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.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Enthusiasm: Part I
Enthusiasm. I’ve thought a lot about enthusiasm over the past year. That’s because there’s a lot of it about over here. Americans are so unembarrassed about it, and you know what? I’ve come to admire that. I know, I know, it’s all very unBritish, and don’t think I can’t see you, over the Atlantic, wincing a little and gripping your shoulder blades together, and thinking “oh Iota, no, please not”.
It’s not cool, is it? Enthusiasm. It means celebrating your kids’ achievements publicly (dreadful), or being proud of what and who you are (ghastly), or telling people all about your favourite occupation and why you enjoy it (anorak). I have to say, however, that having experienced rather more of it in the past year than I am used to, I can see it does have a lot of upside.
My study of the enthusiasm phenomenon started when I went to 10-yo’s first soccer match of the season. I was horrified. All those parents cheering the team on, and seeming to mind very much how they did. I mean really mind. Not just showing up and being supportive in a generally parental way. I mean running up and down the sidelines and shouting encouragement. I guess this happens in Britain too. We hadn’t quite reached that stage before we left, so I asked my brother in Sussex, who has soccer-playing children. He said “yes, I’m afraid people do get rather keen, but just shout “go deep” every now and again, and you’ll be fine”. Yet in spite of his advice and this evidence of the existence of enthusiasm on the south coast of England, I couldn’t help feeling that somehow this unapologetic eagerness and commitment was something of a different animal in America.
I tested out another mum, by making a conspiratorial comment about not understanding the offside rule. Now, women do not understand the offside rule. That is just how it is, as any self-respecting member of the sex will tell you. They are not biologically designed to. It’s to do with hunting and gathering, or staying in the cave, and superior non-understanding DNA being passed into the gene pool. It’s been scientifically proved. So imagine my horror when the other mum said “oh don’t worry, you just have to see it in operation a few times, and then you’ll get it, but actually FIFA have just brought in a new ruling which has nuanced it a little”. Now that really wasn’t cricket at all. Here I was, having left family and home to start a new chapter in another continent, and I couldn’t even make a connection using the most fundamental of womanly bonds. I diagnosed a case of over-enthusiasm, but worse was to come.
There was another mother there who said she had been at the soccer field on Saturday AND Sunday. When I joked about “beyond the call of duty”, she said, straight-faced, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world”. That was the moment I realized I was adrift. Lost and alone on a sea of unembarrassed enthusiasm, without the raft of irony to cling onto. That was a bad moment.
To be continued…
It’s not cool, is it? Enthusiasm. It means celebrating your kids’ achievements publicly (dreadful), or being proud of what and who you are (ghastly), or telling people all about your favourite occupation and why you enjoy it (anorak). I have to say, however, that having experienced rather more of it in the past year than I am used to, I can see it does have a lot of upside.
My study of the enthusiasm phenomenon started when I went to 10-yo’s first soccer match of the season. I was horrified. All those parents cheering the team on, and seeming to mind very much how they did. I mean really mind. Not just showing up and being supportive in a generally parental way. I mean running up and down the sidelines and shouting encouragement. I guess this happens in Britain too. We hadn’t quite reached that stage before we left, so I asked my brother in Sussex, who has soccer-playing children. He said “yes, I’m afraid people do get rather keen, but just shout “go deep” every now and again, and you’ll be fine”. Yet in spite of his advice and this evidence of the existence of enthusiasm on the south coast of England, I couldn’t help feeling that somehow this unapologetic eagerness and commitment was something of a different animal in America.
I tested out another mum, by making a conspiratorial comment about not understanding the offside rule. Now, women do not understand the offside rule. That is just how it is, as any self-respecting member of the sex will tell you. They are not biologically designed to. It’s to do with hunting and gathering, or staying in the cave, and superior non-understanding DNA being passed into the gene pool. It’s been scientifically proved. So imagine my horror when the other mum said “oh don’t worry, you just have to see it in operation a few times, and then you’ll get it, but actually FIFA have just brought in a new ruling which has nuanced it a little”. Now that really wasn’t cricket at all. Here I was, having left family and home to start a new chapter in another continent, and I couldn’t even make a connection using the most fundamental of womanly bonds. I diagnosed a case of over-enthusiasm, but worse was to come.
There was another mother there who said she had been at the soccer field on Saturday AND Sunday. When I joked about “beyond the call of duty”, she said, straight-faced, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world”. That was the moment I realized I was adrift. Lost and alone on a sea of unembarrassed enthusiasm, without the raft of irony to cling onto. That was a bad moment.
To be continued…
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Top tips for a crafty Christmas
I might have been a preschool teacher in another life. Trouble is, it involves too many preschoolers in close proximity for too many hours of the day, and these days, too much filling in of forms and assessing which child has mastered which skill and when. Don’t get me started. But the little hint that gives me away is this: I love pottering about doing crafty-type things with small children. Actually, I love doing them without small children, but I didn’t know that until I had small children. Now I have small children, they are the props which make it possible for me to fiddle around with cotton wool, foam shapes and glue, without feeling silly. Of course now I’m in America, I could take up scrapbooking, which would probably fill the need, nurture the talent, help me express whatever creativity lurks behind the enjoyment of glue, shapes, googly eyes and pom-poms, but I can’t quite see the point of scrapbooking (sorry, all you dedicated scrapbookers out there), and I do have at least a few years left of small children before I have to turn my pottering about into something more credible. Maybe by then the phase will have passed.
Now don’t build me up into some kind of craft supermum here (I know you were about to…) I don’t hover round the kitchen table, sticky backed plastic in hand and clever ideas from the internet in head. My house isn’t filled with cute and kitsch home-made items that are both attractive and useful. It’s not a frequently-indulged pleasure, and when it is indulged, the result is some mournful object that hangs around on the side somewhere, until I judge that no-one except me will notice or be sad if it transferred to the trash.
Christmas is the perfect opportunity to indulge myself. I have a couple of books of beautiful craft projects for the season, so I flick through those. I always get put off by the words 'oven baked clay' though. Do people really know how to handle oven baked clay? I don’t. Sounds difficult. No. Trust me. There are only two things you need for Christmas crafts. Glitter and enthusiasm. That’s it. Simple, you see. Glitter and enthusiasm.
The glitter is easy. These days you can buy it in glue, which means it’s less messy. That, in my opinion, defeats half the purpose. I like the old stuff, in tubes, which you sprinkle daintily over your glue patterns, until the lid insert falls out and the whole tube empties in a great pile. You won’t be vacuuming glitter out of your carpet till September if you use the glitter glue, which would mean you missed half the fun. For me, glitter and sparkle has always been inseparably part of Christmas, but having a daughter has been a challenge to that. The inevitable pink that invades one’s life – the hospital pretty much delivers it along with the baby - is all too often accompanied by sparkle. ‘Pink and sparkly’ have become a classic duo, similar to ‘warm and cosy’, ‘hale and hearty’, ‘safe and sound’, ‘gin and tonic’. I’m not sure what you can do about that, really, except just use ever more copious amounts of glitter at Christmas time, and add it to the list of parental ‘when I was a child’ laments, along with out of season strawberries and having to eat up your food even if you didn’t like it.
You have to dig a bit deeper for the enthusiasm, but we all have a little Joyce Grenfell in us somewhere. You just need to brush up a bit of vocabulary. In America, this is easy, because (as well as the trusty ‘good jahb’), you can use ‘ahsome’ for every eventuality. For emphasis, you can say ‘totally ahsome’, but usually just good old ‘ahsome’ will do, especially if you add a bit of extra ‘aah’ to it. In England, we say ‘spiffing’ a lot at this time of year, supported by ‘splendid’ and ‘top notch’ (British readers, what ho, back me up on this one).
The other failsafe enthusiasm-generator is the Christmas CD. I’m not talking carols from King’s College Cambridge, or pop classics by the original artists. I’m talking Jingle Bell Rock or Fifty Festive Favourites. It’ll have unadventurous bass lines and a relentlessly annoying drum beat, it’ll have children singing out of tune and twee breathy whispered Christmas greetings, it’ll contain irritating mistakes (ours has “deck the halls with bows of holly”), but you know you’ll love it deep down.
The rest is easy. You just cut out shapes, and put lots of glitter on them. You can do snowflakes (white paper, easy), or reindeer (brown paper, might need a bit of advance shopping, or rummaging through the trash for an old brown envelope), or Santa (red paper, cotton wool), or a stocking (come now, even the most creatively challenged of us can cut out a stocking shape). See, it’s easy. You just have to remember that this is not an occasion when less is more. More glitter is more.
The final stage is to put up the decorations. Now there are some people whose artistic sensibilities may be offended at this point. If your house looks like something out of Country Living magazine, you may want to debate this suggestion, but come on, it’s only 12 days, and what are you afraid of? Even if the neighbours come round, what are they doing to say? At best, nothing, and at worst something along the lines of “oh, these are very… um… festive, aren’t they?” You may even enjoy watching them pause and struggle for the right word (should have thought the whole sentence out before beginning it). No-one is going to remark “your children don’t have very good fine motor skills do they?” or “what a pity your creative urges weren’t adequately satisfied by three experiences of childbirth”. You have nothing to fear in polite society, and you will make your children happy. What more could you want?
Now don’t build me up into some kind of craft supermum here (I know you were about to…) I don’t hover round the kitchen table, sticky backed plastic in hand and clever ideas from the internet in head. My house isn’t filled with cute and kitsch home-made items that are both attractive and useful. It’s not a frequently-indulged pleasure, and when it is indulged, the result is some mournful object that hangs around on the side somewhere, until I judge that no-one except me will notice or be sad if it transferred to the trash.
Christmas is the perfect opportunity to indulge myself. I have a couple of books of beautiful craft projects for the season, so I flick through those. I always get put off by the words 'oven baked clay' though. Do people really know how to handle oven baked clay? I don’t. Sounds difficult. No. Trust me. There are only two things you need for Christmas crafts. Glitter and enthusiasm. That’s it. Simple, you see. Glitter and enthusiasm.
The glitter is easy. These days you can buy it in glue, which means it’s less messy. That, in my opinion, defeats half the purpose. I like the old stuff, in tubes, which you sprinkle daintily over your glue patterns, until the lid insert falls out and the whole tube empties in a great pile. You won’t be vacuuming glitter out of your carpet till September if you use the glitter glue, which would mean you missed half the fun. For me, glitter and sparkle has always been inseparably part of Christmas, but having a daughter has been a challenge to that. The inevitable pink that invades one’s life – the hospital pretty much delivers it along with the baby - is all too often accompanied by sparkle. ‘Pink and sparkly’ have become a classic duo, similar to ‘warm and cosy’, ‘hale and hearty’, ‘safe and sound’, ‘gin and tonic’. I’m not sure what you can do about that, really, except just use ever more copious amounts of glitter at Christmas time, and add it to the list of parental ‘when I was a child’ laments, along with out of season strawberries and having to eat up your food even if you didn’t like it.
You have to dig a bit deeper for the enthusiasm, but we all have a little Joyce Grenfell in us somewhere. You just need to brush up a bit of vocabulary. In America, this is easy, because (as well as the trusty ‘good jahb’), you can use ‘ahsome’ for every eventuality. For emphasis, you can say ‘totally ahsome’, but usually just good old ‘ahsome’ will do, especially if you add a bit of extra ‘aah’ to it. In England, we say ‘spiffing’ a lot at this time of year, supported by ‘splendid’ and ‘top notch’ (British readers, what ho, back me up on this one).
The other failsafe enthusiasm-generator is the Christmas CD. I’m not talking carols from King’s College Cambridge, or pop classics by the original artists. I’m talking Jingle Bell Rock or Fifty Festive Favourites. It’ll have unadventurous bass lines and a relentlessly annoying drum beat, it’ll have children singing out of tune and twee breathy whispered Christmas greetings, it’ll contain irritating mistakes (ours has “deck the halls with bows of holly”), but you know you’ll love it deep down.
The rest is easy. You just cut out shapes, and put lots of glitter on them. You can do snowflakes (white paper, easy), or reindeer (brown paper, might need a bit of advance shopping, or rummaging through the trash for an old brown envelope), or Santa (red paper, cotton wool), or a stocking (come now, even the most creatively challenged of us can cut out a stocking shape). See, it’s easy. You just have to remember that this is not an occasion when less is more. More glitter is more.
The final stage is to put up the decorations. Now there are some people whose artistic sensibilities may be offended at this point. If your house looks like something out of Country Living magazine, you may want to debate this suggestion, but come on, it’s only 12 days, and what are you afraid of? Even if the neighbours come round, what are they doing to say? At best, nothing, and at worst something along the lines of “oh, these are very… um… festive, aren’t they?” You may even enjoy watching them pause and struggle for the right word (should have thought the whole sentence out before beginning it). No-one is going to remark “your children don’t have very good fine motor skills do they?” or “what a pity your creative urges weren’t adequately satisfied by three experiences of childbirth”. You have nothing to fear in polite society, and you will make your children happy. What more could you want?
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Not wrong, just different: Christmas Special
It was the suggestion in the comments box, coming on the same day as that most bloggable of events, the school Christmas concert, which did it. That, and having a sister who sits and enjoys watching 'Barbie as Rapunzel' with 3-yo. Yes, I really did say “enjoys watching”, so don’t waste time flicking your eyes back over that sentence in disbelief. Come with me, instead, as I emerge from my self-imposed blogging silence, and take you to my boys’ Christmas evening concert.
To enjoy this story to its full, you have to know that in corners of the blogosphere, there has been much head-scratching and brow-furrowing amongst those involved in school Christmas concerts over possible rhymes for the name ‘Mary’. I believe it was even suggested resituating the Christmas story in the Republic of Ireland at one point, simply to make the following a possibility:
Lo on yonder donkey, here comes Mary,
(cue for solo line by small girl in blue costume)
“It’s a long way to Tipperary”.
There was also an attempt to adapt the favourite old Scottish ballad 'Auntie Mary kept a canary', but it’s too profane to repeat here.
Anyway, as it turned out, here in the heart of the mid-American plains, the answer was sitting on my doorstep, in the form of my sons’ music teacher, Mr Darey: music teacher and Christmas show impresario. By now, my rhyming-with-Mary skills are so finely honed that I could have produced a whole ballad featuring Mr Darey and the entire lower school, beginning:
Here comes Mary, riding on a donkey,
Watch Mr Darey, then the singing won't go wonky.
Sadly, though, this was not to be. First, the anonymity of the blog means that my rhyming-with-Mary skills are not known locally. Second, and perhaps this is the more significant reason, the festive season is so PR-conscious, that carols and nativities are done away with altogether, and so the school show was all about snow, reindeer, rocking round the tree, and chipmunks. This is one of those culturally puzzling things. Here I am, slap in the middle of the Bible Belt, somewhere between Ezekiel and Zephaniah I should think, and all year round, it is totally acceptable - in a way that it no longer is in Britain - to talk about Christianity, practice Christianity, assume Christianity is a common local currency. Till Christmas. Then people carefully wish you “Happy Holidays”, put up holiday trees, bake festive cookies, purchase seasonal items, focus unwaveringly on Santa as the hero of the piece, and avoid any nasty religious reference altogether - just at the point of the year when in Britain, the Christian story is allowed to peep through the liberal tolerant curtain.
Anyway, back to the show. It was the very best evening I’ve spent here, and I’ve lived here over a year, so that’s saying something (perhaps it says I should get out more of an evening). For the first quarter of an hour, every minute was a blog post moment. The Christmas tree was knocked over by the curtains, the microphones squealed with feedback, the opening number went horribly wrong because no-one had worked out how long it takes 240 children to get onto a stage - or indeed whether 240 children could fit on this particular stage. There were children wobbling precariously on benches, and instructions hissed at them from the wings. There was talk of how old and historic the building was (built in 1907) which had me and Husband giggling smugly into our hands. We were told there would be no drinks in the interval because the venue had specified that they had just had a new carpet fitted and didn't want anything spilt on it (do they not know what a few chocolate chip cookies can do to a carpet under the feet of 240 children and accompanying families?)
The best thing though, by far, was Mr Darey himself. He was, Husband and I agreed, an amalgamation of Morecambe and Wise. He played both the straight guy and the funny guy. He fed himself lines, then played up to them. He looked like Morecambe, but with Wise's height. By the end of the evening, every time he had to do the fill-in bit between numbers (which took ages because the venue was huge and the school hadn't been able to rehearse in it, so there were times when whole classes went missing), Husband and I would murmur to each other "that was very Morecambe" or "that was just so Wise". I was fully expecting him at any moment to do that wiggling up and down thing with his glasses. He demonstrated two different ties that played Jingle Bells. He kept telling us how wonderful our kids are (this is a fail-safe with parents isn't it?) and how much fun rehearsals had been. The duet he performed with his wife, more 'White Christmas' than ‘Bring Me Sunshine’, was a fine number, but I must confess it did provide the one big disappointment of the evening. I’d so hoped she’d be called Mary, but she was Geraldine. Such a wasted opportunity.
There were lots of clever twists, like the fifth grade singing Jingle Bells, and then suddenly shifting up a gear and doing it in the style of Elvis, ending with a cheery “ho, ho, ho y’all”. There was the second grade hijacking the fourth grade’s number, but, guess what, the two songs blended perfectly to make a rousing duet. There were the first graders dressing up as presents, promising to mail themselves to their fondly-watching parents. There were a couple of numbers by members of staff, which I thought was pretty sporting of them. There was a grand finale, worthy of Morecambe and Wise, with everyone on stage and Angela Rippon doing the can-can.
So that kicked our Christmas off to a flying start. Now I’m merrily a-blogging again (just for the season, you understand), watch out for Iota’s Crafty Christmas Tips, and a guest blog from my mother and/or sister. Unless the Beeb is running old Morecambe and Wise Christmas Specials, in which case you’ll be too busy watching those to be reading blogs.
Happy Christmas to you all. And I was fibbing about Angela Rippon, by the way. Sorry.
To enjoy this story to its full, you have to know that in corners of the blogosphere, there has been much head-scratching and brow-furrowing amongst those involved in school Christmas concerts over possible rhymes for the name ‘Mary’. I believe it was even suggested resituating the Christmas story in the Republic of Ireland at one point, simply to make the following a possibility:
Lo on yonder donkey, here comes Mary,
(cue for solo line by small girl in blue costume)
“It’s a long way to Tipperary”.
There was also an attempt to adapt the favourite old Scottish ballad 'Auntie Mary kept a canary', but it’s too profane to repeat here.
Anyway, as it turned out, here in the heart of the mid-American plains, the answer was sitting on my doorstep, in the form of my sons’ music teacher, Mr Darey: music teacher and Christmas show impresario. By now, my rhyming-with-Mary skills are so finely honed that I could have produced a whole ballad featuring Mr Darey and the entire lower school, beginning:
Here comes Mary, riding on a donkey,
Watch Mr Darey, then the singing won't go wonky.
Sadly, though, this was not to be. First, the anonymity of the blog means that my rhyming-with-Mary skills are not known locally. Second, and perhaps this is the more significant reason, the festive season is so PR-conscious, that carols and nativities are done away with altogether, and so the school show was all about snow, reindeer, rocking round the tree, and chipmunks. This is one of those culturally puzzling things. Here I am, slap in the middle of the Bible Belt, somewhere between Ezekiel and Zephaniah I should think, and all year round, it is totally acceptable - in a way that it no longer is in Britain - to talk about Christianity, practice Christianity, assume Christianity is a common local currency. Till Christmas. Then people carefully wish you “Happy Holidays”, put up holiday trees, bake festive cookies, purchase seasonal items, focus unwaveringly on Santa as the hero of the piece, and avoid any nasty religious reference altogether - just at the point of the year when in Britain, the Christian story is allowed to peep through the liberal tolerant curtain.
Anyway, back to the show. It was the very best evening I’ve spent here, and I’ve lived here over a year, so that’s saying something (perhaps it says I should get out more of an evening). For the first quarter of an hour, every minute was a blog post moment. The Christmas tree was knocked over by the curtains, the microphones squealed with feedback, the opening number went horribly wrong because no-one had worked out how long it takes 240 children to get onto a stage - or indeed whether 240 children could fit on this particular stage. There were children wobbling precariously on benches, and instructions hissed at them from the wings. There was talk of how old and historic the building was (built in 1907) which had me and Husband giggling smugly into our hands. We were told there would be no drinks in the interval because the venue had specified that they had just had a new carpet fitted and didn't want anything spilt on it (do they not know what a few chocolate chip cookies can do to a carpet under the feet of 240 children and accompanying families?)
The best thing though, by far, was Mr Darey himself. He was, Husband and I agreed, an amalgamation of Morecambe and Wise. He played both the straight guy and the funny guy. He fed himself lines, then played up to them. He looked like Morecambe, but with Wise's height. By the end of the evening, every time he had to do the fill-in bit between numbers (which took ages because the venue was huge and the school hadn't been able to rehearse in it, so there were times when whole classes went missing), Husband and I would murmur to each other "that was very Morecambe" or "that was just so Wise". I was fully expecting him at any moment to do that wiggling up and down thing with his glasses. He demonstrated two different ties that played Jingle Bells. He kept telling us how wonderful our kids are (this is a fail-safe with parents isn't it?) and how much fun rehearsals had been. The duet he performed with his wife, more 'White Christmas' than ‘Bring Me Sunshine’, was a fine number, but I must confess it did provide the one big disappointment of the evening. I’d so hoped she’d be called Mary, but she was Geraldine. Such a wasted opportunity.
There were lots of clever twists, like the fifth grade singing Jingle Bells, and then suddenly shifting up a gear and doing it in the style of Elvis, ending with a cheery “ho, ho, ho y’all”. There was the second grade hijacking the fourth grade’s number, but, guess what, the two songs blended perfectly to make a rousing duet. There were the first graders dressing up as presents, promising to mail themselves to their fondly-watching parents. There were a couple of numbers by members of staff, which I thought was pretty sporting of them. There was a grand finale, worthy of Morecambe and Wise, with everyone on stage and Angela Rippon doing the can-can.
So that kicked our Christmas off to a flying start. Now I’m merrily a-blogging again (just for the season, you understand), watch out for Iota’s Crafty Christmas Tips, and a guest blog from my mother and/or sister. Unless the Beeb is running old Morecambe and Wise Christmas Specials, in which case you’ll be too busy watching those to be reading blogs.
Happy Christmas to you all. And I was fibbing about Angela Rippon, by the way. Sorry.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Reasons to be cheerful: Part III
Big congrats to Mya and Jo Beaufoix for entering the competitionette. I loved both your entries. I realize that most people couldn’t cope with competing as well as registering the news that I am signing off from blogging for a while. I should know by now – one thing that requires mental attention per blog post; that’s all we bloggers can cope with.
Now, back to my Reasons to be cheerful: Part III. It goes
Hammersmith Palee, the Bolshoi Ballee,
Dijon mustard, Freddy’s Frozen Custard.
See. You’d never have guessed that, would you?
Dijon mustard is easily available here, and obviously that is a reason to be cheerful (and let’s face it, not much else rhymes with ‘custard’). I don’t need to tell you much else about Dijon mustard. But when it comes to Freddy’s Frozen Custard, well, I could blog on for hours.
“Frozen Custard” says the notice on the wall “is a frequently misunderstood product”. Now, dear Bloggy Friend, lest you be one of the many who misunderstand frozen custard, let me tell you more. According to the notice, it is like ice cream, but the recipe uses more eggs, and a time-tested process that closely replicates the hand-churning method of old. This forces air out of the mixture, minimising the formation of ice crystals. Just in case you aren’t jumping round the room with sheer cheerfulness, let me point out the significance. “This combination prevents the product from melting too quickly and allows it to be served at a higher temperature than ice cream.” Still haven’t quite got it? Do you remember how, when you were a child, you used to mix your ice cream in the bowl round and round and round, as quickly as possible, to soften it to a lovely semi-runny semi-solid consistency? Frozen custard is just that temperature and consistency, but creamier, and you don’t even get told off by your parents for making a racket with your spoon. What it means is that this is the perfect product for people who like ice cream but who have sensitive teeth. Like me. You don’t have to eat it half a teaspoon at a time, holding it carefully on your tongue in the very middle of your mouth, till your body temperature has warmed it up enough to risk allowing it past your touchy back molars. And it's very creamy. Very very creamy.
You can have frozen custard either as a sundae with a choice of toppings, or as a concrete – which means that the toppings are whizzed in, somewhat like a McFlurry (although truly, I hesitate to use that word in the same blog post as frozen custard, as the two could only be compared by the deeply unimaginative). So, you might hear a customer order “a large vanilla concrete with marshmallows and rainbow sprinkles”. It sounds like a Mafia threat, I think. My favourite order is “the Signature Turtle” – both for taste and for obscurity of title (although once you’ve had one or two, you do begin to see a small resemblance to a turtle, and the pecan nuts round the edge look a bit turtley too). Of course the portions are huge, so that even a mini concrete would be enough to point a small wall with, but experience shows there’s just no future in expecting reasonable size servings here in the US. You can’t blame Freddy’s for that.
Frozen custard is a frequently misunderstood, but totally delicious, product. It wouldn’t, however, have the same charm if it wasn’t Freddy’s. When you go to Freddy’s, you feel his presence. The décor and ambiance are nothing special, but on the walls and on each table are black and white photos of Freddy, his lovely wife Norma (sic), and their four children. Each time you go, you can sit by another little window into his life. Or if you have a blog to write, you can wander round, looking at the pictures and reading the captions, intruding rudely into the personal space of families and friends sharing intimate moments over a frozen custard. There are photos of Freddy and the family at Christmas, the children sitting by the tree in patterned sweaters, their hair smartly brushed. There are photos of Freddy and the family visiting his brother in California, standing self-consciously on the beach in waist-high swimming trunks and squinting at the camera. There are photos of Freddy as a young man, in uniform, and as an older man, visiting a veteran’s memorial in the Pacific. There are photos of Freddy on a tractor. Freddy spent most of his life as a farmer, but was always interested in frozen custard, and over the years, refined and perfected his recipe. He opened his first outlet in 2004, and celebrated his 77th birthday by opening his second soon after. There are now several across four states. What could epitomize the American dream more neatly than Freddy’s life? He served his country in wartime, spent most of his life running his farm with his wife and four children at his side, dreaming dreams of the perfect frozen dessert, and in his retirement, became an entrepreneur and melted his frozen dreams into reality. He must have a bit of help – a burgeoning army of marketing people and corporate executives. I imagine he keeps them all in line. He graduated in 1949 from Wichita University with a degree in Accountancy (there’s a photo), and I’m sure has a good head for business. I’m told that Freddy often visits his outlets, so I hope I might bump into him one day. I’ll buy him a Signature Turtle.
You must watch out for Freddy’s Frozen Custards in Britain – it can only be a matter of time before they arrive. Or you can go to the website, click on ‘Franchise’, and put in an application to open your own one. If Freddy, in his mid-70s, found the energy to launch the chain, what's your excuse for not opening a local one?
Well now, nearly time for me to go off on my blogging break. I’d just like to remind you of two things I said in my last post. First, it’s intended to be a break, not a complete departure, and I am planning to be back at some point. I’ve set up that clever RSS feed thingy so you can sign up to know when I’m writing again (actually, it's so clever, that it had set itself up already by default – amazing). Second, I’m still going to be around reading your blogs and commenting.
Thank you all for your kind comments, and for being such wonderful Bloggy Friends. I’m sure you know how much I’ve enjoyed and valued, and needed, the fun of being part of it all over the past 6 months.
Now, back to my Reasons to be cheerful: Part III. It goes
Hammersmith Palee, the Bolshoi Ballee,
Dijon mustard, Freddy’s Frozen Custard.
See. You’d never have guessed that, would you?
Dijon mustard is easily available here, and obviously that is a reason to be cheerful (and let’s face it, not much else rhymes with ‘custard’). I don’t need to tell you much else about Dijon mustard. But when it comes to Freddy’s Frozen Custard, well, I could blog on for hours.
“Frozen Custard” says the notice on the wall “is a frequently misunderstood product”. Now, dear Bloggy Friend, lest you be one of the many who misunderstand frozen custard, let me tell you more. According to the notice, it is like ice cream, but the recipe uses more eggs, and a time-tested process that closely replicates the hand-churning method of old. This forces air out of the mixture, minimising the formation of ice crystals. Just in case you aren’t jumping round the room with sheer cheerfulness, let me point out the significance. “This combination prevents the product from melting too quickly and allows it to be served at a higher temperature than ice cream.” Still haven’t quite got it? Do you remember how, when you were a child, you used to mix your ice cream in the bowl round and round and round, as quickly as possible, to soften it to a lovely semi-runny semi-solid consistency? Frozen custard is just that temperature and consistency, but creamier, and you don’t even get told off by your parents for making a racket with your spoon. What it means is that this is the perfect product for people who like ice cream but who have sensitive teeth. Like me. You don’t have to eat it half a teaspoon at a time, holding it carefully on your tongue in the very middle of your mouth, till your body temperature has warmed it up enough to risk allowing it past your touchy back molars. And it's very creamy. Very very creamy.
You can have frozen custard either as a sundae with a choice of toppings, or as a concrete – which means that the toppings are whizzed in, somewhat like a McFlurry (although truly, I hesitate to use that word in the same blog post as frozen custard, as the two could only be compared by the deeply unimaginative). So, you might hear a customer order “a large vanilla concrete with marshmallows and rainbow sprinkles”. It sounds like a Mafia threat, I think. My favourite order is “the Signature Turtle” – both for taste and for obscurity of title (although once you’ve had one or two, you do begin to see a small resemblance to a turtle, and the pecan nuts round the edge look a bit turtley too). Of course the portions are huge, so that even a mini concrete would be enough to point a small wall with, but experience shows there’s just no future in expecting reasonable size servings here in the US. You can’t blame Freddy’s for that.
Frozen custard is a frequently misunderstood, but totally delicious, product. It wouldn’t, however, have the same charm if it wasn’t Freddy’s. When you go to Freddy’s, you feel his presence. The décor and ambiance are nothing special, but on the walls and on each table are black and white photos of Freddy, his lovely wife Norma (sic), and their four children. Each time you go, you can sit by another little window into his life. Or if you have a blog to write, you can wander round, looking at the pictures and reading the captions, intruding rudely into the personal space of families and friends sharing intimate moments over a frozen custard. There are photos of Freddy and the family at Christmas, the children sitting by the tree in patterned sweaters, their hair smartly brushed. There are photos of Freddy and the family visiting his brother in California, standing self-consciously on the beach in waist-high swimming trunks and squinting at the camera. There are photos of Freddy as a young man, in uniform, and as an older man, visiting a veteran’s memorial in the Pacific. There are photos of Freddy on a tractor. Freddy spent most of his life as a farmer, but was always interested in frozen custard, and over the years, refined and perfected his recipe. He opened his first outlet in 2004, and celebrated his 77th birthday by opening his second soon after. There are now several across four states. What could epitomize the American dream more neatly than Freddy’s life? He served his country in wartime, spent most of his life running his farm with his wife and four children at his side, dreaming dreams of the perfect frozen dessert, and in his retirement, became an entrepreneur and melted his frozen dreams into reality. He must have a bit of help – a burgeoning army of marketing people and corporate executives. I imagine he keeps them all in line. He graduated in 1949 from Wichita University with a degree in Accountancy (there’s a photo), and I’m sure has a good head for business. I’m told that Freddy often visits his outlets, so I hope I might bump into him one day. I’ll buy him a Signature Turtle.
You must watch out for Freddy’s Frozen Custards in Britain – it can only be a matter of time before they arrive. Or you can go to the website, click on ‘Franchise’, and put in an application to open your own one. If Freddy, in his mid-70s, found the energy to launch the chain, what's your excuse for not opening a local one?
Well now, nearly time for me to go off on my blogging break. I’d just like to remind you of two things I said in my last post. First, it’s intended to be a break, not a complete departure, and I am planning to be back at some point. I’ve set up that clever RSS feed thingy so you can sign up to know when I’m writing again (actually, it's so clever, that it had set itself up already by default – amazing). Second, I’m still going to be around reading your blogs and commenting.
Thank you all for your kind comments, and for being such wonderful Bloggy Friends. I’m sure you know how much I’ve enjoyed and valued, and needed, the fun of being part of it all over the past 6 months.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Taking a break
I’m going to be taking a break from blogging. It goes something like this.
The usual complaint: life getting in the way. This is a good sign, though. It means that my life is busy, and that I don’t have so much time to sit and write about it. I no longer have to go to Wal-Mart to make sure that I have had at least one face-to-face adult conversation with someone who isn’t my husband in the course of the day. The week. You think I’m joking. I tell you, it was bad when I first arrived here. So the fact that I have things to do, people to talk to, balls to juggle, visitors for Christmas, is good news. Yay! (as I've learnt to say...)
I haven’t yet empirically tested the theory that my house would be tidier and cleaner if I didn’t blog, but I don’t need to. I know it is not true. However, there is a parallel theory that I think is worth testing. It says that if I didn’t blog, I might go to the gym or the pool or even just walk around the neighborhood (having changed into my sports gear and put my walkman on, to blend in a little) and be a bit fitter. It’s a theory worth testing. There’s that blog post I haven’t quite dared write yet about the American way of life and the big O. When you’re not walking briskly about in the course of your day, it does take its toll, and that gym really needs to see more of me. Obesity, by the way, if you were wondering. I’m not there yet, but something called middle age spread is doing a 360 degree job where my waist used to be, and I’m not ready to admit defeat yet. ('Middle age spread' sounds like something you buy in a jar and put on your toast, doesn’t it? If only…)
So there’s life, and then there’s children. 6-yo has said, on more than one occasion, “you tell us not to get addicted to video games, but you’re addicted to the computer”. He has a point. I mumble stuff about “important jobs”, but then there’s 10-yo who says “what, your blog you mean?” Now, before you leap to my defence and tell me not to be bullied by my children, let me thank you for your support, and tell you that I’m not, but of course they are a large part of this thing called “real life” which intrudes upon blog-writing and blog-reading time. I imagined fondly that when 3-yo started preschool, I would have 3 mornings a week to myself. What I couldn’t have foreseen (it’s really not fair being a parent, is it?) is that going out to preschool would make her more needy of proper time with me when at home. She used to potter independently and happily, but now she seems to need much more in the way of entertainment, and insists on my company, even for watching television. I don’t really mind, as being needed, though demanding, keeps your maternal mind away from such horrors as no longer being needed. The whole process of gaining time for yourself has a bittersweetness to it, I’ve always found (it's really, really not fair being a parent). For months, nay years, you have a small person attached to your breast, hip or lower leg, and dream of the day when you might nip out somewhere spontaneously without finding shoes, thinking up creative ways of making the car seat an attractive prospect, and fast forwarding through endless nursery rhymes in order to find the favourite of the day, which you do just as you arrive at your destination. Then those times come, and you’re not quite sure what to do with them. It probably takes a bit of practice. Sorry, I digress. What I was trying to tell you was that, yes, I do have three 2-hour blocks of time to myself that I didn’t used to have, but for the rest of the week, I have a small person who is deeply jealous of the computer. She worked out a long time ago that she could interrupt a blogging session by putting her shoulder against the side of our wheelie office chair, and pushing me sideways away from the desk. She has now perfected the manoeuvre, and rotates the chair through 180 degrees, so I end up a few feet to the side and facing the room with my back to the desk.
So there’s life, there’s children, and on a happy note, there’s this. I love cruising round the blogosphere, and catching up on what everyone is doing in Scotland, France, London, deepest Africa, Northumberland, other bits of the States, and everywhere else where people who know how to write darn good blogs live. I realize, however, that as the weeks have rolled by, I no longer feel quite the same urgency to do so. I’m not falling out of love with you all, honest, it’s just a sign that I like my own four walls rather more, and am not so desperate to escape them any little spare moment of the day. This is all positive stuff. Do I sniff the words “feeling more settled” in the autumn breeze? (sorry, I love that word too much to exchange it for the prosaic “fall” which to me has a glum feel to it, even if you open up that vowel to make it “fahl”). We arrived in the Midwest on December 4th last year (Iota Day, put it in your diary, send me a cheery email), and I feel that perhaps now is a good time to start looking at my life here through a different lens. It’s time, I think, for it to become not wrong, not different, just ordinary life.
Life, children, happier at home (though still reserving the right for the occasional vent), and – bear with me - one more thing. I’m just wondering, just just wondering, if perhaps, instead of regaling you with blog-sized chunks of my life, I might just keep them all together, and just see if I can write a book. Perhaps just maybe. Just. Dorothy Jones’ Diary (ooh, now there’s a big clue as to my location). I wasn’t going to confess that, but I feel I’m among friends…
I need to write one more blog post. This is partly because I must set up some clever RSS feed or something, so that you can sign up, and then when I run screaming back to the computer in few weeks’ time, unable to face a life without blogging, and begging forgiveness humbly on my knees, you will be notified and can come by to leave a comment saying “what? you think you can just walk away and then expect us to take you back?” (Actually, I'm probably going to carry on reading and commenting, and just give up the writing; I can't see the full cold turkey approach lasting.)
The other reason is that I ploughed my way through Reasons to be cheerful: Parts I and II, in order that I could get to Reasons to be cheerful: Part III, so it would be a darn shame to miss the opportunity. You remember that mad but marvelous song, by Ian Dury and the Blockheads? I’ve always found the reasons to be cheerful/count your blessings approach to life rather a good one, and I’ve relied on it much over the past year. In fact, our decision to come to the Midwest was nudged along in its early days by a 'reasons to be cheerful' moment that saw me sitting on a grass verge, holding 2-yo tighter to my chest than any 2 year old has ever been held before, looking at the wreck that was the car we’d been in, watching the trees swaying in the wind, and thinking “there are worse things than moving to the Midwest”.
But back to Ian Dury. I thought I’d run another wee competitionette while I’m incommunicado on vacation in San Diego (mmm, lovely). I was going to ask you to guess my forthcoming reasons to be cheerful, but it’s very obscure and you’d have no chance unless you lived in the Midwest, and life has enough disappointments for us all without me deliberately setting you up to endure another one, good losers though you are. So instead I’ll ask you all to think up your own reasons to be cheerful, two of them, which rhyme and scan, and if you were Ian Dury, would have made it into the song. You’ll find it easily enough on Youtube and Lyricsmania.com if you need to be reminded of lines such as my favourite which goes:
Hammersmith Palee, the Bolshoi Ballee...
You get the idea. So tell me your reasons to be cheerful. Indulge me for one more post.
The usual complaint: life getting in the way. This is a good sign, though. It means that my life is busy, and that I don’t have so much time to sit and write about it. I no longer have to go to Wal-Mart to make sure that I have had at least one face-to-face adult conversation with someone who isn’t my husband in the course of the day. The week. You think I’m joking. I tell you, it was bad when I first arrived here. So the fact that I have things to do, people to talk to, balls to juggle, visitors for Christmas, is good news. Yay! (as I've learnt to say...)
I haven’t yet empirically tested the theory that my house would be tidier and cleaner if I didn’t blog, but I don’t need to. I know it is not true. However, there is a parallel theory that I think is worth testing. It says that if I didn’t blog, I might go to the gym or the pool or even just walk around the neighborhood (having changed into my sports gear and put my walkman on, to blend in a little) and be a bit fitter. It’s a theory worth testing. There’s that blog post I haven’t quite dared write yet about the American way of life and the big O. When you’re not walking briskly about in the course of your day, it does take its toll, and that gym really needs to see more of me. Obesity, by the way, if you were wondering. I’m not there yet, but something called middle age spread is doing a 360 degree job where my waist used to be, and I’m not ready to admit defeat yet. ('Middle age spread' sounds like something you buy in a jar and put on your toast, doesn’t it? If only…)
So there’s life, and then there’s children. 6-yo has said, on more than one occasion, “you tell us not to get addicted to video games, but you’re addicted to the computer”. He has a point. I mumble stuff about “important jobs”, but then there’s 10-yo who says “what, your blog you mean?” Now, before you leap to my defence and tell me not to be bullied by my children, let me thank you for your support, and tell you that I’m not, but of course they are a large part of this thing called “real life” which intrudes upon blog-writing and blog-reading time. I imagined fondly that when 3-yo started preschool, I would have 3 mornings a week to myself. What I couldn’t have foreseen (it’s really not fair being a parent, is it?) is that going out to preschool would make her more needy of proper time with me when at home. She used to potter independently and happily, but now she seems to need much more in the way of entertainment, and insists on my company, even for watching television. I don’t really mind, as being needed, though demanding, keeps your maternal mind away from such horrors as no longer being needed. The whole process of gaining time for yourself has a bittersweetness to it, I’ve always found (it's really, really not fair being a parent). For months, nay years, you have a small person attached to your breast, hip or lower leg, and dream of the day when you might nip out somewhere spontaneously without finding shoes, thinking up creative ways of making the car seat an attractive prospect, and fast forwarding through endless nursery rhymes in order to find the favourite of the day, which you do just as you arrive at your destination. Then those times come, and you’re not quite sure what to do with them. It probably takes a bit of practice. Sorry, I digress. What I was trying to tell you was that, yes, I do have three 2-hour blocks of time to myself that I didn’t used to have, but for the rest of the week, I have a small person who is deeply jealous of the computer. She worked out a long time ago that she could interrupt a blogging session by putting her shoulder against the side of our wheelie office chair, and pushing me sideways away from the desk. She has now perfected the manoeuvre, and rotates the chair through 180 degrees, so I end up a few feet to the side and facing the room with my back to the desk.
So there’s life, there’s children, and on a happy note, there’s this. I love cruising round the blogosphere, and catching up on what everyone is doing in Scotland, France, London, deepest Africa, Northumberland, other bits of the States, and everywhere else where people who know how to write darn good blogs live. I realize, however, that as the weeks have rolled by, I no longer feel quite the same urgency to do so. I’m not falling out of love with you all, honest, it’s just a sign that I like my own four walls rather more, and am not so desperate to escape them any little spare moment of the day. This is all positive stuff. Do I sniff the words “feeling more settled” in the autumn breeze? (sorry, I love that word too much to exchange it for the prosaic “fall” which to me has a glum feel to it, even if you open up that vowel to make it “fahl”). We arrived in the Midwest on December 4th last year (Iota Day, put it in your diary, send me a cheery email), and I feel that perhaps now is a good time to start looking at my life here through a different lens. It’s time, I think, for it to become not wrong, not different, just ordinary life.
Life, children, happier at home (though still reserving the right for the occasional vent), and – bear with me - one more thing. I’m just wondering, just just wondering, if perhaps, instead of regaling you with blog-sized chunks of my life, I might just keep them all together, and just see if I can write a book. Perhaps just maybe. Just. Dorothy Jones’ Diary (ooh, now there’s a big clue as to my location). I wasn’t going to confess that, but I feel I’m among friends…
I need to write one more blog post. This is partly because I must set up some clever RSS feed or something, so that you can sign up, and then when I run screaming back to the computer in few weeks’ time, unable to face a life without blogging, and begging forgiveness humbly on my knees, you will be notified and can come by to leave a comment saying “what? you think you can just walk away and then expect us to take you back?” (Actually, I'm probably going to carry on reading and commenting, and just give up the writing; I can't see the full cold turkey approach lasting.)
The other reason is that I ploughed my way through Reasons to be cheerful: Parts I and II, in order that I could get to Reasons to be cheerful: Part III, so it would be a darn shame to miss the opportunity. You remember that mad but marvelous song, by Ian Dury and the Blockheads? I’ve always found the reasons to be cheerful/count your blessings approach to life rather a good one, and I’ve relied on it much over the past year. In fact, our decision to come to the Midwest was nudged along in its early days by a 'reasons to be cheerful' moment that saw me sitting on a grass verge, holding 2-yo tighter to my chest than any 2 year old has ever been held before, looking at the wreck that was the car we’d been in, watching the trees swaying in the wind, and thinking “there are worse things than moving to the Midwest”.
But back to Ian Dury. I thought I’d run another wee competitionette while I’m incommunicado on vacation in San Diego (mmm, lovely). I was going to ask you to guess my forthcoming reasons to be cheerful, but it’s very obscure and you’d have no chance unless you lived in the Midwest, and life has enough disappointments for us all without me deliberately setting you up to endure another one, good losers though you are. So instead I’ll ask you all to think up your own reasons to be cheerful, two of them, which rhyme and scan, and if you were Ian Dury, would have made it into the song. You’ll find it easily enough on Youtube and Lyricsmania.com if you need to be reminded of lines such as my favourite which goes:
Hammersmith Palee, the Bolshoi Ballee...
You get the idea. So tell me your reasons to be cheerful. Indulge me for one more post.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
A convoluted puzzle
Now you know how I enjoy a brain-teaser when I'm out shopping. Well, I spotted another one yesterday. I was in Wal-Mart, and as I walked past the bedding section, I read the following sign above one of the aisles:
bed pillows
foam pillows
feather pillows
convoluted pillows.
Intriguing. Convoluted pillows. I like my sleep time to be simple and straightforward. The last thing I would want is a convoluted pillow giving me convoluted dreams.
The amazing thing is that not only do enough people want to buy convoluted pillows that it is worth Wal-Mart's while to stock them, but that so many people want to buy them that they merit a listing on the aisle sign.
Picture me this Saturday morning, propped up on my convoluted pillows, sipping my aseptic drink, and exclaiming "good jahb" at intervals. Do you think I'd pass for a local?
bed pillows
foam pillows
feather pillows
convoluted pillows.
Intriguing. Convoluted pillows. I like my sleep time to be simple and straightforward. The last thing I would want is a convoluted pillow giving me convoluted dreams.
The amazing thing is that not only do enough people want to buy convoluted pillows that it is worth Wal-Mart's while to stock them, but that so many people want to buy them that they merit a listing on the aisle sign.
Picture me this Saturday morning, propped up on my convoluted pillows, sipping my aseptic drink, and exclaiming "good jahb" at intervals. Do you think I'd pass for a local?
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Hallowe’en – a festival of two pies
It seems to me that Hallowe’en is something of a medley. It’s a mixture of the ghoulish and the twee, anything orange or black is at liberty to make an entrance, and something a bit reminiscent of harvest festival has got involved too. I’m not quite sure what you are wishing someone when you say “Happy Hallowe’en”, but it’s a rather jolly sort of thing, I’m sure. The Americans have done a better job of forgetting the darker side of the origins than we have.
Centre stage is the Pumpkin. The Pumpkin (as well as being a splendid word made up of a most appealing selection of consonants) provides an excuse to visit the pumpkin patch. The pumpkin patch is a small field, with a very very much larger field attached, full of a large number of children’s activities. There are a couple of mazes, a fort made out of hay bales, a tricycle track, water pumps set up to race plastic ducks down lengths of guttering, tractor and trailer rides, and various agriculturally-themed pieces of play equipment. I thoroughly enjoyed the pumpkin patch. I went twice: one visit with preschool, and one week-end visit with the family. You get to pick your pumpkin, and I had fondly anticipated this would involve a sharp knife and a living demonstration to my 21st century city-dwelling children that fruit grows on a vine (ha! I bet you thought the pumpkin was a vegetable). Actually, it involved a trip to the small field in an orange trailer pulled by an orange tractor, where the pumpkins had been laid out on the bare ground. We got to pick our pumpkins as in “pick out” or “select”, not as in “pluck from the vine”.
I do feel that there should be some story about the pumpkin patch. There should be some character, like the tooth fairy, or the Easter bunny, or Santa. Hallowe’en needs a character and a story. How about this? Peter Pimply Pumpkin, the wicked pumpkin elf who cuts off the toes of children who don’t go to bed early. His brother Jack Jolly Pumpkin was a good elf, who fought Peter and banished him from the land, making it safe for children to dangle their feet over the side of the bed once more. That is why children make jack o’lanterns, to remind them of the importance of going to bed when their parents tell them. You should all tell this story, so that in a few years’ time it has become a Hallowe’en legend. I’ll tell you why. If you don’t, the character who is hovering in the wings, ready to become a Hallowe’en character is Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. Orange and black, you see. I can’t tell you the number of gratuitous Tiggers I saw last week – they’re everywhere. So come on. Start passing on the legend of Peter Pimply Pumpkin, or Tigger will win the day, and bouncing around vacuously will become the message of the Hallowe’en season. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The best thing about the pumpkin patch by far was the pumpkin cannon. It was a dollar a shot, but worth every cent. I have no idea quite what the contraption was, but once charged, it could fire a pumpkin into the sky, to the height of two electricity pylons one on top of the other (there was a handy pylon just by, and I visualized another one on the top of it). That is a very great height for a pumpkin, and when it speeds down, it hits the ground with a very satisfying “thud” and splatters in all directions. I can’t explain why any thinking adult would derive pleasure from this procedure, but I tell you, if it had been free instead of a dollar a shot, I’d have been there all week-end.
As an aside here, I should tell you, dear Bloggy Friends, that, knowing your attention to detail and desire for accuracy, I had a discussion with Husband in which we tried to estimate the height reached by the pumpkins. My usual method of estimating height, ie imagining men 6’ tall standing on each other’s shoulders, wasn’t up to the job, but I wasn’t persuaded by Husband’s either. He uses a cricket wicket (22 yards) as his standard, and although he maintained that he could easily imagine a stack of vertical cricket wickets stretching up into the air, I wasn’t convinced. I decided that “the height of two electricity pylons” would have to do. The really big ones, by the way.
The other great tradition of Hallowe’en is, of course, trick or treating. For this your children need costumes. For at least two weeks before Hallowe’en, people ask you “have you got your costumes yet?” in the way that from December 1st onwards, you are asked “are you all organized for Christmas yet?” My children were becostumed as follows: 3-yo was a butterfly (pink top and pink tights with pink swimming costume over both, wings, home-made antennae, much prancing about), 6-yo was Spiderman in a much-loved much-worn black Spiderman costume (black and therefore ideal for Hallowe’en), and 10-yo was a rather reluctant ghost, in an old clerical surplice underneath a Woolworth’s ghost outfit designed for someone half his age which only just covered his head, shoulders and chest (hence the need for the surplice underneath).
We’d been invited to a party, which was very nice, since Husband had to be at work, and it felt rather jollier to be in company than setting out on our own. The trick or treating was all very friendly and fun, and it’s easy to see why Americans have happy Hallowe’en childhood memories rivaling those of Christmas. There was one house which we didn’t go to, as it was done out as a haunted house, and freaked out Spiderman and the butterfly. It had a skeleton hanging outside, bats at the windows, and eerie music playing, interrupted by the occasional screech or cackle.
Having got the hang of it all, when we returned home from the party, the children were keen to try trick or treating in our own neighborhood, so we went out again. By this time, we were pretty good at sniffing out the best houses (this isn’t hard – you just go to the ones where the porch light is on, and where there are Hallowe’en decorations). The ghost could have flitted from house to house all evening, filling his bag with more and more candy, but Spiderman started complaining of the cold (great power, great responsibility, not enough body fat), and the butterfly’s legs got tired (surprisingly heavy to carry, is a butterfly), so we returned home before too long. While I put the butterfly to bed, the ghost and Spiderman finished the evening on our porch bench (I have to say bench, not glider, as my British readers wouldn’t cope with the visual image of a glider on our front porch, but it is a glider, if you’re interested, my $25 bargain from an estate sale). I lit them a candle or two for effect, and wrapped them in rugs, and they had a fine time handing out candy to other children. I think they almost enjoyed it more than collecting.
So why a festival of two pies? Well, pumpkin pie first, totally delicious, and distinctively American and autumnal. Next, humble pie. You see, there I was, all ready to denounce Hallowe’en as just another cooked up opportunity for retailers to make a quick buck, more evidence of the materialism we are so quick to accuse America of, and an unavoidable adversary in the maternal battle against unhealthy eating. But actually, it was great fun. Good clean fun. Sure, you could go out and buy fancy costumes if you wanted, but no-one minded if you didn’t. Sure, you could spend what you liked on all kinds of decoration and other Hallowe’en tat, but you didn’t have to. (I came across my favourite example while looking for a present for a friend’s new baby: Hallowe’en scratch mitts, orange with a black jack o’lantern face on the back.)
Of course it’s a problem knowing how to process so much candy, but I wasn’t, as I had feared, a lone voice in worrying about this. 10-yo’s teacher suggested to his class that they should consider collecting money for UNICEF instead of (or as well as) candy. This struck me as a good development in the Hallowe’en tradition. When I was brave enough to express my feelings that the candy was a problem, rather than a marvelous free gift, I found other mothers agreed. In a society where obesity is the biggest health problem (and that’s a blog post which I haven’t been quite brave enough to write yet), it did feel uncomfortable to send children out to get a huge amount of free candy, but I was pleased to discover I wasn't the only witch of a mother who felt that way. My kids amassed 140 items, which, if I rationed it out at a piece per child per day, would last for over six weeks. I decided against this approach – why start a habit now that I’ve carefully avoided for years? I decided on a week-end of gluttony, with that terribly misguided adult hope that they would get so sick of the candy, they would be pleased to see the stuff taken away. We got through about half of it. Anything sampled and left to one side, any packet opened and not finished, any lolly licked and forgotten, it all found its way to the trash. No saving for later, no sharing around. The nicer bits of chocolate got diverted into a secret parents-only stash for future use. Some of it I’m keeping back for our trip to San Diego next week. Some of it I took, after discussion with the children, to a project which gives food to homeless people. Please, before you get all cross with me and ask me why I think homeless people benefit from sugar and artificial coloring any more than my own kids, you should know that the candy never made it that far. (I try not to lie to my children, but I am not above occasionally resorting to a very careful choice of words. I can't remember exactly how I phrased it, but it was technically truthful, and in my defence, I plead that I have their interests at heart.)
So while you were singing Harvest Festival songs and teaching your children to be grateful for the produce of the land, I was finding ways of sneaking candy into the trash. My generation was brought up to think of wasting food as a crime, and for most of us it goes against the grain not to finish up every mouthful on the plate, but times have changed, and I was merely applying the old Harvest lesson of making the best use of the resources I had. Best use is a flexible term.
Centre stage is the Pumpkin. The Pumpkin (as well as being a splendid word made up of a most appealing selection of consonants) provides an excuse to visit the pumpkin patch. The pumpkin patch is a small field, with a very very much larger field attached, full of a large number of children’s activities. There are a couple of mazes, a fort made out of hay bales, a tricycle track, water pumps set up to race plastic ducks down lengths of guttering, tractor and trailer rides, and various agriculturally-themed pieces of play equipment. I thoroughly enjoyed the pumpkin patch. I went twice: one visit with preschool, and one week-end visit with the family. You get to pick your pumpkin, and I had fondly anticipated this would involve a sharp knife and a living demonstration to my 21st century city-dwelling children that fruit grows on a vine (ha! I bet you thought the pumpkin was a vegetable). Actually, it involved a trip to the small field in an orange trailer pulled by an orange tractor, where the pumpkins had been laid out on the bare ground. We got to pick our pumpkins as in “pick out” or “select”, not as in “pluck from the vine”.
I do feel that there should be some story about the pumpkin patch. There should be some character, like the tooth fairy, or the Easter bunny, or Santa. Hallowe’en needs a character and a story. How about this? Peter Pimply Pumpkin, the wicked pumpkin elf who cuts off the toes of children who don’t go to bed early. His brother Jack Jolly Pumpkin was a good elf, who fought Peter and banished him from the land, making it safe for children to dangle their feet over the side of the bed once more. That is why children make jack o’lanterns, to remind them of the importance of going to bed when their parents tell them. You should all tell this story, so that in a few years’ time it has become a Hallowe’en legend. I’ll tell you why. If you don’t, the character who is hovering in the wings, ready to become a Hallowe’en character is Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. Orange and black, you see. I can’t tell you the number of gratuitous Tiggers I saw last week – they’re everywhere. So come on. Start passing on the legend of Peter Pimply Pumpkin, or Tigger will win the day, and bouncing around vacuously will become the message of the Hallowe’en season. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The best thing about the pumpkin patch by far was the pumpkin cannon. It was a dollar a shot, but worth every cent. I have no idea quite what the contraption was, but once charged, it could fire a pumpkin into the sky, to the height of two electricity pylons one on top of the other (there was a handy pylon just by, and I visualized another one on the top of it). That is a very great height for a pumpkin, and when it speeds down, it hits the ground with a very satisfying “thud” and splatters in all directions. I can’t explain why any thinking adult would derive pleasure from this procedure, but I tell you, if it had been free instead of a dollar a shot, I’d have been there all week-end.
As an aside here, I should tell you, dear Bloggy Friends, that, knowing your attention to detail and desire for accuracy, I had a discussion with Husband in which we tried to estimate the height reached by the pumpkins. My usual method of estimating height, ie imagining men 6’ tall standing on each other’s shoulders, wasn’t up to the job, but I wasn’t persuaded by Husband’s either. He uses a cricket wicket (22 yards) as his standard, and although he maintained that he could easily imagine a stack of vertical cricket wickets stretching up into the air, I wasn’t convinced. I decided that “the height of two electricity pylons” would have to do. The really big ones, by the way.
The other great tradition of Hallowe’en is, of course, trick or treating. For this your children need costumes. For at least two weeks before Hallowe’en, people ask you “have you got your costumes yet?” in the way that from December 1st onwards, you are asked “are you all organized for Christmas yet?” My children were becostumed as follows: 3-yo was a butterfly (pink top and pink tights with pink swimming costume over both, wings, home-made antennae, much prancing about), 6-yo was Spiderman in a much-loved much-worn black Spiderman costume (black and therefore ideal for Hallowe’en), and 10-yo was a rather reluctant ghost, in an old clerical surplice underneath a Woolworth’s ghost outfit designed for someone half his age which only just covered his head, shoulders and chest (hence the need for the surplice underneath).
We’d been invited to a party, which was very nice, since Husband had to be at work, and it felt rather jollier to be in company than setting out on our own. The trick or treating was all very friendly and fun, and it’s easy to see why Americans have happy Hallowe’en childhood memories rivaling those of Christmas. There was one house which we didn’t go to, as it was done out as a haunted house, and freaked out Spiderman and the butterfly. It had a skeleton hanging outside, bats at the windows, and eerie music playing, interrupted by the occasional screech or cackle.
Having got the hang of it all, when we returned home from the party, the children were keen to try trick or treating in our own neighborhood, so we went out again. By this time, we were pretty good at sniffing out the best houses (this isn’t hard – you just go to the ones where the porch light is on, and where there are Hallowe’en decorations). The ghost could have flitted from house to house all evening, filling his bag with more and more candy, but Spiderman started complaining of the cold (great power, great responsibility, not enough body fat), and the butterfly’s legs got tired (surprisingly heavy to carry, is a butterfly), so we returned home before too long. While I put the butterfly to bed, the ghost and Spiderman finished the evening on our porch bench (I have to say bench, not glider, as my British readers wouldn’t cope with the visual image of a glider on our front porch, but it is a glider, if you’re interested, my $25 bargain from an estate sale). I lit them a candle or two for effect, and wrapped them in rugs, and they had a fine time handing out candy to other children. I think they almost enjoyed it more than collecting.
So why a festival of two pies? Well, pumpkin pie first, totally delicious, and distinctively American and autumnal. Next, humble pie. You see, there I was, all ready to denounce Hallowe’en as just another cooked up opportunity for retailers to make a quick buck, more evidence of the materialism we are so quick to accuse America of, and an unavoidable adversary in the maternal battle against unhealthy eating. But actually, it was great fun. Good clean fun. Sure, you could go out and buy fancy costumes if you wanted, but no-one minded if you didn’t. Sure, you could spend what you liked on all kinds of decoration and other Hallowe’en tat, but you didn’t have to. (I came across my favourite example while looking for a present for a friend’s new baby: Hallowe’en scratch mitts, orange with a black jack o’lantern face on the back.)
Of course it’s a problem knowing how to process so much candy, but I wasn’t, as I had feared, a lone voice in worrying about this. 10-yo’s teacher suggested to his class that they should consider collecting money for UNICEF instead of (or as well as) candy. This struck me as a good development in the Hallowe’en tradition. When I was brave enough to express my feelings that the candy was a problem, rather than a marvelous free gift, I found other mothers agreed. In a society where obesity is the biggest health problem (and that’s a blog post which I haven’t been quite brave enough to write yet), it did feel uncomfortable to send children out to get a huge amount of free candy, but I was pleased to discover I wasn't the only witch of a mother who felt that way. My kids amassed 140 items, which, if I rationed it out at a piece per child per day, would last for over six weeks. I decided against this approach – why start a habit now that I’ve carefully avoided for years? I decided on a week-end of gluttony, with that terribly misguided adult hope that they would get so sick of the candy, they would be pleased to see the stuff taken away. We got through about half of it. Anything sampled and left to one side, any packet opened and not finished, any lolly licked and forgotten, it all found its way to the trash. No saving for later, no sharing around. The nicer bits of chocolate got diverted into a secret parents-only stash for future use. Some of it I’m keeping back for our trip to San Diego next week. Some of it I took, after discussion with the children, to a project which gives food to homeless people. Please, before you get all cross with me and ask me why I think homeless people benefit from sugar and artificial coloring any more than my own kids, you should know that the candy never made it that far. (I try not to lie to my children, but I am not above occasionally resorting to a very careful choice of words. I can't remember exactly how I phrased it, but it was technically truthful, and in my defence, I plead that I have their interests at heart.)
So while you were singing Harvest Festival songs and teaching your children to be grateful for the produce of the land, I was finding ways of sneaking candy into the trash. My generation was brought up to think of wasting food as a crime, and for most of us it goes against the grain not to finish up every mouthful on the plate, but times have changed, and I was merely applying the old Harvest lesson of making the best use of the resources I had. Best use is a flexible term.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Another puzzle
Whilst I've been puzzling about aseptic drinks, people out there have larger questions on their minds.
I've got a sitemeter, and this is what happens when a blogger gets a sitemeter. They find out what weird and wonderful search terms people put into Google, to land up on their blog. Then they write a blog post about it. This is mine.
Not wrong, just different is full of pretty mundane subject matter, it must be said, and those who land up here by mistake are mostly people interested in cures for verrucas or ways of dealing with bugs and critters. They won't get much by way of an answer to their problems, but they may be comforted to know they're not alone. Hello, if you're one of them.
The Pledge of Allegiance has attracted the largest number of unintentional visitors. There is one that has got a whole story behind it; I just wish I knew what the story was. Someone typed into Google "How can I pledge allegiance to him when he can't pledge allegiance to the US?" Oh my dear girl (I assume you're a girl), I wish I could help. You knew, though, well before you hit the return button, that a Google search wasn't going to give you an answer to that one, didn't you?
I've got a sitemeter, and this is what happens when a blogger gets a sitemeter. They find out what weird and wonderful search terms people put into Google, to land up on their blog. Then they write a blog post about it. This is mine.
Not wrong, just different is full of pretty mundane subject matter, it must be said, and those who land up here by mistake are mostly people interested in cures for verrucas or ways of dealing with bugs and critters. They won't get much by way of an answer to their problems, but they may be comforted to know they're not alone. Hello, if you're one of them.
The Pledge of Allegiance has attracted the largest number of unintentional visitors. There is one that has got a whole story behind it; I just wish I knew what the story was. Someone typed into Google "How can I pledge allegiance to him when he can't pledge allegiance to the US?" Oh my dear girl (I assume you're a girl), I wish I could help. You knew, though, well before you hit the return button, that a Google search wasn't going to give you an answer to that one, didn't you?
Saturday, November 3, 2007
A puzzle
I know, I know. You want me to tell you what Hallowe'en was like here. Be patient, I will. Perhaps I'll use the extra hour we have tonight to do that. But first, here is something that is puzzling me.
When I go shopping in my local Dillons (you know me, life in the fast lane), there is an aisle where the sign tells me I may find water, juice, soda and aseptic drinks. Hello? Aseptic drinks? I haven't actually managed to identify which are the drinks in that aisle that are the aseptic ones, but when I do so, am I to conclude that all the others are, in fact, septic? Oh goody. I knew they tasted better over here.
When I go shopping in my local Dillons (you know me, life in the fast lane), there is an aisle where the sign tells me I may find water, juice, soda and aseptic drinks. Hello? Aseptic drinks? I haven't actually managed to identify which are the drinks in that aisle that are the aseptic ones, but when I do so, am I to conclude that all the others are, in fact, septic? Oh goody. I knew they tasted better over here.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Awards
These awards are definitely reasons to be cheerful. Getting awards is marvellous for the morale, exciting for the ego, superlative for the self. The embarrassing thing is that some of them date back a little while, so I apologise for being slow in collecting them. It's partly because I keep writing blog posts which are on the long side already, and I haven't wanted to make them even longer by adding an award to the bottom. It's partly because anything which involves uploading images is inherently a bit scary - but as you will see, I've overcome the fear, and can now display brightly coloured little squares on my blog with the best of them.
A big thank you to all who have bestowed the awards on me. Please don't think that the delay in collecting them is an indication of ingratitude. I also have a nasty niggling feeling that I have missed somebody, and if that is the case, I apologise and hope you'll be lenient. Again, take it as a sign of incompetence, not ingratitude.
Shall I just shut up now and show you the awards?
This one from Rotten Correspondent
This one from Beta Mum and Mother at Large
This one from Mya and Kaycie
These two from Annie
This one from Laurie
Oo er Missus. Intellectually stimulating. Or was that intellectually simulating, perhaps?
Look at them, standing obediently in a tidy column. Lovely. Thank you all.
A big thank you to all who have bestowed the awards on me. Please don't think that the delay in collecting them is an indication of ingratitude. I also have a nasty niggling feeling that I have missed somebody, and if that is the case, I apologise and hope you'll be lenient. Again, take it as a sign of incompetence, not ingratitude.
Shall I just shut up now and show you the awards?
This one from Rotten Correspondent
This one from Beta Mum and Mother at Large
This one from Mya and Kaycie
These two from Annie
This one from Laurie
Oo er Missus. Intellectually stimulating. Or was that intellectually simulating, perhaps?
Look at them, standing obediently in a tidy column. Lovely. Thank you all.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Reasons to be cheerful: Part II
Motts Pots
They don’t call them that, which is a shame. It would be such a good name for what is such a good idea. They are little tubs of apple sauce (stewed apple or apple puree if you'd rather), which are just excellent as an alternative to a yogurt or fromage frais. Handy at home, perfect for packed lunches, top picks for picnics. Of course this all depends on your kids being the kind who like apple sauce, but for those of you who have the other kind of kid, well, you can just eat a Motts Pot yourself from time to time. You don’t even have to keep them in the fridge. They do a few variations too: apple and strawberry, cinnamon apple… in fact, here’s the whole range.
Please, if you know someone connected to the company, would you pass on to them a couple of ideas. The first is the name. They’ve got as far as Motts for Tots (ie smaller tubs for toddlers), but no-one has made the really very obvious step to Motts Pots. This would, I’m sure, put them ahead of the competition (Kroger, a rhymingly challenged company). The other idea is that they should launch into the UK market. Apple puree, formerly available only for babies, now here for children and adults. One of your five daily portions in a convenient tub. It’s really delicious stuff. Motts Pots for Brits. Don’t tell me that wouldn’t succeed.
Garage openers
These are absolutely standard here, so you have to try not to look too wide-eyed and excited as you point and click from the comfort of your car seat. Makes you feel like a bit of a celeb though. I mean, fancy me having an automatic garage opener. It was some weeks before I could do the point and click without saying “open sesame” and laughing out loud – until I caught sight of my children’s faces in the mirror. I think they’d heard the joke once too often. Most people programme the clicker into some clever gadget or other just above the driving mirror, so they don’t even have to fumble around in a door pocket, but can just reach up in one elegant movement. When we were test-driving our car, this feature was pointed out to us. I asked “why are there three buttons?” The reply came “some people have three garages” (duh….). Almost all houses other than the very old ones (you know, those dating back to the 20s and 30s…) have integral garages, meaning you can walk straight from the garage into the house. So if you have a garage opener, you don’t have to worry about rain, cold, wind, sun – you can be straight out of your climate controlled house, into your climate controlled car. Your legs need hardly be activated at all.
Of course in Britain garage openers would be next to useless, as they are designed for people who put their car in their garage. It's a strange concept, but it seems to work once you've got the hang of it.
Long summers
I know I’ve complained about the heat here in high summer. I know. The nice other side of that coin, though, is that for much of the year (at least May to early October) it is warm enough to be in flip-flops, a t-shirt and capris (not shorts, please, at my age). I can hear the envious intakes of breath from here, as I tell you that it is only last week that I have had to think of taking a cardigan when I go out. That is nice. I have become very wedded to flip-flops (except in banks).
Goo Gone
I was intrigued to find out about Goo Gone, after one occasion when I heard American women in Scotland discussing how much they missed it. So when the official at Immigration stamped our passports and said “welcome to America. Do you have any questions?”, I replied without hesitating “Can you tell me where the nearest Goo Gone retailer is?” I do see exactly why you would miss this product so much. You know how often there is an irritating problem relating to a price tag on a birthday present, or the remains of a sticker on the furniture or the window? Well, Goo Gone is the thing. One little squirt and a quick wipe, and the unsightly mess is gone. On a bad day, I have been tempted to see if it worked on the kids themselves. It’s another product ripe for the UK import market. I’ve even thought of an advertising slogan: Blair gone? Goo Gone would have got rid of him quicker.
Kitchen roll in half size strips
You know how a piece of kitchen roll is often too big for the job? The Americans have got this sussed. Here, you can buy kitchen roll in half size strips. Nifty AND environmentally sensitive (although I expect that is just a lucky side effect). “But hang on a minute” I hear you say. “What about if the spillage is too big for a half size strip? What if I need that full size square? I’d end up having to have two different rolls on the kitchen counter, and that would take up precious space.” Well, here’s the clever clever thing. When you have a roll in half size strips, if you need a big old-fashioned square, you can miss out one line of perforations and just tear off two half size pieces together! It works just the same! Brilliant. They've thought of everything.
They don’t call them that, which is a shame. It would be such a good name for what is such a good idea. They are little tubs of apple sauce (stewed apple or apple puree if you'd rather), which are just excellent as an alternative to a yogurt or fromage frais. Handy at home, perfect for packed lunches, top picks for picnics. Of course this all depends on your kids being the kind who like apple sauce, but for those of you who have the other kind of kid, well, you can just eat a Motts Pot yourself from time to time. You don’t even have to keep them in the fridge. They do a few variations too: apple and strawberry, cinnamon apple… in fact, here’s the whole range.
Please, if you know someone connected to the company, would you pass on to them a couple of ideas. The first is the name. They’ve got as far as Motts for Tots (ie smaller tubs for toddlers), but no-one has made the really very obvious step to Motts Pots. This would, I’m sure, put them ahead of the competition (Kroger, a rhymingly challenged company). The other idea is that they should launch into the UK market. Apple puree, formerly available only for babies, now here for children and adults. One of your five daily portions in a convenient tub. It’s really delicious stuff. Motts Pots for Brits. Don’t tell me that wouldn’t succeed.
Garage openers
These are absolutely standard here, so you have to try not to look too wide-eyed and excited as you point and click from the comfort of your car seat. Makes you feel like a bit of a celeb though. I mean, fancy me having an automatic garage opener. It was some weeks before I could do the point and click without saying “open sesame” and laughing out loud – until I caught sight of my children’s faces in the mirror. I think they’d heard the joke once too often. Most people programme the clicker into some clever gadget or other just above the driving mirror, so they don’t even have to fumble around in a door pocket, but can just reach up in one elegant movement. When we were test-driving our car, this feature was pointed out to us. I asked “why are there three buttons?” The reply came “some people have three garages” (duh….). Almost all houses other than the very old ones (you know, those dating back to the 20s and 30s…) have integral garages, meaning you can walk straight from the garage into the house. So if you have a garage opener, you don’t have to worry about rain, cold, wind, sun – you can be straight out of your climate controlled house, into your climate controlled car. Your legs need hardly be activated at all.
Of course in Britain garage openers would be next to useless, as they are designed for people who put their car in their garage. It's a strange concept, but it seems to work once you've got the hang of it.
Long summers
I know I’ve complained about the heat here in high summer. I know. The nice other side of that coin, though, is that for much of the year (at least May to early October) it is warm enough to be in flip-flops, a t-shirt and capris (not shorts, please, at my age). I can hear the envious intakes of breath from here, as I tell you that it is only last week that I have had to think of taking a cardigan when I go out. That is nice. I have become very wedded to flip-flops (except in banks).
Goo Gone
I was intrigued to find out about Goo Gone, after one occasion when I heard American women in Scotland discussing how much they missed it. So when the official at Immigration stamped our passports and said “welcome to America. Do you have any questions?”, I replied without hesitating “Can you tell me where the nearest Goo Gone retailer is?” I do see exactly why you would miss this product so much. You know how often there is an irritating problem relating to a price tag on a birthday present, or the remains of a sticker on the furniture or the window? Well, Goo Gone is the thing. One little squirt and a quick wipe, and the unsightly mess is gone. On a bad day, I have been tempted to see if it worked on the kids themselves. It’s another product ripe for the UK import market. I’ve even thought of an advertising slogan: Blair gone? Goo Gone would have got rid of him quicker.
Kitchen roll in half size strips
You know how a piece of kitchen roll is often too big for the job? The Americans have got this sussed. Here, you can buy kitchen roll in half size strips. Nifty AND environmentally sensitive (although I expect that is just a lucky side effect). “But hang on a minute” I hear you say. “What about if the spillage is too big for a half size strip? What if I need that full size square? I’d end up having to have two different rolls on the kitchen counter, and that would take up precious space.” Well, here’s the clever clever thing. When you have a roll in half size strips, if you need a big old-fashioned square, you can miss out one line of perforations and just tear off two half size pieces together! It works just the same! Brilliant. They've thought of everything.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Reasons to be cheerful: Part I
Now, in the interests of redressing the balance following my miserable gloom of last week-end, I’m going to tell you about something that I really like about here. Thunderstorms. We’ve had a couple of humdingers this week. The good thing is, it won’t be long before the next one. Not that they’re really frequent, but frequent is a relative thing. Think about it if you’re reading this in Britain. When was the last time you had a good thunderstorm? And the time before that? See. Hardly ever. And how long did they last? A measly 20 minutes? Here they rumble around for hours.
Thunderstorms here are magnificent. The thunder rolls and booms and cracks. The lightning flashes just like in movies, or when children fiddle with the light switch. Light, dark, light, dark, light, dark. We get that proper forked lightning too. Lots of it. Like the finger of a divine being: “You, yes, you, Iota Manhattan, this one is for YOU”. And zap! You can see it crackling its way down to the intended spot. Actually, I shouldn’t joke, as lightning strikes do account for deaths and injuries here, and it is treated with respect. I’m told you shouldn’t be on the phone or use the computer during a lightning storm, (although there are those of us who will risk personal safety for the sake of our blog readers). People feel uneasy about being outside. Outdoor pools are closed if there is a threat of lightning, and this morning’s preschool trip to the pumpkin patch was cancelled. The words ‘rain’ and ‘mud’ were mentioned, but lightning was given as the reason.
Thunderstorms can hog the stage and perform on their own, without it raining, which I find very exciting. Of course they do bring rain too. Proper rain. Torrents of the stuff, lasting for ages. You get veritable rivers running down the sides of the roads, and the drainpipes flow like taps. Proper rain. Not that drizzle that passes for precipitation in the UK. Over there on the eastern side of the Atlantic, you’re really quite pansy-ass when it comes to a good storm. Bigger and wetter, that’s the style here. Something else I like about rain here is that it doesn’t have to be cold. We’re not talking tropical conditions like the monsoons or anything, but certainly, you can have a warm day that doesn’t turn cold just because the rain has come. I like that. Why should rain always equal cold? Huh? Here, you can be out in the rain in your flip-flops (remember this detail, it becomes significant later on).
So thunderstorms are good. And today it turned out that lollies in banks are good too. Lollies in banks. Usually I hate lollies in banks. Does my child really need a sugar fix just because I’ve paid in a cheque? “Don’t waste your money” I always want to say. “Lollies are not necessary. What else are you frittering away my cash on? Stop the lollies and lower your overdraft charges.” But today, nothing to do with the very satisfying thunderstorm, at least I don’t think so, although you never know how these things tie up in some cosmic realm, I even found a purpose for lollies in banks.
I was going to the bank after school pick-up (why?), so I had three children with me. One, the smallest, was running about in a wild fashion that in Britain would have made me feel rather self-conscious, but here, doesn’t make me feel quite so bad, as they seem a bit more relaxed about noisy children (oh look, did you spot that? Another nice thing about America has sneaked in. I could run a Spot the Nice American Thing competition at this rate. By the way, did you notice the word ‘pansy-ass’ a few paragraphs ago. That’s another. I didn’t know that word a year ago.) Anyway, she was running up and down, with the Burt’s Bees lip salve (oh, there’s another one) she’d stolen out of my handbag, saying “guess where I’ve put lipstick, I’ve put it all over everywhere” and giggling hysterically. This might have embarrassed me, but I knew that (a) she was talking about her own body, as evidenced by the hoiking up of her t-shirt to display her belly button which I could imagine is a pretty tempting target for a lip salve when you are 3 years old, (b) she was laughing so raucously that I knew no-one else would be able to understand a word she was saying and (c) lip salve is clear so that if there had been some collateral damage on the furniture and fittings that I hadn’t witnessed, we’d be long gone by the time it was discovered.
It happened. She tripped over her flip-flops (hah! remember?), her pink bejeweled flip-flops, measured her length and landed on her front, the fall accompanied by a dull 'bop' sound as her little forehead hit the bank floor, since her hands were too busy clutching the lip salve and its lid to be any use in saving her. There was much yelling and sobbing, which continued for a while. Then a while longer. Then, after a pause which only the most heartless of mothers would interpret as resulting from a quick assessment of the size and interest-level of the audience (both satisfactory), a while longer. At this point, the helpful bank lady started talking about ice packs and cold water (more yelling, louder yelling), and I could feel the situation was getting out of hand. So I put aside my pride, and there on my knees in that Bank of America, I uttered some words which I never thought I would utter in a bank. I asked “Do you have any lollies here?”
I suppose I should be honest, and tell you that actually I was rather inarticulate at this point. Kneeling on the floor, arms round yelling child, hands fumbling with lip salve and lid, I was struggling for the right word. I was hesitating to say “Do you have any suckers here?” which is what kids call lollies. It didn’t seem a very appropriate turn of phrase for use in a high street bank. So I started with ‘popsicles’, which I knew was wrong as soon as I’d said it (they’re the frozen ones), and quickly diverted to ‘lollies’ (not right either), which I tried to segue into ‘lollipops’, but I fear I produced some burbling sound somewhere between the three attempts. The nice bank lady understood me though, and of course the end of the story is that they did indeed have lollies there. They had a particularly nice pink and purple stripy one (you see why I wonder about cosmic realms), and all was well. The boys managed to sneak one each too.
Thunderstorms. Lollies in banks. Reasons to be cheerful: Part I.
Thunderstorms here are magnificent. The thunder rolls and booms and cracks. The lightning flashes just like in movies, or when children fiddle with the light switch. Light, dark, light, dark, light, dark. We get that proper forked lightning too. Lots of it. Like the finger of a divine being: “You, yes, you, Iota Manhattan, this one is for YOU”. And zap! You can see it crackling its way down to the intended spot. Actually, I shouldn’t joke, as lightning strikes do account for deaths and injuries here, and it is treated with respect. I’m told you shouldn’t be on the phone or use the computer during a lightning storm, (although there are those of us who will risk personal safety for the sake of our blog readers). People feel uneasy about being outside. Outdoor pools are closed if there is a threat of lightning, and this morning’s preschool trip to the pumpkin patch was cancelled. The words ‘rain’ and ‘mud’ were mentioned, but lightning was given as the reason.
Thunderstorms can hog the stage and perform on their own, without it raining, which I find very exciting. Of course they do bring rain too. Proper rain. Torrents of the stuff, lasting for ages. You get veritable rivers running down the sides of the roads, and the drainpipes flow like taps. Proper rain. Not that drizzle that passes for precipitation in the UK. Over there on the eastern side of the Atlantic, you’re really quite pansy-ass when it comes to a good storm. Bigger and wetter, that’s the style here. Something else I like about rain here is that it doesn’t have to be cold. We’re not talking tropical conditions like the monsoons or anything, but certainly, you can have a warm day that doesn’t turn cold just because the rain has come. I like that. Why should rain always equal cold? Huh? Here, you can be out in the rain in your flip-flops (remember this detail, it becomes significant later on).
So thunderstorms are good. And today it turned out that lollies in banks are good too. Lollies in banks. Usually I hate lollies in banks. Does my child really need a sugar fix just because I’ve paid in a cheque? “Don’t waste your money” I always want to say. “Lollies are not necessary. What else are you frittering away my cash on? Stop the lollies and lower your overdraft charges.” But today, nothing to do with the very satisfying thunderstorm, at least I don’t think so, although you never know how these things tie up in some cosmic realm, I even found a purpose for lollies in banks.
I was going to the bank after school pick-up (why?), so I had three children with me. One, the smallest, was running about in a wild fashion that in Britain would have made me feel rather self-conscious, but here, doesn’t make me feel quite so bad, as they seem a bit more relaxed about noisy children (oh look, did you spot that? Another nice thing about America has sneaked in. I could run a Spot the Nice American Thing competition at this rate. By the way, did you notice the word ‘pansy-ass’ a few paragraphs ago. That’s another. I didn’t know that word a year ago.) Anyway, she was running up and down, with the Burt’s Bees lip salve (oh, there’s another one) she’d stolen out of my handbag, saying “guess where I’ve put lipstick, I’ve put it all over everywhere” and giggling hysterically. This might have embarrassed me, but I knew that (a) she was talking about her own body, as evidenced by the hoiking up of her t-shirt to display her belly button which I could imagine is a pretty tempting target for a lip salve when you are 3 years old, (b) she was laughing so raucously that I knew no-one else would be able to understand a word she was saying and (c) lip salve is clear so that if there had been some collateral damage on the furniture and fittings that I hadn’t witnessed, we’d be long gone by the time it was discovered.
It happened. She tripped over her flip-flops (hah! remember?), her pink bejeweled flip-flops, measured her length and landed on her front, the fall accompanied by a dull 'bop' sound as her little forehead hit the bank floor, since her hands were too busy clutching the lip salve and its lid to be any use in saving her. There was much yelling and sobbing, which continued for a while. Then a while longer. Then, after a pause which only the most heartless of mothers would interpret as resulting from a quick assessment of the size and interest-level of the audience (both satisfactory), a while longer. At this point, the helpful bank lady started talking about ice packs and cold water (more yelling, louder yelling), and I could feel the situation was getting out of hand. So I put aside my pride, and there on my knees in that Bank of America, I uttered some words which I never thought I would utter in a bank. I asked “Do you have any lollies here?”
I suppose I should be honest, and tell you that actually I was rather inarticulate at this point. Kneeling on the floor, arms round yelling child, hands fumbling with lip salve and lid, I was struggling for the right word. I was hesitating to say “Do you have any suckers here?” which is what kids call lollies. It didn’t seem a very appropriate turn of phrase for use in a high street bank. So I started with ‘popsicles’, which I knew was wrong as soon as I’d said it (they’re the frozen ones), and quickly diverted to ‘lollies’ (not right either), which I tried to segue into ‘lollipops’, but I fear I produced some burbling sound somewhere between the three attempts. The nice bank lady understood me though, and of course the end of the story is that they did indeed have lollies there. They had a particularly nice pink and purple stripy one (you see why I wonder about cosmic realms), and all was well. The boys managed to sneak one each too.
Thunderstorms. Lollies in banks. Reasons to be cheerful: Part I.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
What they don't tell you about moving abroad II
Well, Bloggy Friends, you always come up trumps. You are all totally spot on, of course, and if I wasn’t so darn trapped in the physical world, I’d just curl up in a nice corner of the blogosphere, and you could all come and visit. We’d drink virtual wine that doesn’t give you a hangover or do your liver any damage, talk about virtual things and be virtually happy.
The mold in our basement would virtually go away; the people who sold us the house as having a dry basement would virtually agree to pay for the work we are needing to have done to make it so, without us having to go to virtual mediation; I would win the battle against clutter (that’s real, I’m afraid, there’s nothing virtual about clutter); I would have lots of virtual time to write and read blogs; going to the virtual gym or pool would be inherently interesting and fun rather than a necessary evil and would therefore happen, and there would be lots of virtual English countryside and sea.
Actually, I feel a bit of a fraud because in general I am feeling much happier here. The new school year has brought more opportunities to get involved in things, and to meet people. The boys have made new friends, and all seems to be going well for them. 3-yo is thriving at preschool. Life has a shape to it. A rather strange shape, with lumps and bumps where sleek lines should be, but a shape. A warty gourd rather than a smooth butternut squash, but that’s a shape. I do have time to myself (of sorts). There is still much chaos, but it is receding, and let’s face it, it never goes entirely. There are things I’m excited about: we are going to San Diego for a week in November, my mother and sister are coming for Christmas, on the strength of my blog someone has asked me to write an article for a magazine for people thinking of emigrating. There are people I like spending time with: I’m getting to know other moms at school and preschool, I’ve formed a book club with 3 other people and it’s great. So things are falling into place, and of course there’s always chocolate.
I think it is this: that moving away from home is some kind of bereavement. Everyone will tell you about the stages of grief, and how, just as life is coming together again and you seem to be making sense of it, suddenly you are plunged back into the depths. You might see why that happened - a familiar voice, a triggered memory, a smell in the air - but it might just come out of nowhere. And of course there is the delay factor. For the first while, making arrangements dominates, but then when you see that life functions, you surface and have a little more time to catch breath and reflect. Perhaps that’s where I am. Sniffing the air (but not inhaling too deeply because of the potential mold spores) and pausing for thought. Catching up with myself, and I tell you, I’ve been running so fast over the past 12 months that I’ve got to sprint fast to get me.
I never know whether blogging is really a good thing or not. It’s great to be part of a community of people who know how to hit the spot in a comment three sentences long, re-telling old truths, or giving a new insight. But I can’t help feeling it must be a bit dysfunctional. Is it stopping me making as much effort to get to know people here? You know, REAL people. Down the road people. Round the corner people. I would say not (I’ve thought about this carefully), because I think that local life happens slowly, in its own mellow time, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot you can do to hurry the process. Of course, it’s not mutually exclusive – you can inhabit real space and virtual space together.
I know myself well enough to know that if I didn’t blog, I wouldn’t have a tidier house, a cleaner house, a more focused life. I’d just let everyday tasks take longer. There'd be a bit more pottering about, maybe a bit more shopping, but not a whole lot more organising or domestics. I’m sure I’d find other ways of taking myself away from my own four walls, but I wouldn’t end up in such a wide variety of locations, with such a spread of thought-provoking and thoughtful people.
So, thank you all for your concern. Bloggy friends always come good (apart from Victoria Beckham's phone number, but please don't feel bad about that.) If I’d written a list of things I needed to hear after my last post, you’d have covered them all perfectly. Toshak!
The mold in our basement would virtually go away; the people who sold us the house as having a dry basement would virtually agree to pay for the work we are needing to have done to make it so, without us having to go to virtual mediation; I would win the battle against clutter (that’s real, I’m afraid, there’s nothing virtual about clutter); I would have lots of virtual time to write and read blogs; going to the virtual gym or pool would be inherently interesting and fun rather than a necessary evil and would therefore happen, and there would be lots of virtual English countryside and sea.
Actually, I feel a bit of a fraud because in general I am feeling much happier here. The new school year has brought more opportunities to get involved in things, and to meet people. The boys have made new friends, and all seems to be going well for them. 3-yo is thriving at preschool. Life has a shape to it. A rather strange shape, with lumps and bumps where sleek lines should be, but a shape. A warty gourd rather than a smooth butternut squash, but that’s a shape. I do have time to myself (of sorts). There is still much chaos, but it is receding, and let’s face it, it never goes entirely. There are things I’m excited about: we are going to San Diego for a week in November, my mother and sister are coming for Christmas, on the strength of my blog someone has asked me to write an article for a magazine for people thinking of emigrating. There are people I like spending time with: I’m getting to know other moms at school and preschool, I’ve formed a book club with 3 other people and it’s great. So things are falling into place, and of course there’s always chocolate.
I think it is this: that moving away from home is some kind of bereavement. Everyone will tell you about the stages of grief, and how, just as life is coming together again and you seem to be making sense of it, suddenly you are plunged back into the depths. You might see why that happened - a familiar voice, a triggered memory, a smell in the air - but it might just come out of nowhere. And of course there is the delay factor. For the first while, making arrangements dominates, but then when you see that life functions, you surface and have a little more time to catch breath and reflect. Perhaps that’s where I am. Sniffing the air (but not inhaling too deeply because of the potential mold spores) and pausing for thought. Catching up with myself, and I tell you, I’ve been running so fast over the past 12 months that I’ve got to sprint fast to get me.
I never know whether blogging is really a good thing or not. It’s great to be part of a community of people who know how to hit the spot in a comment three sentences long, re-telling old truths, or giving a new insight. But I can’t help feeling it must be a bit dysfunctional. Is it stopping me making as much effort to get to know people here? You know, REAL people. Down the road people. Round the corner people. I would say not (I’ve thought about this carefully), because I think that local life happens slowly, in its own mellow time, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot you can do to hurry the process. Of course, it’s not mutually exclusive – you can inhabit real space and virtual space together.
I know myself well enough to know that if I didn’t blog, I wouldn’t have a tidier house, a cleaner house, a more focused life. I’d just let everyday tasks take longer. There'd be a bit more pottering about, maybe a bit more shopping, but not a whole lot more organising or domestics. I’m sure I’d find other ways of taking myself away from my own four walls, but I wouldn’t end up in such a wide variety of locations, with such a spread of thought-provoking and thoughtful people.
So, thank you all for your concern. Bloggy friends always come good (apart from Victoria Beckham's phone number, but please don't feel bad about that.) If I’d written a list of things I needed to hear after my last post, you’d have covered them all perfectly. Toshak!
Sunday, October 14, 2007
What they don’t tell you about moving abroad
They don’t tell you that you will be tired for a year. That you will be tired every day all the time. That you’ll be tired in the evening when you go to bed, and you’ll see a tired face when you look in the mirror in the morning. That living outside your comfort zone is exhausting. That you will have no comfort zone for a long time, and that when it comes, it will be patchy, like pieces of a jigsaw coming together to make a tree here, a house there, a boat in the distance. You won’t be able to dwell in the patches. They won’t join up to make a whole picture. Not for a long time.
They don’t tell you that you will watch a year of films without seeing their endings. They don’t tell you that you will say to yourself “I can’t be pregnant” more often than is comfortable, thinking you recognize the first signs of that old brain-slowness and body-heaviness. They don’t tell you that you will discover you can fall asleep, sitting bolt upright on a hard wood floor, playing trains with a three year old. “Open lor eyes, Mummy, open lor eyes”, as the small sharp fingers jab at your face, making you flinch and turn away. They don’t tell you that health food shops sell a thousand different combinations of vitamins and minerals, and that your tablet of choice will be called 'Unbounded Energy'. They don’t tell you that the labels on the bottles make all kinds of claims for how their contents can help weariness of body, but none of them dares suggest they can help weariness of soul.
Weary. I like that word. I remember when my oldest started nursery, and I picked him up at the close of the afternoon session, his teacher told me “He was wearying towards the end, but he’s been fine”. To my English ears, newly arrived in Scotland, the word 'wearying' sounded like 'weeing' (a word always close to a mother's anxiety zone), and I thought what an extraordinary thing she had said. That was when I first started noticing the word 'weary'. I don’t think it was the right word for her to use. Three year olds don’t get weary. They get tired; they have low blood sugar; they get grumpy; they get tetchy. I don’t think they get weary. The old get weary. The sad, the ill, the bereaved get weary. The relocated get weary.
Grey is the colour of weary. Not early morning wispy mist horizon grey, or cold depths North Sea grey. Just dull nothing grey. Weary rhymes with dreary, with teary, and I think too it hints at fear-y. Worry is a bedfellow of weary. Weary is what you are when life is wearing. Life is wearing.
Weary makes me think of Lowry, and his grey, tired, bowed matchstick men and women. Oh dear. I’ve just looked at a few of his paintings (isn’t the internet a wonderful thing? all this at my fingertips), and I find that his people don’t look weary at all. They look rather purposeful, hurrying along with intent. They are in groups, or twos: the luxury of companionship. There’s a rather pert little dog. Oh my. I must have it bad, when Lowry looks cheerful. What next? I’d probably think Munch’s Scream was roaring with laughter. I'm not even going to look.
I can’t think of a way to end this post. I can’t think of an ingenious twist, a witty one-liner, or an appropriate reflection to wrap it cleverly up. That is rather apt, though, don’t you think? When you are weary, you can’t see an end to it at all.
They don’t tell you that you will watch a year of films without seeing their endings. They don’t tell you that you will say to yourself “I can’t be pregnant” more often than is comfortable, thinking you recognize the first signs of that old brain-slowness and body-heaviness. They don’t tell you that you will discover you can fall asleep, sitting bolt upright on a hard wood floor, playing trains with a three year old. “Open lor eyes, Mummy, open lor eyes”, as the small sharp fingers jab at your face, making you flinch and turn away. They don’t tell you that health food shops sell a thousand different combinations of vitamins and minerals, and that your tablet of choice will be called 'Unbounded Energy'. They don’t tell you that the labels on the bottles make all kinds of claims for how their contents can help weariness of body, but none of them dares suggest they can help weariness of soul.
Weary. I like that word. I remember when my oldest started nursery, and I picked him up at the close of the afternoon session, his teacher told me “He was wearying towards the end, but he’s been fine”. To my English ears, newly arrived in Scotland, the word 'wearying' sounded like 'weeing' (a word always close to a mother's anxiety zone), and I thought what an extraordinary thing she had said. That was when I first started noticing the word 'weary'. I don’t think it was the right word for her to use. Three year olds don’t get weary. They get tired; they have low blood sugar; they get grumpy; they get tetchy. I don’t think they get weary. The old get weary. The sad, the ill, the bereaved get weary. The relocated get weary.
Grey is the colour of weary. Not early morning wispy mist horizon grey, or cold depths North Sea grey. Just dull nothing grey. Weary rhymes with dreary, with teary, and I think too it hints at fear-y. Worry is a bedfellow of weary. Weary is what you are when life is wearing. Life is wearing.
Weary makes me think of Lowry, and his grey, tired, bowed matchstick men and women. Oh dear. I’ve just looked at a few of his paintings (isn’t the internet a wonderful thing? all this at my fingertips), and I find that his people don’t look weary at all. They look rather purposeful, hurrying along with intent. They are in groups, or twos: the luxury of companionship. There’s a rather pert little dog. Oh my. I must have it bad, when Lowry looks cheerful. What next? I’d probably think Munch’s Scream was roaring with laughter. I'm not even going to look.
I can’t think of a way to end this post. I can’t think of an ingenious twist, a witty one-liner, or an appropriate reflection to wrap it cleverly up. That is rather apt, though, don’t you think? When you are weary, you can’t see an end to it at all.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Siblings and Soccer II
The conversation between my two children on the subject of soccer (see previous post) reminds me of the fine soccer education I received from my own big brother. He was watching England v Japan. I know this because when England scored, he punched his fists into the air and shouted “TOSHAK!”. I asked him what that meant and he replied “It’s Japanese for GOAL!”. And thus it was that I went through many years of childhood, and indeed adulthood, thinking that I knew three words of Japanese: mitsu bishi meaning three lozenges (look at the logo), and toshak meaning goal.
I now know that John Toshack is a Welsh football player (so actually it must have been Wales v Japan), whose career was at its peak in the 1970s. He was then manager of four Spanish teams, and (according to Wikipedia) amused Spanish audiences during press conferences with his use of English stock phrases translated literally into Spanish. "Hay más posibilidades de ver a un cerdo volando por encima del Bernabéu" (you're more likely to see a pig flying over the Bernabéu). "La liga es el pan y la mantequilla y la nata es la copa del rey" (the league is the bread and butter and the cup is the cream). John Toshack, I’m glad you have your linguistic struggles too. It’s a bond between us. And you do have a marvellously expressive surname. It ought to be a shout of triumph in some language or other, even if it isn’t. In another life, I’d be married to you, and be called Mrs Toshack. I think I’d persuade you to change our name by deed poll so that we spelt it Toshack! Mr and Mrs Toshack! I like that.
I’m a bit worried that mitsu bishi doesn’t mean three lozenges. It was my big brother’s best friend who told me that.
I now know that John Toshack is a Welsh football player (so actually it must have been Wales v Japan), whose career was at its peak in the 1970s. He was then manager of four Spanish teams, and (according to Wikipedia) amused Spanish audiences during press conferences with his use of English stock phrases translated literally into Spanish. "Hay más posibilidades de ver a un cerdo volando por encima del Bernabéu" (you're more likely to see a pig flying over the Bernabéu). "La liga es el pan y la mantequilla y la nata es la copa del rey" (the league is the bread and butter and the cup is the cream). John Toshack, I’m glad you have your linguistic struggles too. It’s a bond between us. And you do have a marvellously expressive surname. It ought to be a shout of triumph in some language or other, even if it isn’t. In another life, I’d be married to you, and be called Mrs Toshack. I think I’d persuade you to change our name by deed poll so that we spelt it Toshack! Mr and Mrs Toshack! I like that.
I’m a bit worried that mitsu bishi doesn’t mean three lozenges. It was my big brother’s best friend who told me that.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Siblings and soccer
If you have more than one child, occasionally you are privy to the conversations they have between themselves without your presence. Most of these you miss, of course, but occasionally you can eavesdrop. Eavesdropping is, as we all know, a bad thing, but maternal eavesdropping, as any mother will tell you, doesn’t count.
This particular conversation took place in the sitting room, which, conveniently, is within earshot of the desk where the computer is. I could therefore type the conversation as it happened, so I know I got it down verbatim. 10-yo was watching soccer on tv (hence the curtailed ability to utter a sentence longer than three words). The boy lives, breathes, thinks, eats soccer (just to set the scene for you). The conversation went like this:
3-yo: Why do soccer matches be silly? [blimey, 3-yo, talk about going for the jugular]
10-yo: They’re not silly.
3-yo: Why are they?
10-yo: They’re not.
3-yo: Oh. [long pause] Are they good or bad?
10-yo: They’re good.
3-yo: Oh. [long pause] Where did soccer matches came from?
10-yo: Different places.
3-yo: What do you do when you play a soccer match?
10-yo: You try to score a goal.
3-yo: Why do they have matching costumes all the same? [honing in now on the more important aspects of the sport]
10-yo: They have to.
I’m so glad that 3-yo has the opportunity for such a comprehensive education concerning the beautiful game. After all, there won’t be many boys in her life with whom she will be able to use the opening gambit “Why do soccer matches be silly?”. Not if she’s got any sense.
This particular conversation took place in the sitting room, which, conveniently, is within earshot of the desk where the computer is. I could therefore type the conversation as it happened, so I know I got it down verbatim. 10-yo was watching soccer on tv (hence the curtailed ability to utter a sentence longer than three words). The boy lives, breathes, thinks, eats soccer (just to set the scene for you). The conversation went like this:
3-yo: Why do soccer matches be silly? [blimey, 3-yo, talk about going for the jugular]
10-yo: They’re not silly.
3-yo: Why are they?
10-yo: They’re not.
3-yo: Oh. [long pause] Are they good or bad?
10-yo: They’re good.
3-yo: Oh. [long pause] Where did soccer matches came from?
10-yo: Different places.
3-yo: What do you do when you play a soccer match?
10-yo: You try to score a goal.
3-yo: Why do they have matching costumes all the same? [honing in now on the more important aspects of the sport]
10-yo: They have to.
I’m so glad that 3-yo has the opportunity for such a comprehensive education concerning the beautiful game. After all, there won’t be many boys in her life with whom she will be able to use the opening gambit “Why do soccer matches be silly?”. Not if she’s got any sense.
Friday, October 5, 2007
HobNobbing
Doo doo doo, da doo, da doo doo doo
Oh, hello. Sorry. Didn’t see you there. Where were we?
Ah yes. Words. Lovely words. Now, if you were living in the middle of the middle of a long way away from Britain, you would find the following three words very lovely: milk chocolate HobNobs. (By the way, I’ve checked, and it is indeed three words, not four. Don’t be fooled by that upper case N. Your child might be taught at school that you can only have a capital letter at the beginning of a word, but Mr McVitie knows better. He would be in a very strong position to argue the case, after all.)
Anyway, I had been told that my local Dillons (Waitrose equivalent, remember) has started stocking a few shelves of British goods. I have to say that I don’t terribly miss food items (except chipolatas and fish fingers, which must say something about my culinary habits). If necessary, I can always hustle over to World Market, an amazing emporium which sells everything from Lindt chocolate to Indonesian furniture, via Indian silk scarves and Danish Bodum kitchenware. It’s a huge store, recently opened, and I’m usually the only customer so I fear for its long-term future, but up till now, I have been happy that it has kept me in decaffeinated PG tips tea bags. Now, however, it seems I can get them from my local Dillons (so I fear even more for World Market).
If you cruise around the ex-pat corners of the blogosphere, you get a feel for the kind of edible items people miss from Blighty. Lots of people write about them. Lots of other people comment. We say bonding ex-pat things to each other like “Ah! Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut” or “Ooooh yes, MARMITE!!” To all of you out there, I dedicate my local Dillons. I’ve just been along to check out the rumoured British selection, and I have to tell you that they have got the range of products just exactly right. They have clearly done some impressive research. Either that, or the manager spends hours reading blogs when he is pretending to be analyzing the sales figures on his computer. There is Ribena, Robinson’s lemon and orange squash, Heinz beans, Heinz treacle pudding and spotted dick, various Cadbury’s products, HP sauce, Bird’s custard powder, piccalilli, Branston pickle, little pickled onions, both Colman’s mustard and Colman’s mustard powder (how’s that for attention to detail?), digestive biscuits, Abernethy biscuits, milk chocolate HobNobs. Stop right there. Milk chocolate HobNobs. If I was going to be very picky, I would say that plain HobNobs (no, not plain chocolate, just plain) would have been a nice option, but hey, that would be very small-minded of me. There is one mystery item, which is green tea. Americans think we Brits drink green tea as well as brown (which they call black). Do we? Is this something that we do, that has passed me by?
The British section is well nigh perfect. I’d be interested to get an expert national opinion on the neighbouring French, Italian and German ones (each sporting its own little flag). They seem to me to be a lot less imaginative. The Italian one is full of fancy dried pasta and accompanying sauces. The German one has pumpernickel and lots of jam. The French one has a whole shelf of jam, a whole shelf of olives, a whole shelf of olive oil and, intriguingly, glass jars labeled “Large French Prunes”. Oh, that tells a sad story, doesn’t it? Dillons staff must have reported a significant number of disconsolate French ex-pats asking “Do you sell ze prunes? I need ze prunes. French ones, zey are ze best. And large, please.”
I don’t know if Dillons are hoping to sell all these items to Americans. Maybe there is some cache in buying expensive European products (Heinz beans are nearly $3.79 a can – that’s 1.90 pounds sterling). Or perhaps there is a large hidden community of Europeans here, which makes it worth Dillons’ while. I haven’t spotted any, as I wander round the store, although of course I might not know just from looking. I’ll have to be more alert. Perhaps I should walk around with an open packet of milk chocolate HobNobs held aloft (one of those handy cardboard tubes with the blue plastic lid) and see if I attract anyone.
Oh, hello. Sorry. Didn’t see you there. Where were we?
Ah yes. Words. Lovely words. Now, if you were living in the middle of the middle of a long way away from Britain, you would find the following three words very lovely: milk chocolate HobNobs. (By the way, I’ve checked, and it is indeed three words, not four. Don’t be fooled by that upper case N. Your child might be taught at school that you can only have a capital letter at the beginning of a word, but Mr McVitie knows better. He would be in a very strong position to argue the case, after all.)
Anyway, I had been told that my local Dillons (Waitrose equivalent, remember) has started stocking a few shelves of British goods. I have to say that I don’t terribly miss food items (except chipolatas and fish fingers, which must say something about my culinary habits). If necessary, I can always hustle over to World Market, an amazing emporium which sells everything from Lindt chocolate to Indonesian furniture, via Indian silk scarves and Danish Bodum kitchenware. It’s a huge store, recently opened, and I’m usually the only customer so I fear for its long-term future, but up till now, I have been happy that it has kept me in decaffeinated PG tips tea bags. Now, however, it seems I can get them from my local Dillons (so I fear even more for World Market).
If you cruise around the ex-pat corners of the blogosphere, you get a feel for the kind of edible items people miss from Blighty. Lots of people write about them. Lots of other people comment. We say bonding ex-pat things to each other like “Ah! Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut” or “Ooooh yes, MARMITE!!” To all of you out there, I dedicate my local Dillons. I’ve just been along to check out the rumoured British selection, and I have to tell you that they have got the range of products just exactly right. They have clearly done some impressive research. Either that, or the manager spends hours reading blogs when he is pretending to be analyzing the sales figures on his computer. There is Ribena, Robinson’s lemon and orange squash, Heinz beans, Heinz treacle pudding and spotted dick, various Cadbury’s products, HP sauce, Bird’s custard powder, piccalilli, Branston pickle, little pickled onions, both Colman’s mustard and Colman’s mustard powder (how’s that for attention to detail?), digestive biscuits, Abernethy biscuits, milk chocolate HobNobs. Stop right there. Milk chocolate HobNobs. If I was going to be very picky, I would say that plain HobNobs (no, not plain chocolate, just plain) would have been a nice option, but hey, that would be very small-minded of me. There is one mystery item, which is green tea. Americans think we Brits drink green tea as well as brown (which they call black). Do we? Is this something that we do, that has passed me by?
The British section is well nigh perfect. I’d be interested to get an expert national opinion on the neighbouring French, Italian and German ones (each sporting its own little flag). They seem to me to be a lot less imaginative. The Italian one is full of fancy dried pasta and accompanying sauces. The German one has pumpernickel and lots of jam. The French one has a whole shelf of jam, a whole shelf of olives, a whole shelf of olive oil and, intriguingly, glass jars labeled “Large French Prunes”. Oh, that tells a sad story, doesn’t it? Dillons staff must have reported a significant number of disconsolate French ex-pats asking “Do you sell ze prunes? I need ze prunes. French ones, zey are ze best. And large, please.”
I don’t know if Dillons are hoping to sell all these items to Americans. Maybe there is some cache in buying expensive European products (Heinz beans are nearly $3.79 a can – that’s 1.90 pounds sterling). Or perhaps there is a large hidden community of Europeans here, which makes it worth Dillons’ while. I haven’t spotted any, as I wander round the store, although of course I might not know just from looking. I’ll have to be more alert. Perhaps I should walk around with an open packet of milk chocolate HobNobs held aloft (one of those handy cardboard tubes with the blue plastic lid) and see if I attract anyone.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Hurrying along
Words. They’re lovely things aren’t they?
When I lived in England, I would hurry. Or hurry up. Then I moved to Scotland and found myself scooting. “I must scoot”, I would say. I would scoot to the Co-op, which Husband and I called the Coop (we’re so amusing). Scooting to the Coop had a very pleasing feel to it. Scooting to school felt good too. It was for occasions such as these that school English lessons taught me the word alliteration.
Now in America, I hustle. I like that word. Hustle, hustled, hustling, hustle. It even sounds like what it means (there’s a word for that too, but I’m not going to use it – one word about words is enough showing off).
You’ve no idea what hustling can do for morale. Watching my son play soccer, for example, I hear another mom shout “Come on boys, half-time’s over. Let’s hustle.” She sees seven small boys in orange shirts and black shorts, who need encouraging into a second half. I see these people. For a short moment, I am aware of these facts: although I drove to the soccer ground in a Honda minivan in which the cd selection was Children’s Ultimate Party Album, Barney's It’s a Great Day for Learning, and Amy Grant’s Home for Christmas, and although the differential between my waist and hips isn’t anywhere near as large as it used to be, and although the extent of my interaction with young men these days is to yell “good jahb, CJ” at the goalie, deep down, deep down, I am oozing such ice cold urban chic that it is amazing my extremities haven’t frozen off, even though it’s in the 80's this afternoon and there’s no shade at the soccer ground. In another life, (I’m accumulating a worryingly large collection of these) I know I could be shoulder to shoulder with Marc Warren and his gang. I could be in that immaculately tailored business suit, no yogurt on the lapel. I could eat in minimalist restaurants with views over the Thames, where they don’t have a kids' menu. With my sheer craftiness and brilliance, and a few calls on a mobile phone thinner than a credit card… no… wait… thinner than a business card, I could trick business men, art dealers, tycoons, the lot of them, out of their millions. I could walk out of a lift towards a camera in slow motion, arms swinging, hips swinging, as the opening credits rolled. I could take on Marc Warren in quick-fire repartee. And win. The lovely word hustle does this for me.
I’ve had a fine old time with hustling on Youtube (who invented that thing? - as if we didn’t have enough demands on our time already). First, I found this truly marvellous clip from Hustle series 3 (sorry, it won't let me embed it here). It features the very building I once worked in, but I never saw anything even half as exciting from my window.
Next, there’s plenty of this:
I only included that out of sheer devilment, because people get cross with me when I leave them with a tune on their brain for the rest of the day, and this one is guaranteed. Doo doo doo, da doo, da doo doo doo.
Uber-suave con artists, naked bottoms flustering the tourists in Trafalgar Square, and one of the catchiest tunes of all time. As I said, hustling can do a lot for the morale. I don’t think I’ll ever want to go back to mere hurrying, or scooting (not even alliterative scooting).
When I lived in England, I would hurry. Or hurry up. Then I moved to Scotland and found myself scooting. “I must scoot”, I would say. I would scoot to the Co-op, which Husband and I called the Coop (we’re so amusing). Scooting to the Coop had a very pleasing feel to it. Scooting to school felt good too. It was for occasions such as these that school English lessons taught me the word alliteration.
Now in America, I hustle. I like that word. Hustle, hustled, hustling, hustle. It even sounds like what it means (there’s a word for that too, but I’m not going to use it – one word about words is enough showing off).
You’ve no idea what hustling can do for morale. Watching my son play soccer, for example, I hear another mom shout “Come on boys, half-time’s over. Let’s hustle.” She sees seven small boys in orange shirts and black shorts, who need encouraging into a second half. I see these people. For a short moment, I am aware of these facts: although I drove to the soccer ground in a Honda minivan in which the cd selection was Children’s Ultimate Party Album, Barney's It’s a Great Day for Learning, and Amy Grant’s Home for Christmas, and although the differential between my waist and hips isn’t anywhere near as large as it used to be, and although the extent of my interaction with young men these days is to yell “good jahb, CJ” at the goalie, deep down, deep down, I am oozing such ice cold urban chic that it is amazing my extremities haven’t frozen off, even though it’s in the 80's this afternoon and there’s no shade at the soccer ground. In another life, (I’m accumulating a worryingly large collection of these) I know I could be shoulder to shoulder with Marc Warren and his gang. I could be in that immaculately tailored business suit, no yogurt on the lapel. I could eat in minimalist restaurants with views over the Thames, where they don’t have a kids' menu. With my sheer craftiness and brilliance, and a few calls on a mobile phone thinner than a credit card… no… wait… thinner than a business card, I could trick business men, art dealers, tycoons, the lot of them, out of their millions. I could walk out of a lift towards a camera in slow motion, arms swinging, hips swinging, as the opening credits rolled. I could take on Marc Warren in quick-fire repartee. And win. The lovely word hustle does this for me.
I’ve had a fine old time with hustling on Youtube (who invented that thing? - as if we didn’t have enough demands on our time already). First, I found this truly marvellous clip from Hustle series 3 (sorry, it won't let me embed it here). It features the very building I once worked in, but I never saw anything even half as exciting from my window.
Next, there’s plenty of this:
I only included that out of sheer devilment, because people get cross with me when I leave them with a tune on their brain for the rest of the day, and this one is guaranteed. Doo doo doo, da doo, da doo doo doo.
Uber-suave con artists, naked bottoms flustering the tourists in Trafalgar Square, and one of the catchiest tunes of all time. As I said, hustling can do a lot for the morale. I don’t think I’ll ever want to go back to mere hurrying, or scooting (not even alliterative scooting).
Monday, October 1, 2007
Verruca
One good turn deserves another. You, America, have introduced me to the word cosmetology. I am going to introduce you to the word verruca (pronounced v ' roo ka). I discovered yesterday that you don’t know this word. I’m not going to tell you what it means, because you can click over to Wikipedia or Google and find out for yourselves very easily, and I’d like to build up the suspense a little. Remember how your teacher used to tell you that if you looked up a word yourself, you’d remember its meaning better? I’d hate to tell you straight off what a verruca is, and not give you the best possible chance of retaining the knowledge. With the knowledge will come the realisation that you missed out on the humour of the name of the character Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (but you may feel that missing out on British humour is the best way of approaching it).
Meanwhile, we Brits can chat amongst ourselves, and say “how can they not have a word for a verruca?” You can also heave a sigh of relief on my behalf that I discovered this sorry lacuna in American English in the relatively unembarrassing context of a private conversation (although honestly, verrucae never make for a very pretty discussion). The alternative might have been in a crowded pharmacy:
“Have you got anything for a verruca? For a verruca. No, not a feraverruca. Just A VERRUCA. Yes, that’s right. A verruca. I don’t want them to stop my son swimming, you see. He's got several. In Britain, we use something called Bazooka to get rid of them. You don’t have that here? Do you have anything similar? No, I’m not trying to be funny. No, not offensive either. Um, well, [sensing it’s time to go] most people say that if you leave them alone, in time they will go away on their own, so we’ll just try that.”
Everyday communication can be such a minefield here.
Cosmetology for verruca. It seems a fair swap.
Meanwhile, we Brits can chat amongst ourselves, and say “how can they not have a word for a verruca?” You can also heave a sigh of relief on my behalf that I discovered this sorry lacuna in American English in the relatively unembarrassing context of a private conversation (although honestly, verrucae never make for a very pretty discussion). The alternative might have been in a crowded pharmacy:
“Have you got anything for a verruca? For a verruca. No, not a feraverruca. Just A VERRUCA. Yes, that’s right. A verruca. I don’t want them to stop my son swimming, you see. He's got several. In Britain, we use something called Bazooka to get rid of them. You don’t have that here? Do you have anything similar? No, I’m not trying to be funny. No, not offensive either. Um, well, [sensing it’s time to go] most people say that if you leave them alone, in time they will go away on their own, so we’ll just try that.”
Everyday communication can be such a minefield here.
Cosmetology for verruca. It seems a fair swap.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Cosmetology
I’ve learnt a new word this morning. Cosmetology.
I was having my hair cut, and on the wall in front of me was a certificate, telling me that the stylist was licensed in cosmetology. I thought it must be a New Age activity: a blend of cosmic things, comets and astrology. So I asked her what cosmetology was. I thought it would be a good topic of conversation, since I don’t have a boyfriend and I’m not going out tonight. She looked a bit surprised, and said “It’s what we do”. “And what does it involve?” I continued. At this point she included a colleague in the conversation. “Yes, it’s everything we do. Everything”, added the colleague. I must have still been looking a bit blank, because the colleague did elaborate for me. Unfortunately, as she was the other side of the salon and I had taken my glasses off, I couldn’t hear very clearly what she said (this statement will make sense to fellow severe myopics, the rest of you will just have to go with me on it). So I just nodded and said “Ah” in that way we do.
Cosmetology, as I now know (what did we do before Wikipedia?), means beauty treatments, including hair styling. This is rather good. It means that I no longer have to make mere hair appointments. I can arrange to see my cosmetologist. That’s much better. I’m already wondering how I managed so long without one.
I was having my hair cut, and on the wall in front of me was a certificate, telling me that the stylist was licensed in cosmetology. I thought it must be a New Age activity: a blend of cosmic things, comets and astrology. So I asked her what cosmetology was. I thought it would be a good topic of conversation, since I don’t have a boyfriend and I’m not going out tonight. She looked a bit surprised, and said “It’s what we do”. “And what does it involve?” I continued. At this point she included a colleague in the conversation. “Yes, it’s everything we do. Everything”, added the colleague. I must have still been looking a bit blank, because the colleague did elaborate for me. Unfortunately, as she was the other side of the salon and I had taken my glasses off, I couldn’t hear very clearly what she said (this statement will make sense to fellow severe myopics, the rest of you will just have to go with me on it). So I just nodded and said “Ah” in that way we do.
Cosmetology, as I now know (what did we do before Wikipedia?), means beauty treatments, including hair styling. This is rather good. It means that I no longer have to make mere hair appointments. I can arrange to see my cosmetologist. That’s much better. I’m already wondering how I managed so long without one.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The Pledge of Allegiance
Patriotic Americans of tender disposition, you may wish to skip this post.
I don’t know if this is universal, but my children stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning at the beginning of the school day. It goes like this:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one Nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
After we’d been in the US for a week or so, I received a note home from 6-yo’s kindergarten teacher. It was very kind. It explained how the children recite the Pledge daily, and said “I’m sure 6-yo feels a little awkward standing in silence, so here are the words for him to learn”. I read the note to 6-yo and he said “I know the words already. I don’t want to say it, and I don’t feel awkward at all.” He then proceeded to give a word perfect rendition of the Pledge. When I say “word perfect”, I mean he gave a rendition that showed me that he knew it word perfect. In actual fact, (patriotic Americans, you have been warned) he replaced a few of the keys words with words pertaining to the bodily functions that small boys find so amusing. Shocking behaviour. I didn't laugh. Obviously. Not even when his rising crescendo finished in the joyous flourish "liberty and *** for all!" accompanied by a long, triumphant and carefree laugh - the kind of laugh you would want to hear from your child when he has just moved continents and started a new school.
What would you have done in my situation? Insisted that he recite the Pledge along with his classmates in a respectful manner? Told him just to say the words but cross his fingers so that it didn’t count? Just be glad he chose to keep silent rather than recite his own personal version? I thought long and hard. We are, after all, guests here in the US, and as such, I think we should respect its people’s values and traditions. But should we pledge allegiance? That’s strong stuff. We pay taxes but we don’t get a vote. If the government doesn’t like us, they can require us to leave. There’s no long-term guarantee of a continuing relationship. And anyway, doesn’t freedom of speech, a tenet so firmly entrenched in the American mind, also imply freedom to remain quiet? In the end, I decided to leave it up to 6-yo (mostly on philosophical and political grounds, but partly on the basis that I didn’t have any way of policing him anyway). I asked him the other day if he says the Pledge, and he was vague and slippery in his reply, so I expect he doesn’t (although he might just have been bored by the question – one never knows with children). I admire him hugely, actually. To be so firm in your views and so ready to stand apart from your peers, to be so protective of your own identity at the age of 6: this is the stuff of heroes. Spiderman, eat your heart out.
The daily reciting of the Pledge is led by one of the fifth graders, who goes to the office, and addresses the school through the microphone, under the eagle eye of the Principal. The job is billed as something of an honour, although I think they all get a turn if they want one. This week, 10-yo has the honour. He brought the scripts for the week home. It’s a bit “’Morning, Campers” at the beginning, but by the time he reaches the Pledge, he knows he has to use the appropriate serious tone. So yesterday, for example, you would have heard him announce the following:
“Good morning, Panthers [that’s the school mascot.] This is 10-yo. Today is Monday, September 24. We will be eating Country Fried Steak for lunch. It was the first day of fall yesterday, so please look out for all the lovely colours on the trees. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
[The Pledge.]
Goodbye, everyone. Have a magnificent Monday.”
(This becomes terrific Tuesday, wonderful Wednesday, etc.)
There is one thing that giving the daily announcement has done for 10-yo. He hasn’t seen the Pledge written down before – he just picked it up verbally in his early days here. Now he has done so, he realizes that the USA is one nation under God. “I thought it was under guard”, he told me.
.
I don’t know if this is universal, but my children stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning at the beginning of the school day. It goes like this:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one Nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
After we’d been in the US for a week or so, I received a note home from 6-yo’s kindergarten teacher. It was very kind. It explained how the children recite the Pledge daily, and said “I’m sure 6-yo feels a little awkward standing in silence, so here are the words for him to learn”. I read the note to 6-yo and he said “I know the words already. I don’t want to say it, and I don’t feel awkward at all.” He then proceeded to give a word perfect rendition of the Pledge. When I say “word perfect”, I mean he gave a rendition that showed me that he knew it word perfect. In actual fact, (patriotic Americans, you have been warned) he replaced a few of the keys words with words pertaining to the bodily functions that small boys find so amusing. Shocking behaviour. I didn't laugh. Obviously. Not even when his rising crescendo finished in the joyous flourish "liberty and *** for all!" accompanied by a long, triumphant and carefree laugh - the kind of laugh you would want to hear from your child when he has just moved continents and started a new school.
What would you have done in my situation? Insisted that he recite the Pledge along with his classmates in a respectful manner? Told him just to say the words but cross his fingers so that it didn’t count? Just be glad he chose to keep silent rather than recite his own personal version? I thought long and hard. We are, after all, guests here in the US, and as such, I think we should respect its people’s values and traditions. But should we pledge allegiance? That’s strong stuff. We pay taxes but we don’t get a vote. If the government doesn’t like us, they can require us to leave. There’s no long-term guarantee of a continuing relationship. And anyway, doesn’t freedom of speech, a tenet so firmly entrenched in the American mind, also imply freedom to remain quiet? In the end, I decided to leave it up to 6-yo (mostly on philosophical and political grounds, but partly on the basis that I didn’t have any way of policing him anyway). I asked him the other day if he says the Pledge, and he was vague and slippery in his reply, so I expect he doesn’t (although he might just have been bored by the question – one never knows with children). I admire him hugely, actually. To be so firm in your views and so ready to stand apart from your peers, to be so protective of your own identity at the age of 6: this is the stuff of heroes. Spiderman, eat your heart out.
The daily reciting of the Pledge is led by one of the fifth graders, who goes to the office, and addresses the school through the microphone, under the eagle eye of the Principal. The job is billed as something of an honour, although I think they all get a turn if they want one. This week, 10-yo has the honour. He brought the scripts for the week home. It’s a bit “’Morning, Campers” at the beginning, but by the time he reaches the Pledge, he knows he has to use the appropriate serious tone. So yesterday, for example, you would have heard him announce the following:
“Good morning, Panthers [that’s the school mascot.] This is 10-yo. Today is Monday, September 24. We will be eating Country Fried Steak for lunch. It was the first day of fall yesterday, so please look out for all the lovely colours on the trees. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
[The Pledge.]
Goodbye, everyone. Have a magnificent Monday.”
(This becomes terrific Tuesday, wonderful Wednesday, etc.)
There is one thing that giving the daily announcement has done for 10-yo. He hasn’t seen the Pledge written down before – he just picked it up verbally in his early days here. Now he has done so, he realizes that the USA is one nation under God. “I thought it was under guard”, he told me.
.
Friday, September 21, 2007
The Tiger who came to tea
In the list of favourite books in my profile, there is the title The Tiger who came to tea. This is the one book on the list that has prompted people to say “me too, that’s one of my favourites”. I suspect there are many fans of this book out there. And now Tiger-lovers have been spotted in the northern heartlands, up there amongst the bears (perhaps they hope the Tiger will keep the bears away). I think it’s time we had a Tigerfest. I am hosting it right here. I am going to write a list of the things I like most about the book, and then you can use the comments section to add the things you like about it. If you haven’t read the book, then you will just have to mosey on over to Amazon and get a copy. It’s written and illustrated by Judith Kerr. There you are. That’s all you need to know. Whether you’re a regular commenter, a lurker, or a passing browser, if you’re a Tiger-lover, this fest is for you.
Let’s start with the Tiger himself. He’s so approachable and kindly. Sophie cuddles him and hangs onto his tail. Kindly and cuddly, but enigmatic. He’s a riddle. I love that mystery about him. Who would want their visiting tiger to be anything other than mysterious?
Sophie’s clothes. They’re so wonderfully dated (the book was first published in 1968). Of course it’s not just Sophie’s clothes. The book is a wonderful snapshot of domestic life at the time. Her mother’s clothes, the table with the yellow formica top, the blue star pattern on the crockery, the design of the kitchen units, buns for tea, "Daddy's beer" and "Daddy's supper", the excitement of going out to a cafe – they all speak of another age. It is the age in which a huge swathe of the mother-readers of the book were the Sophies of their time. I think that’s why Sophie’s clothes head the list for me – I’m sure I had a shift dress (we’d have called it a pinafore) and patterned tights like hers.
I love the way Sophie and her mummy are so unfazed by the tiger, so hospitable to him. Then when Sophie’s daddy comes home, he sits in a chair with an expression that one can only describe as fazed. Fazed and gormless. I think the tiger experience passed him by emotionally as well as physically. To give him credit, he does come up with the café idea, but the gormless expression doesn’t leave him. He is a man out of his depth here.
My children’s favourite bit is the ...good-bye…good-bye…good-bye… weaving out of the tiger’s trumpet, curling in the air as the smile curls on his face. I imagine the editor saying to Judith Kerr “we’ll take those words out; they’re not really adding anything, are they? And they look a bit odd”, and Judith Kerr fighting her corner and saying “you might not like them, but children will love them. Trust me”.
And to finish, back to the mystery. The book is full of mystery. First, and on a rather mundane level, I am puzzled as to why her parents take Sophie to the café wearing her nightie. Second, and this is both mystical and mysterious I think, look at the ginger cat on the pavement, whom Sophie and her parents don’t notice as they head out in the dark to the café. Is he somehow the tiger? It is a full moon, after all.
Your turn now.
Let’s start with the Tiger himself. He’s so approachable and kindly. Sophie cuddles him and hangs onto his tail. Kindly and cuddly, but enigmatic. He’s a riddle. I love that mystery about him. Who would want their visiting tiger to be anything other than mysterious?
Sophie’s clothes. They’re so wonderfully dated (the book was first published in 1968). Of course it’s not just Sophie’s clothes. The book is a wonderful snapshot of domestic life at the time. Her mother’s clothes, the table with the yellow formica top, the blue star pattern on the crockery, the design of the kitchen units, buns for tea, "Daddy's beer" and "Daddy's supper", the excitement of going out to a cafe – they all speak of another age. It is the age in which a huge swathe of the mother-readers of the book were the Sophies of their time. I think that’s why Sophie’s clothes head the list for me – I’m sure I had a shift dress (we’d have called it a pinafore) and patterned tights like hers.
I love the way Sophie and her mummy are so unfazed by the tiger, so hospitable to him. Then when Sophie’s daddy comes home, he sits in a chair with an expression that one can only describe as fazed. Fazed and gormless. I think the tiger experience passed him by emotionally as well as physically. To give him credit, he does come up with the café idea, but the gormless expression doesn’t leave him. He is a man out of his depth here.
My children’s favourite bit is the ...good-bye…good-bye…good-bye… weaving out of the tiger’s trumpet, curling in the air as the smile curls on his face. I imagine the editor saying to Judith Kerr “we’ll take those words out; they’re not really adding anything, are they? And they look a bit odd”, and Judith Kerr fighting her corner and saying “you might not like them, but children will love them. Trust me”.
And to finish, back to the mystery. The book is full of mystery. First, and on a rather mundane level, I am puzzled as to why her parents take Sophie to the café wearing her nightie. Second, and this is both mystical and mysterious I think, look at the ginger cat on the pavement, whom Sophie and her parents don’t notice as they head out in the dark to the café. Is he somehow the tiger? It is a full moon, after all.
Your turn now.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
In another life
I have other lives. Do other people have other lives too? This was my other life tonight.
“Dinner-time” I called. “Ooh, goody goody” chorused the children, as they gathered round the table, their eager faces aglow with anticipation. “Oh, wait a minute, Mummy”, said 10-yo. “Would you mind if I just picked up my dirty socks from the middle of the sitting room floor before I came to the dinner table? It’ll only take a second.” “Oh, that’s a good idea”, said 6-yo. “I’ll do mine too. Perhaps we could tidy the whole room while we’re at it.” “No problem,” I replied, with a chuckle. “The food will taste all the better for the wait.”
“Mashed potato and home-made vegetable stew! My favourite!” said 10-yo. “Oh mine too” joined in 6-yo and 3-yo. If I had been left with any doubts as to their enjoyment of this simple yet nutritious fare, the silence, punctuated only by the sound of expertly-manipulated cutlery on china, would have dispelled them. “Tomato ketchup anyone?” “Oh, no thank you, Mummy. It just disguises the flavor of the food. Why would we want tomato ketchup?”
“Seconds?” I asked. “Thirds and fourths too, please”, came the answer. “Certainly! But remember to leave room for the stewed fruit I’ve made for pudding” I laughingly replied. “Ooooh, stewed fruit! What a treat!” rang the little voices.
“Please may I leave the table, Mummy, and thank you for such a delicious dinner. Shall I help you stack the dishwasher and clear up the kitchen. There’s nothing I want to watch on television and the Playstation is so boring.”
“Dinner-time” I called. “Ooh, goody goody” chorused the children, as they gathered round the table, their eager faces aglow with anticipation. “Oh, wait a minute, Mummy”, said 10-yo. “Would you mind if I just picked up my dirty socks from the middle of the sitting room floor before I came to the dinner table? It’ll only take a second.” “Oh, that’s a good idea”, said 6-yo. “I’ll do mine too. Perhaps we could tidy the whole room while we’re at it.” “No problem,” I replied, with a chuckle. “The food will taste all the better for the wait.”
“Mashed potato and home-made vegetable stew! My favourite!” said 10-yo. “Oh mine too” joined in 6-yo and 3-yo. If I had been left with any doubts as to their enjoyment of this simple yet nutritious fare, the silence, punctuated only by the sound of expertly-manipulated cutlery on china, would have dispelled them. “Tomato ketchup anyone?” “Oh, no thank you, Mummy. It just disguises the flavor of the food. Why would we want tomato ketchup?”
“Seconds?” I asked. “Thirds and fourths too, please”, came the answer. “Certainly! But remember to leave room for the stewed fruit I’ve made for pudding” I laughingly replied. “Ooooh, stewed fruit! What a treat!” rang the little voices.
“Please may I leave the table, Mummy, and thank you for such a delicious dinner. Shall I help you stack the dishwasher and clear up the kitchen. There’s nothing I want to watch on television and the Playstation is so boring.”
Sunday, September 16, 2007
More on Emily Yeung
Letter to Managing Director
Marblemedia Production Company
Toronto
Dear Sir
I believe you produce This is Emily Yeung. It’s very good. She’s very good. I hope she has a future in television. It’s an imaginative programme. Kids like it because it is very much on their level, and adults like it because they picture their child doing the activity that Emily is doing, and being much more cute and clever than she. Don’t get me wrong. Emily is very cute and clever. It’s just that parents are smitten with their own children. You knew that already.
I like the theme music too.
This is Emily Yeung
She’ll score a goal, play pretend,
Make a bunch of brand new friends.
Learning laughing sharing smiling
We’ll have lots of fun [pause]
With Emily Yeung.
I’m afraid that, being English, the “bunch of brand new friends” creates a bit of an odd visual image. We don’t say that, you see. I see her with a clutch of Barbie-like plastic people in one hand, like a bunch of flowers or a bunch of carrots. Still, I suppose if you said “a lot of brand new friends”, as we would do in England, your North American audience would visualize an auction room with groups of children awaiting their turn amongst the drab second hand furniture. I like the tune too. Very jolly, with a reflective bit, almost like church music, in the middle.
You do what I was going to call a sister programme: This is Daniel Cook. I’ll have to call it a brother programme. He wears Emily’s trademark orange t-shirt and blue pants. He is very good in front of the cameras too, quick and intelligent. I think Emily, with her natural curiosity and ease with people, might become an investigative reporter of a soft kind. Daniel has more of the political interviewer about him. His adult companions don’t get away with any loose explanations, and he interrupts them shamelessly if he is ready to move on. Today he told the nice lady who was helping him recycle paper that pulp should be called pawater. A mixture of paper and water, you see. It’s a clever word. The nice lady had to agree that it was a better word than pulp.
I like This is Daniel Cook too. I have just one quibble with you. Cook doesn’t rhyme with fun. Didn’t anyone notice? You’ve changed the words to the theme tune, but you stuck with the last couplet:
We’ll have lots of fun [pause]
With Daniel Cook.
It doesn’t rhyme at all. Actually, Yeung doesn’t really rhyme with fun either, does it? We’ll give you that one though. It’s near enough, although you’re aiming at a preschool audience here – you ought to be more careful with your phonics, since schools all seem pretty keen on them. However, we’ll let that one pass, since the theme tune overall is so very good. But I’m sorry, I just can’t overlook [pause] Daniel Cook. I could forgive the lack of effort here if he had a name that was particularly challenging in the rhyme-finding department. Daniel Defoe. Daniel Fortescue. Daniel Molyneux-Cholmondley. These would present a challenge. Let’s face it though. Cook. That should have been pretty easy.
Come and take a look [pause]
With Daniel Cook.
There you are, you see. Easy-peasy. If you don’t like that, how about this?
Resistance he will not brook [pause]
Not Daniel Cook.
No? Well, I suppose it is a bit literary for the preschool audience (although you shouldn’t underestimate them, you know). Actually, Cook is a bit of a gift if you want to do some subtle merchandise advertising. I’m surprised you didn’t come up with
Watch the show, then buy the book [pause]
Of Daniel Cook.
There you are. Lots of ideas for you. I’ll be watching out for the next series to see if you’ve incorporated any of them. Don’t forget to credit me. Doesn’t have to be anywhere prominent – just a little nook.
We enjoy your shows, 3-yo and I. If you ever want to do an episode This is Emily Yeung in the Midwest then please do contact me. Or I could do something suitably English if you like: This is Daniel Cook baking scones. We’d be happy to host a production team here.
Yours faithfully
Iota
PS Since drafting this letter, my Canadian media informant has told me that in fact Daniel Cook preceded Emily Yeung. I just can't believe that. Do rhyming couplets mean nothing to you people?
Marblemedia Production Company
Toronto
Dear Sir
I believe you produce This is Emily Yeung. It’s very good. She’s very good. I hope she has a future in television. It’s an imaginative programme. Kids like it because it is very much on their level, and adults like it because they picture their child doing the activity that Emily is doing, and being much more cute and clever than she. Don’t get me wrong. Emily is very cute and clever. It’s just that parents are smitten with their own children. You knew that already.
I like the theme music too.
This is Emily Yeung
She’ll score a goal, play pretend,
Make a bunch of brand new friends.
Learning laughing sharing smiling
We’ll have lots of fun [pause]
With Emily Yeung.
I’m afraid that, being English, the “bunch of brand new friends” creates a bit of an odd visual image. We don’t say that, you see. I see her with a clutch of Barbie-like plastic people in one hand, like a bunch of flowers or a bunch of carrots. Still, I suppose if you said “a lot of brand new friends”, as we would do in England, your North American audience would visualize an auction room with groups of children awaiting their turn amongst the drab second hand furniture. I like the tune too. Very jolly, with a reflective bit, almost like church music, in the middle.
You do what I was going to call a sister programme: This is Daniel Cook. I’ll have to call it a brother programme. He wears Emily’s trademark orange t-shirt and blue pants. He is very good in front of the cameras too, quick and intelligent. I think Emily, with her natural curiosity and ease with people, might become an investigative reporter of a soft kind. Daniel has more of the political interviewer about him. His adult companions don’t get away with any loose explanations, and he interrupts them shamelessly if he is ready to move on. Today he told the nice lady who was helping him recycle paper that pulp should be called pawater. A mixture of paper and water, you see. It’s a clever word. The nice lady had to agree that it was a better word than pulp.
I like This is Daniel Cook too. I have just one quibble with you. Cook doesn’t rhyme with fun. Didn’t anyone notice? You’ve changed the words to the theme tune, but you stuck with the last couplet:
We’ll have lots of fun [pause]
With Daniel Cook.
It doesn’t rhyme at all. Actually, Yeung doesn’t really rhyme with fun either, does it? We’ll give you that one though. It’s near enough, although you’re aiming at a preschool audience here – you ought to be more careful with your phonics, since schools all seem pretty keen on them. However, we’ll let that one pass, since the theme tune overall is so very good. But I’m sorry, I just can’t overlook [pause] Daniel Cook. I could forgive the lack of effort here if he had a name that was particularly challenging in the rhyme-finding department. Daniel Defoe. Daniel Fortescue. Daniel Molyneux-Cholmondley. These would present a challenge. Let’s face it though. Cook. That should have been pretty easy.
Come and take a look [pause]
With Daniel Cook.
There you are, you see. Easy-peasy. If you don’t like that, how about this?
Resistance he will not brook [pause]
Not Daniel Cook.
No? Well, I suppose it is a bit literary for the preschool audience (although you shouldn’t underestimate them, you know). Actually, Cook is a bit of a gift if you want to do some subtle merchandise advertising. I’m surprised you didn’t come up with
Watch the show, then buy the book [pause]
Of Daniel Cook.
There you are. Lots of ideas for you. I’ll be watching out for the next series to see if you’ve incorporated any of them. Don’t forget to credit me. Doesn’t have to be anywhere prominent – just a little nook.
We enjoy your shows, 3-yo and I. If you ever want to do an episode This is Emily Yeung in the Midwest then please do contact me. Or I could do something suitably English if you like: This is Daniel Cook baking scones. We’d be happy to host a production team here.
Yours faithfully
Iota
PS Since drafting this letter, my Canadian media informant has told me that in fact Daniel Cook preceded Emily Yeung. I just can't believe that. Do rhyming couplets mean nothing to you people?
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