Don't forget to bring a towel

What happened to the quality of towels? When I was growing up, my parents had (and used!) the same set of towels for like 20+ years. My parents still have them, although they've recently been relegated to duties other than drying people. But really, those were some seriously well-made towels.

Since L. and I got married, we received a plethora of wonderful, fluffy new towels as shower and wedding gifts. Tonight I was reorganizing the linen closet a bit, and ended up taking out all of the towels to refold and organize them better. Over time, as we do laundry, things constantly get folded in different ways and thrown in whereever they best fit. And at some point, I get fed up with looking at it that way and take everything out and redo it. This may sound odd, but I find it quite calming to do such a task, especially when everything else in my life seems so crazy. It's an easy way for me to put order into things quickly and feel an almost immediate sense of accomplishment. Also, I'm probably at least somewhat OCD, so having things in order just makes me feel better about everything in general.

As I was going through the older towels (ones that L. and I brought from our respective single lives into our marriage), I realized that some of the towels are a little worse for wear. And we're not talking about terribly old towels, either. Some of these are only a few years old, and yet they're starting to look threadbare or the edges are starting to unravel. Clearly they're not making towels like they used to. I'm hopeful that the ones we received as wedding gifts will hold out better over time. I love them and there's nothing like stepping out of a nice hot shower into a huge fluffy towel in a lovely color or with a nice pattern. I'm a huge fan of color, pattern, and texture. Just ask about the clothes and accessories I've purchased almost entirely due to discovering adorable lining or some other detail that no one but me knows about.

Meanwhile, as I went about my OCD task, Oli raced back and forth in the hallway and up and down the stairs. When he gets into this state, I tell him that I'll enter him in the Doggie 500 competition if there ever is such a thing. He's the dog equivalent of a race car. Occasionally, he would stop by his pit crew (me) for a quick pat on the head and a gulp of water, and then it was back to it. Sometimes he'd come bearing the gift of a chewie toy he'd discovered somewhere along his journey, and others just for a quick how-do-you-do. After expending that energy, he was happy to plod into his crate for the night to get some sleep. I'm sure he'll dream of funny things. If you don't think that dogs dream, you should see my dog in the middle of a deep slumber. There's definitely something going on up in that tiny head of his. I can only imagine what plays in his mind every night.

(Quick aside about the title of this post: Towelie is by far one of my favorite South Park characters of all time - who doesn't love an adorable, constantly-high, usually inanimate object like Towelie reminding you to bring a towel?)