A divorce? Wrong answer. Anyway, that would only explain the shift in personnel, not the attitudinal change. A personality transfer a la “Freaky Friday”? Incorrect. This is not a case of life imitating a Disney movie.


Place the blame instead on our rooftop solar water heating system, which was installed in January 2006. That purchase challenged me to think about integrating our solar ration—the daily allotment of sunlight that falls on our house and yard—more effectively into our regular routines. And few routines are as unavoidable as doing the laundry.

It so happens that we share a clothesline with two neighboring households. In years past, my wife would hang the clothes out to dry during the warm summer months, but in the colder months she would simply transfer the wet clothes to the gas-fired dryer stacked above the washing machine.