Congratulations are in order!
by chuckofish
Congrats to daughter #1 who is nominated for an Emmy! She has won Peabody Awards, but this is her first Emmy nomination. We so proud!
dual personalities
Tag: children
May 6, 2013
Swiftly fly the years
by chuckofish
As some of you know, I am a big fan of Fiddler on the Roof—ever since the boy played Tevye so masterfully in the eighth grade. Oy.
Can I help it if that old chestnut “Sunrise/Sunset” frequently comes to mind?
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gazeSunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears
Well, this was the case when I came across this photo on Facebook of glamorous twenty-somethings celebrating a birthday this weekend in NYC:
Two Marys, an Allan and a Jane
Talk about blossoming into sunflowers! Here are three of them a few years earlier (the youngest was not born yet):
Two Marys and an Allan circa 1987
C’mon, a mother is allowed to get a little misty-eyed now and then.
(I have blogged about “the Marys” before here). Oy.
April 19, 2013
You don’t say!
by chuckofish
Here’s something very interesting I found on the wonderful Design Mom blog. This article in The New York Times tells us that new research shows that “the single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative.”
Well, duh.
Kids who know a lot about their families “tend to do better when they face challenges.”
This does not surprise me, but it’s nice, I suppose, to have it officially validated.
The Camerons were a devout family who kept the sabbath.
The more children know about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of self-control, the higher their self-esteem. The researchers were “blown away” by this. Not I.
We agree with this ancestor who famously said, “God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.”
The “oscillating family narrative” is the healthiest, the article goes on to say. You know, we’ve had our set-backs, but this family has always stuck together through thick and thin…That kind of thing.
Pretty Ida Mae Hough died when she was nineteen.
The key is really just talking to your kids. It’s hard to imagine that people don’t actually do that, but I guess they don’t.
The article goes on to advise that families work on ways to convey a sense of history: holidays, vacations, big family get-togethers. This got me thinking about our own little family traditions, such as “Compton Family Fun Night,” which consisted of every Friday going to Steak ‘N Shake for dinner and then on to Sam’s Club to buy groceries in bulk. We got the idea for the name from “Tanner Family Fun Night” on Full House, of course.
Role models
The Tanners would always do something super-fun like going roller skating or to an arcade. But it just goes to show you that all that is unnecessary–a trip to the big box store, if labeled “Fun Night”–can be just that. Good times, man!
Well-adjusted kids with plenty of self-esteem…
You can see how this works in an elementary school child’s psyche. It gives a positive and fun spin to routine activities that thereby become special to your family. All is okay in the world.
Another “tradition” in our family is that when pulling into our street and/or driveway I would always say “Home again, home again, jiggety jig!” I did this because my mother always did. I think she did because her mother did. (I still think it every time I get home. Yes, I am that crazy old lady.) I have no doubt that at least one of my children will unconsciously do it as well.
In our family we have always loved our ancestors. Anyone who reads this blog knows that! It’s not that our ancestors are better than anyone else’s. It’s that they are ours. In all their eccentricities, they belong to us.
An elderly John Simpson Hough wearing Kit Carson’s hunting coat which he willed to John back in the good ol’ days.
We do know where we come from. And, see, that’s a good thing!
April 9, 2013
April is…
by chuckofish
A new calendar page:
crazy weather:
“The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.”
– Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time, 1926
It was just days ago that these were under 12″ of snow!
spring cleaning and DIY projects:
flowers on my desk at work from spring gardens:
birthdays:
New spring dresses:
April is Laurence Olivier month on TCM. His movies are featured every Wednesday this month.
Set your DVR tomorrow for Sleuth (1972), A Little Romance (1979) and Clash of the Titans (1981).
And, of course, April is this:
Hope your April is off to a good start!
April 5, 2013
Fat Baby Friday
by chuckofish
Fat Baby Friday returns! Here’s a picture of my life partner circa 1955. Poor kid looks like a turtle trying to right himself.
Here he is a year or so later bright-eyed and ready for boarding school. Sunrise, sunset. Where do the years go?
Have a great weekend!
April 4, 2013
A picture is worth a 1000 words
by chuckofish
I have always loved this illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith (1863 – 1935). I love the cranky little girl who has been sent to her room. I can relate. Her body language. Her droopy socks and carelessly dropped books. She is not a happy camper. And I am right there with that doll in time out. And isn’t that a wonderful wicker chair and pillow?
Smith was a prolific contributor to books and magazines during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, illustrating stories and articles for clients such as Good Housekeeping and the Ladies’ Home Journal. She also illustrated many books, notably A Child’s Garden of Verses and The Seven Ages of Childhood.
Here is a selection of her wonderful pictures on Pinterest. Funnily enough, my favorite is not included, but aren’t they great?
March 29, 2013
The heart in thee
by chuckofish
“Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest person who in his integrity worships God, becomes God; yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable. It inspires awe and astonishment. How dear, how soothing to man, arises the idea of God, peopling the lonely place, effacing the scars of our mistakes and disappointments! When we have broken our god of tradition and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with his presence. It is the doubling of the heart itself, nay, the infinite enlargement of the heart with a power of growth to a new infinity on every side. It inspires in man an infallible trust. He has not the conviction, but the sight, that the best is the true, and may in that thought easily dismiss all particular uncertainties and fears, and adjourn to the sure revelation of time the solution of his private riddles. He is sure that his welfare is dear to the heart of being. In the presence of law to his mind he is overflowed with a reliance so universal that it sweeps away all cherished hopes and the most stable projects of mortal condition in its flood. He believes that he cannot escape from his good. The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. You are running to seek your friend. Let your feet run, but your mind need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that it is best you should not find him? for there is a power, which, as it is in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you together, if it were for the best. You are preparing with eagerness to go and render a service to which your talent and your taste invite you, the love of men and the hope of fame. Has it not occurred to you that you have no right to go, unless you are equally willing to be prevented from going? O, believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear! Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Over-Soul”
This is a long quote, but I hope you read the whole thing and did not skim. Dear daughter #2 shared this quote with me yesterday with the suggestion that “it’s nice to fall back on the Transcendentalist ideas if the institution of the church is failing you.” I guess my recent posts had her a little worried. But fear not, my relationship with the Episcopal Church, though a love/hate one, is a long-term one. From time to time I threaten to leave, but I probably won’t. I just continue to lower my expectations!
Thanks also to daughter #2 for sending her old mama some new music!
Josh Ritter and Trampled by Turtles! Great choices for me, especially the TBT–nothing gets me going in the morning like 21st century bluegrass! Here is my favorite song, titled appropriately “Walt Whitman”:
This song gets my Barbara Stanwyck alter ego all charged up and ready to go. Sometimes I think my driving may suffer, but so far so good.
Happy Easter and have a great weekend!
March 18, 2013
Happiness is…
by chuckofish
Remember this book from 1962? It reminds us that it’s the simple things that make us happy. Things like warm puppies and walking in the grass in your bare feet and knowing how to tie your own shoes and my favorite: “some black, orange, yellow, white and pink jelly beans, but no green ones.” (I am okay with the green ones.)
Charles M. Schulz certainly understood what makes a happy life. To this I would add a few things, such as a full tank of gas
and a stack of new magazines in the mail.
I had a happy weekend–did you?
I batted “0” at the only estate sale I went to on Saturday, but that’s okay. I had a text exchange with daughter #2 who was at an estate sale in Bethesda, Maryland, which warmed the cockles of my heart. (I taught her something!)
The boy came over to carry a chair upstairs for me. He was wearing one of his “coach” shirts.
Now I can sit by this sunny window and read or work on my blog.
We went to lunch at Qdoba Mexican Grill. I had a naked burrito–yummo.
Although snow was in the forecast this weekend, there were plenty signs of spring in our yard.
And the Christmas Cactus surprised me yet again!
I spent a good part of my weekend reading a book by Hilary Mantel published in 2000, Every Day is Mother’s Day. The book cover announces that it is “an accomplished novel of striking originality” and describes it as having certain elements of a “suspense thriller.” Really. Never in a million years would I confuse this book, although it is riveting, with a suspense thriller. Clearly prior to Wolf Hall no one knew what to make of Hilary Mantel. She defies pigeon-holing. She reminds me a lot of Shirley Jackson.
The characters in this book have no claim on happiness. One even admits: “Happiness seems a bit ambitious. I’m not sure I can see my way to that.”
England, we are reminded, is a depressing and dreadful place. One of the main characters describes his life thusly:
“I am a history teacher, a teacher of the benighted past to the benighted present, ill-recompensed for what I suffer and despairing of promotion. My feet are size eight and a half, and I belong to the generation of Angry Young Men, though I was never angry until it was too late, oh, very late, and even now I am only mildly irritated. I am not a vegetarian and contribute to no charities, on principle; I loathe beetroot, and the sexual revolution has passed me by. My taste in clothes is conservative but I get holes in my pockets and my small change falls through; I do not speak to my wife about this because she is an excellent mother and I am intimidated by her, also appalled by the paltry nature of this complaint or what might be construed by her as a complaint. The sort of writing I want to do is the sort that will force me to become a tax-exile.”
Terrible things happen. Funny things happen. As always I am in awe of Hilary and her amazing powers, but I really think I need to revisit the high, green hills of Mitford now, where the air is pure, the village is charming and the people are generally lovable.
March 11, 2013
Use it or lose it
by chuckofish
Today’s lesson is one I have learned over the years: stop saving things for later! Use them now. I learn this every weekend anew when I go to estate sales and there are linens galore that have been put away “for later” or for “company” and then never used.
I was reminded of this again when I received a vintage linen kitchen towel in the mail that I had won on eBay. (Yes, I also collect these.)
It had clearly never been used. It even sported the original Woodward and Lothrop price tag pinned to it. How long has it been since they pinned on price tags? Or, for that matter, since anything cost a dollar? Or since Woodward and Lothrop closed its doors?
I say, use the good china! Light the candles! Bring out the cloth napkins! When my kids were growing up, we always did. It gives meals a certain gravitas and everyday elegance which is lacking in our do-it-fast, throw-away world. There is no denying that even McDonalds hamburgers taste better on Wedgwood.
On another note, I went to the book fair at our local Unitarian Church this weekend. It is my experience that Unitarians and “ethical humanists” in general, have the best book sales, and once again I came away with two bulging bags of books. Some of them are duplicates and I will send them off to daughters #1 and #2.
But quite a few I bought for myself. Ah, such a satisfying (and cheap) indulgence!
It is, however, difficult to decide what to read after reading three novels by Willa Cather. I mean how do you follow that? I may have to resort to some mindless fun like this:
In other news, the boy, who is the head coach of the J.V. lacrosse team of one of our local public high schools–one known, let us say, more for its academic prowess than for its sports prowess–led his team to victory (in overtime) in their first game. (And the game was against a R.C. school, known conversely for being a sporting powerhouse.)
Way to go, Hounds! (Greyhounds, that is, not Hounds of Hell–that would be the other team. But now I am mixing up my religious orders. Mea culpa.)
What did you do this weekend?
March 1, 2013
I love you, baby, can I have some more
by chuckofish
I think I’ve mentioned that I listen to CDs in my car. I know. Quelle old-fashioned. I don’t have an iPod. I haven’t downloaded much music to my laptop. Sorry. This old dog can only learn so many new tricks at a time.
So I have been wearing out The Lumineers and need something new. Or something old. I rifled through my box of “burns”–i.e. burned CDs, which my children have made for me over the years.
Daughters #1 and #2 obliged me many, many times, burning mixes of my favorites as well as mixes with songs “I might like”.
The boy made some “themed” classics, especially the famous “Kleenex” mixes which included songs and music guaranteed to make his mother weep. These ranged from selections by Patrick Park to Boyz II Men and lots of other stuff in between.
I know that mixes take a lot of effort. But let it never be said that I do not appreciate that effort. I do. Deeply. Thanks, guys. Now, how about burning me a new mix?
dual personalities 