big batch meant to last for a while should contain vinegar. Remember, you can always amp up your vinegar game with 6 percent or 10 percent acidity.

Do your shoes appear a little more worn in than before? Whether it's your favorite sneakers or high-end leather shoes, keeping them clean and well-maintained can be challenging. This is where shoe dry cleaning comes in handy. If you've been searching for shoe dry cleaning near me, this article will guide you through the benefits of professional services and how to find the best shoe cleaning services Delhi, shoe dry cleaning Noida, or an online shoe cleaning service. Why Choose Shoe Dry Cleaning? Shoe dry cleaning is an excellent way to clean and refresh your shoes without the risk of damaging delicate materials like leather, suede, or fabric. Unlike traditional washing, dry cleaning uses specialized techniques that clean your shoes without soaking them in water. This helps preserve the shoe's structure and keeps it looking newer for longer. For those living in Delhi or Noida, local services such as shoe dry cleaning Delhi or shoe laundry in Noida offer expert care for your shoes. These professionals use advanced tools and products to ensure that your shoes are restored to their best condition. The Benefits of Professional Shoe Dry Cleaning Thorough Cleaning: Professional services remove dirt, stains, and odors that regular cleaning can't handle. Material Protection: Delicate materials like leather and suede are carefully handled to prevent damage. Convenience: With options for shoe dry cleaning service near me or shoe washing service near me, you can often schedule a home pickup and delivery. Longer Shoe Lifespan: Regular dry cleaning keeps your shoes looking good and extends their lifespan. Restoration Services: Some services even offer restoration, perfect for older shoes that need a refresh. How to Find Shoe Dry Cleaning Services Near You Finding reliable shoe laundry near me or a nearby shoe cleaning service is easier than ever, thanks to online platforms. Simply search for shoe cleaning near me, and you'll find various local options that offer pickup and delivery services, saving you the trouble of visiting the store. For residents of Noida, there are many trusted shoe dry cleaning Noida and shoe laundry options that provide top-notch services, from basic cleaning to full shoe restoration. You can also opt for an online shoe cleaning service to schedule everything from the comfort of your home. How Often Should You Dry Clean Your Shoes? The frequency of shoe dry cleaning depends on how often you wear them. If you regularly wear your shoes in dusty or dirty conditions, consider cleaning them every 3–4 months. High-end shoes made of delicate materials may require more frequent care. FAQs What types of shoes can be dry cleaned? Leather, suede, and fabric shoes can all be dry cleaned to maintain their quality and appearance. How long does shoe dry cleaning take? Most services offer same-day or next-day delivery, depending on the condition of the shoes and the type of cleaning required. Can I book shoe dry cleaning online? Yes, many services now provide online shoe cleaning service, allowing you to book pickup and delivery through their website or app. Is shoe dry cleaning safe for all materials? Yes, professional cleaners use specialized techniques that are safe for a variety of materials, including leather and suede. How much does shoe dry cleaning cost? The cost varies depending on the type of shoe and the extent of cleaning needed, but most services offer affordable pricing for their cleaning packages. In conclusion, shoe dry cleaning is an effective way to maintain the quality and appearance of your shoes. Whether you're searching for shoe dry cleaning service near me, shoe dry cleaning Delhi, or shoe laundry in Noida, professional services provide the care your footwear deserves.

This project may be preceeded or followed by the clothing organization steps found in the next section of this book. ORGANIZE CLOTHING examples of storage bedroom closet (walk-in or standard) dresser armoire underbed storage boxes trunk or storage ottoman nightstand supplies needed trash bags/recycling bin, donation box, relocation box, fix-it box spray cleaner and cleaning cloth broom and dust pan and/or vacuum storage containers label maker and/or tags to hang from containers/baskets time commitment 4–10 hours quick assessment questions What are the main categories of clothing? What items could be placed in off-season storage? What types of things need quick and instant access? potential goals for this space make getting ready in the morning a snap make it easier to put away clothing in the evening and on laundry day get rid of clothing that no longer fits create a new wardrobe make the closet visually appealing quick-toss list any clothing that is stained or ripped shoes that are past their prime clothing left over from the high school years (unless, of course, you’re still in high school) souvenir t-shirts broken jewelry socks without mates underwear that has lost its elasticity dry-cleaner hangers and plastic bags storage containers bins/boxes/baskets that are open-top bins/boxes/baskets with lids

potential goals for this space make getting ready in the morning a snap make it easier to put away clothing in the evening and on laundry day get rid of clothing that no longer fits create a new wardrobe make the closet visually appealing quick-toss list any clothing that is stained or ripped shoes that are past their prime clothing left over from the high school years (unless, of course, you’re still in high school) souvenir t-shirts broken jewelry socks without mates underwear that has lost its elasticity dry-cleaner hangers and plastic bags storage containers bins/boxes/baskets that are open-top bins/boxes/baskets with lids double

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this home is empty now no gas no electricity no running water the food is rotten from head to foot i am layered in dust fruit flies. webs. bugs. someone call the plumber my stomach is backed up—i've been vomiting since call the electrician my eyes won't light up call the cleaners to wash me up and hang me to dry when you broke into my home it never felt like mine again i can't even let a lover in without getting sick i lose sleep after the first date lose my appetite become more bone and less skin forget to breathe every night my bedroom becomes a psych ward where panic attacks turn men into doctors to keep me calm every lover who touches me—feels like you their fingers—you mouths—you until they're not the ones on top of me anymore—it's you

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Pia, look, I’ve always known something was going on, but you don’t ask these questions—it’s a family thing, alright? I don’t keep up with what my little brother does. It’s just how our family works, it’s like how the Rondolfos down the street do palm-reading stuff in town by the dry-cleaner’s, you know the Rondolfos? Every family has stuff like that, that’s how it is, just go with it because they aren’t hurting anyone. Hey, it isn’t drugs—it could be drugs, but it isn’t.

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Key Elements of Five Year Plan ’77 What follows did not happen overnight. Among the guidelines set in February 1977 (remember, Fair Trade on alcohol was not finally ended until 1978): Emphasize edibles vs. non-edibles. I figured that the supermarkets would raise their prices on foods to make up for the newly reduced margins on milk and alcohol. This would give us all the more room to underprice them. During the next five years we got rid of film, hosiery, light bulbs and hardware, greeting cards, batteries, magazines, all health and beauty aids except those with a “health food” twist. We began to cut back sharply on soaps and cleaners and paper goods. The only non-edibles we emphasized were “tabletop” items like wineglasses, cork pullers, and candles. It was quite clear that we should put more emphasis on food and less on alcohol and milk. Within edibles, drop all ordinary branded products like Best Foods, Folgers, or Weber’s bread. I felt that a dichotomy was developing between “groceries” and “food.” By “groceries,” I mean the highly advertised, highly packaged, “value added” products being emphasized by supermarkets, the kinds that brought slotting allowances and co-op advertising allowances. By embracing these “plastic” products, I felt the supermarkets were abandoning “food” and the product knowledge required to buy and sell it. But this position wasn’t entirely altruistic. The plan of February 20, 1977, declared, “Most independent supermarkets have been driven out of business, because they stupidly tried to compete with the big chains in plastic goods, in which the big chains excel.” Focus on discontinuity of supplies. Be willing to discontinue any product if we are unable to offer the right deal to the customer. Instead of national brands, focus on either Trader Joe’s label products or “no label” products like nuts and dried fruits. This was intended to enable the Trader Joe’s label to pick up momentum in the stores. And it worked.

I wasn’t simply coming up with an easy excuse when I mentioned procrastination. There were all sorts of minor and not-so-minor chores I really had been putting off, including taking clothes to the dry cleaner, catching up with some of the routine housework, getting some essentials from the drug store, working with the gardener to change some plants, and scheduling routine car maintenance for my BMW that had indicated it needed to be done nearly ten days ago. I had no legitimate excuse for not doing any of this. Thankfully, I was well. I had no job at the moment, and there was nothing else more important cramming my attention. No one had to explain to me that my lack of enthusiasm was characteristic of deepening depression either. I had read enough about it and the symptomatic behavior which usually centered around obsessive eating or drinking as well as sleeping too much. But as the song says, Along came Jones and – voila! – my depression, although not completely gone, had dissipated considerably.

As a vacuum cleaner can start to pull up the actual thread of a carpet, her brains had been sucked dry by too much yoga.

Another tenet of the Gita is nonattachment to results. As Lord Krishna, an incarnation of God, tells Arjuna: “You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction.” Sever work from outcome, the Gita teaches. Invest 100 percent effort into every endeavor and precisely zero percent into the results. Gandhi summed up this outlook in a single word: “desirelessness.” It is not an invitation to indolence. The karma yogi is a person of action. She is doing a lot, except worrying about results. This is not our way. We are results-oriented. Fitness trainers, business consultants, doctors, colleges, dry cleaners, recovery programs, dieticians, financial advisors. They, and many others, promise results. We might question their ability to deliver results, but rarely do we question the underlying assumption that being results-oriented is good. Gandhi was not results-oriented. He was process-oriented. He aimed not for Indian independence but for an India worthy of independence.

Here Are the Perks of Being President: • You don’t ever have to make your own bed. • You don’t ever have to cook your own breakfast (although that was something Gerald Ford liked to do anyway). • You don’t ever have to do your own laundry or take your own clothes to the dry cleaner (but you do have to pay for the dry cleaning yourself; you will be billed for it at the beginning of each month). But Wait! There’s More!! The following free perks also come with the job: • Ballpoint pens • Personalized stationary • High-speed Internet access • Toothbrush cups emblazoned with the presidential seal Nightly turn-down service Breath mints

Steele and other scientists investigating half-eaten acorns have found that an acorn has more fats, which squirrels like, in its top half, and in its bottom half, around the embryo, there are more tannins, which squirrels dislike. Tannins—the same chemicals that make wines “dry”—are poisonous in high concentrations. They are a mainstay of plant chemical warfare, used by everything from apples to persimmons. That feeling of all the moisture being sucked out of your mouth when you bite into an acorn or an unripe apple comes from the tannins you’ve just released, which act as molecular vacuum cleaners, hoovering up all the proteins that make your saliva feel slippery. Unlike squirrels, humans can’t eat acorns without processing the tannins.

Prodigal son and older brother pg 30-31 "Better keep that robe clean. One spot and Dad will send you to the cleaners with it." "Some things you are supposed to know." "He'll take them back." "He will not. They were a gift. He wouldn't...would he?" Then the ex-prodigal leans over to snug the strings...He hears his father's voice...Overcome with fear, he reacts with a "Sorry, Dad" and turns and runs. Too many tasks. Keeping the robe spotless, ring positioned, sandals snug- who could meet such standards? Gift preservation begins to wear on the young man. He avoids the father he feels he can't please. He quits wearing the gifts he can't maintain. And he even longs for the simpler days of the pigpen. The rest of the story - found in Galatians. Thanks to some legalistic big brothers, Paul's readers had gone from grace receiving to law keeping. Gal. 1:6-7, 2:16

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Sin is more than a stain that can be removed by a trip to the dry cleaner. It is a wound that needs to be treated, healed.

Dad hooked the pipe cleaners over his ears. “You can wear this to soak up your drool while you sleep . . . or . . . I suppose, while you’re awake, if you’re the kind of person who drools when you’re awake. I would imagine there are people like that. And it keeps your pillowcase dry, or your shirt, if you’re awake.

It was only as he was drying his eyes that he noticed the letter was typed. He knew, without a doubt, that Lola had written it from one of the offices she said she cleaned. For a second he thought it was all a lie, that Lola was working as an administrative assistant or secretary in some big company. Then he saw it clearly. He saw the vacuum cleaner parked between two rows of desks, saw the floor waxer like a cross between a mastiff and a pig sitting next to a plant, he saw an enormous window through which the lights of Paris blinked, he saw Lola in the cleaning company’s smock, a worn blue smock, sitting writing the letter and maybe taking slow drags on a cigarette, he saw Lola’s fingers, Lola’s wrists, Lola’s blank eyes, he saw another Lola reflected in the quicksilver of the window, floating weightless in the skies of Paris, like a trick photograph that isn’t a trick, floating, floating pensively in the skies of Paris, weary, sending messages from the coldest, iciest realm of passion.

Page 207 In the inner cities of all the major metropolitan areas across the United States, ethnic Koreans represent an increasingly glaring market-dominant minority vis-à-vis the relatively economically depressed African-American majorities around them. In New York City, Koreans, less than .1 percent of the city’s population, own 85 percent of produce stands, 70 percent of grocery stores, 80 percent of nail salons, and 60 percent of dry cleaners. In portions of downtown Los Angeles, Koreans own 40 percent of the real estate but constitute only 10 percent of the residents. Korean-American businesses in Los Angeles County number roughly 25,000, with gross sales of $4.5 billion. Nationwide, Korean entrepreneurs have in the last decade come to control 80 percent of the $2.5 billion African-American beauty business, which—“like preaching and burying people”—historically was always a “black” business and a source of pride, income, and jobs for African-Americans. “They’ve come in and taken away a market that’s not rightfully theirs,” is the common, angry view among inner-city blacks. Page 208 At a December 31, 1994, rally, Norman “Grand Dad” Reide, vice president of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, accused Koreans of “reaping a financial harvest at the expense of black people” and recommended that “we boycott the bloodsucking Koreans.” More recently, in November 2000, African-Americans firebombed a Korean-owned grocery store in northeast Washington, D.C. The spray-painted message on the charred walls: “Burn them down, Shut them down, Black Power!

In the main room, I find my wedding dress, strewn across the tablelette, covered in bird dirt. That troublemaker grandmother bird has disseminated her business evenly from its sweetheart neckline to its hem. The piles of gauze are thick with shit, the destruction so complete I marvel. When did she do it? I was with her every moment. No dry cleaner would be able to repair it in time.

All-Natural Furniture Polish Ready In: 10 minutes INGREDIENTS: 1 cup olive oil, 1/ 2 cup lemon juice DIRECTIONS: Add the ingredients together in a bowl or spray bottle. Then use a clean cloth to vigorously apply small amounts to the affected area. Wipe dry with another clean cloth.

GLASS CLEANER Ingredients: 1/4 cup vinegar and 4 cups warm water. Directions: Add into a spray bottle, use to clean glass or mirrors with a piece of newspaper or dry, clean cloth.

People can talk all they want about the Big Ten. About Michigan and Ohio State and Indiana and Kentucky or whatever, but there's no way that compares. They're in different states. Here, we share the same dry cleaners." - Mike Kryzewski

The cowboy suit hung behind the bedroom door in its plastic covering. With great care Neville lifted it down and laid it upon the bed. Carefully parting the plastic, he pressed his nose to the fabric of the suit, savouring the bittersweet smell of the dry cleaner’s craft. Gently he put his thumbs to the pearl buttons and removed the jacket from the hanger. He sighed deeply, and with the reverence a priest accords to his ornamentum, he slipped into the jacket. The material was crisp and pure, the sleeves crackled slightly as he eased his arms into them, and the starched cuffs clamped about his wrists like loving manacles. Without further hesitation the part—time barman climbed into the trousers, clipped on the gunbelt, and tilted the hat on to his head at a rakish angle. Pinning the glittering badge of office carefully to his breast he stepped to the pitted glass of the wardrobe mirror to view the total effect. It was, to say the least, stunning. The dazzling white of the suit made the naturally anaemic Neville appear almost suntanned. The stetson, covering his bald patch and accentuating his dark sideburns, made his face seem ruggedly handsome, the bulge of the gunbelt gave an added contour to his narrow hips, and the cut of the trousers brought certain parts of his anatomy into an unexpected and quite astonishing prominence. ‘Mighty fine,’ said Neville, easing his thumbs beneath the belt buckle and adopting a stance not unknown to the late and legendary ‘Duke’ himself. But there was something missing, some final touch. He looked down, and caught sight of his carpet-slippers; of course, the cowboy boots. A sudden sick feeling began to take hold of his stomach. He did not remember having seen any boots when the suit arrived. In fact, there were none. Neville let out a despairing groan and slumped on to his bed, a broken man. The image in the mirror crumpled away and with it Neville’s dreams; a cowboy in carpet-slippers? A tear entered Neville’s good eye and crept down his cheek. ==========

It's just a coincidence, I guess, but just the day before at the dry cleaner's, one of our customers, Mrs. Chudy, said to me- I forget what we were even talking about, but she said, "My dear, there are no coincidences. That's just God's way of remaining anonymous." And I was like, to myself not to her, yeah? How do you know? But hey, maybe she's right.