This time tomorrow I should be somewhere out over the Atlantic. After breakfast this morning I dragged out my suitcase. Time to stop procrastinating and do it---pack!
Off to the closet to make decisions, not my strong suit. While rummaging therein I came upon a brand new navy blue hoodie.......Ooohhhh, soft! But for whom...? Then it dawned on me. My nephew's birthday [son of Rise]....... was in January! Thought I'd mailed it long ago. Evidently not....So that was the first item into the suitcase. Off to the kitchen then for a minute. Came back, lifted the lid of the suitcase again to find.......one white cat with wanderlust.....and a death wish, nestled snugly against aforementioned soft navy hoodie. After all, all the cool young guys these days are decorating their duds with hair of white cat.... what rock have I been hiding under?? Upon realizing that I was not amused, he scarpered. Thereafter, every time I put something in, I zipped it shut again, much to El Gato's chagrin.... In spite of aggressive attempts to open it, he failed.....I guess he'll be wanting thumbs for Christmas.
Recent reports from the new Dad in Bristol have the sun shining and the weather glorious! But Rise's dear husband, the fabled GB, advised me today, with evil glee, to "bring my woolly coat!" What woolly coat would that be?? I have become extremely unfamiliar with such garments.....Woolly Coat is an unknown quantity in Florida! But I'd better get my head around it, as the reason he [so gleefully] advised the bringing of a Woolly Coat is that Ireland,today, was battered with hailstones and lashing rain.......Hmmmmm. I guess I'll just leave the shorts [and the cat]at home!
Monday, April 27, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
It All Started With "What Katy Did." Question #3
Some time ago, when we were all a lot younger, Rhubarb asked me some questions. In my capacity as queen of procrastination I still have not answered all of them. But time's a-wastin', so here we go with question number three!
"Your love of books and reading is apparent. What genres and authors are your ultimate favourites, and why? Fiction or non fiction?"
The OC recently remarked, to a friend who was borrowing some books from me, but worried she'd leave me with nothing to read, that
"Molly is not so much a reader, as a collector, of books!"
Which is a little bit like the pot calling the kettle black, since he still has physics and chemistry books from college which he never reads anymore, with which he is, nevertheless, loathe to part! I do love to read, but don't seem to get around to reading half as many books as I'd like to. I add books to the TBR pile on my night table at a much faster rate than I remove them.
We read much the same way we eat, the OC and I. If it's dinner time the OC eats. So do I, but I'm a dawdler, always the last to finish, chatting between bites. It's the same with books. If he's reading a book, he hardly puts it down until he's finished, whereas I.....dawdle. I like to take my time reading a book; to savour it. After all, when you consider how long it takes a writer to write a book, it seems a little disrespectful to blaze through it in one afternoon.......
I have Lofty Ambitions. I would like to read the classics that sit in [dusty!] leather-bound splendor on the bookcases in our living room. My Lofty Ambitions include Dante's Divine Comedy, little bits of which I read long ago in a Renaissance Literature class; The Decameron, for which my appetite was whetted in that same class; Anna Karenina, which I still haven't read; The Aeneid, which was crammed down my throat in Latin class at school, and which, at the time, made not one iota of sense to me. I'm mildly curious to find out if I'd understand it now. I never did get why the Department of Education deemed it necessary for fifteen year old Irish lasses, who were mainly interested in fifteen year old Irish lads, to be battering their brains out on the rocks of ancient Romans' ramblings. I scraped a Pass, and promptly forgot all about them. Now, in my dotage, it occurs to me there might have been something valuable to learn there.
But not before I read Sebastian Barry's book The Secret Scripture, which, I have it on good authority [Rise told me!] is excellent! I loved The Long, Long Way.
The Lofty Ambitions list is one thing, but the more pedestrian fare in the teetering,
untidy pile on my night table is what I'm more likely to read any time soon. And just because they've been there a while doesn't mean they won't get bumped by an intriguing-sounding read I find at the library tomorrow!
Rhubarb asks what genres I prefer. I think she wants to know what kind of stories I like.....[genre always seems to me a word that is too big for its britches!] I love a good yarn. When I was a child and we'd go and spend a few days in the country at my granny's, I'd creep from my bed at night and hide around the corner from the kitchen and listen, while my grandmother, mother and aunt sat around the fire telling stories and remembering the old days. To me she was Mum, and it was strange and exhilarating to hear about a time when she wasn't, when she was young and carefree, and thirsty for life.....She was a reader too, and I relished tales she told me of reading long into the night, with a candle under the bedclothes so my grandmother wouldn't see light under the door and come in and snatch away whatever penny dreadful she was enthralled with, all the time trying to ignore her little sister, my Auntie Bid, fiercely hissing at her that she was going to burn them all in their beds!
I am drawn to anything by an Irishman, or woman. Which doesn't mean I will automatically like it. Sometimes I intensely dislike it. Roddy Doyle, for instance....Ugh! Couldn't stand it, though the critics rave. I recently read The Sea by John Banville, also Irish, and loved it. I found myself going back over passages just to savor the words, and the pictures he painted with them.
The Irish R.M was another I loved, which I was prompted to read when it was serialized on Masterpiece Theater.
Just this weekend I was reading the book review section of the paper and came across this gem: "....reading a book on writing can be one of the most satisfying ways to avoid writing..." The writer was reviewing Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within. There is no poet within here, but there is one book on writing that I keep going back to, On Writing Well by William Zinsser.
You don't have to be Irish [but it helps!] to catch my eye. Gerald Durrell captivated me with A Zoo In My Suitcase. Likewise Per Pettersen....whose book Out Stealing Horses was a lucky, random find at the library.
Angela's Ashes By Frank McCourt is another favourite. And not just because he was writing about the town I grew up in. His version of it and mine were very different, but still there was so much that was familiar.... His humor transcended the misery he wrote of, and I loved the way his sentences ran along without much of a nod to rules and regulations, much the way one's thoughts do. When I got to the last page I wanted to go right back to the first and read it all again!
Ironically, the most awful excuse for writing by an Irishman I've read in recent years was between the covers of Malachy McCourt's book A Monk Swimming. The title was brilliant, but the brilliance ended there.
I have no interest in science fiction. Just not interested. Period.
I like a good romantic story, but the romance "genre" makes me shudder! A woman I was friendly with when The Bean was a babe, went on to become quite a famous Romance novelist. I bought a paperback of hers once, making sure no-one I knew saw me lurking in that section of the bookstore! I tried to read it, but it made me gag.
Which isn't to say everything has to be great literature, but there is enough out there that's worthwhile reading that I can't see wasting time reading rubbish. Which sounds harsh, but hey, I'm just trying to answer the question.....
Romantic stories that I've loved include Dr. Zhivago, which made me swoon, and for once, the film did justice to the book. I have an ancient and tattered copy of Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier which belonged to my mother. It was a gift from a former beau, who exhorted her to remember him on the inside back cover,
which means it predates my father.....no wonder it's falling apart.
I loved Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Eyre, when I was in school. I tried to reread them recently and just couldn't get off the ground. One of our English books in school contained excerpts from many famous English writers. The excerpt from Pride And Prejudice was called "Mr. Collin's Proposal." I was immediately hooked! Another was an hilarious excerpt from The Pickwick Papers. Yet another got me reading The Mill On The Floss. There was one extremely funny excerpt called "The Man Of Feeling." I have tried many times to find the book it was taken from, my efforts being seriously hampered by not knowing the title of the book or the author. If it rings a bell with anyone reading this, I'd love to hear your suggestions. My memory, which is vague at the best of times, is that it was about an English gentleman, who was socially inept and suffered from gout.........slim clues I know.
Maeve Binchy's earlier books were a great read but became boring when she started churning out the same tale with the names changed to protect characters she'd trotted out too many times before.
I enjoy books by Edna O'Brien, whose books were banned, I think, in Ireland for a while because she was so naughty, and embarrassed The Church by writing unflatteringly about the holy nuns and Irish colleens getting up to unholy mischief. Of course The Church has since found much more to be embarrassed about than Edna O'Brien.....
I hope my answer was satisfactory, Miss Rhubarb, even if it had to be dragged out of me.....And by the way, is there a prize for the person who drags this meme out the longest?? If there is, I must be a finalist, at least, if not the Grand Champion!
Meanwhile it's Monday morning. Barely a week to go! I need to get cracking and leave a sufficiency of clean socks and underwear, and tidy living quarters, so the natives won't grumble when I'm gone. Not to mention stitching to be finished.............
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Thursday, April 09, 2009
#1 Reason To Do A Happy Dance
I know Isabelle is patiently [or not!] waiting to be informed of six things that make me happy........Unfortunately I'll have to keep her waiting a wee bit longer. But I do have a preview for her --- one thing that's making me very happy right now. The other five will have to wait....
The reason they will have to wait is that I can't think straight.
The reason I can't think straight is that my head is spinning.
The reason my head is spinning is that I'm going to be flying in three weeks time.
The reason I'm going to be flying in three weeks time is that I need to get to the UK, [and swimming there is out of the question.]
The reason I need to get to the UK is --- see if you can guess the correct answer from the following options:
1.I've never been to Bristol and I hear it's a lovely town;
2.The OC needs a break from my constant blather and figures if I'm "over there" his ears will get a rest;
3.It's been four years and three months [one hundred and fifty six weeks] since I've seen my middle son, and it's time;
4.I've never met his Beloved and it's past time for that too;
5.April is a very nice month in that part of the world;
6.If I get to England, Rise is only a hop, skip and a jump from there!
7.To see our newest little grandson!
Excuse me while I stand up and do my happy dance!
As you can guess, there are several correct answers, but #7 is the most correct!
Other five things that make me happy to follow shortly....when my head stops spinning.
The reason they will have to wait is that I can't think straight.
The reason I can't think straight is that my head is spinning.
The reason my head is spinning is that I'm going to be flying in three weeks time.
The reason I'm going to be flying in three weeks time is that I need to get to the UK, [and swimming there is out of the question.]
The reason I need to get to the UK is --- see if you can guess the correct answer from the following options:
1.I've never been to Bristol and I hear it's a lovely town;
2.The OC needs a break from my constant blather and figures if I'm "over there" his ears will get a rest;
3.It's been four years and three months [one hundred and fifty six weeks] since I've seen my middle son, and it's time;
4.I've never met his Beloved and it's past time for that too;
5.April is a very nice month in that part of the world;
6.If I get to England, Rise is only a hop, skip and a jump from there!
7.To see our newest little grandson!
Excuse me while I stand up and do my happy dance!
As you can guess, there are several correct answers, but #7 is the most correct!
Other five things that make me happy to follow shortly....when my head stops spinning.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Oh Baby! And Waiting By The Phone......
The other day I made a momentous discovery.
I discovered that I, Molly Bawn, am a genius!
The OC took the news very calmly. Just smiled his Confucian smile, rolled his eyes and carried on. Do you think he suspected all along, and was wondering when it would dawn on me?
I used to think only astrophysicists, mathematical wizards, and saintly nuns could make such claims! Of course the Nobel prize committee haven't been in touch yet, but I'm a patient woman. It may take some time for word to get out. Meantime, I'll be plodding along, in my humble way, making quilts and evading the paparazzi.
There is one creature on the planet who may have had an inkling that he wasn't in the company of your garden variety Hausfrau. That would be El Pussygato. Animals, you know, are more tuned in to this kind of thing. How do I know that he knows, you ask sceptically? Well,it doesn't take a genius [ha!] to figure that out! Whenever I'm in my think tank, he's always right there with me, usually sitting near, if not right on, my current opus....
.......just in case he needs to fend off any quilt thieves who might be skulking nearby. Or.....maybe he just enjoys hanging out with geniuses! And when it comes to the nuts and bolts, the putting into action of all that brilliant thought, planning, and design, he takes up his position,
watching and marveling, "too proud of me to speak," as Shel Silverstein said.
So what is she blathering on about this time, you're wondering? If you've been here recently, you'll know that my thoughts are full of a little someone in a far off land. I've been holding out on you, teasing you, but, finally, here he is!
A very little someone, barely five days old!
Is he not gorgeous? And huggable? And squeezable? Oops! There go my fingers, itching again!
I knew he was on the way, of course, but not knowing his gender was a bit of a dilemma. At least as far as making him a quilt. I thought I should wait until I knew, but my fingers were itchy. I needed to be making something, for him. Or her.
"What would work for either a girl or a boy?" I asked myself. And that's when I remembered the teddy bears' picnic fabric I'd bought eons ago, because it reminded me of the song. I knew that some day, I'd use it to make a quilt for someone special.
So, I snipped and stitched, and laid it out on the floor in the think tank.
And wasn't sure I liked it much. But kept on stitching. Because of those itchy fingers ...... And when it was together, I thought it needed a narrow green border. But alas! I was a few inches shy of enough green! What to do? Then I remembered I had a teeny, tiny bit of red check left, just enough for four one and a half inch corner posts. Which was enough to solve the problem! I started to like it better.
I folded it up and hied me to the nearest quilt shop. Because no quilt is complete without the perfect border. And to my amazement, found it, right away [I usually have to look much longer.] So home again, home again, jiggety jig.....
and stitched it on, and stood back, and purred with pleasure at how nicely my mitered corners came together. El Pussygato was nearby. We purred together, and agreed it was shaping up nicely.
And then the Refugees from Winter arrived, and there was a flurry of wrestling with the OC, and splashing in the pool with Uncle Bean, and grilling in the sunshine. Then, just as quickly, they vanished down the road to a nest on the beach. But close enough to visit. So, off we went, a few days later, the Bean and I.[The OC could not be pried from his desk.] I had a secret agenda. One I didn't share with the Bean right away. We would be passing a quilt shop I'd heard of, but never been to. Certainly a situation that cried out to be rectified.....And besides, I was on a hunt for backing fabric for some teddy bears.
Loud were the howls of protest when I veered of the beaten path. But I was driving,[possession is nine tenths of the law!] Anyway, I'd only be a minute. Grousing all the way, he came inside with me, the better to enforce the "only a minute [or ten!]" promise.
Then a miracle happened. Perhaps because the name of the shop is Country Quilts and Bears? In sixty seconds flat I'd found the perfect backing fabric. Moda [always good] and fifty percent off!
But, there was one small problem.....There were only two yards and I thought I'd need three. But could not put it down. If I'd hunted all over Florida I couldn't have found a more perfect match. So I took it, determined to perform another miracle. And went to the beach and had a lovely time.
Back home, I tackled the vexing problem of the loaves and fishes.
And found out how brilliant I am!
I had triangles of red and green left over from the square-in-a-square blocks. And had had the foresight to stitch them into half square triangles right away, instead of piling them up to deal with "some day." And stitched the half square triangles into pinwheels....... So there they were, just waiting for the penny to drop with the genius in the driver's seat that they were ready and willing to help with the miracle.
Now all that's left is to decide how to bind it....Red or green?
Aren't all you quilters out there proud of me? I, myself, am pleased as Punch! Psst, if you're as impressed with me as I am, drop a line to those Nobel fellows! I'll be waiting for their call.
Note on the messy think tank: I've heard that creativity thrives on chaos. That's my excuse anyway.......
I discovered that I, Molly Bawn, am a genius!
The OC took the news very calmly. Just smiled his Confucian smile, rolled his eyes and carried on. Do you think he suspected all along, and was wondering when it would dawn on me?
I used to think only astrophysicists, mathematical wizards, and saintly nuns could make such claims! Of course the Nobel prize committee haven't been in touch yet, but I'm a patient woman. It may take some time for word to get out. Meantime, I'll be plodding along, in my humble way, making quilts and evading the paparazzi.
There is one creature on the planet who may have had an inkling that he wasn't in the company of your garden variety Hausfrau. That would be El Pussygato. Animals, you know, are more tuned in to this kind of thing. How do I know that he knows, you ask sceptically? Well,it doesn't take a genius [ha!] to figure that out! Whenever I'm in my think tank, he's always right there with me, usually sitting near, if not right on, my current opus....
.......just in case he needs to fend off any quilt thieves who might be skulking nearby. Or.....maybe he just enjoys hanging out with geniuses! And when it comes to the nuts and bolts, the putting into action of all that brilliant thought, planning, and design, he takes up his position,
watching and marveling, "too proud of me to speak," as Shel Silverstein said.
So what is she blathering on about this time, you're wondering? If you've been here recently, you'll know that my thoughts are full of a little someone in a far off land. I've been holding out on you, teasing you, but, finally, here he is!
A very little someone, barely five days old!
Is he not gorgeous? And huggable? And squeezable? Oops! There go my fingers, itching again!
I knew he was on the way, of course, but not knowing his gender was a bit of a dilemma. At least as far as making him a quilt. I thought I should wait until I knew, but my fingers were itchy. I needed to be making something, for him. Or her.
"What would work for either a girl or a boy?" I asked myself. And that's when I remembered the teddy bears' picnic fabric I'd bought eons ago, because it reminded me of the song. I knew that some day, I'd use it to make a quilt for someone special.
So, I snipped and stitched, and laid it out on the floor in the think tank.
And wasn't sure I liked it much. But kept on stitching. Because of those itchy fingers ...... And when it was together, I thought it needed a narrow green border. But alas! I was a few inches shy of enough green! What to do? Then I remembered I had a teeny, tiny bit of red check left, just enough for four one and a half inch corner posts. Which was enough to solve the problem! I started to like it better.
I folded it up and hied me to the nearest quilt shop. Because no quilt is complete without the perfect border. And to my amazement, found it, right away [I usually have to look much longer.] So home again, home again, jiggety jig.....
and stitched it on, and stood back, and purred with pleasure at how nicely my mitered corners came together. El Pussygato was nearby. We purred together, and agreed it was shaping up nicely.
And then the Refugees from Winter arrived, and there was a flurry of wrestling with the OC, and splashing in the pool with Uncle Bean, and grilling in the sunshine. Then, just as quickly, they vanished down the road to a nest on the beach. But close enough to visit. So, off we went, a few days later, the Bean and I.[The OC could not be pried from his desk.] I had a secret agenda. One I didn't share with the Bean right away. We would be passing a quilt shop I'd heard of, but never been to. Certainly a situation that cried out to be rectified.....And besides, I was on a hunt for backing fabric for some teddy bears.
Loud were the howls of protest when I veered of the beaten path. But I was driving,[possession is nine tenths of the law!] Anyway, I'd only be a minute. Grousing all the way, he came inside with me, the better to enforce the "only a minute [or ten!]" promise.
Then a miracle happened. Perhaps because the name of the shop is Country Quilts and Bears? In sixty seconds flat I'd found the perfect backing fabric. Moda [always good] and fifty percent off!
But, there was one small problem.....There were only two yards and I thought I'd need three. But could not put it down. If I'd hunted all over Florida I couldn't have found a more perfect match. So I took it, determined to perform another miracle. And went to the beach and had a lovely time.
Back home, I tackled the vexing problem of the loaves and fishes.
And found out how brilliant I am!
I had triangles of red and green left over from the square-in-a-square blocks. And had had the foresight to stitch them into half square triangles right away, instead of piling them up to deal with "some day." And stitched the half square triangles into pinwheels....... So there they were, just waiting for the penny to drop with the genius in the driver's seat that they were ready and willing to help with the miracle.
Now all that's left is to decide how to bind it....Red or green?
Aren't all you quilters out there proud of me? I, myself, am pleased as Punch! Psst, if you're as impressed with me as I am, drop a line to those Nobel fellows! I'll be waiting for their call.
Note on the messy think tank: I've heard that creativity thrives on chaos. That's my excuse anyway.......
Friday, March 27, 2009
Oh Boy!
I couldn't talk to Lily last night because, when I called, bursting with news, there was no answer. She and hubby and boys have been refugees from Ohio winter for the past week, at a beach south of here, and, having spent the entire day in the water or on the beach, by nine o'clock they were all sound asleep!
What had I called for at such a late hour, she wondered? {It was barely a quarter to nine when I called!] Could it be to tell me we were moving to Columbus? [Something she's been campaigning for for quite a while!]
Or, wait. Had a baby been born in England?
Aha!
A boy baby?
Oh, wait until the boys hear! Her oldest, who is six [in first grade and very cool] reacted to the news by pumping his fist and saying "Yes!!"
UKGrandma went to see him today. Yes, I am wild with jealousy! But she was very good and sent pictures! Eight+ pounds of sweet baby boy perfection. And of all the days he could have been born on, he choose his mum's birthday! What a lovely birthday present!
So, now you know!
What had I called for at such a late hour, she wondered? {It was barely a quarter to nine when I called!] Could it be to tell me we were moving to Columbus? [Something she's been campaigning for for quite a while!]
Or, wait. Had a baby been born in England?
Aha!
A boy baby?
Oh, wait until the boys hear! Her oldest, who is six [in first grade and very cool] reacted to the news by pumping his fist and saying "Yes!!"
UKGrandma went to see him today. Yes, I am wild with jealousy! But she was very good and sent pictures! Eight+ pounds of sweet baby boy perfection. And of all the days he could have been born on, he choose his mum's birthday! What a lovely birthday present!
So, now you know!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Oh To be In England.....
Oh to be in England, now that baby's [almost] here! Or, more accurately, there.....
The lovebirds are moving into their new nest tomorrow, and the due date is the very next day......As my informant, the on-site granny-to-be, remarked in a recent e-mail update, if that baby is smart he'll stay put as long as possible! But that will be up to the stork, a contrary bird if ever I met one.
Word has it that most observers are predicting it will be a boy. As far as that goes, when I was expecting the daddy-to-be, I was so convinced he would be a girl that he had no name for a week. We lived in Montana at the time, and he was born in mid-summer, thirty two years ago---egad!
I assured the OC that he didn't need to stay home that day. I'd be fine. We still had three days 'til the due date. But I was restless. As soon as he took his dubious leave, I got the urge to vacuum. And rearrange furniture. Beds and tables and couches. Not having enormous lung capacity at the time, I sat down to catch my breath between bouts of heaving, lifting and pushing.
Lily was five and her little brother was two. We had arranged that they would go to a friend's house when the time came....After a little more heaving of furniture, it became obvious that the wait was over. Not wanting to call the OC and have him drive all the way across town to get us, only to turn around and drive back in the same direction, I weighed my options, and decided to pile the little people into the Jeep we had at that time, and drive across town, to Terri's house, myself.
When we were ready to roll, I waited for a contraction, made it through it, then started off down the hill towards town. We made it to the bottom of the hill before the next one. At which time I pulled over, got through it and pulled back out into traffic. Until the next one. And so on, all across town. Drive, pull over, breathe, breathe, breathe, repeat. The OC was waiting with Terri for us. Terri took the little ones under her wing and the OC whisked me off to the hospital, where a couple of hours Britboy was born.
I wrote this on March 19 th. and saved it as a draft. But three hours ago, before I could finish it, we got a phone call.............And that's all I can tell you until tomorrow. Because, if I spill the beans before she knows, Lily will kill me!
I will tell you this much: I'm smiling from ear to ear!
The lovebirds are moving into their new nest tomorrow, and the due date is the very next day......As my informant, the on-site granny-to-be, remarked in a recent e-mail update, if that baby is smart he'll stay put as long as possible! But that will be up to the stork, a contrary bird if ever I met one.
Word has it that most observers are predicting it will be a boy. As far as that goes, when I was expecting the daddy-to-be, I was so convinced he would be a girl that he had no name for a week. We lived in Montana at the time, and he was born in mid-summer, thirty two years ago---egad!
I assured the OC that he didn't need to stay home that day. I'd be fine. We still had three days 'til the due date. But I was restless. As soon as he took his dubious leave, I got the urge to vacuum. And rearrange furniture. Beds and tables and couches. Not having enormous lung capacity at the time, I sat down to catch my breath between bouts of heaving, lifting and pushing.
Lily was five and her little brother was two. We had arranged that they would go to a friend's house when the time came....After a little more heaving of furniture, it became obvious that the wait was over. Not wanting to call the OC and have him drive all the way across town to get us, only to turn around and drive back in the same direction, I weighed my options, and decided to pile the little people into the Jeep we had at that time, and drive across town, to Terri's house, myself.
When we were ready to roll, I waited for a contraction, made it through it, then started off down the hill towards town. We made it to the bottom of the hill before the next one. At which time I pulled over, got through it and pulled back out into traffic. Until the next one. And so on, all across town. Drive, pull over, breathe, breathe, breathe, repeat. The OC was waiting with Terri for us. Terri took the little ones under her wing and the OC whisked me off to the hospital, where a couple of hours Britboy was born.
I wrote this on March 19 th. and saved it as a draft. But three hours ago, before I could finish it, we got a phone call.............And that's all I can tell you until tomorrow. Because, if I spill the beans before she knows, Lily will kill me!
I will tell you this much: I'm smiling from ear to ear!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Life Goes On....
It's been quiet around here. Sometimes I just don't have that much to say. [If I hear a loud "Thunk!" from the direction of his office, I'll know the OC fell out of his chair at that...] Life has settled back down to a quiet routine. I've been writing letters---yes, I occasionally still do that! Doing some applique, since I have gone uncharacteristically ga-ga over Bunny Hill's basket blocks!
Baking Irish soda bread---it IS March after all---and keeping the menfolk fed and supplied with clean socks. The OC is distracted from brooding too much by his killer work load [and I thought when he was working from home things would be so..o..o much more relaxed! Harrrumph to that!]
I've been itching to write, but inspiration's been lacking. Which, I know, means I should just start randomly writing whatever comes into my head and see where it takes me. But I haven't even been moved to try.
So I came to my sewing room, balm for all sorts of troubles, and picked up my stitching.
Have I mentioned how much I love my sewing room? Love being able to leave my work out, so I can pick it up and continue from where I left off, without having to pass an act of Parliament every time? Apart from that, it's the most pleasant room in the house, with a big sliding door to the outdoors. Sunny and cheerful and bright. If my feathers are ruffled I can come in here, close the door, shut the world out and recover my composure.
Time was when I would lock myself in the bathroom to escape the bedlam. And even then the natives would continue the argument through the door, completely ignoring what I had, naively, thought was an unmistakable hint...... A room of my own was a distant fantasy! Granted, it's a little disorganized, but I'm working on that.
The natives, all but one, have trickled slowly away, each to chase dreams of their own. And sometimes, believe it or not, it is a little too quiet.....But shhhh! One has to be careful what one wishes for. If one craves excitement, one might get more of it than one can handle. It's been known to happen. And then, too late, one appreciates the beauty of a quiet life.
But I digress. Which is part of my charm, though there are those who would vehemently disagree, those who want only the facts, not being interested in exploring the little verbal byways into which I seem irresistibly drawn. If you are a facts-only seeker, you're in the wrong place. Go away! You'll just get a headache.
So, where was I? Ah, yes, stitching. I can see everything from here; the Bean on his knees, working away on extending the barbeque patio,[worthy of a post of it's own!]; El Pussygato, attentively watching from inside the screen the busyness of a certain dove outside. At first I am only dimly aware of the dove. He is just a few feet from where the Bean is working, unperturbed by his proximity, or by the occasional screech of electric saw on concrete paver. Each time I glance up he is there, on the wall, or under the tree, and eventually, curiosity brings me to my feet and I go outside to investigate.
The dove is not at all bothered by the arrival of another human. He is intent on his business, which, I soon realize, is the building of a nest! Do you remember the "penthouse in the palm tree" from last Spring? Well, it appears that the accommodations and the locality were satisfactory, certain hair-raising events notwithstanding, so they are back this year, to the very same tree, preparing for another batch of dove-lets, and all the work that that entails.
I sit down on the pavers, just inches away from him, and watch as he gathers the
choicest twigs. He then flies up into the palm tree and delivers the goods to the waiting beak of Mrs. Dove! She appears to be in charge of the actual construction. Which, I think, is a very sensible division of labour. After all, if men were given their heads in the design process, our houses would be fifty percent garage space, 30 percent television viewing space, and the kitchen, bath and bedrooms would have to fit into what was left. Sensible Mrs. Dove!
I was struck by the comforting reliability of nature; the certainty that, no matter how dreary the winter, Spring will come; the dependability of little creatures to be so in sync with the universe that they know exactly what they have to do, the best time to do it, and, most importantly, how to do it!
How often, in the past, have I watched wistfully as a gaunt mother bird has tirelessly foraged for worms and bugs to feed a monster baby, twice her size, who relentlessly follows her about the garden, doing nothing with his own beak but squawking at mama, and holding it open while she stuffs it with worms?
And empathized!
Or watched the perilous flight training sessions, where baby birds are prodded by mama and papa into death defying leaps from the nest.
And wished I were wired with such unerring instincts!
Sometimes the babies don't understand that there are predators out there [oh, how El Pussygato wishes he could get outside to be one of them!] and little birdies need to be fast learners if they wish to become big birdies! But mama is always nearby, keeping a steely eye on any would-be predators.
"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven."
"A time to be born and a time to die."
Maria has gone to a well deserved rest, but soon it will be "a time to be born" as our Brit-boy and his Beloved await the birth of their first child, our fifth grandchild. So, the wheels keep turning....Though there are times to weep and times to mourn, there are also times to laugh and times to dance. Each one has its place in the crazy quilt of life.
Rebirth is everywhere. Our lemon tree, that looked like a goner from our unusually cold winter, is suddenly covered with tiny, new green leaves! And The Bean's blueberry patch looks like it might produce enough berries for a pie. Or two. If we can get them before the birds do!
So, yes, it's been quiet around here. We're regrouping. Taking comfort from the rythms of nature, confident that the universe is unfolding exactly as it should.
Baking Irish soda bread---it IS March after all---and keeping the menfolk fed and supplied with clean socks. The OC is distracted from brooding too much by his killer work load [and I thought when he was working from home things would be so..o..o much more relaxed! Harrrumph to that!]
I've been itching to write, but inspiration's been lacking. Which, I know, means I should just start randomly writing whatever comes into my head and see where it takes me. But I haven't even been moved to try.
So I came to my sewing room, balm for all sorts of troubles, and picked up my stitching.
Have I mentioned how much I love my sewing room? Love being able to leave my work out, so I can pick it up and continue from where I left off, without having to pass an act of Parliament every time? Apart from that, it's the most pleasant room in the house, with a big sliding door to the outdoors. Sunny and cheerful and bright. If my feathers are ruffled I can come in here, close the door, shut the world out and recover my composure.
Time was when I would lock myself in the bathroom to escape the bedlam. And even then the natives would continue the argument through the door, completely ignoring what I had, naively, thought was an unmistakable hint...... A room of my own was a distant fantasy! Granted, it's a little disorganized, but I'm working on that.
The natives, all but one, have trickled slowly away, each to chase dreams of their own. And sometimes, believe it or not, it is a little too quiet.....But shhhh! One has to be careful what one wishes for. If one craves excitement, one might get more of it than one can handle. It's been known to happen. And then, too late, one appreciates the beauty of a quiet life.
But I digress. Which is part of my charm, though there are those who would vehemently disagree, those who want only the facts, not being interested in exploring the little verbal byways into which I seem irresistibly drawn. If you are a facts-only seeker, you're in the wrong place. Go away! You'll just get a headache.
So, where was I? Ah, yes, stitching. I can see everything from here; the Bean on his knees, working away on extending the barbeque patio,[worthy of a post of it's own!]; El Pussygato, attentively watching from inside the screen the busyness of a certain dove outside. At first I am only dimly aware of the dove. He is just a few feet from where the Bean is working, unperturbed by his proximity, or by the occasional screech of electric saw on concrete paver. Each time I glance up he is there, on the wall, or under the tree, and eventually, curiosity brings me to my feet and I go outside to investigate.
The dove is not at all bothered by the arrival of another human. He is intent on his business, which, I soon realize, is the building of a nest! Do you remember the "penthouse in the palm tree" from last Spring? Well, it appears that the accommodations and the locality were satisfactory, certain hair-raising events notwithstanding, so they are back this year, to the very same tree, preparing for another batch of dove-lets, and all the work that that entails.
I sit down on the pavers, just inches away from him, and watch as he gathers the
choicest twigs. He then flies up into the palm tree and delivers the goods to the waiting beak of Mrs. Dove! She appears to be in charge of the actual construction. Which, I think, is a very sensible division of labour. After all, if men were given their heads in the design process, our houses would be fifty percent garage space, 30 percent television viewing space, and the kitchen, bath and bedrooms would have to fit into what was left. Sensible Mrs. Dove!
I was struck by the comforting reliability of nature; the certainty that, no matter how dreary the winter, Spring will come; the dependability of little creatures to be so in sync with the universe that they know exactly what they have to do, the best time to do it, and, most importantly, how to do it!
How often, in the past, have I watched wistfully as a gaunt mother bird has tirelessly foraged for worms and bugs to feed a monster baby, twice her size, who relentlessly follows her about the garden, doing nothing with his own beak but squawking at mama, and holding it open while she stuffs it with worms?
And empathized!
Or watched the perilous flight training sessions, where baby birds are prodded by mama and papa into death defying leaps from the nest.
And wished I were wired with such unerring instincts!
Sometimes the babies don't understand that there are predators out there [oh, how El Pussygato wishes he could get outside to be one of them!] and little birdies need to be fast learners if they wish to become big birdies! But mama is always nearby, keeping a steely eye on any would-be predators.
"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven."
"A time to be born and a time to die."
Maria has gone to a well deserved rest, but soon it will be "a time to be born" as our Brit-boy and his Beloved await the birth of their first child, our fifth grandchild. So, the wheels keep turning....Though there are times to weep and times to mourn, there are also times to laugh and times to dance. Each one has its place in the crazy quilt of life.
Rebirth is everywhere. Our lemon tree, that looked like a goner from our unusually cold winter, is suddenly covered with tiny, new green leaves! And The Bean's blueberry patch looks like it might produce enough berries for a pie. Or two. If we can get them before the birds do!
So, yes, it's been quiet around here. We're regrouping. Taking comfort from the rythms of nature, confident that the universe is unfolding exactly as it should.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Mother, Mother, I Am Sick, Send For The Doctor, Quick, Quick, Quick!
It was three forty five---A.M.---when I finally crawled into bed. The challenge top was finished, sandwiched, ditch stitched. Two sides of the binding were stitched down. And my eyes felt like two holes burned in a blanket by a chain smoker with palsy. Shortly after six a.m. [having not exactly bounced out of bed] I stumbled towards the shower.
I think it was my son-in-law who said a shower is as good as three more hours of sleep. Let the record show I am not convinced!
On to the kitchen. Must have tea! Locate needle. And thread. Stitch down curves on four corners. Stab finger repeatedly with needle. Curse softly under breath when pesky knot forms and will not be undone except by scissors. Necessitating waste of five more precious minutes, struggling to re-thread what seems like rope through the tiny eye of the needle.
Make mental note to call psychiatrist in afternoon for earliest possible appointment to have head examined.
Time racing by. Dash to bedroom. What to wear? No time for dithering. Grab hundred year old green dress. Pull over head. Good call. One piece of clothing. One problem solved. Add blue batik scarf. "Blue and green should never be seen," the boys jeered at me. So now I wear them together just to be contrary.
Friend coming by at nine. Gather bits and pieces. Go wait in driveway. No sign yet. Plop down on ground. Whip out sewing. Five minutes of stitching is five minutes of progress. Cars passing by must wonder about loon in green dress sitting sewing in middle of driveway. But a woman's got to do what a woman's got to do. And this woman signed up for the 2009 guild challenge*. Which must be handed over in half an hour.
Which begs the question: Why do I do things like this? Is it because of the rocks in my head?? One can only speculate.....
Finally, friend's car turns into driveway. Early morning quiet suddenly shattered by loud cackling. Laughing her head off at sight she beholds. Racket brings OC to door to see what disturbance is about. Shakes head bemusedly upon finding that now there are two loons in front of his house, where before there'd been only one.
Friend drives, I stitch. Five minutes from destination last stitch is in. Done!! Hand it in at door in prescribed anonymous paper bag. Guild meeting proceeds while challenge organizers hang entries at back of hall.
Time to vote! Best of show goes, hands down, to our resident super-quilter/amazing artist/creative genius, Shirley. Her entry is a symphony of exquisite design and workmanship. Think I'm exaggerating? Have a look:
And then there were the rest of us. But not enough of us. I, for example, won a first place ribbon in my category--machine-pieced, hand appliqued. Hold your gasps of admiration. Mine was the only entrant in that category. Makes it a little less impressive, no? How could I not win? Similar tales in other categories.
So, the challenge was disappointing this year, since there were so few entries. But it was not wasted effort. The whole creative process of fabric selection, designing, redesigning, and putting together an original creation in cloth, produces its own exhilarating high. Its been a few days. I'm finally coming down. And now, after the fact, I'm going to hand quilt it. But slowly! And not sitting on cold concrete in the driveway.....
*Note for quilters:The challenge was to construct a quilt, minimum size 26" square, using a recognizable amount of the challenge fabric and up to 5 additional fabrics, in a design that included a star pattern into which participants had to incorporate a nine-patch. Many found it a bit daunting, hence the poor participation.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Maria
A golden half moon was still high in the navy blue sky when I tip-toed from the house. The OC had left at 5 a.m. to take Lily to the airport, back to her boys. But there were sons and grandchildren still sleeping within. I'd tried, but sleep would not come back, so, off to the trees with me to quiet the internal din.
I hugged my sweater 'round me in the damp and chilly air and walked. The birds were waking up, alerting sleepyheads to the arrival of a new day. As I walked, the sky was quickly paling from navy to ever-lighter blue. The first few arrows of sunlight shot between the pines.
The moon still hung in the remnants of the night, and I wondered.
"Is she watching from way up there?"
Can she see her children, how their hearts are breaking? Can she, from so far away, comfort them, when no one else can?
Now that she is finally free, can she watch over the man she married sixty four years ago? Protect him from himself, from his anger at the world, from his bitterness? Console him when he seems inconsolable? He seemed, all those years, to be the strong one. But now, in the cold light of dawn, I realize he was not.
Maria was the rock, the strength, the heart of her family. She just let him think it was him.
And now she's gone.
May she rest in peace.
I hugged my sweater 'round me in the damp and chilly air and walked. The birds were waking up, alerting sleepyheads to the arrival of a new day. As I walked, the sky was quickly paling from navy to ever-lighter blue. The first few arrows of sunlight shot between the pines.
The moon still hung in the remnants of the night, and I wondered.
"Is she watching from way up there?"
Can she see her children, how their hearts are breaking? Can she, from so far away, comfort them, when no one else can?
Now that she is finally free, can she watch over the man she married sixty four years ago? Protect him from himself, from his anger at the world, from his bitterness? Console him when he seems inconsolable? He seemed, all those years, to be the strong one. But now, in the cold light of dawn, I realize he was not.
Maria was the rock, the strength, the heart of her family. She just let him think it was him.
And now she's gone.
May she rest in peace.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Question #2
Friends, Romans [Down-unders!Hope you're all safe!] and Bloggers, lend me your ears! If you are reading this it means you haven't completely given up on me! Thank you for your patience Rhubarb, Fifi et al. My 89 year old mother-in-law, Maria, is getting weaker every day, and the hospice nurse doesn't think it will be much longer. I've been spending more time with her, as I would hate for her to die without one of us there to hold her hand, so she knows she is loved.
My answer to Rhubarb's second question is long and meandering, the kind of wandering in the laneways of my alleged mind that drives my beloved OC straight up the wall! But he doesn't have to read it. I just thought it was a chance to get that story down. So for any one who's interested, here it is.
Rhubarb's question:
2. Tell me about one person with whom you’ve lost touch. If you hope for a reunion, how would you like that reunion to take place?
There are a few friends with whom I've lost touch over the years, but Miriam is the one I'd most like to re-connect with.
If life had gone according to plan I never would have met her. I had just finished my teacher training course and the OC, who was then merely a curmudgeon-in-training, had been trying to organize a teaching job for me in the States. I'd been dubious about this since we weren't yet married. What would the living arrangements be? Co-habitation was for loose women in trashy novels. I was not volunteering to become a loose woman! And certainly wouldn't want my living arrangements to be cause for blushing if they should come to the ears of The Mag!
Fate poked her nose in and settled the problem. Between visas and work permits and teacher certification, it couldn't be done,. At least not that summer.
My parents breathed a sigh of relief.
And I started pouring over the classifieds.
It was late summer and most teaching jobs were filled. But I couldn't just lie around at my parents' house like Lady Muck. I finally found a job at a vocational school close to the border with Northern Ireland.
Mother went into organizational overdrive. Packed me up, emphasis on sensible shoes and frumpy tweed skirts. No frippery. Loaded the car, and off we motored to parts unknown. With myself sitting dazedly in the passenger seat, five hours nonstop, until we reached the sleepy little town where I was soon to be imparting wisdom, or a facsimile thereof, to the young and the innocent.
Whoa! Who? Me? Surely I myself was too young and innocent to be entrusted with such a task. What did I know about teaching anyone anything? They'd find me out and expose me for an impostor! Don't leave me, mother dear.....!
Leave me she did, heartless woman! But not right away. We stayed a few nights at the local hotel in the town square. There, on the first night, we met another new teacher. Miriam was her name. She was tall and willowy, with wavy auburn hair, and an intellectual, yet elegant air.
I was intimidated. Mother was charmed. And when she did leave she was confident that Miriam would keep an eye on me.
I was twenty one, and still wet behind the ears. Miriam was thirty one and already an experienced teacher. But she'd gotten in a rut with her last job and was looking for new adventures.
That was how we met. Which makes me think that life is not just a random series of events.
Neither of us could afford to live at the local inn for long, so we set out to find lodgings. Cheap lodgings. By some happy chance, we met Mrs. K, recently widowed, a tiny, prim little woman, living alone in a big house, up the hill next to the cathedral.
She was dubious at first. Nervous about embarking on something she'd never done before. But she decided to take a chance, and we became "Mrs K's girls." I think she'd been lonely. Having us around gave her a purpose again. She made us breakfast every morning before school. When we climbed back up the hill at noon, she had dinner waiting. At six she served us supper. In the winter she made sure the sitting room had a cozy fire going when we came home from school. When her neighbours' sons came calling, she got all twittery and flirty and coy! She loved the arrangement and so did we! We even persuaded her to let us get a puppy, when a friend's dog had a litter. We called him Tara.
Despite the age difference, Miriam and I hit it off amazingly well. After a few weeks, I felt we'd been friends all our lives. For me, it was like having an older sister. Sometimes we'd stop by the hotel after school and Miriam would order a Guinness. I thought it was disgusting slop, but her doctor had told her that a pint of Guinness a day would help her to gain a little weight, since she was very thin!
Sometimes, on weekends we'd take the bus to Armagh, over the border, to go shopping. A couple of times we went to Dublin, and even though I'd gone to college there, the shopping was all new since, when I'd been there as a student I'd never had two pennies to rub together, never mind shopping at the likes of Arnott's of Grafton Street!
Still, I was by no means wealthy. After paying rent to Mrs. K, incidental expenses like shampoo and toothpaste, and replacement of frumpy skirts and sensible shoes, there wasn't much left for bus or train fares. So,I persuaded Miriam to hitch hike home with me a couple of times. It was always a hair raising adventure. Even though she loved visiting my mother, I think one of the main reasons she came along was so I wouldn't go off on such a foolish venture alone. That's the kind of friend she was. And that's the kind of stubborn donkey I was. We met some really creepy characters. But lived to tell the tale.
We went to local dances together. A few times when, in my gaucheness, I was in danger of making a total ass of myself, she'd pull me aside and whisper some terse, big-sisterly advice in my ear. Sometimes I listened, sometimes not. When I didn't I usually wished later that I had! Every time new female teachers arrive in a small town like that, it causes a bit of a stir among the locals. Peader was one such. He set his sights on Miriam. He was middle aged and well heeled, but a rake at heart. Miriam was very proper. And very picky. She was always hoping to meet Mr. Right, but she had high standards and wasn't likely to settle for the likes of Peader R!
"The unclaimed treasure" she liked to call herself.
Before we knew it, that year had flown by. June came and with it goodbyes and hugs and tears all around. Mother motored back up the country to retrieve me and we all had a lovely day together, mother, Mrs. K, Miriam, me......and Tara. Our little landlady was daft,in her own prim way, about that lovable mutt! We had agreed that he would stay on as her lodger!
Miriam and I met once again in August, when she came to our wedding, wearing a stunning hat and looking elegant and willowy, as usual.
She moved to the west and bought a house by the sea. We wrote letters back and forth, and when I came home for a visit with my eighteen month old daughter, we met and had lunch together, and she marveled at, and cooed over my beautiful baby. She was still an unclaimed treasure. Stupid Irishmen. Can't recognize pearls when they're under their noses!
More babies came along and my letter writing skills fell into disrepair. But we connected, sort of, one more time, in the summer of 1989. The OC had gone ahead of us to his new assignment in Germany, and the children and I were spending some time with my sister and her family in Ireland before joining him. I contacted Miriam and we arranged a day to meet. I was to bring my offspring along for her inspection and we'd all spend the day together, enjoying the bracing air at Salthill.
Great plan. But you know how great plans go. This was before cell phones, and the phone system in Ireland at the time, was nothing short of antiquated.
The fabled GB was traveling to Salthill, on business, on the appointed day, and packed us all into his car, bright and early, and disgorged us in Eyre Square a few hours later and went about his business. I wasn't familiar with Galway, so we streeled around looking for a bus to Salthill. It may have been summer, but someone had forgotten to tell the weathermen we were coming and the west of Ireland should be on its best behaviour and arrange for some warm and balmy weather. It was raw and blustery and the children were restless. The sixteen year old, the same that Miriam had bounced on her knee when last we met, was in eye rolling mode; just a little bit annoyed with this latest hare-brained scheme of her mother's. The two year old didn't like being squeezed into the stroller, and those in between were still hoping this would turn into an adventure.
It did. But not quite the kind they had in mind.
We found a bus, paid our fares and trundled off to Salthill. We telephoned Miriam, but no-one answered. So we set off on foot from where the bus deposited us, to find her house. At last we were on her street, and there was her house.
With a note on the door, full of apologies. She had forgotten that she had to go to a funeral that day! And the phone system being what it was, and her having lost my sister's phone number, and the Bawn-lets getting increasingly dissatisfied with the shape of the day, Molly was not in danger of winning mother of the year!
Hugging our inadequate sweaters about us, we decided to walk along the promenade, or rather, we were buffeted briskly along by the blustery wind. We found a pub selling sandwiches and fed the hungry and disgruntled, and thusly occupied ourselves 'til GB met us at the appointed place for the thrilling ride home.
After that, having no car in which to get about, I gave up any notion of meeting with Miriam. We may have exchanged a few more letters, but gradually, as one does, we lost touch.
Next time I'm home I may give it another try. Assuming she's still around. If I found that she was, I'd want to meet her in Salthill....On a blue-skied, blustery day. We'd walk along the promenade, arm in arm, bundled in warm jackets and woolly scarves against that bracing, salty air. And talk about old times, when we were young, about Peader and others, about how fast that year flew by, how fast our lives flew by, before we learned to savour the sweet moments that are here, and then poof! They're gone.
My answer to Rhubarb's second question is long and meandering, the kind of wandering in the laneways of my alleged mind that drives my beloved OC straight up the wall! But he doesn't have to read it. I just thought it was a chance to get that story down. So for any one who's interested, here it is.
Rhubarb's question:
2. Tell me about one person with whom you’ve lost touch. If you hope for a reunion, how would you like that reunion to take place?
There are a few friends with whom I've lost touch over the years, but Miriam is the one I'd most like to re-connect with.
If life had gone according to plan I never would have met her. I had just finished my teacher training course and the OC, who was then merely a curmudgeon-in-training, had been trying to organize a teaching job for me in the States. I'd been dubious about this since we weren't yet married. What would the living arrangements be? Co-habitation was for loose women in trashy novels. I was not volunteering to become a loose woman! And certainly wouldn't want my living arrangements to be cause for blushing if they should come to the ears of The Mag!
Fate poked her nose in and settled the problem. Between visas and work permits and teacher certification, it couldn't be done,. At least not that summer.
My parents breathed a sigh of relief.
And I started pouring over the classifieds.
It was late summer and most teaching jobs were filled. But I couldn't just lie around at my parents' house like Lady Muck. I finally found a job at a vocational school close to the border with Northern Ireland.
Mother went into organizational overdrive. Packed me up, emphasis on sensible shoes and frumpy tweed skirts. No frippery. Loaded the car, and off we motored to parts unknown. With myself sitting dazedly in the passenger seat, five hours nonstop, until we reached the sleepy little town where I was soon to be imparting wisdom, or a facsimile thereof, to the young and the innocent.
Whoa! Who? Me? Surely I myself was too young and innocent to be entrusted with such a task. What did I know about teaching anyone anything? They'd find me out and expose me for an impostor! Don't leave me, mother dear.....!
Leave me she did, heartless woman! But not right away. We stayed a few nights at the local hotel in the town square. There, on the first night, we met another new teacher. Miriam was her name. She was tall and willowy, with wavy auburn hair, and an intellectual, yet elegant air.
I was intimidated. Mother was charmed. And when she did leave she was confident that Miriam would keep an eye on me.
I was twenty one, and still wet behind the ears. Miriam was thirty one and already an experienced teacher. But she'd gotten in a rut with her last job and was looking for new adventures.
That was how we met. Which makes me think that life is not just a random series of events.
Neither of us could afford to live at the local inn for long, so we set out to find lodgings. Cheap lodgings. By some happy chance, we met Mrs. K, recently widowed, a tiny, prim little woman, living alone in a big house, up the hill next to the cathedral.
She was dubious at first. Nervous about embarking on something she'd never done before. But she decided to take a chance, and we became "Mrs K's girls." I think she'd been lonely. Having us around gave her a purpose again. She made us breakfast every morning before school. When we climbed back up the hill at noon, she had dinner waiting. At six she served us supper. In the winter she made sure the sitting room had a cozy fire going when we came home from school. When her neighbours' sons came calling, she got all twittery and flirty and coy! She loved the arrangement and so did we! We even persuaded her to let us get a puppy, when a friend's dog had a litter. We called him Tara.
Despite the age difference, Miriam and I hit it off amazingly well. After a few weeks, I felt we'd been friends all our lives. For me, it was like having an older sister. Sometimes we'd stop by the hotel after school and Miriam would order a Guinness. I thought it was disgusting slop, but her doctor had told her that a pint of Guinness a day would help her to gain a little weight, since she was very thin!
Sometimes, on weekends we'd take the bus to Armagh, over the border, to go shopping. A couple of times we went to Dublin, and even though I'd gone to college there, the shopping was all new since, when I'd been there as a student I'd never had two pennies to rub together, never mind shopping at the likes of Arnott's of Grafton Street!
Still, I was by no means wealthy. After paying rent to Mrs. K, incidental expenses like shampoo and toothpaste, and replacement of frumpy skirts and sensible shoes, there wasn't much left for bus or train fares. So,I persuaded Miriam to hitch hike home with me a couple of times. It was always a hair raising adventure. Even though she loved visiting my mother, I think one of the main reasons she came along was so I wouldn't go off on such a foolish venture alone. That's the kind of friend she was. And that's the kind of stubborn donkey I was. We met some really creepy characters. But lived to tell the tale.
We went to local dances together. A few times when, in my gaucheness, I was in danger of making a total ass of myself, she'd pull me aside and whisper some terse, big-sisterly advice in my ear. Sometimes I listened, sometimes not. When I didn't I usually wished later that I had! Every time new female teachers arrive in a small town like that, it causes a bit of a stir among the locals. Peader was one such. He set his sights on Miriam. He was middle aged and well heeled, but a rake at heart. Miriam was very proper. And very picky. She was always hoping to meet Mr. Right, but she had high standards and wasn't likely to settle for the likes of Peader R!
"The unclaimed treasure" she liked to call herself.
Before we knew it, that year had flown by. June came and with it goodbyes and hugs and tears all around. Mother motored back up the country to retrieve me and we all had a lovely day together, mother, Mrs. K, Miriam, me......and Tara. Our little landlady was daft,in her own prim way, about that lovable mutt! We had agreed that he would stay on as her lodger!
Miriam and I met once again in August, when she came to our wedding, wearing a stunning hat and looking elegant and willowy, as usual.
She moved to the west and bought a house by the sea. We wrote letters back and forth, and when I came home for a visit with my eighteen month old daughter, we met and had lunch together, and she marveled at, and cooed over my beautiful baby. She was still an unclaimed treasure. Stupid Irishmen. Can't recognize pearls when they're under their noses!
More babies came along and my letter writing skills fell into disrepair. But we connected, sort of, one more time, in the summer of 1989. The OC had gone ahead of us to his new assignment in Germany, and the children and I were spending some time with my sister and her family in Ireland before joining him. I contacted Miriam and we arranged a day to meet. I was to bring my offspring along for her inspection and we'd all spend the day together, enjoying the bracing air at Salthill.
Great plan. But you know how great plans go. This was before cell phones, and the phone system in Ireland at the time, was nothing short of antiquated.
The fabled GB was traveling to Salthill, on business, on the appointed day, and packed us all into his car, bright and early, and disgorged us in Eyre Square a few hours later and went about his business. I wasn't familiar with Galway, so we streeled around looking for a bus to Salthill. It may have been summer, but someone had forgotten to tell the weathermen we were coming and the west of Ireland should be on its best behaviour and arrange for some warm and balmy weather. It was raw and blustery and the children were restless. The sixteen year old, the same that Miriam had bounced on her knee when last we met, was in eye rolling mode; just a little bit annoyed with this latest hare-brained scheme of her mother's. The two year old didn't like being squeezed into the stroller, and those in between were still hoping this would turn into an adventure.
It did. But not quite the kind they had in mind.
We found a bus, paid our fares and trundled off to Salthill. We telephoned Miriam, but no-one answered. So we set off on foot from where the bus deposited us, to find her house. At last we were on her street, and there was her house.
With a note on the door, full of apologies. She had forgotten that she had to go to a funeral that day! And the phone system being what it was, and her having lost my sister's phone number, and the Bawn-lets getting increasingly dissatisfied with the shape of the day, Molly was not in danger of winning mother of the year!
Hugging our inadequate sweaters about us, we decided to walk along the promenade, or rather, we were buffeted briskly along by the blustery wind. We found a pub selling sandwiches and fed the hungry and disgruntled, and thusly occupied ourselves 'til GB met us at the appointed place for the thrilling ride home.
After that, having no car in which to get about, I gave up any notion of meeting with Miriam. We may have exchanged a few more letters, but gradually, as one does, we lost touch.
Next time I'm home I may give it another try. Assuming she's still around. If I found that she was, I'd want to meet her in Salthill....On a blue-skied, blustery day. We'd walk along the promenade, arm in arm, bundled in warm jackets and woolly scarves against that bracing, salty air. And talk about old times, when we were young, about Peader and others, about how fast that year flew by, how fast our lives flew by, before we learned to savour the sweet moments that are here, and then poof! They're gone.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Rhubarb's interview.....First question
Rhubarb Whine recently tossed out an offer to interview any readers brave/foolhardy enough to risk it. As soon as I put up my impetuous hand I wanted to grab it back down. But, too late! She'd already spotted it. I need not have fretted however. No attempts were made to coax skeletons out of my closet or to make me reveal my deepest, darkest secrets. Shirley put a lot of thought into her questions and I was eager to jump right in and start answering them.
But the flesh is weak.
That was more than a week ago.
Procrastination is not my middle name for nothing!
I love to tell a story and she has given me not one, but several opportunities to do so.....
These are the questions:
1. Readers know you are of Irish heritage, and were educated by nuns. You have said 'their ghosts haunt you still'. Share with us a memory of that time that has had a strong impact on how you live your life today.
2. Tell me about one person with whom you’ve lost touch. If you hope for a reunion, how would you like that reunion to take place?
3. Your love of books and reading is apparent. What genres and authors are your ultimate favourites, and why? Fiction or non fiction?
4. If you were recuperating in a hospital and expected a long stay, who would you want in the bed next to you, excluding relatives?
5. Left field question, to finish on a lighter note: This question requires a little more work on your part. You have five minutes to go through your house and find one object that reveals a lot about you to people who know you, but would tell nothing about you to the rest of the world. Post a picture of that object.
See what I mean about opportunities to spin yarns? I think I hear the OC groaning! His life's mission is to get me to give him the condensed version. Of anything. You'd think, after almost forty years, he'd accept the fact that I'm just not genetically wired for verbal brevity. But he keeps hoping.
Aggie and Her Flock of Little Lambs.....
When I was in secondary school there was an evil plot between the nuns and our parents. It's stated object was to provide us with a quiet, distraction-free setting in which to do our homework. It's unstated effect was to ensure that we had no life! The evil plot was Evening Study. It was optional, but my parents, being conscientious souls, wanted to give me every advantage.
School got out at four. We hared home on our bicycles, had a bite to eat, changed out of our school uniforms and cycled back for Evening Study from five to seven. First, the inevitable prayer. Then, heads down to work. If you had a question you could go,[quietly!] to the supervising teacher's desk to ask for help. On the evening in question, Sister Mary Agnes was our jailer. Her chiseled, chalky face gazed out over our bent heads. If she suspected that you were the source of any stifled snorts or snickering, she squashed you with a glare.
I was seated in the middle of the room. Half way through the monotony I heard a chair scrape in the silence, as a girl somewhere behind me got up. Passing my desk, she flashed me a quick peek at something she was holding in her pocket. I perked up instantly! It looked like one of the monthly 64-pagers we loved to read. Stories of schoolgirls, like ourselves, getting into and out of all kinds of scrapes and adventures! They were about the size of Reader's Digest and half as thick. I patiently waited while Mary W conducted her business with Aggie. When she turned and started back to her desk, she grinned at me. Grinning back, I motioned for her to slip the 64-pager to me as she went by. I was looking forward to a little diversion.....
As soon as I had it in my hot little fist I knew I'd made a horrible mistake. It was a 64-pager alright, but not the kind I'd expected from my fleeting glimpse. Now that I had it, I heartily wished I didn't. It was a 64-pager version of what my mother called a "penny dreadful." To wit, a bodice ripper! Complete with sultry, scantily clad beauty in the arms of muscle bound Lothario on its cover. The setting seemed to be a dark and stormy night......
I was panic stricken! And Aggie was already sniffing the air, nostrils flaring, smelling fear....I was a goner! Another chair scraped the floor in the silence, as Aggie, a monument of a woman, stood. She knew she had me this time! [It wasn't the first time Aggie and I had tangled.] Never taking her eyes from my face, she came at me with slow, deliberate steps, habit swishing, beads clicking out my doom. I had shoved the offending material into the middle of a book I wasn't using, and was striving for a cool, nonchalant air, totally defeated by my blazing cheeks. At my desk, she stopped. And towered. Aggie was six feet tall if she was an inch! And held out her hand. I feigned innocence, and puzzlement. To no avail. Unwillingly I handed over the evidence, mumbling about how I'd had no idea it was THAT kind of 64 pager.
Aggie turned on her heel, clutching her prize, and returned to her desk. She looked like the cat that got the cream. She didn't like me and I didn't like her. She was exultant.I was miserable.
But you can't keep a good woman [or an idiot] down. Next evening I was full of the joys again. In the middle of evening study I was taking a wee [unscheduled] break. Having a little chat, whisper, whisper, giggle, giggle with the girl behind me. She said something funny and I threw my head back in silent laughter...................And, glancing at the little window in the upper half of the classroom door, met the quiet, reproachful gaze of The Mag. The foolish laugh froze in my throat. I wanted to die. Take me now Lord. I'm sorry for all my sins. Just take me now. Make it quick and save me from a slow, tortuous death by humiliation.
But of course He didn't listen to me. There was to be no quick and painless escape.
Sister Margaret L. was the headmistress. She was a gracious, scrupulously fair personage whom I greatly admired and whom I desperately wanted to have a good opinion of me....
I died a thousand mini deaths while she knocked softly on the door; while Aggie jumped officiously to attention; while The Mag walked silently to Aggie's desk and spoke a few words in her ear; while Aggie triumphantly called me to the front of the room,her voice high pitched and tremulous in victory; while The Mag quietly bade me follow her; while I walked behind her, down endless, echoing corridors, to her office; while she graciously motioned for me to sit. Which was a mercy, since my quaking knees were on the point of buckling......
The next fifteen minutes were the most miserable I had lived through yet in my fourteen years. I don't remember details. But, not one to assume she knew the whole story based on Aggie's reportage, The Mag asked me to recount the entire miserable tale, in my own words. It was not a complicated tale. The only complications came from how I felt about being the hapless twit caught in flagrante delicto. I sniveled and wept my way through the sorry tale. She murmured something about being disappointed in me; about having expected better from me; about how she didn't think my parents would approve of my reading such trashy stories etc., etc.
As an adult, I think she might have had a hard time trying to suppress the urge to laugh [if I'd been in her shoes I would have!] There might have been a touch of sadism in it all too. They enjoyed making us squirm! In religion class, when we touched on vocations, the Big One was being called to the religious life. Of course they hastened to assure us that marriage was also a noble calling. But not quite as noble, you got the unmistakable feeling, as nun-hood or priesthood. Because of all the messy, unmentionable physical goings on don't you know!
To my surprise,[and disappointment,] I did not melt into a grease spot on the seat of that chair in the Mag's office; neither did I expire from the weight of the humiliation. I was conscious, and over-heated, and acutely embarrassed for every excruciatingly minute of it.
And what did I learn?
I learned that if I was to survive in life, I should take care not to involve myself in any activities that I would not want The Mag to know about! Of course she has long since gone to her eternal reward, but the lesson lingers on. If something would make me ashamed, were anyone I loved or respected to find out about it, then it's probably something I shouldn't be doing in the first place. So I don't.
I still have four more questions to answer, but if you'd like to join in, just say so in the comment box, and I will dream up five questions just for you. You can then post answers on your blog, along with these rules and an invitation to interview anyone else who raises their hand! I'll try to make my questions as interesting for you as Rhubarb made mine for me!
But the flesh is weak.
That was more than a week ago.
Procrastination is not my middle name for nothing!
I love to tell a story and she has given me not one, but several opportunities to do so.....
These are the questions:
1. Readers know you are of Irish heritage, and were educated by nuns. You have said 'their ghosts haunt you still'. Share with us a memory of that time that has had a strong impact on how you live your life today.
2. Tell me about one person with whom you’ve lost touch. If you hope for a reunion, how would you like that reunion to take place?
3. Your love of books and reading is apparent. What genres and authors are your ultimate favourites, and why? Fiction or non fiction?
4. If you were recuperating in a hospital and expected a long stay, who would you want in the bed next to you, excluding relatives?
5. Left field question, to finish on a lighter note: This question requires a little more work on your part. You have five minutes to go through your house and find one object that reveals a lot about you to people who know you, but would tell nothing about you to the rest of the world. Post a picture of that object.
See what I mean about opportunities to spin yarns? I think I hear the OC groaning! His life's mission is to get me to give him the condensed version. Of anything. You'd think, after almost forty years, he'd accept the fact that I'm just not genetically wired for verbal brevity. But he keeps hoping.
Aggie and Her Flock of Little Lambs.....
When I was in secondary school there was an evil plot between the nuns and our parents. It's stated object was to provide us with a quiet, distraction-free setting in which to do our homework. It's unstated effect was to ensure that we had no life! The evil plot was Evening Study. It was optional, but my parents, being conscientious souls, wanted to give me every advantage.
School got out at four. We hared home on our bicycles, had a bite to eat, changed out of our school uniforms and cycled back for Evening Study from five to seven. First, the inevitable prayer. Then, heads down to work. If you had a question you could go,[quietly!] to the supervising teacher's desk to ask for help. On the evening in question, Sister Mary Agnes was our jailer. Her chiseled, chalky face gazed out over our bent heads. If she suspected that you were the source of any stifled snorts or snickering, she squashed you with a glare.
I was seated in the middle of the room. Half way through the monotony I heard a chair scrape in the silence, as a girl somewhere behind me got up. Passing my desk, she flashed me a quick peek at something she was holding in her pocket. I perked up instantly! It looked like one of the monthly 64-pagers we loved to read. Stories of schoolgirls, like ourselves, getting into and out of all kinds of scrapes and adventures! They were about the size of Reader's Digest and half as thick. I patiently waited while Mary W conducted her business with Aggie. When she turned and started back to her desk, she grinned at me. Grinning back, I motioned for her to slip the 64-pager to me as she went by. I was looking forward to a little diversion.....
As soon as I had it in my hot little fist I knew I'd made a horrible mistake. It was a 64-pager alright, but not the kind I'd expected from my fleeting glimpse. Now that I had it, I heartily wished I didn't. It was a 64-pager version of what my mother called a "penny dreadful." To wit, a bodice ripper! Complete with sultry, scantily clad beauty in the arms of muscle bound Lothario on its cover. The setting seemed to be a dark and stormy night......
I was panic stricken! And Aggie was already sniffing the air, nostrils flaring, smelling fear....I was a goner! Another chair scraped the floor in the silence, as Aggie, a monument of a woman, stood. She knew she had me this time! [It wasn't the first time Aggie and I had tangled.] Never taking her eyes from my face, she came at me with slow, deliberate steps, habit swishing, beads clicking out my doom. I had shoved the offending material into the middle of a book I wasn't using, and was striving for a cool, nonchalant air, totally defeated by my blazing cheeks. At my desk, she stopped. And towered. Aggie was six feet tall if she was an inch! And held out her hand. I feigned innocence, and puzzlement. To no avail. Unwillingly I handed over the evidence, mumbling about how I'd had no idea it was THAT kind of 64 pager.
Aggie turned on her heel, clutching her prize, and returned to her desk. She looked like the cat that got the cream. She didn't like me and I didn't like her. She was exultant.I was miserable.
But you can't keep a good woman [or an idiot] down. Next evening I was full of the joys again. In the middle of evening study I was taking a wee [unscheduled] break. Having a little chat, whisper, whisper, giggle, giggle with the girl behind me. She said something funny and I threw my head back in silent laughter...................And, glancing at the little window in the upper half of the classroom door, met the quiet, reproachful gaze of The Mag. The foolish laugh froze in my throat. I wanted to die. Take me now Lord. I'm sorry for all my sins. Just take me now. Make it quick and save me from a slow, tortuous death by humiliation.
But of course He didn't listen to me. There was to be no quick and painless escape.
Sister Margaret L. was the headmistress. She was a gracious, scrupulously fair personage whom I greatly admired and whom I desperately wanted to have a good opinion of me....
I died a thousand mini deaths while she knocked softly on the door; while Aggie jumped officiously to attention; while The Mag walked silently to Aggie's desk and spoke a few words in her ear; while Aggie triumphantly called me to the front of the room,her voice high pitched and tremulous in victory; while The Mag quietly bade me follow her; while I walked behind her, down endless, echoing corridors, to her office; while she graciously motioned for me to sit. Which was a mercy, since my quaking knees were on the point of buckling......
The next fifteen minutes were the most miserable I had lived through yet in my fourteen years. I don't remember details. But, not one to assume she knew the whole story based on Aggie's reportage, The Mag asked me to recount the entire miserable tale, in my own words. It was not a complicated tale. The only complications came from how I felt about being the hapless twit caught in flagrante delicto. I sniveled and wept my way through the sorry tale. She murmured something about being disappointed in me; about having expected better from me; about how she didn't think my parents would approve of my reading such trashy stories etc., etc.
As an adult, I think she might have had a hard time trying to suppress the urge to laugh [if I'd been in her shoes I would have!] There might have been a touch of sadism in it all too. They enjoyed making us squirm! In religion class, when we touched on vocations, the Big One was being called to the religious life. Of course they hastened to assure us that marriage was also a noble calling. But not quite as noble, you got the unmistakable feeling, as nun-hood or priesthood. Because of all the messy, unmentionable physical goings on don't you know!
To my surprise,[and disappointment,] I did not melt into a grease spot on the seat of that chair in the Mag's office; neither did I expire from the weight of the humiliation. I was conscious, and over-heated, and acutely embarrassed for every excruciatingly minute of it.
And what did I learn?
I learned that if I was to survive in life, I should take care not to involve myself in any activities that I would not want The Mag to know about! Of course she has long since gone to her eternal reward, but the lesson lingers on. If something would make me ashamed, were anyone I loved or respected to find out about it, then it's probably something I shouldn't be doing in the first place. So I don't.
I still have four more questions to answer, but if you'd like to join in, just say so in the comment box, and I will dream up five questions just for you. You can then post answers on your blog, along with these rules and an invitation to interview anyone else who raises their hand! I'll try to make my questions as interesting for you as Rhubarb made mine for me!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Pancakes And Syrup
This blog has never been about what I had for breakfast.
Yawwwwn!
You'd be bored, I'd be bored......
But today I'm making an exception. This morning I had pancakes for breakfast. Nothing fancy, nothing from scratch; just the kind you grab from the freezer, pop in the toaster, dab with butter, a dribble of syrup, and quickly munch while gathering your wits to dash out the door to the dentist.
Something slowed me down though. It was the sweet smell of the syrup, good old Log Cabin. And not so much the syrup itself as the memories it stirred. Memories of the first time I ever had pancakes and syrup for breakfast. As my mother, may she rest in peace, would say, it's far from pancakes for breakfast I was raised! Good old stick-to-the-ribs porridge, and hunks of brown bread with marmalade, more like.
But the first time I came to the States with my dad, we stayed in the middle of New York city. For breakfast we would go out and pick one of the many little hole-in-the wall breakfast places. And I fell in love with this uniquely American idea of starting the day with pancakes or waffles. Until that time pancakes, to me, were the things we had on Shrove Tuesday, supposedly to use up all the eggs, since we'd be starving ourselves for the good of our immortal souls for the forty days of Lent! Those pancakes were more like crepes. Delicious in their own right.....
The thing that struck me the most about that first visit to America, was the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, the crazy mad traffic, the uninhibited shouting and honking of horns, the brash, loud, chaotic way Americans rushed at life, and the way the very air crackled with energy and vitality. In this country, you felt, anything was possible! If you could dream it, this was the place you could do it!
For me, that feeling of excitement and endless possibility is forever linked to the smell and the taste of pancakes with syrup!
"So," you're wondering. "Where is she meandering to with all of this?"
In recent years that "pancakes and syrup" exhilaration has been diminishing.
With the inauguration tomorrow of Barack Obama as the president of the United States, I'm thinking there's a good chance we're about to get it back!
Sayonara Dubbya!
Yawwwwn!
You'd be bored, I'd be bored......
But today I'm making an exception. This morning I had pancakes for breakfast. Nothing fancy, nothing from scratch; just the kind you grab from the freezer, pop in the toaster, dab with butter, a dribble of syrup, and quickly munch while gathering your wits to dash out the door to the dentist.
Something slowed me down though. It was the sweet smell of the syrup, good old Log Cabin. And not so much the syrup itself as the memories it stirred. Memories of the first time I ever had pancakes and syrup for breakfast. As my mother, may she rest in peace, would say, it's far from pancakes for breakfast I was raised! Good old stick-to-the-ribs porridge, and hunks of brown bread with marmalade, more like.
But the first time I came to the States with my dad, we stayed in the middle of New York city. For breakfast we would go out and pick one of the many little hole-in-the wall breakfast places. And I fell in love with this uniquely American idea of starting the day with pancakes or waffles. Until that time pancakes, to me, were the things we had on Shrove Tuesday, supposedly to use up all the eggs, since we'd be starving ourselves for the good of our immortal souls for the forty days of Lent! Those pancakes were more like crepes. Delicious in their own right.....
The thing that struck me the most about that first visit to America, was the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, the crazy mad traffic, the uninhibited shouting and honking of horns, the brash, loud, chaotic way Americans rushed at life, and the way the very air crackled with energy and vitality. In this country, you felt, anything was possible! If you could dream it, this was the place you could do it!
For me, that feeling of excitement and endless possibility is forever linked to the smell and the taste of pancakes with syrup!
"So," you're wondering. "Where is she meandering to with all of this?"
In recent years that "pancakes and syrup" exhilaration has been diminishing.
With the inauguration tomorrow of Barack Obama as the president of the United States, I'm thinking there's a good chance we're about to get it back!
Sayonara Dubbya!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Change........
It's Sunday, January eleventh, nine fifteen in the evening. Do you know where your brain is? I seem to have misplaced mine.....In an effort to resuscitate the blogging muse, Rise and I challenged each other, again! But inspiration is elusive; I'll just have to start writing down words, and then more words. The theme is Change. The only rule is we can't peek at what the other wrote until we post our own.......Before midnight! I need my brain for this; fine time for it to go missing!
Change is in the air, this new year more than ever. What comes to mind?
Loose change?
Diaper change?
Stock ex-change?
Obama?---"Change we can believe in?"
Changing of the guard?
Change of life?
Change of seasons?
Change of underwear?
Change of heart?
Names changed to protect the innocent?
The more things change the more they stay the same?
Maybe that's why I can't find my brain!
The only thing you can change is your attitude?
Or your mind?
Or the sheets on your bed...
A change is as good as a rest, they say in Ireland.
January always starts with great intentions. Lists are made of things I will change. Things I will organize. Things I will do! But, increasingly, as more and more Januaries roll around, I look about in dismay and realize "Nothing's changed!" Except the face I see when I look in the mirror. Where did the young me disappear to? Maybe she and my brain ran away together....
The brass tacks of getting through three hundred and sixty five days is what stands in the way. Think about it.
Shopping, preparation, cooking and serving of 365 dinners. Boggles the mind, does it not? And then there's the cleanup! Okay, so maybe not quite 365, if you deduct a few for eating out...
How many times do you change your underwear in a year?
Think of all the filthy socks you soak, scrub and toss in the washing machine!
Think of all the buttons and zippers that come loose and need mending.
How many times do you scrub the kitchen floor in a year?
Wash the windows? Yes, we're getting theoretical now!
How many times do you shower? Comb your hair? Have it cut?
Brush your teeth? Visit the dentist?
Take the dog and cat to the vet?
Walk the dog?
Read the newspaper? And a book here and there.....
Clean up hairballs from the floor, where the cat thoughtfully deposited them?
Change [aha!] the cat litter?
Water the house plants? Weed the garden? Trim the shrubs?
It keeps a person busy, just maintaining! Who has time to change anything when you're pedaling as fast as you can? Since, when all of that is done, there are quilts to be made, blogs to be read, Ancients to be visited, inspiration to be found, somewhere, and blog posts written......
And yet, change is sneaky. It happens when you're not looking.......
Children grow up....You thought you'd always have them near.
Parents grow old.....or worse yet, die too soon.
And nobody warned you to brace yourself!
But if nothing else changes, I hope, that as the Januaries fly by, I'll at least grow wiser, as well as older.
Note: The picture is my Christmas jigsaw puzzle, finally finished today. It's a picture of a cottage in Adare, a picturesque village a few miles out from my hometown in Ireland. Proof that nothing stays the same. When I was growing up it was a quiet little place, often visited by tourists. The last time I visited though it had been turned into a tourist mecca, which made it a lot less charming.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
It's The Little Things....
My new year is getting off to a very slow start. I haven't really made any new years' resolutions. But I'm thinking! It seems pointless when they're destined to be broken almost immediately. Which isn't to say that I'm not determined to improve this year!
Something has to give in my sewing room. I will organize it this year. I think that featured in my new years' resolutions last year. And, possibly, the year before.... And still it's chaotic. But this year will be different!
I will listen more this year. I've been getting better at this in recent years. Which is a struggle since, according to the OC, I didn't just kiss the Blarney Stone, I chewed off a piece of it and swallowed it.... I'm finding it's true what I heard when I was younger---You learn a lot more when your mouth is shut. My dad used to say "a closed mouth catches no flies!" I will be applying this particularly in relationship to my father-in-law. I will not roll my eyes when he embarks on the nine hundred and ninety ninth telling of the same story [in which he is the hero. As he is in all his stories.] I will smile and breathe deeply and let it wash over me like the teacher's voice on Charlie Brown.
I like Chani's suggestion of picking a word as a theme for the year. Her word is "reconciliation." A list of resolutions is cumbersome to remember, but even I could manage to remember one word, if only I could decide what it should be!
I also like Lily's idea of focusing on the "grace of small things."
It's so easy to complain. And discontent is contagious. Much better to find things to be happy about. We all have them, but we often take them for granted.
So. No procrastinating [another goal for 2009!] Here, without further ado are five things that made me happy today.
1. A crisp and shivery, cold-for-Florida morning.
2. A ripped pocket here, a dangling fastener there, fixed! Without making a federal case out of it.
3.A paper-thin disc of pale white moon in the cloudless blue of late afternoon.
4.The pleasant surprise of finding yet another post on DD's blog!
5.Persuading sister-in-law to come over after the Ancients were tucked in for the night, to watch Dr. Zhivago, one of my all-time favourite movies.
Quick, can you rattle off five ordinary things that made you happy lately?
Something has to give in my sewing room. I will organize it this year. I think that featured in my new years' resolutions last year. And, possibly, the year before.... And still it's chaotic. But this year will be different!
I will listen more this year. I've been getting better at this in recent years. Which is a struggle since, according to the OC, I didn't just kiss the Blarney Stone, I chewed off a piece of it and swallowed it.... I'm finding it's true what I heard when I was younger---You learn a lot more when your mouth is shut. My dad used to say "a closed mouth catches no flies!" I will be applying this particularly in relationship to my father-in-law. I will not roll my eyes when he embarks on the nine hundred and ninety ninth telling of the same story [in which he is the hero. As he is in all his stories.] I will smile and breathe deeply and let it wash over me like the teacher's voice on Charlie Brown.
I like Chani's suggestion of picking a word as a theme for the year. Her word is "reconciliation." A list of resolutions is cumbersome to remember, but even I could manage to remember one word, if only I could decide what it should be!
I also like Lily's idea of focusing on the "grace of small things."
It's so easy to complain. And discontent is contagious. Much better to find things to be happy about. We all have them, but we often take them for granted.
So. No procrastinating [another goal for 2009!] Here, without further ado are five things that made me happy today.
1. A crisp and shivery, cold-for-Florida morning.
2. A ripped pocket here, a dangling fastener there, fixed! Without making a federal case out of it.
3.A paper-thin disc of pale white moon in the cloudless blue of late afternoon.
4.The pleasant surprise of finding yet another post on DD's blog!
5.Persuading sister-in-law to come over after the Ancients were tucked in for the night, to watch Dr. Zhivago, one of my all-time favourite movies.
Quick, can you rattle off five ordinary things that made you happy lately?
Monday, January 05, 2009
A Comment For Thimbleanna
Holy smokes!
Ninety comments!? How do you possibly keep up? Congratulations on your blogiversary! Your cranberry thingamajigs sound so yummy. Do you know, energized with New Years' fervor, I cleaned out the fridge yesterday. There was a small bowl of homemade cranberry sauce, tucked away in the back, a last lingering remnant of Thanksgiving.
I hauled it out for inspection.
Hmmm!
It looked fine, nicely jelled and firm.
I sniffed. Nothing offensive assailed my nostrils.
Next came the spoon. Yum. It tasted good too.
BUT. And it is a big BUT. [That's B-U-T, not B-U-T-T!]
Nobody here eats cranberry sauce, except around Thanksgiving. What to do? Throwing out perfectly good food wracks me with guilt, given that plenty of people in the world are starving. But the chances that I'll cook another turkey, or even a turkey breast, before next Thanksgiving? Slim to none. The chances that anyone living here will remember to have a helping of cranberry sauce with their next turkey sandwich? Not gonna happen!
Even as I broke the jelled mass into smaller chunks and washed it down the disposal, I knew that the hour was at hand when I'd find a recipe that would make me regret my wastefulness.
Fast forward to tonight. Reading blogs, writing e-mails. Yawning. Seeing that the small hand is at twelve and the big hand is at nine. I really should follow the sensible OC to bed. Especially as I have to be at HQ at nine a.m. to sit with m-i-l while s-i-l accompanies f-i-l to the doctor's. Are you still with me?
One last read. Thimbleanna has come out of her Christmas cocoon and has a new post up. Let's see what it's about.....
Like an avenging angel sent to twitter at me, she proceeds to give me the recipe I should have had yesterday! A recipe for yummy cranberry thingies that would have made excellent use of my little bowl of leftover, homemade, still good, but too fast thrown out, cranberry sauce!
Like the baby bed, too soon given away, then OOPS!
So, onward to next Thanksgiving with one recipe for yummy sounding cranberry thingies added to my arsenal!
Ninety comments!? How do you possibly keep up? Congratulations on your blogiversary! Your cranberry thingamajigs sound so yummy. Do you know, energized with New Years' fervor, I cleaned out the fridge yesterday. There was a small bowl of homemade cranberry sauce, tucked away in the back, a last lingering remnant of Thanksgiving.
I hauled it out for inspection.
Hmmm!
It looked fine, nicely jelled and firm.
I sniffed. Nothing offensive assailed my nostrils.
Next came the spoon. Yum. It tasted good too.
BUT. And it is a big BUT. [That's B-U-T, not B-U-T-T!]
Nobody here eats cranberry sauce, except around Thanksgiving. What to do? Throwing out perfectly good food wracks me with guilt, given that plenty of people in the world are starving. But the chances that I'll cook another turkey, or even a turkey breast, before next Thanksgiving? Slim to none. The chances that anyone living here will remember to have a helping of cranberry sauce with their next turkey sandwich? Not gonna happen!
Even as I broke the jelled mass into smaller chunks and washed it down the disposal, I knew that the hour was at hand when I'd find a recipe that would make me regret my wastefulness.
Fast forward to tonight. Reading blogs, writing e-mails. Yawning. Seeing that the small hand is at twelve and the big hand is at nine. I really should follow the sensible OC to bed. Especially as I have to be at HQ at nine a.m. to sit with m-i-l while s-i-l accompanies f-i-l to the doctor's. Are you still with me?
One last read. Thimbleanna has come out of her Christmas cocoon and has a new post up. Let's see what it's about.....
Like an avenging angel sent to twitter at me, she proceeds to give me the recipe I should have had yesterday! A recipe for yummy cranberry thingies that would have made excellent use of my little bowl of leftover, homemade, still good, but too fast thrown out, cranberry sauce!
Like the baby bed, too soon given away, then OOPS!
So, onward to next Thanksgiving with one recipe for yummy sounding cranberry thingies added to my arsenal!
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Oh Christmas Tree.....
There are, it seems, some Doubting Thomases out there, who require proof that I actually got my Christmas tree decorated! Oh ye of little faith! Does it matter that I didn't personally hang each ornament?
After all, it was I who drove out into the madness a few days before Christmas and found a tree. No small feat when you consider how many people in these parts put their tree up the day after Thanksgiving!
It was I who feebly bargained with the tree seller. To no avail, I might add. He knew he had a pigeon. He recognized the desperate gleam in the eye.
It was I who climbed up on my sewing table, at considerable risk to life and arthritic limb, and stretched upwards to precariously haul down the various boxes of Christmas goodies.
It was I, also, who sat and untangled the ninety nine strings of lights of various vintages and, mindful of the proximity of Herald Angels and Santa's behaviour spies, managed not to give voice to the vehement imprecations that sprang to my lips.
It was I who circled the tree and wove the strands of lights [those from the ninety nine that still worked] in and out and around the aromatic branches, almost dying by strangulation on a few occasions. And it was I who stood back in admiration and declared it the nicest tree we'd found in years!
It was the Bean and girlfriend who did the actual decorating while we were off to the hospital. And a lovely job they did of it. Mother-in-law came home late on Christmas Day and is doing fairly so far, but very weak still. One day at a time.
Meanwhile, it is I who will be keeping that tree up and watered until January sixth, though all around me have theirs to the curb by Monday morning! I love the soft glow from the little tree lights; the glisten of the baubles; the memories of five shiny eyed children every Christmas morning for so many years; the fresh piney scent; the after-Christmas peace.
The tree is decorated.
Believe!
Footnote: In case anyone should dare to try to take the tree down in my absence before the appointed time, Casper has volunteered his services as tree guardian.
Would you like to see his claws?
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Oh, Tidings Of Stress and Oy!
Inspiration's been at a low ebb around here lately. Talking with Rise last week, we made a pact to each post something the Tuesday before Christmas, on the subject of Christmas. It is now 1:21 a.m. Wednesday, technically, but she's undoubtedly sleeping [or lying in bed counting woolly sheep and listening to the wind howling outside--she doesn't live in Florida, poor dear.] So if it's up when she gets up, that'll count as me having kept my side of the deal?
And what is my excuse for being so late you ask?
"Christmas is coming, and the goose is getting fat," but I'm having technical difficulties. The main one being that I just now managed to wipe out two hours worth of writing by inadvertantly brushing my wrist off some mysterious "erase everything" button. Yes, those are tear streaks on my face. A random sampling of the other accumulated technical difficulties would include, but not be limited to;
Mother-in-law in the hospital, trying to die, again;
Doctors trying to prevent her from doing so;
Father-in-law trying to convince everybody that his mind is still like a steel trap [I have some unsettling news for him.]
The OC juggling his work with bedside vigils at the hospital;
And me, trying to organize Christmas, emphasis on trying.
My mother-in-law is not afraid to die. She's eighty nine and very frail and she's in a lot of pain. She's tired. And she can't clean and scrub like she used to. She's been ready to go for a long while now. Her place in heaven is secure though. She's worked hard all her life and had some hair raising adventures. Which is all good, but not what has secured her place in heaven. That would be her husband. No, he doesn't have influence up there, but They can see what goes on down here, so They know that she is a saint. Right up there with Mother Theresa. I'd have murdered him in his sleep years ago.
So here I am trying to organize Christmas. And wishing I could be a kid again. We didn't have to organize it. We just had to show up. We didn't have to bake all those plum puddings and fruit cakes. You came home from school one afternoon in November and found your mother,elbow deep in raisins and nuts and candied cherries, and it gave you a thrill. Not because you were crazy about fruitcake, but because it meant that Christmas was coming [and the goose was getting fat!]
Of course you were too well brought up to ever say that you weren't exactly your mother's fruit cake's biggest fan. Besides, you always choked down a slice, since that was the only way to come by the marzipan and frosting that came with it. It was out of the question to just pick off the pieces you liked. In for a penny, in for a pound. If you'd had your way though [a rare occurance back then,] you'd have eaten the entire coat of marzipan off the cake and left the densely studded fruity part for the aunties and the neighbour ladies who went into paroxysms of delight with every bite! But greediness and gluttony were strongly discouraged, so you offered it up for the poor souls in Purgatory.
In early December a child with an inquiring mind might notice that strangely shaped packages were being secreted in the back of the hot press at the top of the stairs. Being very inquisitive, such a child might take her curiosity a step further and try to peek inside such packages. One such, she found, in a mixture of horror and delight, contained a beautiful, golden haired, blue eyed doll! Who could she be for? Could one dare to hope? Turning her over, the better to admire her, the inquisitive child was startled when the doll plaintively bleated "Mama!" at the same time as a key was heard turning in the front door downstairs....consternation as the inquisitive child scrambled to re-wrap the precious package. And oh! The guilt! Trying to act surprised and delighted on Christmas morning!
But did this mean that the man in the red suit was a fairy story? That the wise ones on the playground at school, who sneered that only babies believed in him, were right all along?
And if Mum and Dad were fibbing about this, what else might they be fibbing about?
Who could be trusted?
The most important thing about Christmas, the parents and the nuns kept reminding us, was that it was a celebration of the birth of Baby Jesus. Every year we set up a nativity scene on the hall table. I loved the excitement of reaching into the box and pulling out the figures one by one----Mary, Joseph, the Baby, the shepherds and the wise men, the cows, the donkey and the sheep. Each of the churches in town had a life size stable and manger. I loved to go to see them all. And Christmas carols! Groups would go around at night, stopping at all the houses and singing a few and collecting some coins for their trouble.....Nobody does that here. Maybe they don't even do that there anymore. Christmas has become much more about commerce than about carols.
There was more that the computer gobbled, but since it's 2:30 a.m. I'd better get to bed or I may just sleep right through Christmas!
We did get a tree. It's up, lights on, but no decorations-yet. Tomorrow![Oops! Make that "today!"]
My Christmas elf climbed up on the roof this afternoon and strung the lights!
I baked my own version of fruitcake today with bourbon-soaked nuts and cherries and raisins, much more cakey than fruity! No marzipan though!
Wishing all my bloggy friends a Happy stress- and oy-free Christmas!
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