My European Dishwasher

When I first told my friends and family I was getting an European dishwasher they asked me “how tall is he” and “what color are his eyes?”  I replied that in my mind he was six foot tall, with beautiful dark curly hair, and had deep brown eyes.  Then I brought us all back down to reality by going, “no really, it’s an appliance and I’m getting it in white.  It will hook up to my sink like grandmother’s really old fashioned dish washer did, so I can put it in The Cottage without having to a.) remodel the kitchen b.) call a plumber or c.) not have a dishwasher.” Everyone agreed that with my established track record of housekeeping recruiting some live in help seemed the most sensible thing to do.  Hence, I have a tiny portable dishwasher in my lovely kitchen.

It doubles as a cutting board/extra counter space beside the stove when not in use and at night I love falling asleep to the soft swishing sound of my faithful European dishwasher cleaning my dishes. 

It is a sound that soothes me. 

Here is the other side of the kitchen.

Here is my kitchen with my little European dishwasher in action. 

My mom is one of those pesky clean relatives I allude to from time to time.  She likes to have the kitchen put to rights before she goes to sleep. (I admire this a lot which makes me more irritable about it because that is what jealousy does to my mood.) As the day wound down at our house when I was a kid, and we were getting ready for family time, mom would want to have the kitchen tidied up before we played games, or watched National Geographic, or indulged in a slide show.   The sound of her turning on the dishwasher signified that she was done cleaning the kitchen and was coming to join me and dad in our hi-jinks.  Often we would make popcorn in an old air popper, drizzle butter and salt over the fluffy kernels, and sit together and watch Wild America, where awful things happened to prey-animals and baby-animals and other animals.  The dishwasher would be going in the other room.  It was the sound of a day completed.  The backdrop to family time in the evenings. 

Now my dishwasher is often the sound of my day completed.   A lovely hum. 

I wish someone would make and butter popcorn for me though….and while they are at it, load the dishwasher for me… and put on some nature special so I can sit on the couch and cover my eyes while the lion chases the poor sad antelope.

But I guess I’m an adult now and have to do these things for myself.  Phooey.