laundry daze

Today was laundry day, which always carries a fair amount of risk with
it. Vegas has nothing on the science of predicting the chances of rain
at any given hour, and success or failure is often measured in seconds,
with cloudbursts appearing from the chronically grey sky with little or
no warning. Today I lost the gamble in a big way, with my laundry
ending up with not just one, but three extra rinses, which was in some
ways good, since it all got splattered with mud after the first
'rinse'. In general we've hit the middle of the rainy season with a
vengeance, with my front yard more often than not having an inch or more
of standing water in it.
Laundry also carries the general risks of bleach spots -- note, black
socks and bleach don't mix well -- various other stains not being
removed, and today we had a new twist, with my household worker deciding
that my shoes were too dirty and washing all of them. I now have very
clean but very wet shoes, which usually take about a week to dry (at
least they did last time) with no sun to dry them during the day. I
would have never thought to ask her not to wash my shoes. I'll add it
to the list.