Just Say No!

No matter what part of the world you live in, it seems, you regularly hear horrid tales about the evils of drug abuse. I have nothing new to add to that debate.

I am more concerned with a less common, but no less pernicious phenomenon, the problem of chocolate abuse among otherwise upstanding housewives. I refer, of course, to the GMCCD [Great Microwave Chocolate Cake Debate] over at Thimbleanna's. That is the action of a truly desperate woman. As with other kinds of substance abuse, it's often not until you've hit rock bottom that you find the courage to mend your ways. I think making a chocolate cake in the microwave represents rock bottom in this instance.

Thimbleanna is a sweet lady. A devoted wife and mother. Funny and talented. I think this issue has crept up on her, and she probably doesn't realise the danger she is in. If she continues on this path, who knows where she might end up?

Living under a bridge?

Dumpster diving behind the Godiva store?

Begging for Hershey Kisses on the streets of Indiana?

One shudders for her......

As we all know, chocolate is an essential ingredient in the maintenance of mental health, particularly for women. With that in mind, a wise woman stashes chocolate in various places throughout her house. She will not, especially as she advances in age, necessarily remember all these hiding places, but she should not let such a minor drawback deter her from stashing, plenty, and often. She will find it when she least expects to, and, if God's in His heaven, when she needs it most. There is no greater bonus in life than rummaging for something in a little-used drawer, only to have one's fingers close unexpectedly around a bar of Ritter Sport Cappuccino, or some Lindt Truffles, or Belgian Seashells. Planted there for a rainy, hormonal, climbing-the-walls kind of day. And promptly forgotten.

Obviously Thimbleanna made no such provisions.

At her lowest ebb, she resorted to making a chocolate cake in her microwave. It makes one sad to even think about it.

And so, because I am kindhearted, and want to help her with her chocolate abuse problem, and prevent others from going down the same path to hell, I have decided to share my swoon-inducing recipe for chocolate cake. A recipe that gives a wide berth to the microwave. A recipe that is easy and delicious, and equal to the job of taming that chocolate-craving monster within.

The oven should be preheated to 350 degrees F and the following ingredients assembled:



1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 Tblsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats [not instant]
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened [I prefer butter]
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
A generous handful of semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Confectioners' sugar

Notes:
The chocolate chips can be omitted, but then why bother with the cake at all?
The world will likewise not cave in should you wish to skip the nuts.
I sometimes toss a Tblsp of instant coffee crystals in with the oatmeal and water, depending on whether or not I'm in a mocha kind of mood. To get a strong coffee flavour you'd probably have to dump the entire jar in. Which might then scuttle the whole point of the exercise, which is to placate the monster, not give him caffeine jitters. Better not.
And lastly, it's not required, but I usually add 1 tsp of vanilla.

Proceed then,thusly:

Stir together the flour,salt,soda,and cocoa; set aside.
Mix oatmeal and boiling water together in a large bowl; let stand about 10 minutes.
Stir in butter and both kinds of sugar.
Add eggs and mix well.
Beat in the flour mixture and the nuts, if using; mix well.
Spread the batter in a greased and floured 13"x 9"x 2" pan. Sprinkle the chocolate pieces on top. The original recipe instructs one to toss half the chips into the batter and to sprinkle the rest on top. I prefer to sprinkle them all on top so they don't sink to the bottom!

Bake in a preheated 350 degree [F] oven for 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.Do not overbake. Moist is yummier.

Cool the cake in the pan.

You could frost the cake with your favourite chocolate frosting, but that smacks to me of gilding the lily. Besides, it never lasts long enough at my house to get the frosting on! A little sprinkle of powdered sugar just before serving, or [yum!] a dollop of whipped cream, is embellishment enough. It's a great cake to send to kids away at school,as it keeps well. I would recommend to Thimbleanna that she store the cake in plain sight, where her family can see it and help her to demolish it. If, however, her addiction is flaring, she could hide it in a paper bag in the laundry room and eat it all herself. But in that case I think I'd have to refer her to a twelve step program......

I think she will find that this recipe will cure her of any temptation to resort to eating microwaved excuses-for-chocolate-cake, that I have to think would be akin to chewing on old leather. So if any of you are overcome by a sudden urge to make a chocolate cake in the microwave, fight it! Be strong! Make this one instead.




Your taste buds will thank you! And you'll avoid the pain and expense of rehab.

Finished By Friday!

"Finished by Friday" will never be a regular feature of this blog, but on this, the thirty third Friday of the year, I finished something! [Drum roll please.] A quilt for my granddaughter's upcoming sixth birthday. Of course it wasn't a one woman project. When friends heard I was making a hexagon quilt they generously scoured their stashes for suitable fabrics. And all you quilting bloggers pitched in with border advice. Thanks especially to Birdy who had a brilliant plan! See how well I follow orders when I agree with them? And Don, the quilterman, has to get some of the credit, since the goal was her sixth birthday, not her tenth.

But it's done, and, for a wonder, in plenty of time. So I am one happy little bunny, as my silent sister is fond of saying.

May I draw your attention to the backing fabric?




A fortuitous find, since S is learning to read, and can put in a little practice on her quilt now. Not least of this fabric's charms was its 50% off sale price!

I get almost as much fun out of my "photo shoots" when I finish a quilt as I do out of the making. But it has been soggy here for the last few weeks. As I squelched out to the trees, being careful to hold the quilt well up off the wet and muddy ground, and inching my way carefully among various growing things so they would not release a shower of leaf-suspended droplets onto my head, my eyes fell on a new batch of passion flowers. I wish I could send one to S with her quilt.



It blends so nicely with all that purple and pink! Since Marlene's recent comment about the Fibonacci sequence I've been looking at flowers with even more fascination than usual. Amazing to think that the basis of so many things of beauty is mathematical....when, for a large part of my life I thought mathematics was dry and dull, a necessary evil. Just goes to show you're never too old to change your mind..... a concept I could maybe introduce to my father-in-law.......but that's a whole 'nother story!

There's a down side to this finishing business. I lose myself in creative quilting projects as protection against the "slings and arrows".......So now what will I do? Lalalalalalala........ I think I'll be a good girl and work on my oft-mentioned hand piecing......If I persevere I should be good for another "Finished by Friday" by, say, the fiftieth Friday of the year?

Watch this space.

But don't forget to breathe.

For Thimbleanna.....

I think Thimbleanna's latest post had us all in tears. I thought that nothing I could say would say what I wanted to say as well as Erma Bombeck said it. I've had this taped on the wall in my kitchen for forever. [I really ought to get a nicer copy and frame it!] But the words mean the same, read in a fancy frame or on a dog-eared clipping.....


Children Are Like Kites
By
Erma Bombeck



You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground.
You run with them until you are both breathless.
They crash. They hit the rooftop.
You patch and comfort, adjust and teach.
You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that
someday, they will fly.
Finally, they are airborne;
They need more string and you keep letting it out;
But with each twist of the ball of twine,
There is a sadness that goes with joy.
The kite becomes more distant and you know it won't be long before that
beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that binds you two together and
will soar, free and alone.
Only then do you know that you did your job.



There now, Thimbleanna. Don't you feel better?

Hidden In The Bushes

I was out in the shady part of the garden early this morning, watering some plants, and getting tangled up in cobwebs. The spiders must hate to see me coming. If I spot a web I try not to disturb it, but these spinners use such gossamer threads I sometimes blunder through their intricate creations before I realise they're there.




This fellow is new this year, at least to me. Don't know what he's called, but I envy his spinning skills!





Looks like my buddy, the orb weaver has snagged himself some breakfast. He's so patient. Every time I wreck one of his beautiful webs, he just sighs and sets to work again, repairing the damage....

As I ducked under trees and around shrubs, which grow a little wild in there, I came upon an hibiscus blossom, lying limp on the ground. It made me sad because just the other day, when I was in that same spot, I didn't notice any blossoms on the hibiscus. And here was this unsung beauty, her gauzy, peach coloured skirts already sinking into the oblivion of dead leaves and mulch, before anyone even realised she was there.

It made me wonder how many people who are brilliant, beautiful, and full of promise, blossom, bloom and live out their lives in total obscurity, their beauty and brilliance and promise never amounting to anything as they get caught and tangled up in the cobwebs of life..........

Decisions, Decisions!

"What are your favourite colours these days?" I asked S on the phone recently.

I had a pretty good idea what the answer would be, but it's always best to check. When you're a few weeks shy of six, your favourite colours can change as often as your underwear.

"Pink and purple," she told me.

Aha! I love it when I'm right!

So the hexagons are all together --- finished today. Seen here guarding my messy sewing room closet from prying eyes!




But as any quilt maker knows, that doesn't mean I'm done.

I'm thinking borders here.

Pink and purple borders.

Which is where you all come in! Time is of the essence. It really needs to be finished finished by next Friday.

I've decided on the first border, a pale-ish pink batik with shades of purple.

Where I need help is in deciding what to use for the outside border.

What do you think of this combination?




I'd bind it in the same dark purple.

Or, how about this wild batik,



which I would attempt to tame a little with a dark purple binding.





I could also drive to the quilt shop tomorrow and find something there.

Or one of you might have a brilliant suggestion which wouldn't require me to drive anywhere. Because if I go to the quilt shop, there goes the entire day!

When her little brother got his quilt in the mail, S confided to her dad that she would like the next quilt Grandma made for her to be a star quilt too.....





But Grandma doesn't do encores. Especially when they'd take as long to do as that one! So hexagons it is. I've used each fabric at least twice so she can have some fun matching them.

OK, I lied! There are a couple in the bottom right hand corner that don't have mates. I was getting desperate at that stage, OK?

Oh, and one other thing. Is there a formula for how wide one's borders should be for the most pleasing effect? I'm always making it up as I go along, but in this case it would be good to at least be aware of the "rules!"

Wordless Wednesday

The Bag Lady Cometh....

A few summers ago, when I was home for a visit, I noticed that Rise had a bundle of cloth bags of various stripes that she always took with her when she went shopping. The Irish Government, she told me, disgusted with the horrible festooning of hedgerows throughout the countryside with cheap, indestrucible plastic bags, and horrified, I'm sure, at the thought of the detrimental effect it might have on tourism, decided that shops could no longer pack customers' purchases in free plastic bags. If customers wanted plastic bags they would have to pay for them!

The Irish don't like parting with their pennies any more than the rest of the world, so cloth bags were resurrected from dim corners, cubby holes under stairs, and cobwebby attics, given a good shake, and pressed into service. Almost overnight, the hedgerows were restored to their natural, unadorned beauty.

One small change made an enormous improvement.

So, I thought, if the whole of Ireland can change their evil ways overnight, surely I can do my small part to rid the planet of the plastic pestilence? And pestilence it is.

I used to think I was being virtuous when I'd ask for paper rather than plastic. But according to some articles I read recently, paper bags, while having the advantage of being biodegradeable, are costly and polluting to produce. They do however decompose in a matter of months.

The plastic bags we discard today, on the other hand, will still be around a thousand years from now. Although I'm not sure who made the trip into the future to discover that little nugget of information! It really is a shame that some other, necessary consumer goods can't be made as durable as the pesky plastic bag! Imagine buying a refrigerator today with the confidence that it will still be in use by our descendants, generations from now, while we're busy pushing up daisies!

One of the articles declared plastic bags second only to cigarette butts as nuisance litter. The gentlest breeze renders them airborne. Here in Florida,according to the article, bags are flushed down storm drains into the bays and the gulf, where they get tangled in mangrove thickets, and pose a hazzard to marine life. Wading birds get caught in them and turtles try to eat them, cannot digest the plastic, and die.

In a recent cleanup, volunteers removed 187 plastic shopping bags from one small pond in a park not too far south of here..... For one thing, isn't it appalling that people discard anything, by tossing it wherever and whenever they no longer need it? How much stress would it cause them to take it to the nearest rubbish bin?

It turned out that I had several cloth bags lying around.

One from an AF base we were once stationed at......

One with some company's name stencilled on it.....

Two quilty ones.

And one from a cruise line.

I've never been on a cruise. Inherited that one from the in-laws, who have. It's always the last one I produce, and only if I have to. I'm skittish about being mistaken for the kind of person who goes on cruises. Tootling around on the high seas, eating and drinking more than is necessary, or wise, while half the world starves, visiting places where the yearly per capita income is less than the cost of a ticket for the cruise---not high on my list of things to do before I die......

I kept my bundle of bags in the laundry room, right next to the garage, where, theoretically, I'd see and remember them as I headed out the door. Unfortunately, nobody told the bags they'd have to hiss at me like venomous snakes in order for me to notice them as I sailed by. I'd set off for the store and forget all about them. Until I got there. Fat lot of good they did then, sitting, useless, in my laundry room!

Brilliant idea number two: I decided I'd keep them in the car, on the back seat. Only trouble was, since I usually sit up front while operating the vehicle [Oh ye unbelievers! I have too driven while seated in the back---in my capacity as a Back Seat Driver---ask the OC] I'd still forget all about them until I arrived, cart groaning, at the checkout.

So, I moved them to the front passenger seat. If the penny drops at all around here it drops s.l.o.w.l.y......

I've been doing this for about two years now, and most of the time, unless I'm especially distracted, I remember to bring them into the store. The grocery store staff are used to me now.

The Bag Lady cometh.

Although, just last week, I set my bags on the belt first, then my groceries. There was a new girl bagging that day. She took my bundle of cloth bags and crammed them into a plastic bag!! Sigh........

The object of the exercise is to not use the accursed things at all. Most of them get that. Those who don't are destined to die young from Idonthaveaclueitis. Fortunately, the condition is curable. With the application of a little thought.

So, if you haven't already, find yourself a few sturdy cloth bags.

Then use them.

Every time.

This fellow will thank us.




Too late for this guy,




but his descendents will be grateful!


If even one person reading this is motivated to start using cloth bags in place of plastic, I'll consider that I've done my bit for the environment.

At least for today.

High On A Hill Was A Lonely Goatherd..........*

Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo.



Look what the mail brought me recently....




.....a note from the wanderer.




But, I'd already had a phone call. She's home. Refreshed and renewed. Full of alpine air, and edelweiss, and inspiration---n'est pas Rise? Look for spectacular photos and astute observations---Lord no! Not here---over there, oh-verr theere!

The phone call was also to inform me that she had received a package......
Which means I can finally show all you quilting maniacs that, once again---is that at least three times this year? Could it be habit forming?---I've actually finished something!



"Folks in a town that was quite remote heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
Lusty and clear from the quilter's throat heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo!"


I am waaaay better at starting stuff than at finishing it, so when I do actually finish something, it's cause for singing [see above] and dancing in the streets!

This pattern is based loosely on a pattern called "Quilting With Laura", the Laura in question being Laura Ingalls Wilder. I added the prairie points, since where do prairie points belong if not on a quilt inspired by Little House On The Prairie? As soon as the piecing was finished I folded it up and off it went to the closet, to join all the other disgruntled, half done quilts. But this was its lucky year. I knew Rise liked it. It seemed too easy----most of the work was already done! Add a little quilting, and presto---instant present!

Only trouble is, now the natives are restless [the other UFO's are threatening to riot, and burst out of the closet.] They want me to commit to at least an approximate date by which they might reasonably expect to see the light of day. Jealousy I call it. Geez, just because I finish one of them. You'd think they could just be happy for him. Instead we have all this unrest.....

But, you can't keep a good woman down----not even rioting UFOs. They just have to have faith. And patience.

Meanwhile, Rise is back!

"O ho laydee odl lee-o,o ho laydee odl lay,
O ho laydee odl lee-o, laydee odl lee-o-lay."





* With apologies to Mssrs. Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Old Curmudgeon Incoming......

I love my children.
They've been my life, my work, my career.
If they hurt, I hurt.
If they were scheduled for major surgery and I could, I would willingly take their place.
If someone breaks one of their hearts, as has happened, my heart breaks too.
If something makes them happy, my day is made.

Sounds like there are no limits to my maternal devotion?

Wrong.

I think I've reached a limit.
The limit of my patience for having my house look like like a frat house.

Yeah, yeah,I hear you. We're of age now, legal to have a brew once in a while after a long day working in the killer heat.

But couldja put the bottles in the bin when you're done?

And cleanliness? I'm glad you take frequent showers.
But would it break your heart to pick the damp towels up off the bathroom floor when you're finished? Oh, and while you're in there, try to remember to flush.

I don't mind doing your laundry. But do you think you could, once in a while, not toss your stinking socks and wet, smelly work clothes in the laundry hamper to fester, but rather take a minute to hang them over the side, where some air can circulate around them 'til I get a chance to do the wash?

I guess I should be happy that you can cook for yourself when necessary. And yes, I know that you can, and will clean up your mess. But before next week, OK?
'Cause dude, I need access to the sink!

And what brain blip caused you to think yesterday was a good day to embark on a big new project, to wit, cutting down old pine trees out back? The day before He Who Pays The Bills is due home for a quick visit?
I know, I know, all's well that ends well.

But.

I needed my beauty sleep last night much more than I needed to lie awake, having panic attacks about the tree you cut that refused to fall, but got stuck, way up, among some of its neighbours, as darkness fell. About how we'd end up in the poorhouse after paying for the damage if, God forbid, it should fall and crash on the neighbour's pool enclosure, or, worse yet, on the unsuspecting neighbour himself....

Like I said, I love the boy. His heart is in the right place. I'm just too old to be in such close proximity to so much testosterone....He needs to move to a frat house.

Do boys ever outgrow the desire to impress their dad? To take his breath away with what an awesome job they did of taking care of the place in his absence? To, once in a while get a sincere, no holds barred "Attaboy" with no "buts" attached? I know that's what's behind it, but oh, I'm weary and stressed and still need to clean and go to the grocery store. Seven hours to go.....

Postscript: The offending tree was coaxed to earth this morning with the chain saw, vroom, vroom! piece by piece, without damage to life or limb or neighbour's
property. The only damage was to my life expectancy, which has been shortened by at least ten years.

Stalking The Wild Armadillo...........

I headed out into the garden one afternoon last week, gasped in disbelief at what I saw in the middle of the grass, and zoomed right back into the house for my camera!

I knew he lived in the shade garden, because I had happened on his burrow one day when I was pruning azaleas, and saw him scurrying down into it. He seemed so shy, I had reconciled myself to never actually meeting him. As fast as I sprinted to get my camera, he was still gone when I came back out. He looked so ungainly, I was surprised he could move that fast. But as I stood there, disappointed, I heard him snuffling about in the bushes. Hope rekindled, I tiptoed over to a big tree, and sat softly down under it to wait.

"I've got all day buddy," I whispered. So much for the garden chores.

I could hear him in the tangled thicket, but I couldn't see him.

I waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

"This must be what it's like to work for National Geographic," I thought.

Short bursts of exhilaration.

With long stretches of boredom.

Just when I thought I might as well give up, he emerged from some ferns and scampered close to where I was sitting, afraid to breathe in case he spooked. He stopped a few feet away and I clicked. He didn't stick around for an encore, so this is as good as it gets!




Moving at a surprisingly fast wobble, he took off in the direction of the road, with me in hot pursuit, not only in hopes of more pics, but to act as his crossing guard since his silly a*s seemed bent on getting to the other side.




A bit [lot!] blurry, taken on the fly, but you can at least see that "svelte" is not a word you'd use to describe him! I'm sure his mama thinks he's adorable though......

When I saw his tail disappearing into the neighbours' shrubbery,





I figured I'd seen the last of him, but then he emerged again on the other side...




As he got deeper into the neighbours' garden he picked up speed,





and since I don't know them very well, I thought they might not be exactly overjoyed to look out the window and see the nutty neighbour prancing through their flower beds, so I retreated.




Back to the garden and the chores.

Saving The Earth--With Papersticks

Waste not, want not. We didn't think about recycling when I was growing up. We just did it. My mother would as soon have sold her first-born [me] to the tinkers as toss a glass jamjar in the rubbish. They were saved and stored on shelves in the shed out back until she got a notion to make jam or marmalade.

The shed was also where we collected waste paper, in a hemp sack, for the monthly Diocesan Collection. But many of our newspapers, at least in winter time, never reached the shed. We used them to make paper sticks for starting the fire.

Once a week, our dad would gather a pile of old newspapers, and recruit us to help, since we had no distractions such as video games, ipods, dvds or computers. Dad was, at least in his own opinion, the fastest and best paper stick maker in the land. And we all aspired to be as good as, or better, than he was. He had the complacent smile and nimble fingers of a master. The air crackled with competitive tension and the rattle of paper as we fashioned the sticks, with varying degrees of skill. Looking back, I can see now, that making us want to be better at it than he was, was his clever way of getting a bigger pile of paper sticks with a smaller outlay of energy! I don’t believe I ever took his crown away....

It was no good if you rolled the paper too tight or too loose. You had to get it just right. If you didn't fold it exactly in half, you'd run out of paper on one side. And if your last few twists weren't neat and tight, so that when you tucked in the last piece it was snug and secure, the whole thing would come undone.

Our paper sticks were usually made from the Irish Independent, the Limerick Leader or the Cork Examiner. If you were in the know, that would tell you a lot about my parents' politics, and religion--Catholic, of course. We rarely got the Irish Press, and the Irish Times only occasionally, when Dad was feeling especially hoighty-toighty and intellectual. Besides, everyone knew that the Times was only for Protestants! I remember thinking how exotic it must be to be Protestant, one of the Five Percent, and breathe such rarefied air....

Our paper sticks looked like this:


Five or six of them were lined up on the clean grate in the fireplace. Lumps of coal were placed neatly on top. When it was time to light the fire, a match was put to the paper sticks, and as they slowly burned, the coal would catch, and soon there’d be a lovely warm fire, crackling away. Setting the fire was a specialized task, one I was, thankfully, not expected to do! I was glad someone knew how to do it though, since curling up by the fire with a good book was my idea of bliss.

We don't use paper sticks over here, though they'd probably be great for starting the barbecue....But I still recycle newspapers, and junk mail, and even the little paper tags from tea bags! Cereal boxes and all the excessive paper and cardboard wrapping that comes with our food these days also finds it's way to the recycling bin... And, whenever possible, I buy products made from recycled paper. If my head is in the clouds and I forget to bring my cloth bags to the store, I opt for paper rather than plastic, and reuse the bags in the kitchen garbage can.

Waste not, want not........Our parents had it right. We have too much and we take it all for granted. If we were all just a little bit more frugal, as our parents were from necessity, we could reduce pollution, conserve natural resources and leave some of the wonder and beauty of the world for our children and our children's' children to enjoy.

Freedom.....

Fourth of July.

Red, White and Blue.

A day to celebrate freedom.

Time on my hands,

OC far away,

Son off with friends,

Ancient ones visited earlier.

Sympathetic sounds made for the ailments.

Draw them into talking of the old days

And their old country.

How Stalin and communism forced them to flee,

Or end up in Siberia,

For daring to want to be free.


No big barbeque.

No children clamoring for fireworks.

No children. Period. All grown and scattered …..

Fielding calls for fireworks from their own children, perhaps….


Freedom.

To sit in the balmy evening air,

With my book,

Or the paper.

To read about who’s blowing up whom in the world

In the quest for “freedom.”

Free to do the crossword,

Or sudoku.

Or, perchance, to blog…………


Free ,free, free!



But how free am I?

How free are you?

How free are any of us?

I think we are all prisoners of how we think.

Some of us in darker cells than others.

My parents and the nuns taught us many things.

I learned to read and write.

Not to stick my tongue out and not to stare.

I learned to count and do arithmetic.

To say “please” and “thank you”

And not pick my nose.

I learned there was a lot of world out there,

Beyond Galway Bay and the Irish Sea.

America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia.

Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Eerie and Superior.

I learned that the world did not begin the day I was born.

And probably won’t end on the day I die.

I learned how to sing and dance,

How to jump rope and play ball.

Latin and French

Algebra and geometry,

And a little trigonometry

[although it hurt my head.]


And every day started with religion class.

The ten commandments.......

Thou shalt not,

Thou shalt not,

Thou shalt not.

The four gospels,

The seven deadly sins.


But no science.

No biology.

We might have to see pictures of naked people.

We couldn’t have that.

It might lead to impure thoughts...

Or occasions of sin……

No chemistry, no physics.

Because God made the world.

In six days, remember?

We couldn’t have people believing

It might have been gasses, or molecules or big bangs.


Critical thinking was not on the curriculum.

Because the nuns didn’t want us to think.

Thinking was dangerous.

Don’t ask awkward questions.

If they couldn’t explain it, it was probably

A matter of “Faith and morals.”

We would just have to believe.

Faith, Hope and Charity---the first one of these.

To do otherwise would make you a heretic.

Get you excommunicated.

Secure your place in hell.


So here I sit, in the fading light,

The air a-crackle with fireworks,

And the raucous din of insects,

In a free country [the Current Occupant’s efforts notwithstanding.]

Where the nuns have no sway.

Where a person is free to think as she pleases.

To bend, and maybe even break, the bars of the prison cell,

Fashioned in her youth,

And let the light shine in.


Free to question, and

To wonder, out loud,

Without being called a heretic,

Or being excommunicated,

Or sent to Siberia…….

Shall We Dance?

Dream a Little Quilty Dream....

Every time I read my favourite Quilt magazine, I take an extra-long look at the end of the featured patterns, where they show how the quilt would look in a completely different colour combination. I stop, I linger, and I drool. Laura Boehnke earns her living, feeds her family, and keeps the wolf from the door by testing new patterns for the magazine and working them up in various colour combinations.

"She tests every pattern we publish to make sure the instructions are accurate. Her ability to see optional colourways for a pattern makes Laura's work popular with our readers."

Yes. They PAY her to do that!

What I want to know is---Where was I when they were handing out jobs like that? Was I pre-occupied with trying to coax extremely-bored-with-P.E. teenage girls into some semblance of physical exertion? Or helping enthusiastic young mothers teach their howling babies to swim? Or maybe those jobs were on offer while I was busy wiping--- bottoms-noses-tears? Another case of life getting in the way.........

So, since I'm not racing off every morning to my high powered magazine job, I content myself with..........volunteering to select the block for our quilt guild's Block of the Month. Churn dash and nine patches and log cabins and stars are nice classic blocks, but the block of the month is a chance to try something different, something more challenging, something you might balk at making thirty six of, but ONE? Come on, it won't take long, and I promise to give very clear instructions! You pay fifty cents for the instructions and hand in the finished block at the next month's meeting for a chance to win ALL of them. If you win you have the makings of a quilt---and you only had to sew ONE block. Sweet deal, no?

But many of the ladies are elderly. Some have weak hearts. They don't want excitement, and they know what they like. And what they like is "quick and easy."
High-falutin' ideas from whippersnappers are not always greeted with wild enthusiasm.

Hence my dilemma.

Since what I like is adventure, challenge and excitement.[Don't forget, we're talking quilting here.]
I thought about socking them with this,


but didn't want to be beaten about the head and neck.....which the combination of hand work AND circular piecing might incite some of our members to....

This seemed like an unusual little gem,




until I found out [personal experience!] how easy it was to sew together ass-backwards.......


Then I found this, similar but simpler, version.


And liked it so much I made three.



When I ran it by She-who-must-approve, however, she thought it too small at 7" square, and could I make it larger, say 12"or 14"?

So, back to the drawing board, where, having no luck finding a compass, high or low, I nearly strangled myself trying to draw arcs of circles with a primitive contraption contrived from a pin and a pencil and enough thread to hang myself. Don't ask.
Enough to say my strengths don't lie in drafting.

But even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and soon I devised a cunning plan. I would take the triangular template from the 7" version and extend the two long sides.... It worked.....I went from feeling very frustrated to smugly patting myself on the back.

Passed it out at the guild meeting last week with the advice to stitch at least the middle by hand. Fingers crossed I won't get any irate phone calls.....

I'd still love that job! Eventually Ms. Boehnke will want to retire to the country to raise rabbits and string beans, won't she? If I send in my resume now, they'll have it in hand when she steps down ....and I can step up..... to dreamland!

Nothing Exploded.......

I slept soundly last night and dreamt that He who barfs on quilts had snagged a smelly, mangy looking rodent, and it was being dragged behind him everywhere he went because it was, literally, hooked onto his claw and he couldn’t shake it off! Except for when he takes it into his head to barf on a quilt, he is a very fastidious creature, so where that weird dream came from is one for Freud-for-Felines.

Anyway.

You want to know, don’t you, did I open The Box?

I did.

At first light.

And peeked in at the sleekness of that shiny new machine.

And called for The Bean to come and help, or offer moral support at least, but, only if he could do it without yelling.

Don’t get me wrong. We are fairly civilized around here. But the male contingent, in its various manifestations, is singularly impatient [and therefore predisposed to yelling] when faced with stupid questions and asinine assumptions, those being particular talents of mine, at least in realms technological.

He was like a lamb.

Something happens in the male brain, I am convinced, when a man is faced with a box of plugs and wires and new fangled gadgets. Something loosely equivalent to what happens to me when I see a tiny, innocent, newborn baby…….His eyes shine brighter, his cheeks flush, his pulse quickens, and he will suppress his natural aversion to fools and even his instinct to yell at them, if said fools will only let him be the one to figure out all the mysteries.

I know they’re not really mysteries, but I’d be a big fat liar if I pretended to be interested in the mechanics of it all. I just want it to work. Kind of like cars. Very handy for getting around. I’ve been under hoods. I’ve heard men jabbering on, about how all those pistons, and these fuel lines, and that battery, and those gauges make the car go. And it all makes my eyes turn dull and glassy, my skin turn grey and my hair fall out. And they begin to sound like the droning voice of the teacher on Charlie Brown. Then weeks later they’ll remind me that it had all been explained to me in excruciating, mind-numbing detail, and don’t I remember for pity’s sake?? You mean my efforts to look interested and intelligent were so successful you actually thought I was listening??

And you all, with your encouraging words, were right.

Just plug it in, you said.
So we did.

And nothing exploded.

One significant thing at a time, the wise Tanya advised---God, how I wish she lived next door! And one has to have virus protection, and internet security---are they one and the same? You see what we’re dealing with here?

So I remind myself to breathe, and if all else fails, go stitch a bit.

And remember to clip the cat’s claws………..

Will It Explode If I Touch It?

I had just put the coffee on this morning and was doing a little stitching---I’m in maniacal stitching mode these days---when the doorbell rang. Which necessitated a mad gallop to the bedroom, shedding sleeping garments en route and leaping into shorts and shirt, before opening the door, with my best, unruffled “Oh-I’ve-been-dressed-for-HOURS” air and accepting THIS


from the delivery man .

Have a good look.

Can you guess what’s inside?

I recently had a birthday. A big one. The kind that moves you out of one decade and into another. To mark the occasion the OC gave me a heart attack. Well, almost, when I came out of the den on the morning of my birthday, determined not to mope, and ran right into his smiling face and the bunch of roses he was clutching, in the living room. Which wouldn’t, under normal circumstances, be grounds for heart failure, except that I thought he was thousands of miles away in the frozen north! It was a very pleasant heart attack.

And my sister got me that brown box up there.

Have you guessed yet? Doesn’t take a rocket scientist……Even I know what it is.

He-who-barfs-on-quilts gave the box a thorough inspection. From every possible angle. Just to be sure no mice were being smuggled into his domain, don’t you know. Having satisfied himself that the box was rodent-free, he returned to the arduous tasks of washing himself, and quilt supervision.

And then it was my turn to cautiously circle The Box. I thought I might poke it experimentally from a safe distance with a broom handle……Then I thought I’d better hide it, in case The Bean saw it and tried to pressure me into opening it before I was good and ready. So, at the moment, it is safe in my closet.

Unopened.

Can you believe my sister? She got tired of hearing me moan about our current, almost dead dinosaur, and disagreed with the OC, who can’t imagine what I could possibly want with a computer of my own. He might have a point. The world would be a safer place if I stuck to pen and paper.

The truth is I’m terrified of that box. Just knowing Rise’d do something like that for me is present enough……..What I need is a crew of Rise, Lily and myself. We could do it together. Without any yelling. I keep telling myself that dumber people than me have figured out how to set up a computer. But I do wish it was as straightforward as, a toaster, say, or a sewing machine, or a mixer, or an electric toothbrush. If there was just one plug I’d be all set.

If you could look under the desk here, you’d understand my terror. There’s a thingamajig with GO written on it. It has a small wire plugged in one end of it and a thicker wire in the other end, and a blue light glowing to let the world know it’s doing whatever it is it’s supposed to be doing. Then there’s the long yoke that says PANAMAX, that has six, I kid you not--SIX more wires of various thicknesses plugged into it, and not one, but two little green lights glowing……And I have not the foggiest notion what any of those wires are for, or why, for heaven’s sake, there are so many of them!

I think I’ll go to sleep now. Sometimes I dream my way out of problems. And even if I don’t, maybe I’ll summon the gumption to at least open The Box in the morning!

Little Blister

Anything more than fifty years ago sounds like a L-O-N-G time ago. And yet I can remember June 21st.1954 with amazing clarity. At least part of it. The part where I had the temerity to leave my desk in Miss McCarthy's Senior Infants class and walk, unbidden, to the teacher's desk. Because I had very exciting news to impart.

"Miss McCarthy," I said, "I have a new baby sister!"


I obviously thought that a person with such stupendous news would be excused for breaking the rule against leaving her desk without permission.
As it turned out, I was wrong.

"Molly Bawn," said my teacher crisply, "Go back to your desk at once!"

I must have stood there, stupidly, stammering, and blushing with shame, as I tried to absorb the fact that a new baby sister, while earth shaking and life changing for me, was of no interest to Miss McCarthy.

Maybe she was having a bad day.

Or maybe she'd had a fight with her boyfriend.

Or maybe she'd slept through the Be Nice To Little Children 101 class in teacher training college.

Or maybe she was the incarnation of the devil.

Whatever she was, I got through the remainder of Senior Infants--it was late June so summer holidays were at hand, and in September I'd be in First Class, one of the Big Kids up in the Primary School,leaving the likes of Miss McCarthy and ear-pulling, cheek-pinching Sister Mary Gillen to traumatise a new batch of Babies and Senior Infants!



Since then I have often been wrong, but I don't think being wrong has ever been so devastating as in that moment in Senior Infants when I was just six years old.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I don't remember any more about the incident. I was a shy child. The incident did not make me any less so, of that I am sure. I had proof positive that my life was of no consequence to someone who loomed as large in my life as the teacher I spent my days with.

I would have been interested to meet Miss McCarthy as a grownup. Would I have liked her? I think not. Little incidents reveal a person's character, and even if it were not me she'd been so mean to, I would despise a person who could stomp all over the trust of a child, and then grind her heel in it!

Miss McCarthy's reaction to my news could not diminish my delight in having a baby sister for long though. I already had a baby brother. Boring. I was ready for someone like me. I needed reinforcements. Every afternoon mum bundled her up in the pram and put her out in the garden for her daily dose of sunshine, or at least fresh air. My friends and I could peek in at her and coo at her, but were given dire warnings about what would happen to us if any harm came to her due to high jinks on our part.

Six years is a gaping gap. She wasn't quite ready that summer to ride bicycles with me, or toss a rubber ball endlessly off the kitchen wall, or go exploring down Barry's field, or play jump rope with me. We tolerated each other and co-existed more or less peacefully throughout our childhood. In our teens she became the bane of my life. If I had a nice piece of clothing she would inevitably borrow it and incur my wrath, which didn't scare her in the least.

But the full import of that day in June, back in the fifties, has only become obvious in the last decade or so. It was the day my best friend was born.



Happy Birthday, Rise!

Foto Friday

I wasn't alone down by the river...............

Down By The River Side

If you’re going to sew anyway, where would you rather do it?---at home with the cat, in the cool shade of the house? Or down by the river, in the shade of a tree? If you grew up in Ireland, where the slightest glimmer of sunshine or the merest hint of warm weather cause the natives to kick up their heels, down tools and go cavorting gleefully into the great outdoors, the decision is simple.

I’ve been working on some hand piecing since I finished the star quilt. I hadn’t exactly planned on starting a new project. But the universe decided I needed to make it, so without asking my brain for permission, my hands started cutting and stitching. If consulted, my brain would have had to say

“No. Have you looked at the pile of unfinished symphonies in the closet? No, no, NO!”

But since the brain was left out of the decision making process, all that negativity was avoided.

The hands have been busy. A little every day. I’d forgotten how much I love “handwerk.” Just me and the needle, the thread and the fabric……And my mind wide open for traipsing across the plains and plateaus of LIFE.

You look at a woman sitting by the river, stitching. And you think you’re seeing a woman sitting by the river, stitching.

But you’re not.

You’re seeing a woman on a journey, a journey through the “caverns of her mind.” A woman tentatively picking her way through a minefield of intimate relationships, stepping gingerly lest she cause an explosion, and, at times, casting caution to the winds and speaking her mind---a dangerous habit. A woman trying to understand why, when all the players speak the same language, it is SO difficult to communicate.

Because egos are involved.
Expectations are involved.
Personalities are involved.
And dreams.

And each player’s personality, each player’s expectations, and each player’s dreams are different. Oy.

Suddenly that stitcher by the river, that dreamer, that luster after peace and harmony….. leaps from her reverie in the grass back to the real, sun-dappled world of the river bank.

With a loud, indignant yelp.

Feeling a sharp sting on her sandalled foot, she looked down and discovered she was sitting in the middle of basic training for an army of ants.


Nevertheless, progress has been made, the state of the world has been pondered. Conclusions have been drawn, that we’re a lot like the ants, running in circles, wringing our hands, agonizing over the twists and turns of our petty, insignificant lives, when Life, in his big, agricultural, hob-nailed boots can stomp all over us at any moment and obliterate us. I’m just hoping he lets me linger by the river ‘til I’m finished my stitching.

Running Away To Join The Circus....Or Somesuch

To have and to hold,
For better or for worse,
For richer or for poorer,
In sickness and in health......Got it. No problem.

I know it was thirty seven years ago and I know my memory ain't what it used to be BUT---

I don't remember ANYTHING being mentioned on that fateful, long ago day about lawn mower maintenance,
or greasy spark plugs buried in tractor bowels and covered in black, oily gunk,
or fuel filters,
or "How many cylinders?" [How the hell would I know?]

Isn't that one of the reasons we promise to love and cherish, 'til death do us part, a person with a beard, who belches with impunity, thinks flatulence is funny, possibly even snores? Specifically so we won't have to deal with that crap?

I thought I was marrying a man; that I would be his cherished helpmate, his confidante, his friend........It all started out so romantically......with candlelight and wine, laughter and soft music, and the whole spark plug and mower maintenance issue was cleverly airbrushed in the folds of the magic.

But then, with frightening speed, you find yourself having the birthday that starts with a Six and ends with an Oh---Oh my! Harsh reality sets in. And you realise that you are actually married to The Man's house, and to The Man's big garden, and to The Man's garage---full of tools, many of which have not had their protective dust coat disturbed in decades.

You become the scary lady before whom spiders and daddy-long-legs flee in terror when she ventures into their elaborate web cities in the dark, infrequently visited corners of that same garage, in search of some tool she knows The Man owns but damned if she knows where he keeps it.

I had an epiphany today when I came inside, dripping sweat and smudged with spark-plug-grease and tears.

I don't want to be a house-sitter;
an inept and grease smeared changer of spark plugs;
for a lawn mower that sputters and inexplicably dies;
Don't want to be the wielder of wrenches,
the fretter over pool chemicals,
the glassy eyed wanderer of Home Depot aisles, searching searching for fuel filters and spark plugs, and oh! don't forget the replacement sprinkler head!
Don't want to be the administrator of last rites to terminally ill computers.

If The Man is never here.

I want my man back, and if he's too busy to return soon I may have to pack my toothbrush and my sewing projects in my backpack and hitch hike out of here to parts unknown.

Living In Bucket In Palm Tree...Wish You Were Here!

Can you stand to read one more post about birds? It’s what’s going on around here these days. You cannot step outside without hearing “Cheep, cheep, cheep” from every corner. The nests are so well camouflaged that, though I can clearly hear the babies, I cannot see them. Given the season that is in it and her own personal, feather-raising adventures, I invited my friend, Mme. Dove, to do a guest post today, in which she will recount for you the disastrous turn events took in her life, and the lives of her children this past weekend. Here she is………….


"We've been living in the trees out behind MB's house for a couple of years now, my mate and I. This spring we found the best location ever for our nest, between the fronds of a palm tree not far from the house. The fronds provided shade and privacy, and their sharp barbs ensured that Mrs.Hussy Squirrel, and her cheeky, unruly children wouldn't be poking their inquisitive noses into our nest. Not being a place easily slithered to, we also thought our eggs would be safe there from snakes. All in all an ideal location. Monsieur Dove and I got busy. We gathered twigs and Spanish moss from nearby trees, and soon had a cozy place in which to raise this year's nestlings. In due time I laid the eggs and we took turns sitting on them to keep them warm. We were so proud of our sweet babies when they finally hatched!

And THEN, just when they were within a week of starting their flight training, along came The Bean. The Bean, in case you were not aware, is MB's son. He pretty much single-handedly takes care of the garden, but this particular day he had help. His Dad, known in blogging circles as the OC, was home from the still-chilly north for a surprise weekend visit.It was a beautiful day and they had taken it into their heads to do some drastic pruning. Which was none of my business, of course..... Humans will do what humans feel moved to do..... At least not until The Bean approached my tree, brandishing some lethal-looking loppers. I tell you, I almost had a heart attack. My children are so quiet and well behaved, he had no way of knowing they were nearby. I fluttered close, but to no avail. Before I could blink, my precious babies and our lovingly constructed nest went crashing to the ground. The Bean spotted my lovelies immediately and bent in consternation to pick them up. He cradled them so gently, while my poor heart throbbed in my breast.

"Please don't hurt them," I silently pleaded.

He looked around and saw me sitting on the wall, watching helplessly.


He murmured something softly to me and reached for a little bucket on the ground nearby.


Ever so carefully he eased the remnants of our nest, along with my two bewildered babies into the bucket. They made me proud, they sat so still. As I watched anxiously from my perch on the wall, The Bean reached up into the palm tree and wedged the bucket securely in place.


Then he and the OC looked expectantly from it to me, talking softly to me all the while. Though I longed to go and comfort my little ones I thought it best to wait a while.....What will our neighbours think when they see me sitting in a white plastic bucket where our lovely comfy nest used to be? They might think it's the very latest in modern dove condos! Although it is a bit primitive. It doesn't look as nice as our traditional nest at all, but what do humans know about weaving twigs and fur and feathers together to form a safe and comfortable home for the likes of us? What they lacked in nest-building skill though, they made up for in trying to make amends for their clumsiness.....Most importantly,and to my great relief, junior and his little sister seem none the worse for the mishap, and I'm hoping we'll be right on schedule to start flight training in the next few days."


Afterword by Molly, [who always has the last word, at least around here.]
I wondered about Monsieur Dove. He was nowhere in evidence when Cyclone Bean descended on his family's nesting quarters. Was he some kind of absentee/deadbeat dad, the kind who stick around just long enough to donate their DNA, decide that the long hours and emotional drainage of child rearing is not for the debonair likes of them, and wander off in search of adventure and fulfillment elsewhere? Mama Dove certainly looked like she was coping with her disaster all alone.

But this morning, when I went outside early to check on the residents of the world's ugliest bird nest, I found, not only Mama Dove's head peeking up from the white plastic rim, but Papa Dove's too! Photographic evidence below.



So he's not a deadbeat dad! He has not absented himself! He's right here pulling his weight. Maybe he was away on family business? And now he's back to be the chief flight instructor? Although, when I was learning to drive, my dad, all breezy and confident, drove me down to the Dock Road for my first lesson. Half an hour later, chastened and trembling, he drove me home and handed the keys, mutely, to my mother......Which just goes to show that hair on your chest and a deep bass do not necessarily make you the best choice for driving/flight instructor. So now the whole Dove family is reunited. As we watch those fledglings learn to fly we'll be feeling a little parental pride ourselves.

Note to the worried: Do not fret. He-Who-Barfs-On-Quilts is on lockdown until all these babies are airborne!

Late breaking update: Out to have another peek around sundown tonight, ever-present camera in hand. Junior [below] did not like the flash and fluttered off like an old pro to another tree!


Little sister was not so brave. She needs more time. Maybe she'll take to the air tomorrow.....



Meanwhile, these older fledglings were spotted relaxing in the


bushes in front of the house.....And from the bathroom window this morning I spotted another patient dove mama sitting in another nest in another tree at the side of the house. As I mentioned earlier, you can't step outside these days without hearing a chorus of "Cheep, cheep, cheep!"

"Soft Day, Missus"

“Soft day, Missus,” farmers would greet my grandmother, lifting their caps, as we clopped along to the village in the pony and trap. A “soft day” in Ireland is a rainy one. The greeting is like a benediction though. There is no complaint in the words. They know the rain is necessary. Besides, how do you think they keep those forty shades of green in top shape for the tourists?

“Soft day my arse!” I can almost hear my sister snort.
“’Tis her head that’s gone soft on her. Romanticising this bloody weather that has my heart scalded, and her sitting like Lady Muck in the Florida sunshine!”

Snorting sisters aside, I know whereof I speak. Because…..drum roll please…..We had a lovely soft day HERE today!

The “gentle rain from heaven” has been caressing us all day. Welcome, not only because we’re parched for a drop of moisture, but also because we’re on the threshold of hurricane season and wondering what meteorological atrocities the Weatherman In The Sky has in store for us this summer.

When I returned from the Cave of the Ancients this evening I was loath to go inside, so went for a stroll among the trees out back. The air was soft and misty. At first it seemed quiet but then my ears tuned to the raucous ribbiting of rain-thirsty frogs. As I came back towards the house, a couple of birds started making an awful racket, screeching at me, and swooping close. If they’d just kept quiet I’d never have known they had babies nearby. They made the same racket last night when they saw our Great White Hunter [Casper, the recently disgraced-for-barfing-on-my-quilt cat] on lizard patrol [wonder if there was chewed up lizard in the ignominious puddle?]out around the pool. They couldn’t tell that he couldn’t get to them from there. All they knew was there was a four legged predator on the prowl. Between the flapping and the squawking it didn’t take a genius to understand their anxiety.

But I saw no sign of a nest. What I did see, as I strolled slowly by some bushes, was that little fellow up there, all by his lonesome. Might have been his first time out of the nest. Inexperienced enough to know no fear, he just cocked his head and looked up at me, seeming to listen intently as I crooned at him, while mom and dad had conniptions on the roof.

I ran inside to get my camera, almost expecting they’d have whisked him away when I came out again, but no. He was still there, waiting to have his picture taken! Given the soft day that was in it and the fast-fading light, I was lucky to get the shot. And then I scarpered so mom and dad could get on with it.

Here’s wishing you some “soft days” to soothe your soul.

Not Talking to the Cat

Most Likely Suspect


Washing cat barf out of the largest quilt I've ever made was not on my to-do list today. Digging a certain unfinished quilt project out of the closet in the spare room was. Imagine my chagrin then, when I went trotting in there and saw a crusty, dried up puddle of cat barf in the middle of the bed. And not JUST in the middle of the bed. In the middle of the QUILT that was covering the bed. A disgusting puddle of yellow cat-stomach liquid crowned with a hairball, surrounded by half-digested cat food.

I was not happy.

Some rules are no-brainers. If you want to experience Molly-love, it goes without saying that you should not barf on the quilts. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. The OC is aware of this rule. At least I assume that he is since he has never, not even once, barfed on one of my quilts. The fact that he is, in fact, a rocket scientist probably gives him an edge over the cat. Come to think of it, I haven't seen him barf anywhere since the long-gone days of his exuberant youth. Speaking of which, we still have one exuberant youth in residence who has, on occasion, overestimated the tolerance of his stomach for certain liquid refreshments. But, mindful of the above-average need for Molly-love [and mollycoddling!] when one is feeling poorly, he has always managed to avoid voiding his stomach contents on a quilt. Wise move.

The cat is less wise. There are ample tiled surfaces around here on which one could, if so moved, barf. I will not be pleased one way or the other. Barf on tile is a minor annoyance. Easily mopped up. Barf on carpet is a pain in the petoot. But barfing on a quilt is a major infraction which will result in me giving the cold shoulder to the barfer for a prolonged period of time, equal to, or possibly longer than the time it takes me to clean up the mess.

That's why, today, I'm not talking to the cat.

Most days we are on cordial terms. If he's not happy with the amount and timeliness of his feedings, all he has to do is talk to me. And I take care of it. I'm agreeable like that.

And if his litter box is not cleared promptly of objectionable material, a word in my ear will set the world to fastidious rights. I'm agreeable like that too.

But barfing on a quilt moves you to the other side of the fence. To enemy territory. You become Felinus Barfus Non Grata. You might be made of stone for all the attention you get. Your most piteous yowling falls on deaf ears. Your efforts to ingratiate yourself are spurned. Doesn't she understand that when your stomach is in a knot you need the comfort of a quilt under your tail while you expel the cause of your discomfort from your interior? There's no comfort in a cold tiled floor.....And so she's been ignoring me all day. Oh sure, she fed me. But beyond that--- emotional starvation. No companionable chat. No sweet nothings in my ear, no crooning about what a great fellow I am and where would she be without me? None of that. Just grunting, and gnashing of teeth, and quilt hauling to bathtub, and splashing of water therein, and vigorous scrubbing and---could it be?? cat-cursing under her breath?? Not a blessed word thrown my way all day. Pray that her ire will run its course and we'll be on speaking terms tomorrow!

"The Lady Who Runs The Vacuum Cleaner"

Mothers Day? What was that? When I was growing up, you didn't have to worry that you’d forget and she'd have her feelings hurt. There were other, more pressing things to worry about in the fifties. People were still adjusting to the upheavals caused by the war. It wasn’t ‘til I came to America that I learned there was a special day in May for remembering and honouring mothers. And even though life and relationships are fraught with complicated, not easily pigeonholed feelings, this day is all about flowers, and candy, cloying sentiment and warm fuzzies. But, as I see it, if you don’t love and honour your mother every day you live, one day in May will hardly compensate.

Reading my history notes last night, I came upon Garrison Keillor’s column. Which is one of the reasons I don’t just throw old newspapers in the recycling bin----I might miss one of his gems. How can you not love a man who could write something like this:

“Mothers were, at one time, young women with Possibilities who might have taken a different route and become glamorous and powerful figures in size two dresses and instead found themselves cleaning up excrement and jiggling colicky babies to get them to stop screaming. They hardly ever get to London anymore or have time to read James Joyce. They sit down to dinner with adults and feel brain-dead. A bouquet of flowers hardly seems compensation enough. How about a million dollars and a house in the south of France?"

Do we, in fact, stop being who we used to be as soon as we give birth? Do we become “just the lady who runs the vacuum cleaner?" I think that happened to me. I went through the motions, I cooked, I cleaned, I loved, I comforted, I consoled, I rejoiced, I burst with pride, I ached,I propped my eyes open with toothpicks, I laughed, I sobbed, but a part of me was somewhere up in the attic, wrapped in mothballs, covered in dust.

Or do we become someone better? I went up to the attic a few years ago and rummaged around ‘til I found that old self. I dusted her off and aired her out to get rid of that camphor smell. When I unfolded her and shook her out I found she still had the long legs---BUT---not a varicose vein in sight! Her hair was brown and wavy and her face smooth and unlined. Sigh. I found her a little naive, but I liked her a lot and thought she still had possibilities.

So, if you're finding your mum a little boring, slap yourself, and realise she used to be a real person before you came along and she devoted herself to teaching you how to fly instead of learning herself. She used to have dreams of her own, but now all her dreams are for you. She used to sleep at night, but now she can't close her eyes until she hears you opening the door at midnight so she knows you’re safe. She used to be able to kiss the hurts and make them better, but now, she has to stand aside and let you deal with the slings and arrows all by yourself. She would like to sweep you into her arms and make the world go away, but it would be undignified. She has to trust that all those flying lessons are about to click and you’ll soar off into the blue all by yourself.

Meanwhile, if she's still alive she'd probably get a big thrill if you called her, or, gasp, wrote her a letter. The postal service, world wide, is still one of the best bargains out there. Use it!
And if she has already gone to her hard earned reward, Plant a flower in your garden, or in a pot on the windowsill and call it by her name. She'll know.

Happy Mothers Day everyone!

Where, Oh Where Has My Little Sis Gone?

"Oh Where, Oh Where Can She Be?"

When we were young, and still the centers of our own universes, my sister and I wrote letters. Dutiful, sisterly letters. It wasn’t that we fancied we had anything beyond parentage and nationality in common. We didn’t. The gaping chasm of six years between us blinded us to any common interests. But we did stay in touch. Especially after I got married and blithely betook myself to the other side of the world. Leaving her, at the tender age of sixteen, to cope with “situations” on the home front as best she could. Truth be told, it never occurred to me that problems in the grown-up world might be any of our concern……. She was young. She was brainy. She was gorgeous. If I thought about it at all, I figured she’d be fine. Besides, we came from stoic, taciturn types and if she wasn’t fine she’d keep it to herself. Not to mention that there was another tall, gangly, taciturn type-in-the-making lurking in the shadows who could be relied upon to take her away to the seaside with her bucket and shovel if things started to get out of hand.

Then along came the children, and the letters dwindled to a truly miserable, barely discernible trickle.

We were up to our oxthers in poopy diapers and runny noses, pink eye and ear infections, PTA meetings and doctor’s appointments, sneakers and wellies, schoolbags and lunchboxes, supervising homework and helping in classrooms, living and loving, laughing and lamenting------turning into grown-ups------on opposite sides of the world.

When we finally came up for air, the world had changed. We’d changed from girls into women who were mothers, the boys we’d married had turned into men who were fathers, the babies we’d borne were no longer darling extensions of ourselves but- gasp- individuals with ideas and aspirations of their own. We’d been over-worked and underpaid and seriously sleep deprived for so long, we didn’t know if we could survive in, and adjust to, this strange new order.

In between the great gaping gaps in communication, we’d been thrown together by the deaths of, first, our dad, and ten years later, our mum, may they rest in peace. And two overseas assignments which took us respectively to Germany and Belgium, which if you’ll look at your atlas, you’ll see are MUCH closer to Ireland than, say, California, or Montana! And I gradually came to realize that I had a treasure, right there, under my nose, masquerading as my no-account, bothersome kid sister.

So, you can see, e-mail and the internet came along at exactly the right time for us. After we overcame such technicalities as my distrust of new-fangled gadgets and anything electronic…….

And then, the icing on the cake, blogging! I was in heaven when she finally caved and started a blog of her own. Now I could tap in regularly to what she was thinking, not just the tailored-for-me content of her e-mails. It doesn’t get much better than last November’s NabloPoMo, when I was guaranteed a Rise fix every day for an entire month…..

And now all’s quiet on the Notimetodonothing front. Those old dinosaurs are turning into fossils. And one asks oneself

“Where did she go?” and

“Doesn’t she have anything more to say?” and

“Hey! Get back here---you’d just got me hooked!” and

“Don’t trifle with me---post something already!”

It’s all due, I am sad to report, to a death in the family. The sudden and unexpected demise of Rise’s computer. It was so young. Barely two years ago it came to live with her in it’s shiny new box; so promising…... so lovely…...and such a lemon. Those in the know opine that it must have been a Friday afternoon/Monday morning job.

The computer specialists have been to her house. They've examined the patient. They've poked. They've prodded. They've probed. They've stood around the sickbed, stroking their beards, and have sadly shaken their wise and grizzled heads and pronounced it well and truly a goner.

As you can imagine, Rise is distraught at her loss. She even succumbed for a while to a mysterious virus, and took to her bed. But, occasionally, her daughter’s computer was left unguarded, and she snuck on there and snooped around, and subsequently wailed to me that it’s DEADSVILLE in the blogosphere of late, and someone needs to do something about it! She has plans to procure a new machine and when she does, watch out! She’ll come roaring back, with knobs on.