Things to be glad about

It occurred to me the other day that I’m extremely glad never to have to darn a sock again. I’m mildly pleased that I know how to do it but some decade or so ago was forced to the conclusion that socks were a) cheap b) frequently no longer made of wool and c) that darned socks are extremely uncomfortable to wear.

I’m glad that I no longer have to visit a bank, and that all my financial transactions are electronic. And I’m glad that I can understand just enough about electronic banking to actually do it.

I’m glad that my extremely low capacity for abstract thinking no longer troubles me. Take e=mc²; I’m lost before I get to m. I cannot understand what philosophers mean when they philosophise and my eyes glaze over when faced with certain levels of political discourse.

Discovering Dandelion Tea is another thing I’m glad about. I have never before liked “smelly” teas but I’ve become used to Dandy T which is a good thing as the water you use to make the tea is counted in your daily water intake. I know it’s very Byron Bay of me to mainline an alternative to real tea but it’s working well.

I’m especially glad we now use doonas instead of blankets. Blankets were so heavy that in my debilitated breathing state I doubt I’d be able to lift them.

I’m glad all the way to thrilled to open my diary and see no entries. I love pottering about with my knitting, sewing, embroidery and other crafting and do not love what sometimes seems like perpetual doctors’ appointments.

Not having to sing the National Anthem at the cinema is another thing to be glad about. Also, the cinemas up here on the northern beaches are delightfully old fashioned and never full, at least when I’ve been there. And thinking about entertainment has made me realise how glad I am that I’m not 20 today and don’t have to listen to the awful music that the rest of my family loves.

As the weeks go on I’m sure I’ll find more to be glad about, but I’m now going to segue back to he topic of interesting phrases and sayings.

Why do we have a “pair” of pants? A pair of shoes makes sense but why are pants a pair? Is it because they have two legs? And while we’re in the shoe department, do you remember referring to someone as a “goody two shoes”? Why two shoes? Why not wellington boots (or should that be Wellington?) or “goody bananas”?

When we’re flustered, we often say we’re “hot and bothered”. It’s very expressive but what does it actually mean?

I found myself the other day saying a movie we’d just seen was “not a patch on” its predecessors. This phrase is a complete mystery. Less mysterious is a “splitting headache”. I suppose it means that your head feels like it’s splitting open but it could so easily be a “thundering” headache or a “pounding” headache.

Equally close to being meaningful is the sentence: “I cried my eyes out …” It seems to imply that you were crying so much that you had no more tears left. But it’s still a trifle quirky.

And finally still on the topic of eyes, there’s the possibly politically incorrect assertion that “blind Freddy” could have seen what’s going on. Why Freddy? Why not Marmaduke or Evelyn or Peregrine?

 

Quote of the week from Chambers Dictionary of Modern Quotations:

US writer Mark Twain: “Golf is a good walk spoiled.”

 The rituals of life

 

When I was a young person living at home with my parents and brother, we had a ritual each time we came home after a night out at some celebration or other. Off would go our coats and down would go our handbags and one of us, often my father, would head to the kitchen to put on the kettle for tea. We’d all sit around the kitchen drinking tea and eating biscuits until one by one we headed for sleep. I take two things out of this: one is a reflection on our relative thinness as a family which made eating biscuits not particularly sinfull and the other is an explanation for my lifelong problem with falling asleep which may well have been caused by the caffeine before bed.

There are so many rituals which studded my life. One small example: when my brother and I came home from school, we would sit down to an unvarying afternoon tea of bread and jam in winter or watermelon in summer.

There were many rituals connected with Judaism. Friday nights, for example, were fairly sacred in the sense that we were always at home. I think I was in my 30s before I went out on a Friday night to anything other than Shabbat dinner at someone else’s home. My father would make what I now know was a fairly truncated Kiddush, or set of prayers, and my mother would cook either chicken “cacciatore” or roast beef. The chicken was cooked to extinction in margarine with onions and tomatoes; the roast beef so un-tender that it was virtually un-eatable unless shaved into very small slivers. Other ritual foods like chicken soup and chopped liver were by contrast extraordinarily good.

In my pre-teenage and a little older, I went each Saturday morning with my father to the synagogue. For some reason our shule-going did not include Friday nights. We also went to synagogue in the yearly rituals of holydays such as Passover, Purim, Shavuot and more and, of course, the High Holydays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Another ritual associated with the High Holydays was buying a new set of nice clothes and a hat. This business of a hat was contentious. I always wanted a great cartwheel of a hat but my mother said I couldn’t have one as I was short and would look like a mushroom!

There were certain rituals connected to rites of passage like barmitzvahs and weddings. The receptions which followed these family events were usually in the evening with dancing to live music and large dinners. In my middle to late teenage it was a ritual to wear a long dress, frequently with a small jacket like a bolero, to these affairs. Long dresses were also worn to balls like those held by various institutions at university and also bridesmaid dresses (of which I had several) were usually long.

I recall an incident associated with a ball which gave me a pretty strong indication that the Almighty took an interest in my spiritual welfare. I had been invited by a non-Jewish boy to a ball being held at one of the posh colleges. Unfortunately, it was scheduled for a Friday night. I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me go and eventually they reluctantly agreed. The big day approached. On the day before, I was sitting in the sun in the Quadrangle at Sydney University when I noticed a rash over both my arms. It was measles! Of course, as fate would have it, I missed the ball. Strike one for the Almighty!

Back to the evening receptions for barmitzvahs and weddings. As I grew independent and came to these events on my own, one ritual was to seek out my parents first thing, say hello and exchange kisses. Another was to greet all the family friends whom I called Aunty and Uncle. Another ritual was to waltz with my (real) Uncle Reg. He was a fantastic dancer so this was a pleasure.

Another ritual in the olden days was to write thank you notes every time you went to a party or a wedding. It was simply de rigueur and the next day, out would come the notepaper, envelopes and stamps.

And a final two rituals concerned with shoes. My father would clean our school schools regularly, buffing them to a shine. And we would store our wellington boots with the tops folded over and pinned down with a peg so the spiders couldn’t get in.

 

Quote of the week from Chambers Dictionary of Modern Quotations

US President Harry S Truman:

“It’s a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.”