I’m off on a trip. A trip? Yes, a trip. A trip to New York, no less. On my own. No husband, no kids. Ah ha ha.
What takes me to New York? Let me tell you. Charlesinparis. For it is he. You can’t have missed his enigmatic comments on my blog. You must have wondered about my mystery man in that most glamorous of locations. Here is the moment of revelation. Charlesinparis is … (drum roll) … my big brother. He and Wifeinparis, along with Twokidsinparis, are spending a week in New York, and I am joining them for the week-end. I am also seeing Friendinsuburbs, who I met in 1987 and see on average about once every 5 years, and meeting her husband and twin 2 year old boys. Now if that isn’t a fabulous week-end for Wifeandmotherinthemidwest, I don’t know what is.
Charlesinparis – I have to tell you about him. In my teens and twenties, when any of my girlfriends came to visit, they would always ask oh so casually "is Charlesinparis around?". Think tall, dark, handsome. Think beanpole. Think daddy-long-legs. Think chiseled features and heavy eyebrows. Think very blue eyes. Think Anthony in The Wiggles in his younger days (he’s the one in blue), but better looking. Think snappy dresser and urban sophistication. Think lightning-speed conversation and rapier wit (in three languages). Think horrendous cheesy puns that you have to laugh at anyway. Think plum-coloured MG. Sadly it is no longer a part of his life (and it was an MGB GT, no less, with spokey wheels), having been replaced by a sensible Renault people carrier. In its day, the MG was lent to him on a long-term basis by a friend. I never understood why anyone who owned an MG would lend it to someone else, let alone someone whose driving position in it would involve their knees being somewhere in the vicinity of their ears. I’m grateful that she did though (yes, it was a woman…), as it provided me with one of my favourite Charlesinparis memories.
It was a hot day in August 1989, my younger brother’s wedding day. Charlesinparis had been best man, made a spectacularly funny speech, and then when it was time to go, he said “hey Sis, come in the MG”. So we set off, open-topped on the open road, him in his smart suit, me in a peacock blue bridesmaid dress, in one of those dreamy perfect balmy summer evenings that we do so well (if a little infrequently) in England, with the setting sun behind us. I know it was behind us, because Charlesinparis said “I haven’t got a road atlas. Where are we, anyway? Sort of north of Bristol somewhere? Hm. Well, we’ll just head east, that’s easy enough, and we’re bound to pick up signs to Oxford or London. The MG doesn’t like motorways, but the Cotswolds are around here somewhere, between here and home at any rate, so it’ll be a pretty drive.” And it was. A pretty drive. A pretty long drive. Difficult to navigate by the sun after dark. It rained towards the end and got cold (it always does in an MG), but Charlesinparis put up the top, we were young and it was fun.
The last time I saw Charlesinparis was the week-end before we left Scotland for the USA. He phoned one day and said “your birthday’s the 23rd of November, right?” (Wrong – it’s the 24th, but he’s not a details man on this kind of thing.) “That’s a week before you leave for the States, right?” (Right – see, he gets the details which matter.) “Well, I’ve arranged for me, big sister and little brother to come and see you. Book us into a B&B. We’ll take you out for dinner on your birthday, but other than that, you can see as much or as little of us as you like. We’re there for you. We can help out with whatever you want, or we can entertain ourselves and get out of your hair.” So for three days, there they were. They took car loads of stuff to the tip. They played with the kids. They washed bedding (2-yo caught a vomiting bug). They gave me the ideal excuse to go to all my favourite places instead of doing all the sensible house-tidying sort of things I would otherwise have done. They walked with me on the beach. They didn’t mind that I was distracted and odd. They said all the right things about our move (“the Midwest sounds great”).
Every girl should have a Charlesinparis. And from time to time, a Charlesinnewyork.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
When is a joke not a joke?
A 10 year old boy walks into a kitchen and tells a joke:
A man walks into a bar, and says "Ouch".
A mother pauses, thinks, and laughs. “That’s funny” she says. “That was a first” she thinks. He has told her a joke that she didn’t already know, that she found genuinely funny, and that wasn’t followed by “d’you geddit?” and an explanation.
Ten years ago, she wrote his milestones in a book. They came thick and fast. The first tooth, the first steps, the first words. They come less often now, but they still come. The first filling, the first soccer goal, the first real joke. She doesn’t write them down any more. Then there are the kind that she couldn’t write down anyway. They’re not “firsts”, they don’t stand out, they creep by slowly, and when she notices them, she is already looking back. He doesn’t need a spoon to eat peas. He doesn’t always choose from the kids’ menu in a restaurant. He sometimes empties the dishwasher in the morning, not because he’ll get a sticker on a chart, not because he's proving he can do it all on his own, but just to be kind. When she sorts the laundry, his socks are easy to muddle with hers. The golden window between his bedtime and hers is getting smaller; it’s more of a chink than a window already. The park is no longer about the swings and slides. She can’t dribble a soccer ball past him, but he can get one past her, every time, easily.
She needs his advice on school matters. She remembers it was she who decided it was time to replace the Bob the Builder lunch box, but now it is he who tells her that Spongebob valentines won’t do for fifth graders (though he can't tell her what will).
Soon will come the milestones hidden from her view. The first joke he hears that he doesn’t think he should tell her. She knows these days are not far off. Perhaps they are already here.
A mother walks into a milestone, and would say “Ouch”, but mothers don’t say that, and anyway, this one is a fun kind of a milestone. A mother walks into a milestone, and keeps on walking.
A man walks into a bar, and says "Ouch".
A mother pauses, thinks, and laughs. “That’s funny” she says. “That was a first” she thinks. He has told her a joke that she didn’t already know, that she found genuinely funny, and that wasn’t followed by “d’you geddit?” and an explanation.
Ten years ago, she wrote his milestones in a book. They came thick and fast. The first tooth, the first steps, the first words. They come less often now, but they still come. The first filling, the first soccer goal, the first real joke. She doesn’t write them down any more. Then there are the kind that she couldn’t write down anyway. They’re not “firsts”, they don’t stand out, they creep by slowly, and when she notices them, she is already looking back. He doesn’t need a spoon to eat peas. He doesn’t always choose from the kids’ menu in a restaurant. He sometimes empties the dishwasher in the morning, not because he’ll get a sticker on a chart, not because he's proving he can do it all on his own, but just to be kind. When she sorts the laundry, his socks are easy to muddle with hers. The golden window between his bedtime and hers is getting smaller; it’s more of a chink than a window already. The park is no longer about the swings and slides. She can’t dribble a soccer ball past him, but he can get one past her, every time, easily.
She needs his advice on school matters. She remembers it was she who decided it was time to replace the Bob the Builder lunch box, but now it is he who tells her that Spongebob valentines won’t do for fifth graders (though he can't tell her what will).
Soon will come the milestones hidden from her view. The first joke he hears that he doesn’t think he should tell her. She knows these days are not far off. Perhaps they are already here.
A mother walks into a milestone, and would say “Ouch”, but mothers don’t say that, and anyway, this one is a fun kind of a milestone. A mother walks into a milestone, and keeps on walking.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Tagged!
I’ve been tagged. Now, it’s very naughty of Reluctant Memsahib to tag me, as she knows full well that I’m on blogging sabbatical. I don’t really like tags, but this one got me thinking, and once I get thinking, wittering is only a small step further on. The tag invites me to witter on about what I’ve been reading, listening to, watching and surfing in the past few days, and I couldn't resist it.
Reading: I’m in a book club, and we’re doing Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Haven’t finished it yet, and can’t decide whether I like it or not. I can see that it is funny and well-written, but you need to have chemistry with a book, as with a person, and I'm not sure it and I have exchanged glances across a crowded room yet. I have also read Just for you, Blue Kangaroo every day, and sometimes more than once a day, since Christmas. It’s just as well I like the story, as 3-yo does, obviously. A lot. A big lot. Considerably more than me, actually. Pity there isn't another one in the series called Enough is enough, Blue Kangaroo.
Listening to: Alas, I hardly listen to anything these days (no Radio 4, you see) apart from the cd of choice in the car, which at the moment is some ghastly Winnie the Pooh compilation. I only ever hear the first track, at the end of which 3-yo insists “that one again, that one again”. On the school run, I claim that it is the boys’ turn, and then we have Radio Disney which is a mind-numbing experience, but I have to take my respite where I can. 'Listening to' is not where it is happening for me in this particular chapter of life.
Watching: I have to confess to watching almost no American tv at all, and because I don’t want to sound smug and superior, 'not wrong, just different' being my philosophy and all, I’d better not go on about it, but really, it isn’t good. I’m sorry, I’m not going to pretend. The only show that Husband and I do enjoy is Family Guy, which is like a ruder and darker version of The Simpsons. Hilarious. On BBC America, I watch Matt Frei giving an hour of news at 9.00pm (it’s like having the old Nine O’Clock News back again – oh joy). I am particularly enjoying the fact that the journalist they’ve sent off to Antarctica to track the Japanese whaling fleet is called Jonah Fisher. Marvellous BBC humour. No-one has made any reference to it, but it's just there as a shared joke. When I think of what I miss from Britain, it all tends to be the lovely gentleness and understatement of the place, like that joke for example. Or leafy green lanes, the fountain-like chatter of ladies meeting in tea shops, the soft colours of bluebells and cow parsely, the fine art of conversing without saying what you mean. Intriguingly, the programmes I enjoy most on BBC America are Top Gear and Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. But that probably says more about the selection on offer than my homeward yearnings.
Last, but not least, surfing: Well, there are the blogs, of course. I love you all. Then there’s Weatherbug.com, which I like at times of the year when we have extreme weather. Just how hot/cold is it today? In the last week, we’ve had temperatures down to -13 celsius. This actually makes very little difference to life, as buildings and cars are well heated, and you only ever have to walk between them for 30 seconds. Most people wouldn’t actually bother with a coat if they were going to the supermarket. Nonetheless, I like to think that when we return to Britain, and people are complaining of the cold, I’ll be able to be reverse-smug and say “oh yes, well of course we got used to temperatures of -13 celsius when we lived in America.”.
Then there are the news pages, which keep me in touch with world news when I’ve missed Matt Frei at 9 o’clock, or deserted him for recorded Jeremy Clarkson or Gordon Ramsey (sorry, Matt, don’t take it personally). I watched a lot of BBC news online after the BA flight from Beijing crash landed at Heathrow. Plane crashes are always gruesomely fascinating, but I followed the aftermath of this one with particular interest, as I was at primary school with Peter Berkhill, the pilot. I emailed a friend, to ask if it was indeed him, and she confirmed that it was. We pondered together how the names of primary school co-pupils are forever etched on one’s memory (and I know I’ve spelt his name wrong – just don't want to turn up in too many google searches). The story is a little tarnished by the fact that I got excited when I watched the flight crew arrive at the press conference in BA’s headquarters amidst cheering ranks of BA staff, thinking to myself “yes, yes, I recognize him, that’s him, that’s Peter Berkhill, definitely him”, only to discover when they were introduced, that I’d been looking at senior first officer Tom Coward.
I'm passing the tag on to Laurie, Elsie Button, Dumdad and Ms Wiz.
Reading: I’m in a book club, and we’re doing Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Haven’t finished it yet, and can’t decide whether I like it or not. I can see that it is funny and well-written, but you need to have chemistry with a book, as with a person, and I'm not sure it and I have exchanged glances across a crowded room yet. I have also read Just for you, Blue Kangaroo every day, and sometimes more than once a day, since Christmas. It’s just as well I like the story, as 3-yo does, obviously. A lot. A big lot. Considerably more than me, actually. Pity there isn't another one in the series called Enough is enough, Blue Kangaroo.
Listening to: Alas, I hardly listen to anything these days (no Radio 4, you see) apart from the cd of choice in the car, which at the moment is some ghastly Winnie the Pooh compilation. I only ever hear the first track, at the end of which 3-yo insists “that one again, that one again”. On the school run, I claim that it is the boys’ turn, and then we have Radio Disney which is a mind-numbing experience, but I have to take my respite where I can. 'Listening to' is not where it is happening for me in this particular chapter of life.
Watching: I have to confess to watching almost no American tv at all, and because I don’t want to sound smug and superior, 'not wrong, just different' being my philosophy and all, I’d better not go on about it, but really, it isn’t good. I’m sorry, I’m not going to pretend. The only show that Husband and I do enjoy is Family Guy, which is like a ruder and darker version of The Simpsons. Hilarious. On BBC America, I watch Matt Frei giving an hour of news at 9.00pm (it’s like having the old Nine O’Clock News back again – oh joy). I am particularly enjoying the fact that the journalist they’ve sent off to Antarctica to track the Japanese whaling fleet is called Jonah Fisher. Marvellous BBC humour. No-one has made any reference to it, but it's just there as a shared joke. When I think of what I miss from Britain, it all tends to be the lovely gentleness and understatement of the place, like that joke for example. Or leafy green lanes, the fountain-like chatter of ladies meeting in tea shops, the soft colours of bluebells and cow parsely, the fine art of conversing without saying what you mean. Intriguingly, the programmes I enjoy most on BBC America are Top Gear and Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. But that probably says more about the selection on offer than my homeward yearnings.
Last, but not least, surfing: Well, there are the blogs, of course. I love you all. Then there’s Weatherbug.com, which I like at times of the year when we have extreme weather. Just how hot/cold is it today? In the last week, we’ve had temperatures down to -13 celsius. This actually makes very little difference to life, as buildings and cars are well heated, and you only ever have to walk between them for 30 seconds. Most people wouldn’t actually bother with a coat if they were going to the supermarket. Nonetheless, I like to think that when we return to Britain, and people are complaining of the cold, I’ll be able to be reverse-smug and say “oh yes, well of course we got used to temperatures of -13 celsius when we lived in America.”.
Then there are the news pages, which keep me in touch with world news when I’ve missed Matt Frei at 9 o’clock, or deserted him for recorded Jeremy Clarkson or Gordon Ramsey (sorry, Matt, don’t take it personally). I watched a lot of BBC news online after the BA flight from Beijing crash landed at Heathrow. Plane crashes are always gruesomely fascinating, but I followed the aftermath of this one with particular interest, as I was at primary school with Peter Berkhill, the pilot. I emailed a friend, to ask if it was indeed him, and she confirmed that it was. We pondered together how the names of primary school co-pupils are forever etched on one’s memory (and I know I’ve spelt his name wrong – just don't want to turn up in too many google searches). The story is a little tarnished by the fact that I got excited when I watched the flight crew arrive at the press conference in BA’s headquarters amidst cheering ranks of BA staff, thinking to myself “yes, yes, I recognize him, that’s him, that’s Peter Berkhill, definitely him”, only to discover when they were introduced, that I’d been looking at senior first officer Tom Coward.
I'm passing the tag on to Laurie, Elsie Button, Dumdad and Ms Wiz.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The dangers of blogging
You think this is going to be about addiction. You have spotted the fact that I am technically on blogging sabbatical, but seemingly can’t actually stop. But ha! It’s not. I can walk away any time. I can. No, this is a little story that I hope will act as a New Year cautionary tale about the interface between real life and the life of the blog. This is an area that bloggers give much thought to, especially as they start out. What if I’m rude about my next door neighbor, and I’m not quite as anonymous as I believe? What if I tell a hilarious story about the school principal’s pants falling down (trousers to you, although pants would be funnier), and he turns out to be a secret lurker on my site? Should I tell my family and friends about the blog, and then have to be polite about them for ever more? What if I use my artistic licence and make up a few things, and get caught out? Is a blog fact or fiction? What if I say it was a grey and miserable Saturday afternoon on the beach, and people use the comments box to say “no it wasn’t, I was there and the sun was shining brightly all day long”? You know the kind of thing. But for all the care and caution with which the blogger attends to such issues, there is always the wild card out there waiting to be played. This is my wild card story.
I have a friend - let’s call her Josephine. We were at school together. In recent years, we have had pregnancy, motherhood and an email addiction as shared experiences. Our paths have run slightly less closely since I moved here, since she has been lured from email by Facebook and I by blogging. I do log on to see how her virtual Renault Twingo is doing and how many people have given her little pictures of chocolate cake (I’m sorry, but I can’t really get into Facebook, I know this is my loss because clearly so many other people love it, but there we are …), and she reads my blog. And we do still email a bit regarding essential matters such as how to go about buying girl clothes when you’ve only had boys so far, the latest trends in baby names, whether the grass is really greener over the other side of the fence and what can be done about it, and the teasing of a mutual friend who has a crush on her GP.
Anyway, Josephine had a baby in September. He’s called Joshua. He looks lovely in the pictures. Not long after he was born, Josephine emailed me saying “we think you should be Joshua’s blogmother”. I was thrilled. I emailed back at great wittering length. Several times. You may find this hard to believe... or you may not... but when I get going, I am something of a witterer. I’ve never sought treatment as, personally, I don’t see it as a medical condition, and I know several fellow witterers (leading politicians among them) who share my opinion. I can witter on at impressive length about pretty much nothing at all, so wittering on about being asked to be godmother turned me into Mrs Wittering of No 1, Witter Avenue, Great Wittering, Wittershire. Believe me. I wittered on about how I love having godchildren. I made jokes about furry godmothers. I mentioned that baby Joshua almost shares a birthday with another of my godsons (clearly a fact of huge interest to a mother in the throes of managing a new baby). I reminisced about how she had lent me a pretty white Vertbaudet summer dress (puffed sleeves, Peter Pan collar) for my daughter’s christening that had been her daughter’s, but how I didn’t think it would do for Joshua. I wrote volumes about how we always regretted not having asked her to be godmother to one of ours (always a tricky area), and that I’d once suggested to Husband that we should have a fourth child so that we could rectify the situation, but had had to concur with his opinion that that wasn’t a very strong reason for further procreation. Wittering, much wittering.
And then there was silence. I heard nothing, which didn’t really surprise me. New babies don’t allow much email time, Josephine’s husband has to be away for work for weeks at a time, no allowances made for a new arrival, her daughter had just started school… But then, after two weeks, with all that witter in the Sent Items folder looking lonely and increasingly uneasy, like the woman under the clock with a red carnation in her hand, I sent an email saying “Feeling a bit shifty here. You didn’t really mean it about the godmother thing did you? It was just a pun wasn’t it? Um. Don’t know what else to say.”
Josephine came clean. “Truth will out”, she said. “We hadn’t really got round to thinking about godparents. But we really really really like the idea, so please do be Josh’s godmother. Or blogmother.”
If you reach out and touch your computer screen at this point, you can still feel the warmth generated by my embarrassment, even after 3 months and all those miles between us. Try it.
The story ends well, though. There was a bit more emailing between us. I said I was resigning and they could reconsider at leisure, and I wouldn’t be at all offended. Josephine said no, don’t resign, we do really want you to do this.
Husband is always very good in these over-wittering situations, and he suggested that really, we should all start operating a new system for appointing godparents. Henceforward it should always be done, following my excellent lead, on a volunteer basis. That way, you’d guarantee motivated godparents, and save parents a whole lot of angst about the choice. He pointed out that it was a win-win situation. I love being a godmother and can go and choose little baby clothes in the shops; Baby Joshua gets an additional Christmas and birthday present every year, and extra prayers offered up for his well-being. Can’t be bad. And Josephine? Well, she gets a laugh every time she thinks of my woeful over-enthusaism (I tell you, I’ve been in America too long), and hey, we’re still mates. In fact, she is such a good mate that she doesn’t use the comments box to accuse me of plagiarism every time I say ‘hey’ followed by a comma, or ‘as eny ful no’ or ‘aaaaargh!’ or ‘it’s not easy being me’ or any of her other trademark expressions that I have shamelessly nicked. And speaking of the comments box, I want you all to tread softly in it (as if you ever do anything other…). Remember this is a real life story you’re dealing with. And in case you were wondering, yes, she is happy for it to be a blog post – in fact, she suggested it.
Oh, and on the question of my blogging sabbatical, of course I'm still on it. I'm looking on the last half dozen posts as an extended one-off Christmas special. What do you mean, it’s January 20th...?
I have a friend - let’s call her Josephine. We were at school together. In recent years, we have had pregnancy, motherhood and an email addiction as shared experiences. Our paths have run slightly less closely since I moved here, since she has been lured from email by Facebook and I by blogging. I do log on to see how her virtual Renault Twingo is doing and how many people have given her little pictures of chocolate cake (I’m sorry, but I can’t really get into Facebook, I know this is my loss because clearly so many other people love it, but there we are …), and she reads my blog. And we do still email a bit regarding essential matters such as how to go about buying girl clothes when you’ve only had boys so far, the latest trends in baby names, whether the grass is really greener over the other side of the fence and what can be done about it, and the teasing of a mutual friend who has a crush on her GP.
Anyway, Josephine had a baby in September. He’s called Joshua. He looks lovely in the pictures. Not long after he was born, Josephine emailed me saying “we think you should be Joshua’s blogmother”. I was thrilled. I emailed back at great wittering length. Several times. You may find this hard to believe... or you may not... but when I get going, I am something of a witterer. I’ve never sought treatment as, personally, I don’t see it as a medical condition, and I know several fellow witterers (leading politicians among them) who share my opinion. I can witter on at impressive length about pretty much nothing at all, so wittering on about being asked to be godmother turned me into Mrs Wittering of No 1, Witter Avenue, Great Wittering, Wittershire. Believe me. I wittered on about how I love having godchildren. I made jokes about furry godmothers. I mentioned that baby Joshua almost shares a birthday with another of my godsons (clearly a fact of huge interest to a mother in the throes of managing a new baby). I reminisced about how she had lent me a pretty white Vertbaudet summer dress (puffed sleeves, Peter Pan collar) for my daughter’s christening that had been her daughter’s, but how I didn’t think it would do for Joshua. I wrote volumes about how we always regretted not having asked her to be godmother to one of ours (always a tricky area), and that I’d once suggested to Husband that we should have a fourth child so that we could rectify the situation, but had had to concur with his opinion that that wasn’t a very strong reason for further procreation. Wittering, much wittering.
And then there was silence. I heard nothing, which didn’t really surprise me. New babies don’t allow much email time, Josephine’s husband has to be away for work for weeks at a time, no allowances made for a new arrival, her daughter had just started school… But then, after two weeks, with all that witter in the Sent Items folder looking lonely and increasingly uneasy, like the woman under the clock with a red carnation in her hand, I sent an email saying “Feeling a bit shifty here. You didn’t really mean it about the godmother thing did you? It was just a pun wasn’t it? Um. Don’t know what else to say.”
Josephine came clean. “Truth will out”, she said. “We hadn’t really got round to thinking about godparents. But we really really really like the idea, so please do be Josh’s godmother. Or blogmother.”
If you reach out and touch your computer screen at this point, you can still feel the warmth generated by my embarrassment, even after 3 months and all those miles between us. Try it.
The story ends well, though. There was a bit more emailing between us. I said I was resigning and they could reconsider at leisure, and I wouldn’t be at all offended. Josephine said no, don’t resign, we do really want you to do this.
Husband is always very good in these over-wittering situations, and he suggested that really, we should all start operating a new system for appointing godparents. Henceforward it should always be done, following my excellent lead, on a volunteer basis. That way, you’d guarantee motivated godparents, and save parents a whole lot of angst about the choice. He pointed out that it was a win-win situation. I love being a godmother and can go and choose little baby clothes in the shops; Baby Joshua gets an additional Christmas and birthday present every year, and extra prayers offered up for his well-being. Can’t be bad. And Josephine? Well, she gets a laugh every time she thinks of my woeful over-enthusaism (I tell you, I’ve been in America too long), and hey, we’re still mates. In fact, she is such a good mate that she doesn’t use the comments box to accuse me of plagiarism every time I say ‘hey’ followed by a comma, or ‘as eny ful no’ or ‘aaaaargh!’ or ‘it’s not easy being me’ or any of her other trademark expressions that I have shamelessly nicked. And speaking of the comments box, I want you all to tread softly in it (as if you ever do anything other…). Remember this is a real life story you’re dealing with. And in case you were wondering, yes, she is happy for it to be a blog post – in fact, she suggested it.
Oh, and on the question of my blogging sabbatical, of course I'm still on it. I'm looking on the last half dozen posts as an extended one-off Christmas special. What do you mean, it’s January 20th...?
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Visit of the Snow Queen
Here is a guest blog by my sister, who spent Christmas and New Year with us. We had a large fall of snow just before she arrived, which was topped up a few days later and then stayed for the duration of her visit, melting away the day after she left. Hence the name she acquired while here.
I bribed her to write the post with the promise that she'd get nice comments from all my bloggy friends, so please don't disappoint.
"I had never been to America before, and had no idea what the Midwest would be like. Most of the television I watch is American, but none of it is filmed anywhere near Iotaville. If I were to go to New York, I would have an idea about what it would look like as I watch Friends and Sex and the City avidly. Ditto Seattle as I watch Frasier and Miami as I watch CSI. But, with the Midwest, I had no preconceived notions as to what the place would look like.
I had assumed, in a very superior manner, that there would be no history and no culture. The first assumption was completely correct, but I was very favourably impressed by the two museums I saw. They were imaginatively done and fun (especially if accompanied by a small child who dances round the glass cases shouting 'pooperscooper, pooperscooper, pooperscooper' in a loud voice).
What I found difficult to take on board was the sheer size of America. I was thinking that if you lived anywhere in the South of England and wanted to see, for example, Ian McKellen as King Lear, then you could travel up (or down) and see it. This is simply not possible in America, due to the vast distances. Of course, what you should be comparing it with is not England, but Europe. I wouldn’t travel to see any play if it was in Portugal, and this is what the comparison should be.
What also struck me was the confidence and positive outlook that everyone exudes, which I couldn’t decide whether I liked or not. In some ways it was a nice change after all our British negativity, but I did wonder how kind it was to tell children that they could be anything they wanted. “Never give up your dream” seems a very American thing to say. On the one hand, to tell people they will succeed if they keep trying is admirable, but it is totally unrealistic to tell a little girl she can be a top ballerina if she has no talent. Hard work and determination can get you far, but cannot cut everything. Enthusiasm, I decided, is great if it is genuine, and both cultures have something to learn about pitching it at the right level.
I did love the food. Being possessed of the sweetest tooth in the whole world meant that I was in my element with Philadelphia cheese with added brown sugar and treacle (did I imagine this?); ice cream with caramel, butterscotch and chocolate poured on top; and sugar cookies with extra icing. It was probably just as well for both teeth and waistline that I was only there for a couple of weeks. I often think about the Wal-mart shelves, groaning with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, little mince pies with real cream piped on top; and too many cakes to count. I am reaching for the jelly babies as we speak.
Now I am back, I do find I go around saying 'awesome' and 'good jarb' to people. I am certainly going to visit America again."
I bribed her to write the post with the promise that she'd get nice comments from all my bloggy friends, so please don't disappoint.
"I had never been to America before, and had no idea what the Midwest would be like. Most of the television I watch is American, but none of it is filmed anywhere near Iotaville. If I were to go to New York, I would have an idea about what it would look like as I watch Friends and Sex and the City avidly. Ditto Seattle as I watch Frasier and Miami as I watch CSI. But, with the Midwest, I had no preconceived notions as to what the place would look like.
I had assumed, in a very superior manner, that there would be no history and no culture. The first assumption was completely correct, but I was very favourably impressed by the two museums I saw. They were imaginatively done and fun (especially if accompanied by a small child who dances round the glass cases shouting 'pooperscooper, pooperscooper, pooperscooper' in a loud voice).
What I found difficult to take on board was the sheer size of America. I was thinking that if you lived anywhere in the South of England and wanted to see, for example, Ian McKellen as King Lear, then you could travel up (or down) and see it. This is simply not possible in America, due to the vast distances. Of course, what you should be comparing it with is not England, but Europe. I wouldn’t travel to see any play if it was in Portugal, and this is what the comparison should be.
What also struck me was the confidence and positive outlook that everyone exudes, which I couldn’t decide whether I liked or not. In some ways it was a nice change after all our British negativity, but I did wonder how kind it was to tell children that they could be anything they wanted. “Never give up your dream” seems a very American thing to say. On the one hand, to tell people they will succeed if they keep trying is admirable, but it is totally unrealistic to tell a little girl she can be a top ballerina if she has no talent. Hard work and determination can get you far, but cannot cut everything. Enthusiasm, I decided, is great if it is genuine, and both cultures have something to learn about pitching it at the right level.
I did love the food. Being possessed of the sweetest tooth in the whole world meant that I was in my element with Philadelphia cheese with added brown sugar and treacle (did I imagine this?); ice cream with caramel, butterscotch and chocolate poured on top; and sugar cookies with extra icing. It was probably just as well for both teeth and waistline that I was only there for a couple of weeks. I often think about the Wal-mart shelves, groaning with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, little mince pies with real cream piped on top; and too many cakes to count. I am reaching for the jelly babies as we speak.
Now I am back, I do find I go around saying 'awesome' and 'good jarb' to people. I am certainly going to visit America again."
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Enthusiasm: Part II
Where was I? Ah yes. Lost and alone on a sea of unembarrassed enthusiasm, without the raft of irony to cling onto... Doesn't sound good - I'd better not leave me there too long.
When one is shipwrecked, one has to make use of the scarce resources to hand, and thus it was that I began to investigate enthusiasm, to see if I could put it to any useful purpose. I noticed that my children came home from school with teachers’ comments reading “woo-hoo, 10-yo, this is AWESOME work!”, or “6-yo, I am so PROUD of how hard you tried on this - way to go!”, and seeing their faces light up with pride. I began to wonder how they would cope with a return to the “good effort” or “nice work” crumbs that they would be thrown by British teachers.
Then I noticed that even adults dealing with adults feel able to say things about themselves and each other that are affirming and positive and, well, rather, um, uncomfortable and embarrassing and, let’s face it, jolly unBritish. Then after a while, since you can get used to pretty much anything, I began to feel that this is actually quite nice (in a reserved kind of repressed way). The zenith came when I got together with 3 other women to form a book club. We had a great evening, partly discussing the book, mostly discussing life, and the next morning, there was a little flurry of emailing. It was effusive. There were superlatives. I was told I was “adorable”. Email, of course, is very forgiving, and in the privacy of my own home, I was able to shuffle about in my chair, look at the ceiling, breathe deeply and recite the words of God save the Queen to restore my equilibrium. I wrote a reply, matching their effusive excitement: “Thanks so much for your emails. It wasn’t a bad evening at all, was it?”
Maybe I’ve just been here too long, but you know, I can’t help feeling that the Americans might have got hold of something. I wonder what it is like in the other direction. How on earth does it feel to an American moving to England? Dour, cynical, repressed, gloomy? To them I say, you should try living in Scotland. No, no, I'm only joking.
You see, here in Home on the Range, there's a line that goes 'seldom is heard a discouraging word'. You get to Britain, and it's the brutal opposite. The newspapers are discouraging, the discussion in the office is discouraging, the chat at the school gate is discouraging. We don’t see it like that. We see it as self-consciously amusing, wittily detached. We think Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Ross, Private Eye. We look on the Americans as a nation of adults who’ve never quite grown out of childhood, but I’m beginning to wonder if the British are a nation of adults who haven’t entirely left their teenage years behind. We’re so keen (in a totally uninterested way, of course) to be cool, to be unimpressed. Perhaps it’s not as clever as we think.
I find myself in the uncomfortable position of sitting on the fence with a foot in each camp. Fundamentally I am a Brit. My Brit foot is a size 6, and it’s a laconic foot in a painfully elegant cashmere sock, draped languidly over the fence in a self-deprecating gesture, an ironic reference to post-modernist foothood.
But my Yank foot, a size 8½, is learning to wiggle its toes in an unembarrassed manner. I dread to look, as I think it might be clad in one of those socks with individual toes, in bright stripes or spots. It might even be in team colours. It's enjoying itself, and it isn't going to apologise for that. It's pursuing happiness, and that's its right. Nothing to be ashamed of there. I’ve just thought of something else. Oh no. It probably understands the offside rule, and if not held in check, will soon start offering to explain it to other feet.
Hm. Time to do the patent Iota litmus test of enthusiasm. Close my eyes, picture an old friend of mine who used to render a roomful of the rest of us helpless with laughter by his description of an 'enthyoosiast'. Re-run in my memory that perfectly honed timing and pronounciation. Yup. Still has me rolling around in my imaginary seat. Phew. Still on the right side of the fence then. That’s a relief. Though nothing to get too excited about, of course.
When one is shipwrecked, one has to make use of the scarce resources to hand, and thus it was that I began to investigate enthusiasm, to see if I could put it to any useful purpose. I noticed that my children came home from school with teachers’ comments reading “woo-hoo, 10-yo, this is AWESOME work!”, or “6-yo, I am so PROUD of how hard you tried on this - way to go!”, and seeing their faces light up with pride. I began to wonder how they would cope with a return to the “good effort” or “nice work” crumbs that they would be thrown by British teachers.
Then I noticed that even adults dealing with adults feel able to say things about themselves and each other that are affirming and positive and, well, rather, um, uncomfortable and embarrassing and, let’s face it, jolly unBritish. Then after a while, since you can get used to pretty much anything, I began to feel that this is actually quite nice (in a reserved kind of repressed way). The zenith came when I got together with 3 other women to form a book club. We had a great evening, partly discussing the book, mostly discussing life, and the next morning, there was a little flurry of emailing. It was effusive. There were superlatives. I was told I was “adorable”. Email, of course, is very forgiving, and in the privacy of my own home, I was able to shuffle about in my chair, look at the ceiling, breathe deeply and recite the words of God save the Queen to restore my equilibrium. I wrote a reply, matching their effusive excitement: “Thanks so much for your emails. It wasn’t a bad evening at all, was it?”
Maybe I’ve just been here too long, but you know, I can’t help feeling that the Americans might have got hold of something. I wonder what it is like in the other direction. How on earth does it feel to an American moving to England? Dour, cynical, repressed, gloomy? To them I say, you should try living in Scotland. No, no, I'm only joking.
You see, here in Home on the Range, there's a line that goes 'seldom is heard a discouraging word'. You get to Britain, and it's the brutal opposite. The newspapers are discouraging, the discussion in the office is discouraging, the chat at the school gate is discouraging. We don’t see it like that. We see it as self-consciously amusing, wittily detached. We think Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Ross, Private Eye. We look on the Americans as a nation of adults who’ve never quite grown out of childhood, but I’m beginning to wonder if the British are a nation of adults who haven’t entirely left their teenage years behind. We’re so keen (in a totally uninterested way, of course) to be cool, to be unimpressed. Perhaps it’s not as clever as we think.
I find myself in the uncomfortable position of sitting on the fence with a foot in each camp. Fundamentally I am a Brit. My Brit foot is a size 6, and it’s a laconic foot in a painfully elegant cashmere sock, draped languidly over the fence in a self-deprecating gesture, an ironic reference to post-modernist foothood.
But my Yank foot, a size 8½, is learning to wiggle its toes in an unembarrassed manner. I dread to look, as I think it might be clad in one of those socks with individual toes, in bright stripes or spots. It might even be in team colours. It's enjoying itself, and it isn't going to apologise for that. It's pursuing happiness, and that's its right. Nothing to be ashamed of there. I’ve just thought of something else. Oh no. It probably understands the offside rule, and if not held in check, will soon start offering to explain it to other feet.
Hm. Time to do the patent Iota litmus test of enthusiasm. Close my eyes, picture an old friend of mine who used to render a roomful of the rest of us helpless with laughter by his description of an 'enthyoosiast'. Re-run in my memory that perfectly honed timing and pronounciation. Yup. Still has me rolling around in my imaginary seat. Phew. Still on the right side of the fence then. That’s a relief. Though nothing to get too excited about, of course.
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