Spidercide and other conversations

I seem to be spending a considerable amount of time having deep and meaningful, if one sided, discussions with insects, birds and other creatures.

As I don’t speak spider, I’ve had to use English to explain to the multitude of daddy-long-legs spiders which festoon their cobwebs all over my house my reasons for seeking their demise. I, rather reasonably I think, explain to them that I dislike cobwebs and I‘m therefore about to commit spidercide and they’re just going to have to cop it. Large garden spiders, otherwise known as tarantulas, require a different sort of communication which largely consists of screaming. Occasionally they are captured using the glass and cardboard method and sent outside or murdered by Mortein. When I see small spiders rushing about, I tend to leave them be although they may be co-opted as specimens for my grandson’s new microscope.

I also have lots of one-sided conversations with Chico the bird. The bird’s repertoire of conversation consists of squeaks and chirps at various decibel levels including the extremely high. He frequently uses me as a kind of super-highway, waddling up to my leg, then up my trousers to my arm then around my neck to the other arm and down onto the desk. Occasionally he will stop on my shoulder and start eating my ear. No matter how much I remonstrate with the creature, he comes back for more pecks. There are times, however, when he sits just next to my neck and croons to himself; it’s very sweet.

Little lizards always get the glass and cardboard treatment and taken outside. However, should a large lizard ever migrate inside I can confidently tell you that my language would be much like that used for furry big garden spiders – screaming!

Small mice, which have set up home in our pantry, are dealt with in a slightly different way. We weren’t prepared to kill them so we’ve purchased dinky little traps which you bate with peanut butter. So far we’ve captured two infants, which Jessica released up at the park. They are the most attractive little creatures, medium grey with the classic long tale. We did explain to them our need to relocate their little tribe so we didn’t feel too authoritarian.

We no longer need to speak often to the big dog as he is mostly now living elsewhere. Which is a shame as the dog was the only creature who appeared to understand English. There was a repertoire of words which he understood, most referring to going walkies, having treats or eating. The wonderful Jack Russell whom we had years ago had an enormous vocabulary of words he understood including walking on the left or right as instructed, leaping to attention when anyone mentioned going for a walk, going to this person or that as required and much more.

This week’s blog is a trifle short for various reasons but I can’t go without sharing a few more interesting phrases.

My friend Denise says her father used the expression “put a sock in it” when he wanted someone to stop talking. Recently I said I was “gob smacked” by something said by someone else and I also used the classic when talking about money or rather the lack of it: “I haven’t got a brass razoo.” And there’s doing something “in a trice”. What’s a razoo? And why is it brass? And if gob is slang for mouth, why are you smacked in the mouth by someone else’s words? And why is a sock the thing that’s shoved into the mouth to stop words coming out? Why not a cardigan, or a sheep’s fleece … And what’s a trice?

 

Quote of the week from the Chambers Dictionary of Modern Quotations:

British writer Gwyn Thomas: “She was a blonde – with a brunette past.”

 The good oil

 

My daughter got in touch with her inner Hungarian this week and cooked lángos (pronounced “lungosh”). It’s pieces of bread dough which you fry, then smother in garlic by rubbing cloves across the surface. Truly delicious!

I’ve spoken before about the two greatest Jewish contributions to the culinary world: chicken soup of course, and latkes, which are ambrosial grated potato and onions fried in oil.

There’s obviously a “fried in oil” trope happening here. There’s also donuts for Chanukah which are again fried in oil and injected with jam. Hamentaschen, the three sided pastries eaten on Purim, rather spoil the narrative because they’re baked in in the oven.

Eaten at any time are blintzes, or rolled-up pancakes. They’re fried on one side (in oil of course), then stuffed with traditional fillings like mushrooms or cheese, rolled up like a parcel and fried on the outside.

Gefilte fish which is usually served on Pesach but also eaten through the year, comes in a boiled version (yuk!) and a fried version, in oil of course.

While my daughter was doing creative cooking, I was, as promised, revelling in ABC Classic’s Top 100 music for the screen. I knitted my way through two consecutive days of John Williams and more John Williams and even more John Williams – Superman, Jaws, ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark and, taking out the Number 1 spot, Star Wars. My Number 1 was Schindler’s List , also by John Williams, which came in at Number 5.

Re knitting … I have recently taken up knitting as another craft skill. Of course, I’ve knitted before, including a multicoloured lap rug made up of long strips of different coloured squares sewn together, which I made a few months ago. But I’m now knitting scarves. So far, one for my youngest granddaughter, one for my daughter and one and two halves for me. One of the halves is about a third of a scarf in a stripe-y pattern which I decided I really disliked, having substituted wools from those prescribed in the pattern. I was so cranky with the colours I’d chosen that I ended it at the one third mark point and draped it over the couch back as an antimacassar. I have now started it again in the correct wools and it’s already looking gorgeous. Before I started this one, I began a rather sweet, lacy scarf which used light weight wool. It was also looking gorgeous until I realised I’d made some huge mistake about 10 inches in and try as I might I couldn’t fix it. One day I’ll get some more wool and try this one again.

One of the advantages of knitting is that you can do it while watching your preferred screen. Wherever possible I find television series of many years duration and watch one episode after another, knitting away very comfortably at the same time.

Sometimes I watch British crime series, other times US legal or medical series, but I’ve noticed a bizarre thing. In these shows, it’s always winter. The cast spends a great deal of time rugging up in jackets with scarves, knitted caps and gloves. This appears to be a given, along with the goodies always winning.

Two of my correspondents have told me that the meaning of “it knocked me for six” of which I wrote earlier, comes from the world of cricket. Apparently if the ball is batted so strongly that it goes over the fence, the team is awarded six runs. I have this on the authority of Carolyn who lives in Double Bay when she’s not living in Israel, and Monica, who lives in Bangkok and as an American shouldn’t know anything about cricket, but there we go.

And four sayings for this week.

The first is “dirt poor”, which could possibly come from the situation of a family’s house so poverty stricken that it had beaten earth floors.

The antithesis of this is “stinking rich”. I can’t for the life of me think where this may have come from, unless it’s a commentary on the rich by very angry poor.

The third is saying someone lives “cheek by jowl” to someone else. It makes some sort of sense in that a cheek can become a jowl when a person ages.

Finally, I found myself saying “goody gumdrops” last week. A hangover from childhood? Who knows?

 

Quote of the week from Chambers Dictionary of Modern Quotations:

Poet Dylan Thomas:

“An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.”