Ode To Auntie Ita

Of all the gifts I have ever received the ones from Auntie Ita are the ones I remember best. She had a knack for choosing gifts....Or maybe she was just a good listener with a lively imagination. It was she gave me the Katie books ["What Katy Did,"  "What Katy Did At School" and "What Katy Did Next"] at the exact moment in my life I was ready for "chapter" books. And after I read "Little Women" she took me to see the film starring June Allyson and Elizabeth Taylor. That's when I decided I didn't want to be me anymore, I wanted to be Jo. Auntie Ita brought a new outfit for my doll, Susie, whenever she came to visit. She was a marvelous knitter and the doll outfits usually consisted of a skirt and cardigan, or jumper, with a matching hat and sometimes even gloves and shoes. Her work was exquisite and I loved the buttons and fasteners and ribbons, all the important little details to which she paid so much attention. I was learning to knit in school and she encouraged me to make stuffed teddy bears, hot water bottle covers, tea cozies and such. Guess what everyone got for Christmas?

I loved to get on my bike and cycle across town to spend the afternoon with Auntie Ita. She lived in a tiny little cottage at the bottom of convent grounds. I think it used to be the convent gardener's cottage. Her fron garden was a joyous riot of flowers and rose bushes. Inside, her living room had a narrow shelf all around, full of photos of her friends from down the years. Maybe it was there that I developed my fascination with the stories old photographs tell.....Happy people, suspended in a moment in time.....What became of them? Are they still smiling and happy? What turns did their lives take after that photo? How magical an instrument a camera was to be able to capture such moments.......In between the photos there was a profusion of knickknacks and souvenirs. What my mother called clutter, but to me was an endless collection of stories.... just ask the question!

On rainy days she would let me crawl up into the tiny attic at the back of the cottage. It was like heaven for a child like me, an Aladdin's cave of yarn, scrapbooks and crafty treasures! On fine days I'd be off outside to play with the Breen boys from the big house next door, and the snooty, almost-too-good-to-play-with-me girls who went to Laurel Hill, the posh school behind Auntie Ita's cottage. It was on one such occasion  that I suffered one of the greatest humiliations of my life. The time they uncharacteristically let me be the first to climb a certain tree. Flushed and flattered, up I went. Hoots and jeers and uproarious laughter broke out below as the assembled multitude craned their necks for an eyeful of the horrible, old fashioned knickers my mother made me wear! They were mawkish pink and came almost down to the knees, which had elastic, the better to seal in the warm air and keep you cozy, albeit extremely unfashionable.

But Auntie Ita knew how to soothe the humiliated. She made the best comfort food---strawberry jam and banana sandwiches on thick slices of fresh bread. My mother made ham sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches and egg salad sandwiches, all of which tasted delicious, but only Auntie Ita thought far enough outside the box to serve up sandwiches of strawberry jam and sliced bananas!

One year she gave me an autograph book for my birthday. I still have it. On the first pastel page she wrote "It is not of much use to be entreated to turn over a new leaf when you see no kind of  reason for doing so." Good advice, even today.

The entries go downhill from there, with gems from school friends such as "I wish you luck, I wish you joy, I wish you first a baby boy, And when his hair begins to curl, I wish you then a baby girl." We were cooped up all day with the nuns, catching occasional glimpses of boys in the far off distance. We were understandably intrigued by this other half of our species about whom we knew so little. Well, some of us, those with boys on the brain knew a bit more. I was of the prim, goody-two-shoes camp, having no desire to come to a bad end, which is what having  boys on the brain allegedly led to. So quoth the nuns who were committed to keeping us in the dark. Boys were like strange, exotic animals. Fascinating, yes. But what, exactly, were you supposed to do with them? The nuns weren't telling. But look at us now. Nature finds a way!

The ever popular "Roses are red, violets are blue....." and variations thereof shows up on several pages of the autograph book, some of them polite, others not very, as illustrated by the one that ends with........."the smell of your feet would give me the flu!" I thought that was tasteless, even at the time, but didn't want to ruin my book by tearing out the page.........

[to be continued]

Uncle Willie

My Uncle Willie died yesterday. Just like that. Nobody even told me he was sick. But then his family has always been stingy with information. Turns out he had cancer. He died peacefully with my Aunt and all his family around him. I just wish I could go to his funeral. That's what families are for. Among other things. To make a good showing at the turning points in our lives. Like baptisms and weddings and funerals. Long ago, when I was young and flippant, and had no care for the future, I made a decision that ensured I would very rarely be able to show up.

When my dad was dying we lived in California. Heaven and earth had to be moved by the OC and my F-I-L to get a passport for baby Liz and get us half way around the world,asap.

When Rise,my only sister, got married, I couldn't go. Three small children and a skinny bank account.

When my mother was dying of cancer Rise was the one trekking daily to hospice, while I wrung my hands ineffectually in Montana. I did, however, make it home for her funeral.

When my cousin, Willie's oldest, got married a few years ago, I was at first determined to go, since there was no longer the excuse of small children. But somehow I was overruled.

And now Uncle Willie has gone to join his brother, our Uncle Denis, in the great cattle market in the sky. I'm not sure my mother would be hanging out at the celestial cattle mart, but she'll probably be waiting at the pearly gates, along with our tall Granddad, Garrett O'Rourke, him of the benign smile and the snow-white moustache [known to me mainly through photographs, as he died when I was only four]. With Granny on his arm, in one of her flowered dresses, with her silver hair tied back in a bun. There'll be singing and dancing and jigs and reels in heaven after the funeral on Monday.

Auntie Bid [I couldn't say her name correctly and my version stuck] is the only one of my mother's siblings left. She was the youngest, and as mad as a March hare, and lots of fun. But now she's in a nursing home because they couldn't get her to take her medicine. The cousins come and take her out frequently. If I hadn't dipped out I could be doing my share there too. As it is, she probably wouldn't know me. So sad, growing old and having all your friends and peers drifting off, one by one, leaving you alone.

As a small child I remember spending time at Granny's. Uncle Denis was the heir to my grandfather's farm, being the oldest son. But Uncle Willie had a cunning plan. He was courting Shelia L, over the hill. Shelia was an only child, on a big farm adjacent to the O'Rourkes. I remember teasing him as he got ready to go. "Willie's going courting!" Polishing his boots and putting Brylcream in his hair. And, while he polished, singing "The Yellow Rose of Texas". Throughout my life, whenever I've heard that song I think of Uncle Willie.

By and by, the lovely Shelia succumbed to his charms. Theirs was the first wedding I ever attended. I was ten. And sat beside a grown up cousin whom I adored. Who explained to me how to eat the grapefruit with the little cherry on top. There was singing and dancing later, and a little too much to drink for the grown-ups. As young as I was, I remember feeling bad for my mother when my dad very publicly flirted with another cousin, sister to the one I'd sat with. It was such a mystery to me, all this grown up intrigue.

The following year we were out to visit in the country again, and the young couple had their first baby. Who I remember tightly grasping my little finger, in the way that tiny babies do.

A few years later this tiny baby, was running around in the farmyard, cursing a blue streak, a talent she'd learned from her dad,to the grevious mortification of her ladylike mother. It was she who called with the sad news. She gave up cursing a long time ago and turned out to be more like her mother, our aunt.

Now that lovely, ladylike aunt has lost her life's partner. I spoke to her today and she sounded characteristically philosophical. Glad that he'd died peacefully, with herself and their eight children around him. That's the way to go. Not the lonesome way so many people die these days, far from family and friends and a place they love.

"Slawn leath" Uncle Willie. May you be in heaven half an hour before the divil knows you're dead. And may you rest in peace.

Pavarotti I Am Notti....More May Memories

May at our school was a time for processions. Mainly in honour of Our Lady, since our nuns were an Italian order whose patroness was Mary, Help of Christians. Processions were a welcome diversion from class work. Hymns had to be practised, processing had to be choreographed. Reading, writing and 'rithmetic took a back seat for a while. One memorable May, Mother Superior came to visit, all the way from Turin. The nuns were beside themselves with excitement. We practiced all the usual hymns and, since Mother Superior's visit was such a special occasion, we also learned one hymn in Italian. I loved that Italian hymn,even though we didn't have a clue what the words meant.

The big day arrived and we lined the driveway up to the convent and waved little Italian flags and sang our hearts out.

Years later, when we lived in Belgium, we became friendly with an Italian couple. Invited to dinner one evening at their home, I was in the kitchen with Gabriella while the men talked shop. I decided to wow her with my rendition of the Italian hymn from my schooldays, sotto voce of course, so's not to alarm the gentlemen. As I rolled my tongue robustly around those lovely Italian sounds, my friend looked at me with a total absence of comprehension. Turned out, to my everlasting mortification, that I was singing , not in Italian, but in Gibberish!

Now I only sing it in the shower. Gibberish notwithstanding.

Bless Me Father, for I Have Sinned...

I won't bore you with how dazed I am that it's May already. Enough to say that May is one of my favourite months. For many reasons. Not least of which is that I was born in this merry month, just nine months after my parents' wedding! Of course I don't exactly remember being born. Too bad we're so totally oblivious when the most momentous things are happening to us.

The first May memory that comes to my mind is of changing from our navy, winter school uniform to a summer one of sky blue, with a white collar and pretty buttons. Such "incredible lightness of being" that summer uniform induced in me! It symbolised the unfolding of life. Gaunt, grey winter was behind us. New leaves were unfurling on the trees. Fresh green things were poking shyly but determinedly, up from the ground. Daffodils, narcissus, crocus, tulips.... The very air trembled with possibility.

I made my First Communion in May of 1954. A memory etched in my brain is of walking to church that day with my parents. My little brother is not in this memory. Maybe a neighbour was taking care of him. And even though my mother was only five weeks from giving birth to my sister, I don't remember her as pregnant that day. Not that the word "pregnant" was even in my six year old vocabulary. Maybe the memory is so clear because, for once, I had my parents' undivided attention.

I was wearing my white communion dress, which my mother had made. In photos I see a scrubbed and shining freckled face, topped by mother-primped, wavy hair. My expression betrays my embarrassment at being all dolled up, like a dog's dinner. Because, did I mention? The dress was only the half of it. I was also wearing a veil! And white, gauzy gloves, and shiny white shoes that didn't have brown laces in them. And I was clutching a bunch of lily of the valley. The parents were dolled up too, in their Sunday best, and the birds were singing. I don't remember if it had just rained, but the memory has a just-washed, sunshiny feel to it.

The rest of the day is lost in the mists. More than the ritual of First Communion, I remember the preparations of the preceding week, and the twittering of the nuns as they coached us for our First Confession. Because, without the cleansing effects of confession, those nuns were not letting us and our dingy, smudgy, six-year old souls anywhere near the altar. We practiced until those little souls were weary.

Sister[acting in loco priestus-don't bother to check my Latin, I made it up]:
"In nomine patris, et fili, et spiritus sanctus. Bless you my child."

Us[each in our turn]:"Bless me Father, for I have sinned, this is my first confession,gulp."

The holy nuns [and I use the term loosely], had drilled the Ten Commandments into us. Before going into the confession box, to whisper in the dark to the priest about our dreadful shortcomings, we were supposed to examine our consciences. This ritual to be repeated every week for the rest of our days. Nit picking, I'd call it today, since at that tender age

-we weren't much given to swearing;

-we knew nothing about false gods;

-our mothers saw to it that we kept holy the Sabbath day;

-and also took care of 'honour thy father and thy mother'.

Because, whatever about my dad, my mother stood for no nonsense. If you didn't "honour" her [as in - do what you were told], you'd feel the sting of the wooden spoon across the backs of your legs as you fled.

There was little or no chance of any of us committing murder, much as we might like to dispatch a pesky sibling here or there.

As for adultery, all we knew was it had something to do with adults. Logically enough.

Stealing was one evil we experienced first hand.
Stealee:"Sister, she stole my pencil!"
Stealer:"No I didn't, Sister. She's lying!"

Which brought us to fibbing, one sin we were intimately acquainted with.

The ninth commandment,in the list Noah,oops! I mean, Moses, allegedly brought down from the mountain, was up there with adultery. Not only were we not concerned, on the playground at recess, with coveting our neighbour's wife. We didn't even think we'd be concerned with it as adults, since most of us didn't expect to ever have wives.

Number ten was less mysterious. Coveting our neighbours' goods was as natural to us as breathing.

But...given the menu of possibilities, it's no wonder we turned to nit-picking, as our first confession turned into our second, our second into our third and so on, for the rest of our lives [the nuns assured us.] Every Saturday you'd hope it would slip your mother's mind. But every Saturday she'd remember, and send you off to the church on your bicycle, to do the weekly spiritual laundry. Lest you lose the run of yourself. No groaning or malingering allowed.

"Bless me Father for I have sinned.It's been a week since my last confession. I rolled my eyes when my mother said I had to go to bed so early [I made sure she didn't see me...]
And Father, I couldn't help myself, I pinched my little brother. And lied when my mother asked me what I'd done to him. Because Father, she sqeezes oranges to make juice for him, and it smells so lovely, but she never gives me any. And my dad said I had to put threepence in my piggybank, and I could spend the other threepence. But Father, you can't get anything for threepence, so I spent the whole sixpence on sweets. And when my dad asked me if I'd put half my pocket money in my piggybank, I told him I did. For these sins I am heartily sorry Father."

It was all very well if you got one of the nicer priests. But you never knew who was lurking behind the door to the confessional,until your nose was five inches from his ear, and it was too late to run. So you waited, quaking, on your knees in the dark, for the little window to slide open, signalling your turn to spill the beans. Some of the priests were gruff old codgers. Scary enough to make a small girl wet her knickers. And wonder, in her shame, if that was also a sin?

If you happened to have your wits about you, and a keen sense of hearing, you could entertain yourself, as you waited in the darkened cubicle, by straining to hear the muffled exchange between the priest and the penitent at the other side of the box. That was a two-edged sword though. You wouldn't want anyone eavesdropping as you confessed your sins, and then noising the news abroad......

Some of the older priests were hard of hearing, and would sometimes ask you to repeat what you'd said. Or, even worse, to "speak up my child." With a little luck you'd get off with a couple of "Hail Marys" for your penance, and stumble out, with eyes downcast and cheeks burning, hoping that no one had overheard, or if they had, that there would be no snickering as you fumbled your way into a pew and joined your hands piusly. And rattled off the Act of Contrition and your penance, with unseemly haste, so you could make your escape and go out into the sunlight to sin again.

It's been many May moons since I was last inside a confessional. For which I may possibly burn in hell, unless the nuns themselves were fibbing. But I haven't thrown the baby out with the bathwater. I believe in God. I still pray. I'd never have survived five teenagers without an unshakeable faith in the Man Above. And His Holy Mother. And all the angels and saints. I'm probably as familiar to them as a bad ha'penny.

"Oh," says St. Peter to Jesus, "it's just your woman in Florida. She's on her knees again, wondering if we could possibly help her out with her latest crisis. She's very persistent Sir. What shall I tell her this time?"

And they always come through for me.

I'm surprised every year at how quickly the year rushes to May. And it reaffirms my faith in the universe when I see new leaves unfurling on the trees, and fresh green things poking up from the ground, and I know that God's in His heaven and all's right with the world. For now.

Fruity Cheerios vs. Oatmeal

One of the biggest criticisms I've heard levelled at blogging is "who the hell cares what you had for breakfast?" Didn't think I'd ever stoop so low, but, guess what this is going to be about? Exactly! What I had for breakfast! Even if it means they'll take away my thinking blogger thingy.....

I wouldn't call myself a health food nut. Growing up I was fed healthy food. Never gave it a second thought. My mother, who was a nurse, put it in front of me and I ate it. Fast food was still in the future. Most food was fresh and minimally processed. Bread was often whole wheat. At my grandmother's house, out the country, white, store-bought bread was a rare 'treat'.

Candy was discouraged [which is not to say that we didn't head straight to the local sweet shop the minute we got a few pennies....] My mother tried to satisfy our craving for sweets by serving dessert. Sometimes it was stewed apples with custard [Bird's Jelly Deluxe!] Sometimes it was rice pudding. Sometimes it was sago [yuk, yuk!]. On special occasions it was apple tart[yum!] or queen cakes [double yum!] or, on state occasions, trifle [drool, drool, triple yum!] Always healthy, wholesome tucker. We didn't eat only dessert, but that's what comes first to my sugar-crazed mind. [Shepherd's pie was my favourite of the non-dessert items served at home.]

But when my children came along, it dawned on me that the care and feeding of these little people was my responsibility. Obviously nobody had checked my credentials before assigning me this task. I hung on with the breastfeeding as long as I reasonably could...... Then I haunted the library for books that would steer me in the healthiest direction. Which did not include jars with a happy cherub on the front. So I learned to mash and strain and puree. And, even though it didn't always look that appetizing, it worked. Nobody died. Nobody wasted away from malnutrition. Nobody had to be hospitalized and fed intravenously. Phew!

Liz had some strange favourites for a toddler. When I cut a lemon and used only part of it, she'd ask for the rest and happily suck on it!!! She also liked to pop whole kumquats in her mouth and chew as happily as if they were candy....And when I made coleslaw she had to have the cabbage core. Everything went well until my boys hit their teens and decided to become vegetarians. Which was, quite frankly, a pain in the neck. Stress was high enough trying to keep people fed who had two hollow legs apiece, now I had to accomplish that without any help from meat? Not fair. And then their little sister, who thought they were gods, joined their ranks, but she was still very young and growing....agghh....and stubborn....more stress, as I tried to make sure she was adequately nourished! Thankfully the OC and the Bean are still happy meat-and-potatoes-and-anything-else-I'll-put-in-front-of-them kind of guys.

So where was I going with this? Ahh, yes....breakfast. My mother fed us porridge for breakfast, big heaping bowls of grey stuff. My dad set it up in the evening in the double boiler. We sprinkled it with sugar, poured on the milk and choked it down. And then had a few hunks of buttered brown bread with marmalade for good measure. At least it stuck to our ribs and saw us through 'til lunchtime. But oh! How we longed for summer when she would relent for a couple of months, and let us eat corn flakes or rice krispies instead!

But, just like the sensible shoes that I so heartily resented, I find myself doing many things mum's way, now, at the rapid approach of dotage. Like breakfast. I usually have a bowl of oatmeal, made palatable by the addition of chopped up fruit. Except for lately. Due to the recent visit of small grandsons, I see a most unaccustomed sight when I go to the cupboard for my morning cereal. To wit, a large red and yellow box of Fruity Cheerios. Tiny crispy donuts in every colour of the rainbow. With no sign of an imminent return visit from the boys, and being a thrifty person, there's only one thing for it. I'm working my way through the box. But next time they visit I will implore their mother to buy a smaller box. Because..... are you listening up there Mum?.....I miss my oatmeal!

Embracing The Inner Sissy

Looking back, I don't think my parents gave us the impression that boys were better than girls. But I got it from somewhere, and it took a long time to shake it off.

Maybe because I wasn't small and dainty, I decided, in self defense, that whose who were, were inferior. I played with dolls and teddy bears, sure. But I was also a fearless tree climber. Kitty W, our neighbour, used to holler out her window at me, as I roosted with my book in the tree at the end of our garden ---

"You be careful Molly Bawn! One of these days you're going to fall out of that tree and break your arse!"
I never did.

I was also a nimble dancer-over-rocks at the seaside; avid explorer of tide pools; tireless collector of seashells; builder of sand castles and enthusiastic sand dune runner. At home I threw my rubber ball endlessly against the wall outside our kitchen, sing-songing the rhyming litany of tricks to do on each throw, before the ball came back to my hand, whilst my mother yelled intermittantly about the fate awaiting me when I broke the window. Maybe my tall gangliness seemed more suited to a boy. Maybe I was secretly jealous that my mother made cute smocked dresses for my baby sister, but it never occured to her to make such pretty things for me .....

Maybe I dreaded, worse than death itself, that the boys in the neighbourhood might call me a sissy. Boys had all the power and all the freedom. To be considered a sissy by them meant you were a very low life-form indeed. Or so it seemed to me.

Things did not improve when I started to develop what, years later, my youngest daughter would call "pokes", as opposed to full blown bosoms. Oh, the mortification of it all! And the very last straw was when I had my first visit from "Auntie Jane". Not a child given to tantrums, THAT caused a meltdown of mammoth proportions. I still remember standing on the stairs, shouting at my poor bewildered mother about how unfair it all was. How come boys didn't have to endure such indignities? And what do you mean it's going to come back every month for the rest of my foreseeable life? Just kill me now and be done with it....

Of course, in time, I simmered down and resigned myself to my miserable fate. What choice did I have? What choice did any of us have?

Being female meant you were at the mercy of men. Only the most wanton of hussies would dare to ask a boy out. So one waited and hoped. I despised those of my peers who gussied themselves up of a Saturday afternoon, to wander into town and swan around, and sip coffee, which back then, was a very sophisticated beverage, and hope the young lords would notice them. It seemed demeaning to me somehow, like being a heifer at a cattle mart.

So I'd wander off, "lonely as a cloud", to walk along the banks of the Shannon, no doubt harboring a vague dream of meeting an equally lonesome, misunderstood soul of the opposite gender along the way. He would, of course, be stunningly handsome,in an understated sort of way, because, as shallow as I wasn't, that was the top priority. Hmmm. Of course the chances were slim to none anyhow, as the "happening" place was not among the lonely reeds by Shannon's banks, but in town at the Savoy cafe.

Once in a while, in town, some older man would smile at me and say "Hey handsome!" Blushing furiously, I feared I was being made fun of, because women were supposed to be pretty, not handsome. Further confirmation that I was falling way short of society's standards. Besides, of what use were the opinions of grown men, when the ones I pined after were snot-nosed adolescents who didn't give me a second glance?

"Youth is wasted on the young," my Dad used to say. I think he may have been right.

It was marriage, that finally set me on the road to enjoying being female. The long discussions, way into the night, with someone who let me see a side of him that no-one else saw, and who seemed to understand me in a way that no one had before.....That, and having children. That rush of fiercely protective love when I first held my babies in my arms. The wonder and awe as they learned to talk, and walk, in spite of having me as their mother. The realisation, when you have sons, that boys are just as sensitive, just as vulnerable, just as much in need of love and protection as girls, since society still expects them to be more stoic about life's little vicissitudes.

I have finally embraced my Inner Sissy. Since all my children are tall, I sometimes even feel small! I glory in my sissiness. I love sissy clothes. I don't care if my husband and son laugh at me when a romantic movie makes me cry. I'm not embarrassed to have to ask them to open those confounded jars for me.

Because I'm strong in ways that they are not. For which the OC gets some credit. He always expected more of me than I thought I was capable of. He came to me from a mother who was an uber-hausfrau, cook and baker extraordinaire, deft juggler of home, family and job---an act so impossible to follow, that, had I been less naive, I'd have run for my life. He took an enormous leap of faith, considering that I couldn't boil an egg when we got married. A few years into it he let slip, truthful to a fault, that even though I wasn't exactly beautiful, I had a nice face..... And great hips for bearing healthy children.[I didn't have a cast-iron frying pan handy at the time...] Gee, so it wasn't, after all, my stunning beauty and incisive wit? Someone teach that man to lie for God's sake!

Everyone has regrets in life and I am no different. But being a woman is not one of them. I wouldn't trade my Inner Sissy for all the tea in China.

Real Women.........

This is giving me bloggers block!

Its not that I don't have ideas, I do. But maybe that's too raw; or this is too emotional; or that's way more of me than I'm willing to put out there; or, or, or!

"So, do it already," my brain has been impatiently nagging. Finally, I came to the conclusion that all the things I've considered would be covered by this:

Real women......are not afraid to let their imperfections show.

I tag Tanya Brown, Riseoutofme and Meggie.


No prizes for guessing which one is me in the picture above.....

Granny's Cottage

Lovely comments on my Paddy's Day post---thank you all for dropping by. If you make the soda bread, soak a cup of raisins for thirty minutes in half a cup of whiskey [or boring hot water!] and add with the flour. Don't throw that whiskey down the sink! Save it and toss it into your next cup of tea. Bake the bread five or ten minutes longer than instructions say. You guessed it--the overbaked loaf tasted better than the first one. Great for breakfast any day of the year....

Even though I can remember my Granny's house before they got electricity out the country, I'm really not so ancient. In fact, having just read somewhere that sixty is the new "middle age", I realise I'm just a young whippersnapper, having a couple of years still to go!

The old house was the farmhouse where my mother grew up. It burned down sometime in the mid fifties, and was replaced with a modern monstrosity. I always loved the old house better---thick whitewashed walls; thatched roof; tall, white haired grandfather still alive; oil lamps lit in the evenings; down on your knees, if you stayed late, to recite the rosary with Granny, auntie and the uncles, and no complaining that the stone floor hurt your knees; window seats, a half door that let the sunshine in but kept the chickens out, a cobblestone yard in front, a tangle of wild roses and gooseberry bushes out back-----and a sweeping view of the entire county ---- could heaven be any better?

When the new house was finished, and Granny installed in its modern comforts, she and my aunt and my mum would sit there chatting and drinking tea, when we'd drive out for a Sunday afternoon visit. As soon as I could, I'd escape, and go off up the passage to the shell of the old house, and spend blissful hours rummaging around there. There were old books and periodicals, sheet music and photographs, cold cream jars and knick knacks ........ I remember finding a little mug, very dainty, with flowers painted on it. I brought it back down to the new house and showed my treasure to the grownups, and asked if I could keep it. My own mother pounced on it and appropriated it, claiming it had belonged to her as a girl. There was no arguing. It was hers. I guess she didn't realise how completely enchanted with it I was. Or care. It was carried back to Limerick with us and set on the sitting room mantlepiece, where I could look at it but not touch, even though I always felt it rightly belonged to me!

In the fullness of time the old cottage was torn down, and modern milking parlors built in it's place. Whatever artifacts were saved were then stored in the loft above the old milking barn, so while the womenfolk chattered, I' d go and climb up to the loft, and spend hours mooning over old photographs, and wondering who they all were, and if I dared ask to be allowed to take some of them home......

The new house, even though it lacked the charm and personality of the old one, and had a modern Aga cooker instead of the open hearth, could still be relied on to have the smell of freshly baked soda bread lingering in the corners every time we went to visit.

Erin Go Bragh!

"If you're Irish, come into the parlour

There's a welcome there for you.

If your name is Timothy or Pat

[or Liz , Rise, Aunty, Lukey, Meggie,

Isabelle, Tanya, Jess, Karen,

Tracey, Kelli, Joyce, Stomper, MJD,

Float, Nutmeg, Diana, Ali, Squirrel,

or anyone who regularly lurks around these parts!]

So long as you come from Ireland

[or NZ, Australia, Scotland, the US or England!]

There's a welcome on the mat.

If you come from the Mountains of Mourne,

Or Killarney's lakes so blue,

We'll sing you a song, and we'll make a fuss,

Whoever you are, you're one of us.

If you're Irish, [or any of the above]

This is the place for you!"

With apologies to the unknown author.

I have one cake of soda bread in the oven and another one ready to go. It smells divine! Wish you all could come over to help eat it....

Sometimes, particularly in March[!] the stage-Irishry gets out of hand. The worst offenders are the OC and the YS, each of whom thinks he has the Irish accent nailed! But shure, "Gosh and Begorrah!" I do love it when I get cards from my far flung friends, just because St. Paddy's Day is coming!

I remember the first time my Dad, who worked for Aer Lingus, went to NY for the St. Patrick's Day parade. We never got that excited about it at home. Sure, we might have the day off from school, and we might wander into town to watch the local parade and, guaranteed, mother would buy pins with foil harps and real shamrocks on them, and expect us to wear them, which, in my teenage sophistication, I thought was an embarrassingly uncool display [ who can understand the workings of the teenage mind?] And inevitably St. Patrick's day would fall smack in the middle of Lent. So you couldn't even eat sweets without pangs of guilt.......

But, back to my Dad and the parade on Fifth Avenue. He was flabbergasted to meet people who couldn't find Ireland on the map if their lives depended on it, decked out, nevertheless, from head to toe in garish green outfits that would make any self-respecting Irishman, such as himself, squirm with embarrassment. He was mortified, I think, at the idea, that seemed rampant in the States, that we were a nation of yokels, running around looking for pots of gold at the ends of rainbows.

"They even painted the line down the middle of the avenue green!" he told us in wonderment.

If I do say so myself, that bread smells wonderful---the first is out, the second is in......two different recipes. Of course half the reason they smell so delicious is that they carry me back to my mother's kitchen. It was always great to be done with school for the day, but to come in the door and breathe in the warm inviting smell of freshly baked soda bread was bliss indeed. Not that mother would let us lay into it the way my lot would. You weren't allowed to have any until it was completely cooled, because, she said, it would "sit like a stone in your stomach." Even as a grownup I've never had the willpower to wait. It always tastes best while still warm , so what was that all about??

My grandmother's kitchen, out the road in Ardpatrick, was another haven of great baking aromas. I'm old enough [age has some compensations!] that I can remember the "old house" there, which burned down when I was about six or seven. In the "old house" there was no electricity. Only oil lamps. And water had to be carried in buckets from the spring. And the baking was done over the big open fire in the kitchen. The soda bread would be placed in a big black pot with a lid, and hung over the fire to bake. It was an exacting science, and Granny was the expert. She knew just how high or low to hang it, how vigorous the fire had to be, and whether or not it might be necessary to place some pieces of red hot peat on the lid to provide even heat. All I know is that it smelled like heaven.

So, just in case you'd like to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a few slices of delicious , good-for-you, Irish bread , here's a recipe.

O'Brien's Irish Bread

[from The Star Tribune in Minneapolis]

1 1/2 cups stone-ground whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour [I use 3/4 cup, plus 1/4 cup wheat germ]

1/4 cup dry oat-bran hot cereal

1/4 cup regular rolled oats

2 tblsps sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tblsps soft butter

1 1/2 cups buttermilk, divided

3 tblsps melted butter

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Dust baking sheet with flour.

In large mixing bowl, combine flours, dry cereal, oats, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Cut in soft butter.

Stir in 1 1/4 cups buttermilk.

Gradually add remaining 1/4 cup buttermilk, kneading in the bowl as little as possible until dough is moist.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a seven inch round loaf.

Place on a baking sheet.

With a sharp knife cut an "x" on top.

Bake 40-45 mins. until bread is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped with a knife.

Remove to a wire rack and brush with melted butter. Keep your mitts off it for one hour, until completely cool. Wouldn't want you getting stones in your stomach!

This recipe is tried and true, the first one I made today. The second one into the oven was a recipe that I found in the food section of the paper this week. Very similar to the above, with the addition of raisins soaked beforehand in whiskey. Yum. Except....I was so wrapped up in writing this that, having learnt nothing from the Burnt Boiled Eggs Debacle, I missed the timer going off.......at best it will be super crispy, at worst I'll have a new doorstop.

Erin go Bragh means Ireland Forever. One creative interpretation, on a card that arrived this week, showed two Irish colleens. Colleen # 1 has perky boobs and a T-shirt that says "Erin go Bragh". Colleen # 2 has saggy boobs. Her T-shirt says "Erin go Braghless". Groan.

So, whether you identify with Colleen # 1 or Colleen # 2,

here's:

"Wishing you walls for the wind

And a roof for the rain

And tea beside the fire.

Laughter to cheer you

And those you love near you

And all that your heart might desire."

Music Hath Charms....

Friday night found me sitting, for the second time in one week, in a church. Faced with the choice of looking at the four walls for the evening, or going to a concert I'd read about in the local rag, I opted for the latter.

The musicians were three:

• the pianist, a young man whose grandparents attend the church where the concert was held, which was probably the sole reason such accomplished performers found their way to our little rural Florida backwater;
• the cello player, a young woman from Germany;
• and the violinist, a young Asian-American woman.

Between them, they had impressive credentials, and had performed all over the world. I can look at the four walls any night of the week.

I have no pretentions about classical music. I either love it, or it makes me yawn. I have neither a trained nor an educated ear. The Radio Eireann Light Orchestra spilled regularly into our kitchen from the radio, when I was young, and the background music on many of the best Disney cartoons is classical. In our earnest, newly married quest for grownup culture, the OC and I bought records of all the popular composers. And who doesn't love Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops?

I do know that, without understanding why, classical music can go in through my garden variety ears and summon a sob from my soul; or, just as unexpectedly, fill me with wild exuberance.

And so it was, Friday night. I'm sure I did not fully appreciate the pieces they played. I know they played them excellently. But a live performance is as much a treat for the eyes as the ears. The constantly changing expression on the cellist's face, as she coaxed heavenly notes from her instrument; her shy smile as she looked out at the audience between pieces, and rapt concentration when the music started again; the graceful curve of the violinist's neck; the delicate and expert movements of her wrist; the pianist's effortlessly flying fingers; the sheer physical energy all three put into making the music...... Sigh. I was in the presence of angels. Talented, hardworking, dedicated and disciplined angels.

How many of us ever develop our talents to this level? Such perfection, such harmony, does not just happen. Our children tried a variety of instruments: french horn, accordian, trombone , saxophone, violin and cello. They all loved music, but music was not their passion.

And passion is what you need to achieve excellence. Passion, and maybe a little bit of deprivation. We are much too comfortable. Maybe we need sparser cupboards and harder chairs.

The nuns did not encourage passion, and warned us against having notions about ourselves, or getting too big for our britches. We were cautioned constantly against the sin of pride. Humility was the virtue to be cultivated. Ireland in the fifties was in tradition's stranglehold. Looking back, I think of all the things I could have been. I was a good student. I would love to have been an architect, but that was unheard of for a woman, and never even entered my head. I would like to have gone to art school. But that would have put me cheek by jowl with beatniks and teddy boys, artsy-fartsy fringe elements, definitely not to be encouraged. Journalism---did I even know the definition of that word? Better to stick with something traditional, something safe. Girls became teachers, nurses, secretaries, joined the civil service, became air hostesses for the national airline [although this, being new, was eyed with suspicion, as possibly bordering on the flighty], or worked in a bank. Inevitably, you'd marry and have children, and all that time and expense [they'd have you believe] would have been for naught.

The final piece was by Mendelssohn, cheerful and lively. The piano, the violin and the cello melded together in one glorious sound. The crowd rose to its feet. The musicians beamed and bowed. There was hootin' and hollerin' from the back [this is rural Florida, not Carnegie Hall!] As people milled about, I slipped out into the dark, and home, humming all the way.

Let Me Tell You 'bout the Birds and Bees

It's always possible when I hit " publish" that that's it. The well could now be dry, my blogging days over. But I'm an optimist, and Irish to boot, and at home they always say "the Lord will provide." I don't know about the Lord, but Liz came through with some inspiration in a recent post.

The whole subject of the birds and the bees was pretty much shrouded in mystery back in Ireland in the fifties. The most a child with an enquiring mind could hope for was to glean a little info here, another little bit there, then try to cobble it all together in a way that made sense....

In our fourth grade class there was at least one girl who was "well up" on the mysteries of the grown-up world. I'll call her Nora, to protect myself in case she should stumble upon this and come after me with an axe. I didn't particularly like Nora. She was a large, pale girl with a doughy complexion, and small unfriendly eyes. And she sat directly behind me at the back of the class.

Some chance remark on the playground tipped her off that my information on where babies came from involved storks and cabbages. So she embarked on a mission to educate me. After all, we couldn't have people running about, entertaining such primitive ideas. She felt she was doing a service to society, and to me in particular, although I was less than grateful for her efforts on my behalf. Not least because they were delivered into my ear in full view of the nun up at the blackboard, droning on about fractions.


I was appalled at the revelations, and not altogether sure she wasn’t making it all up. My parents, surely, would never do that? And how could a kind and loving God, the same guy who looked down on us with His beard and His gentle eyes, from the wall over our kitchen table, have such a twisted sense of humor as to make it necessary to be a contortionist if you wanted to be a mommy some day?

Next time we went out the country for a visit with the relatives, I watched
my uncle and his wife with new interest. I had attended their wedding the year before, and they had recently had a baby. I was fascinated that they had been able to maneuver themselves into the necessary positions, as explained to me by Nora. I decided that even though it sounded messy and complicated and embarrassing, I might as well get over it, as it seemed to be the way things were done.

Those nuns have a lot to answer for though. We were not encouraged to think of the human body as beautiful. The feeling they most encouraged in us was shame. Better to cover up. We'd have it on our conscience if, God forbid, a boy should have an impure thought after glancing at us. It was a sin, they told us, for girls to wear trousers. Proof positive that there was a bottom under there. It was a sin, they told us, to wear a sleeveless blouse. Consider, if you will, the sexiness of the upper arm. Feeling aroused? Wanton hussy! Go put your burqa on this minute....The onus was on us, they told us, to keep things under control in our dealings with the opposite sex. Men and boys, they told us , were in the clutches of forces over which they had scant control. They depended on women, whether they acknowledged it or not, to be pure and strong and keep them off the devil's doorstep.

When our own children were born I wanted to be sure that they would not have to depend on furtive whispers at the back of the class from a modern day Nora. I tried to answer the inevitable questions with humor and at least a smattering of truth. Too much, too soon, is as bad as too little, too late. But I'm done. It's much more fun sitting here on the sidelines, chuckling , while Liz wrestles with the questions.

A Tale of Two Ts

The grownups always told us to savor our youth. "The best years of your life," they said, getting all misty-eyed at the too-sudden demise of their own. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I had a normal childhood, untraumatic, and reasonably happy. The sixties were fun, whether because they really were fun, or because we were on the threshold, waiting impatiently for our real lives to begin. Elvis was on the radio, crooning "wiiiise men saaaaay, only fools rush iiiin ...". Four lads from Liverpool were driving us all crazy. Cliff Richard was warbling "when the giiiirl in your arms is the giiiiirl in your heart..." No wonder we were all half daft and dreaming of romance. You know what they say about life. It's what happens while you're busy making other plans.

There was what Stomper Girl calls an Inner Princess inside me. She was a free spirit, wise, witty, and willowy. To know her was to love her. She was not, however, visible to the naked eye. You had to be a noble prince, or my Dad, in order to see her. And T. O'Conner certainly was not a noble prince. He was a long drink of water, with spectacles perched on his bony nose, to whom an aura of coolness inexplicably clung. Probably because he hung out with the in-crowd at school, one of whom had what most boys their age, at that time in Ireland, could only dream of having: a van, known as the Passion Wagon.

What the naked eye did see was a tall, coltish girl-child, with wavy hair and freckles. The nuns saw a quiet child, conscientious, responsible, a good student, a possible convent recruit, all the things that, socially, marked you as a total loser.

Boys and girls all went to school together to the nuns until about age six. The boys sat on one side of the room, girls on the other. T. O'Conner and his ilk made a career out of flicking spitballs across the room. It was a relief to the feminine gender when they were finally herded off to be whipped, literally, into shape by the Jesuits or the Brothers. But we hadn't seen the last of them.

The Jesuits occasionally held dances in the auditorium of their School for Young Savages, I mean , Gentlemen . Girls from all the girls' schools around town were invited. These dances were big events on our social calendar. Occasions of much twittering, and speculation as to who might get to dance with whom. Hair had to be fixed, and, since we spent most of our days encased in our school uniforms, great thought had to be applied to the question of what to wear.

What to wear indeed. Did I mention that I was a good girl? a tall girl? a girl whose mother dressed her? My mum, who was an excellent seamstress, made most of my clothes. But for one dance she splurged and arrived home from town with a new outfit for me from Todds'. I guess it never occurred to her that I might be picky; that I might want a say in what I wore. She just assumed I would love whatever she picked out for me. And be grateful. And I was. Grateful. For the thoughtfulness. Somewhat less so for the outfit.

In her vicarious excitement about the dance, Mum insisted on "setting"my hair, and then expertly applying, to my unwilling lips, a little of her own ruby red lipstick. But, most inglorious of all, on my twinkling toes I had to wear my sensible brown leather shoes, [my feet were too big for any of her shoes]. I would have traded my soul to the devil for one pair of "bad for your arches" slipons. My mother was a great believer in sensible shoes . For children. She herself got honorable mention in the Imelda Marcos sweepstakes.


I went off to the dance that night feeling like Tweedledum, resplendant in my new, brown, box-pleated skirt. Which ballooned out ridiculously from my waist, only to crimp back in around my knees. My new pink jumper clung embarrassingly close to my ribs and collar bones, announcing to all the world that Marilynn Monroe had nothing to fear.

The sensible thing to do would have been to go hide out in a tree until it was all over. I should have trusted my gut, that told me loud and clear I looked like a clown. But Mum said I looked lovely. And in her eyes I probably did. After all, I was wearing her choice of clothing, her choice of shoes, her choice of lipstick, and my hair was fixed the way she liked it. But --- there was always an outside chance that gorgeous George or some other handsome fellow would see right through the clown costume to the princess within.

Things were about to change. We were coming to the times that I would love. Times when they didn't throw you in prison if you went out without "setting" your hair. Times when fashions became more natural, more Molly-friendly. Twiggy, and bare feet, and flowers in your hair were just around the corner.

Bravely I stepped out on the dance floor for the first dance of the evening, a Paul Jones. When the music stopped I found myself eyeball to eyeball with......drumroll please....... T. O'Conner. Who, do I need to remind you? was no great beauty himself. He took one look at me and took to his heels. Almost forty years later, I have still not forgiven him.

When The OC and I turned fifty, and it started to look like certain of our offspring might soon be saying "I do", I should have issued a warning. But I missed my cue, certain memories from childhood having faded almost into oblivion. And so it came to pass that we became grandparents to a little boy named....drumroll please.....T! Today is his fourth birthday. Gradually the gorgeous T has supplanted the lanky geeky one in the Instant Images Department at the Funny Farm. Happy birthday T! I love you.

On the Subject of Knickers

My darling daughters should be gratified to hear that their mother no longer wears granny panties---those awful, elderly looking undergarments that come all the way up to what is anatomically known as the "waist". After holding out for many years, fashion and availability made me cave. Now said undergarment ends a few modest inches below my bellybutton.[Can't resist---what does an older woman have between her boobs that a younger woman doesn't? I usually forget jokes as soon as I'm done laughing at them, but this one has stayed with me, to the tune of much eye rolling from les hommes. The answer, of course, is a bellybutton, but I digress.] I realise an inch or two is a small concession to fashion, but it keeps me in my comfort zone, no panties peek above the slightly dropped waist of my jeans, and my bottom is covered, which, unless I'm greatly mistaken, is the purpose of panties.

I am morbidly fascinated, when shopping for underthings, by the phenomenon known as a thong. For this few inches of skimpy fabric they want how much? So that I could spend every waking hour twitching and wriggling as though there were ants in my pants? Because there would be fabric, all day, in a place where fabric was never meant to be. Better, if I can make so bold a suggestion, to wear nothing at all.

When I was growing up, as soon as summer departed, my mother bought winter knickers for us. She was a practical woman who loved me, I'm sure, and wanted me to be warm, but she was disturbingly unconcerned about permanent damage to my delicate psyche. Darling daughters [and concerned passersby], granny panties are haute couture compared to those abominations. Not only did they cover the bellybutton, they had legs that plunged almost all the way to the knee. Even in that far distant time they were very uncool. Todds' department store provided them in two luscious colours---Pepto Bismol pink and Mawkish Blue. I don't think my younger sister, the cooler one, ever wore them. No,no, darlings....your auntie wasn't that cool [or wanton]. She merely shoved the offending garments under her mattress, pilferred her summer knickers from the back of the hot press and went about her business. But me? I was a martyr for the cause. If Mum said I had to wear them ,I was unaware of options that didn't involve me freezing my young butt off. My sister has a lovely name, but in Irish [and the nuns always used the Irish versions of our names] it is Siobhan --- yes, exactly like the bald one. She suffered years of torment from her peers,
who would snicker "shove on your knickers, your mother's coming...."

I loved to ride my bike to the other side of town to visit my Auntie Ita. She was not really my aunt, but an elderly friend, who had introduced my parents to one another. She fed me banana and jam sandwiches, and treated me like a grownup and was great fun and I loved her. In Auntie Ita's neighbourhood there were lots of children who went to posher schools than I. I was delighted to be accepted into their group and happily followed them around. One day we ended up in a field where there were lovely, climbable trees. Imagine my surprise when they encouraged me to go first.......what an honour.......until I attained some height, and chortling and guffaws broke out below. Two late I remembered what I was wearing under my billowing skirt.........I squirm still at the humiliation I felt that day. To think that I trusted them and thought well of them. Amazingly, it didn't scar me for life as I undoubtedly thought it would at the time. I still trust people, for the most part, and believe the best of them, unless they give me reason to do otherwise. But , as a precaution, whenever someone invites me to climb a tree with them I always insist that they go first.........and I never, ever wear granny panties any more.......

The Writingly Way.

For as long as I can remember I have loved to write. One of my earliest memories is of covering a page with indecipherable squiggles and proudly showing it to my father, sure that his heart would swell with pride at my cleverness. And of course it did.

The nuns were another story. We toiled, in Senior Infants, to get our upstrokes light and our downstrokes dark, or risk an ear-wigging from Sr.Mary. Good work was rewarded with a gold star, but just because you had a few gold stars, and no blots on your exercise book, didn't mean you should go getting notions about yourself.  If, God forbid, you should begin to think you might be above average, Sr. Mary's caustic tongue would soon set you straight. Let us now lower our eyes and be humble!

In secondary school, Sarge (aka Sr. Bridget) always gave me top marks for my essays, but she seemed to judge them on length, rather than content, when I had the temerity to think the content was pretty good. But that was an opinion best kept to myself, given the importance of the above mentioned virtue of humility. Writing well was seen as a tool to help us do well in other areas, not as an end in itself. I continued to write, and hide what I wrote, and feel apologetic about it, though once in a while a piece would come out just right and  I'd smile and get notions that would have earned me an ear wigging from Sr. Mary.

When I was safely out of reach of the nuns I started writing letters, to my parents every Friday night from college; to my friends and relatives after I married and moved to America; to friends I left behind each time we moved and even, sometimes, to a few of my favorite nuns! The parents were glad I was still alive and coping; the nuns were delighted to hear from me but cautious about giving out gold stars. My friends were the ones who wrote back saying "Write more!"  That's what friends are for I guess.

Even though my years of scribblings are a disorganized mess of notebooks, letters and journals I continue to cope with life by writing it down, finding just the right word or phrase, and delighting in it when it all comes together well. If nothing else they'll be a trip down memory lane for my children when I'm gone, proof that I was not just their mom but a real person of my own.

In looking back I'd like to thank a lot of people, if not for encouraging me, then for at least providing me with ammunition for my pen.

• My mother, who always dressed me in sensible laced up shoes, when my peers were wearing cool slip-ons, and for keeping my hair short when I longed for flowing locks; 
• Stephanie M in 5 th. grade who made it her mission in life to disavow me of the notion that babies were found under cabbages;
• Sr. Margaret Ryan in 6 th. grade who got to my Dad before me with some very exciting news, thereby cheating me of the thrill of telling him myself;
• My brother for how he behaved at school, causing me endless embarrassment;
• Tommy O'Conner in 10 th grade for turning and fleeing when he landed in front of me at a Paul Jones dance at the Jesuits;
• George R, whom I worshipped from afar in H.S. for never even acknowledging my existence;
• Des O'M for being a gentleman and not taking advantage of my vast ignorance in the realm of what it is boys really want from girls;
• All the guys at all the dances in Dublin who never asked me to dance;
• The Old Curmudgeon for being the Old Curmudgeon;
• My children for making me grow in directions I never thought I could; for teaching me that they were not just chips off the old block but, intelligent, unique and beautiful people in their own right; for surviving my muddled attempts to do it right and, as often as not, getting it wrong anyway;
• To all the advice columnists who repeated over the years that "to have a friend you've got to be a friend;"
• To those friends I made by following that advice, who love me just the way I am, unlike some who continuously find me wanting;
• And most of all to those friends and family who think it is worthwhile to sort life out in a writingly sort of way and have encouraged me in my efforts to do so. 

To all of these people I am extremely grateful, though I was not always so, because without them and the ways in which their lives touched mine I'd have nothing to write about. And finally, I would like to say how thankful I am that Sr M is no longer in the room.

Ancient Irish Torture

When I was growing up, as soon as you'd mastered breathing, and walking upright, and feeding yourself, and learning your numbers and the alphabet, they taught you how to knit. Sr. Bridget initiated us in first grade. My wool was yellow and my stitches were tight. And I don't mean "tight!" in the way my nineteen yr. old uses the word. I mean "tight!" as in impossible to move on the needles. We started with ten stitches and worked in garter stitch. My work mysteriously grew wider with each line. I soon figured out that by knitting two stitches together at either end of each row, I could get things back under control. So when Sr. Bridget came around to check our ten stitches, I was on the right side of the law. Even if my piece did balloon out grotesquely on each side...... it made a very satisfactory hat for one of my dolls.

I liked knitting. Until I got to third grade. In third grade we had to knit a sock . Mine was from yellow yarn, again. Turning that heel on four thin needles almost turned me off knitting for life.

My mother always had some knitting going. She'd buy the yarn in skeins.... then torture one of her children, usually me, by having them help. I'd stand in front of her chair, arms held out in front, shoulder width apart, with the skein held taut from one wrist to the other, while she wound them into balls. Long after I thought my arms were going to fall off, she'd be coaxing me to do "just one more skein."

As I got older I started knitting sweaters myself. I liked making Arans the best. Even though they look intricate, if you can knit and purl and read you can make one. And an Aran pattern eliminates the boredom factor...

One very wet summer in Ireland, my sister and I were housebound by the seaside with our combined offspring. The rain was beating on the roof and the wind was howling. We had played cards and monopoly until we were cross eyed. Then inspiration struck--we'd teach them how to knit! Four of the eight were boy children, but we didn't discriminate. They learned right along with the girls. They never took it to Kaffee Fassett heights, but it kept them busy through a very rainy afternoon...

And now, to my delight, my eldest daughter has learned how to knit and wants to knit herself a sweater. Which is why I was rummaging around in a yummy yarn store this morning and remembering Sr. Bridget and the ten yellow stitches.