Top Tops: Don't Sweat the Small Scrud

Left to right: Monteau, Marshalls; Violet & Claire, Marshalls; IZ Byer, Kohl's; Fifth Sun, Target; Jennifer Lopez Collection, Kohl's; ELLE, Kohl's 

I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity clothes enthusiast, but there's something special about a top.  Even that short-lived reboot of "The Odd Couple" recognized it.  I still remember Oscar's agent complimenting Teri Hatcher on her blouse, then saying something like, "Women love their tops."  And we do!  Especially in today's Zoom corporate culture when it's the only part of our outfits that people see.  It's certainly changed the way I look at my closet.  I used to build an ensemble around a skirt, a pair of shoes, or even a particularly rad pair of tights.  Now the top has to stand on its own, which means that I reach for the splashier ones more often.  I always wear them with a denim mini and my fuzzy slippers.  I've come to think of it as my uniform, and I really like it.

Still, wearing more clothes (clothes, that is, other than pjs) means washing more clothes.  Just as hanging at home means investigating domestic annoyances I'd usually ignore.  For example, for the last year or so, I've been noticing small, greenish-brown, plasticky pieces adhering to my freshly washed laundry.  They weren't stains because I was able to pick them off.  And for that I was grateful.  Nevertheless, the whole thing bothered me.  I mean, my clothes are like my kids.  And you don't want to throw the baby out with the bath -- or, in this case, laundry -- water.  Sometimes I'd toss everything back into the washer.  Yet at the end of each cycle, I again spied the offending debris.  I'd indulge in an eye roll but then move on.  Until recently.  After finding one remnant too many, I couldn't deny that I should get to the bottom of it.  My friend the Internet would have the answer, even if it was one I didn't like.

It turns out that my mystery marks are what is known as "scrud."  A combination of "soap" and "crud," the word scrud refers to a mixture of detergent residue and mildew that brews beneath your washing machine's drum.  When you run a cycle, the scrud sheet or roll or whatever breaks off into little pieces and lands on your clothes.  I was flummoxed.  The washer was supposed to get my clothes cleaner, not spray them with mold's answer to dandruff.  So, I went on Amazon, determined to find a scrud-buster.  I came up with a product called Affresh and ordered it.  All I had to do was drop a tablet in the washer and turn it on hot for the longest cycle.  The package said that I "might see residue" afterwards, but when I opened the lid, I was unprepared for the Pollack painting of strange, spinach-like strips clinging to the white spinny thing.  I was mesmerized yet disgusted, disgusted yet mesmerized.  Per the package (that dubious guide), if I had a particularly filthy and/or smelly machine, then I could run as many as four cycles.  I ignored that and used up the whole box, all the while hearing TLC's "Scrubs" on a loop in my head:  

"No, I don't want no scrub

A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me

Hangin' out the passenger side

Of his best friend's ride (oh)

Trying to holla at me."

As TLC says, "a scrub is a guy who thinks he's fine."  Much like scrud, which tries to pass itself off as mere recycled soap.  Um, yeah, recycled soap scum -- and dirt.  Is pond scum copacetic because swans used to glide across its once pristine surface?  I think not.   

Anyway, I've (almost) made peace with the fact that scrud will be my unwelcome houseguest for awhile.  It'll dissipate after many cycles, the towels and other workaday items thankfully sanitized by the dryer's vigilante lint trap.  In the meantime, I'm resigned to picking the pieces off my drip dry dress clothes.  To that end, here's a happy band of ROYGBIV blouses (even if the blue one is clearly a tee shirt).  I'm proud to report that all are scrud free.  

If only I could say the same about my scalp and dandruff.  

TV Tuesday: Desperately Seeking a New Sunday Night Address: ABC Says Goodbye to Wisteria Lane

I've always loved "Desperate Housewives."  From its spine-tinglingly whodunit first season to the bitter end eight years worth of intrigue, romance, and heartbreak later, I remained firmly fixed on my couch at 9:00 each Sunday night to find out what was happening on Wisteria Lane.  Sure, it was soapy and catty and made up of sensational plot lines.  But the thing that set "Desperate Housewives" apart from other shows of its kind was its sincere and ever-present reminder that things are not what they seem and that life is precious and can change on a dime.  Smart and satiric, it revealed the untidy gardens of life behind suburbia's white picket fences.  But it snuck in sentiment amidst the snark, and in the end, its poignancy was what made its heart beat.

Yet despite all of this, I didn't expect much from last Sunday night's series finale.  The big question of how Susan (Teri Hatcher), Gaby (Eva Longoria), Bree (Marcia Cross), and Lynette (Felicity Huffman) were going to get out of going to jail for covering up the murder of Gaby's abusive stepfather seemed to be losing steam, especially after it was revealed that Bree's ex-husband Orson was the one sending those creepy "I know what you did" notes.  Although I sensed that no one would be put behind bars, I was unprepared for the dying Karen McCluskey to confess to the murder.  At the beginning of the show, Susan, Gaby, Bree, and Lynette agreed to look after her so she could die at home.  Never sure of their true feelings for her, Karen expresses her appreciation in a fitting act of unselfish symmetry, showing that everything happens for a reason and that despite all the mistakes the four friends made over the years, they are ultimately good people worthy of a second chance.

The last minutes of the two-hour show time Karen's last and Susan's granddaughter's first breaths, reminding us that death is a part of life and that life goes on.  Then we get a glimpse of the women's futures.  Lynette and Tom move to New York City so Lynette can become the CEO of ex-housewife Katherine's frozen croissant company, Gaby and Carlos move to California after the launch of Gaby's successful personal shopping business, and Bree marries her trial lawyer (Scott Bakula) and moves to Kentucky to become a politician.  Each of these women's destinies seems perfectly suited to her, both professionally and geographically, and it's no accident that these formerly desperate housewives end up achieving both personal and career success.

Still, we don't really know what happens to Susan.  Ever the nurturer, she is surrounded by her children and grandchildren - perhaps her destiny - as she drives away from her just-sold house for one last spin around the lane.  Mike's absence is palpably painful.  Mike and Susan's love story was perhaps the most genuine of all on the show, which was what made it so wrenching to watch Mike die of a gunshot wound in Susan's arms.  And yet, as initially out-of-the-blue as Mike's death seemed, it had been gently foreshadowed during the pilot episode when Susan and Mike met at - of all places - Mary Alice's funeral.  Always a powerful if unseen presence, Mary Alice fulfills her narrator duties right up until the very end, telling us that Susan feels as if she's being watched.  Sure enough, all of the characters who have died on the show, starting with Mike and ending with Mary Alice herself, appear on the lawn to give Wisteria Lane's nicest resident a bittersweet sendoff.  Then, in a classic "Desperate Houswives" twist, the scene cuts to Susan's old house, where the young new owner is stashing a suspicious box - not unlike Mary Alice's - in a closet to the tune of eerie music.   

I'm sure I'll watch whatever new show claims "Desperate Housewives' " vacant time slot.  But Sunday nights will never be the same.                

Desperate Housewives Season Premiere: One Housewife Gets Crafty

During last night's season premiere of Desperate Housewives, when Susan (Teri Hatcher) announced that she was going to help pull her husband Mike out of debt by selling the "really cool handmade jewelry she'd been making," I knew I was in for something good. Sure enough, Susan, who is an art teacher, pulls out several trays of oversized baubles to display for her Wisteria Lane cohorts in Lynette's kitchen just scenes later. Dubiously, the others examine the too-large necklaces and earrings while trading sideways glances. Bree jokes that she'll buy Gaby a pair of huge earrings because "her Latino ears can handle them," and Gaby retorts that she's buying Bree a bulky necklace to wear around her "sturdy Protestant neck." Oblivious as ever, Susan blithely regales her friends with the story of how she set up a table at the park to market her wares. Yet the climate of bitchiness hasn't reached its full pitch until Lynette's old college friend Renee (played by guest star Vanessa Williams) bursts into the room and starts sparring with Lynette. Ever the peacemaker, Susan urges them to stop before someone gets hurt. Right on cue, Renee asks Lynette if things have gotten so bad that she has to resort to wearing the earrings her kids made her at summer camp, leaving a crestfallen Susan to plaintively utter that too late, someone already did (get hurt, that is).

I know this little tableau was designed to make Susan appear as naive and dippy as ever. And I did think it was funny. Yet as a fellow jewelry creator and peddler, I also felt a little stung. Of course, I'm usually commiserating with Susan over something or other. I can't not, what with her being to Desperate Housewives what Betty White's Rose was to The Golden Girls. (If that left you in the dark, then I should interject that I'm wont to spout off my enthusiasm for all things Golden Girls and Betty White at random intervals.)

It must be mentioned that Susan endures far worse than snide remarks about her handmade jewelry in this season's inaugural episode. By the end of the show Mike is talking about going off to Alaska to work on an oil rig to earn enough to repay his creditors. Understandably alarmed by this prospect, Susan abandons her jewelry enterprise in favor of the far more lucrative gig of doing housework in her lingerie on the Internet. Which is very depressing. But that's another post for another day.