Go-go, GAGA

Wednesday, 10 March 2010

Following last week's meeting with the school administration staff, a schedule has been set up for the GAGA 'executive board' to meet regularly with the principal, or assistant principal(s), to discuss current issues of harassment as perceived by students. First, of course, we had to name an 'executive board'. Most of the girls named me to it. I refused, of course, but then saw their point, that as one of the eldest students involved in this (my birthday being in December) I should have some sense of wisdom to impart here. Also, whether they like me or not (there is ample evidence on both sides), the assistant principals both know me and how to deal with me. So, I accepted.

The rest of the weekly delegation shall consist of Becky as recording secretary, one of Jessy's classmates acting sort of as 'vice president" (though I certainly throw off the suggestion that I am therefore the 'president' --I prefer 'paralegal' --ha!) and two floating delegates who are to be chosen by agenda at the preceding GAGA meeting (which is on Thursday afternoon) so that all members of GAGA have the opportunity to participate at least partly in the process. You'd be surprised how many of these girls don't really want to be 'on the front lines' in these administration meetings. Then you might be surprised about which girls actually do want to be.

Becky has developed into an intimidating force for righteousness. Even though she only takes notes, she has had a lot to contribute at the preparatory meetings we've had over the last week. This afternoon on her way down the gallery to the meeting she was swinging her clipboard under her arm and whistling 'When Johnny Goes Off To War Again' --which in itself is kind of scary, but, of course, also funny. She is thrilled to be part of a process by which she can leave a legacy on people who might otherwise never have noticed her. And, of course, she is very responsible towards that legacy and I am sure it will only be positive.

My sister Jessy couldn't really care less. She sat in on last week's meeting and because she chose to not sit in on this week's she kind of initiated the floating-delegate concept. This is good, though, because it does give other girls a chance and because, in her softhearted, egalitarian way, she refuses to allow there to be any kind of hierarchy in the GAGA movement. All girls are equal-- they should not have to defer to others' voices all the time. And she is right about that, and that's really the whole point of GAGA in the first place.

Today's meeting was to establish certain terms, definitions of things like 'harassment' as opposed to 'bullying' (one is inadvertent and careless, and one is deliberate and nasty) and a process for registering complaints, especially anything that happens between meetings. We did all agree that nothing a student considers either 'bullying' or 'harassment' should be shelved till some arbitrary time like the next GAGA meeting. It has to be stopped at the very moment it happens. ('What's right to be done can never be done too soon' --Jane Austen.) The APs assured us they would handle such issues just like any other behaviour problem, with the same degree of timeliness and severity as they've always considered appropriate.

It's important to remember that our complaint is not that our APs act too slowly or too leniently. They don't. Our complaint is that they do not recognise that some of the age-old policies of this school are in themselves the problems we girls face. This is a quiet, rural, working-class area, and people just aren't attuned to racism or sexism the way Jessy and I are used to. And you might think it's not a problem, but being a girl I have seen how some girls feel absolutely belittled by what everyone else, even female teachers, thinks is just 'the way things are'. So we hope to do is show how people-- everyone, from the superintendent on down to the newest freshmen-- can demonstrate sincere respect for each other and therefore receive more respect for themselves as well. And, of course, part of that means treating a young lady like a young lady.

The really sad part of all this is that Jessy and I, and, by extension, our parents, have been accused of being 'liberal Northerners' and even by some people we might have thought had more respect and even admiration for our differences. So let me make this perfectly clear-- I may have been born about 11 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line, but I have spent all my life (but the two years in England) living south of it. And my father is about as liberal as Margaret Thatcher. In spite of being in the rock-and-roll music business, he did grow up under the 1980s concept of 'compassionate conservatism' and really does live the ideal of 'noblesse oblige' --the absolute requirement that the good people must do the right thing. If you knew him personally, you would quickly put aside the longish hair and the ripped jeans and the (sometimes shockingly) up-to-date vocabulary and especially the super-distortion guitar volume, and you would see a real, bona-fide, dyed-in-the-wool old-fashioned Christian gentleman, someone George Washington or Robert Walpole would definitely respect. And Mother, 23 years younger than he, is no less the traditional country lady with her homemade pies and gentle Old-World sweetness and her devout love for the divinity of Jesus-- and her impassioned ferocity whenever she sees anything even slightly unfair. So as compassionate conservatives, we donate liberally (of our own free will and to whom we choose), keep the neighbourhood roads and greenways clean, conserve energy as well as money, refrain from polluting from the lawn, pool, rubbish, or boats, and most especially practise respect towards everyone else, whether 'less fortunate' or not, regardless of race, heritage, native language, or gender identity. The good people do the right thing-- and no so-called liberal ought to disagree with that, whichever way we happen to vote.

In this way the GAGA movement reminds me of President Lincoln, who insisted that 'noblesse oblige' rule the day--

'Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

If it takes another four years of GAGA girls standing up for respect and sitting down arguing with administrators till all girls in this county feel comfortable and safe and respected at school and in their community, as they always ought to have felt over all of the last 200 years, like ladies whose reputations are as important to them as a man's pride, then none of that time and effort is wasted. Lincoln would have agreed-- in fact, his Second Inaugural Address shows that he did.

And, for what it's worth, Lincoln was not a liberal! [wink]

...

I am sick

Ash Wednesday 17 February

I was up too late last night, mainly because I had had a nap earlier in the evening. I hate when that happens. I finally turned in at about 3.00 am and had to get up early to receive ashes before school. I was not in proper shape for it and by noon I felt awful with a terrible sore throat that felt like the roof of my mouth was bleeding every time I swallowed. So I called Roger, signed myself out and went home.

Mother was surprised to see me but when she realised I really am sick she sent me up here to my room with a cup of hot tea with a little syrup in it. I got out of my school things and into a warm flannel shift with a sweatshirt on over it and some high cotton stockings and am nestled in my bed amidst all my blankets and with the curtains drawn on the bed to keep out draughts. And I will be fine... I hope. I have a singing date on Saturday for one of Daddy's acts and I don't want this to go till then. So I hope the understanding will forgive me for babying myself a little for just a sore throat.

In any case I am lonely and can't wait for Jessy to get home.

...

Little Miss Sweetness

Friday, 5 February 2010

Living with Lisa is a sweet sort of experience, rather like having a whole meal of strawberry shortcake and whipped cream on top and then realising that even doing the dishes afterwards is not a particularly distasteful chore at all. Even the worst sort of occurrences seem to turn out pleasantly, like when she got her hand stuck in the bath drain or when she spanked JJ for being disrespectful or when she coloured her panties with Sharpie marker to make them 'all flowery' like Jessy's and then it ran all over her other clothes in the washer. But really, since she has been out of diapers she really has never been much of a mess at all, unless it's only the normal sort of accidents that happen to small children. This last week with the three of us girls on our own has shown us all that we are all very compatible and thoughtful towards each other. I mean, Lisa actually cleaned my bathroom the other day-- not that it was so dirty to begin with, or that she used a good washcloth instead of the ooky sponge, or that everything wasn't put back where I wanted it, but that's really off the point, isn't it?

One of the amusing things is when Lisa mistakes who is in charge. I have said before that sometimes she slips and calls me 'Mummy'. But I've realised that it's almost always when I am giving her directions, like when to brush her teeth, when to go to sleep, when to say 'please' and 'thank you' (which she normally never has a problem with). I have noticed that she seems to be very sensitive to what the right thing is-- something I tend to stress often. At six years old Lisa never has a problem with discerning the right thing-- she has four teachers in this house and propriety and decorum are top priorities round here. She has been taught to do the right thing because it's what's expected of the good people. She covers her nose when she sneezes or coughs. She says 'excuse me' if she burps. She says 'please' when she asks for something and 'thank you' when it's given to her. She puts both loo lids down. She closes doors after herself. She picks up whatever she drops. She carries her dish (at the times when she remembers) and collects the used forks and spoons from her place too. Mother says she is the most eager-to-please child there ever was.

I believe that Lisa does it out of love. She values what Jessy and I teach her and she is committed to doing what she believes we want her to, just because she believes it's how you should show a sister you admire that you love her. And we cherish her for that. Most surprising is that she's developing a sense of what to do before she is told-- she takes initiative, figures out what some situation calls for, and then tries to do what she thinks she should. I can't say she always gets it right-- but her heart is in the right place and you can't fault a child for that.

Long ago Mother taught this conundrum to me. When she was at U.Del a professor opened his mouth and said, 'You can't teach morality to a five-year-old.' The entire class erupted in disagreement, mentioning their own kids, nephews and nieces, smaller siblings, kids they had baby-sat for. So the professor gave them the test case:

Say there are two children, both about five years old. The first spies the cookie jar on top of the refrigerator and finds a chair, pushes it across the room, climbs up on it, then goes up on the counter and then to the top of the refrigerator, and takes out a cookie for himself. In so doing he knocks over the cookie jar and makes a huge mess. The second child sees his mother is tired and goes into the kitchen, gets a plate of milk and cookies for his mother, even brings a paper napkin, and in crossing the room to present it to his mother he trips over the footstool and makes a huge mess.

If you are to tell this story to a five-year-old he will always feel sorry for the one who wanted to present his mother with a surprise snack and will always recognise that the one sneaking the cookies was doing the wrong thing (otherwise the cookies would not have been on top of the refrigerator, which is one thing the kids recognise as a way to tell). This is a natural tendency in all children-- it would take a terribly vicious parent who would have taught his child, by that age, that whatever you can take for yourself is rightfully yours (as Joseph Kennedy once told his children, probably when they were older than five).

I told this to Lisa once and by the time I was done she was weeping for the 'poor little boy who was only trying to do something nice.' I actually had to explain to her that it was only a made-up story.

'Did his mommy make him clean it up?' she asked me.

'I don't think so,' I said. 'I think she was just happy that he was being so sweet.'

'I do too,' said Lisa. 'Where does he live?' she wondered.

I was ready to laugh-- but if course I couldn't. 'I don't know,' I said. 'Why?'

Lisa looked about herself with that little blush. 'I just thought we could bring him some cookies, to make him feel better.'

'And you want to bring him the cookies?'

She nodded.

I scooped her up in a hug then. 'I think we should go make some cookies first,' I said-- and off we went to do that.

I confess I let Mother set her straight on the conundrum story, but only after Lisa made up a tray of cookies and milk and a napkin and took it in to Mother in the parlour. And no, she didn't trip over the footstool. (I think she actually went in and pushed it well out of the way before she got the tray.) Mother was pretty impressed with Lisa's gesture. Of course she recognised it from the conundrum, though she didn't know I had told it to Lisa then, and when I told her about Lisa's reaction she was pretty impressed with Lisa's compassion herself.

Really I don't know why she should have been-- for it's clear Lisa gets it from her mother who, aside from being stunningly beautiful, impressively intelligent, and irreproachably virtuous, maybe the sweetest, most charitable woman in the known universe.

...

I learn a new word

Friday, 9 January 2010

It snowed over the night, but it was not very much and in fact the house wasn't even as chilly as I expected. I had a soothing warm shower in the morning and stood at my mirror doing my face wash for a while before Lisa came in. She was in her nightgown, one of the ones Mother made, like a long version of an 18th-century shift but in flannel, white with little red-and-gold roses scattered about it. She padded in with socks on her feet and leaned back against the wainscot beside the basin where I daubed at my face. I had my long white towel draped round my shoulders and the regular-sized one binding up my hair, but it was not cold enough to worry about more than that even though the basin is right next to the window. 'Hey,' she said.

'Hey,' I said.

'How was your shower?'

'Hot,' I said. 'Only way to have it on a cold morning.'

She smiled at me, leaning back against the wall and folding and refolding her hands in front of herself. 'You don't look cold,' she said.

I shrugged. 'I'm not.'

She leaned there, going on with her hands like that and swivelling a little, back and forth, on her heels. I realised she was looking me over, but I've always known she likes to look me over. When you're six and you have teenaged sisters, you're going to be fascinated by them. Jessy and I know we're her role models. When you're sixteen or eighteen and your six-year-old sister looks up to you, it's a pretty high honour.

Then again, having a six-year-old sister does have its awkward moments. She spent a long few minutes just looking at me-- as I said I wasn't dressed-- and then said, 'When can I get fuzz on my cootie?'

I moved the eyeliner pencil away before I laughed. 'What?!'

She got a little red, swivelling on her heels like that, and looked down-- at about my hip, maybe lower. 'I just wondered,' she said.

'Wondered about your... what was it--?' I looked down at her.

'Cootie,' she said quietly. 'That's what the boys call it.'

I scowled then. 'What boys?'

She got redder. 'Well, Richard and his friends call it that. They say it's what girls have.'

I nodded. 'We do, but I don't think Richard and his friends have any business talking about it like that in front of you.'

She shrugged then. 'Richard says his mother doesn't have fuzz on hers.'

I went red then. 'Good Lord!' I said. 'How on earth would he know?'

'He says he saw it,' Lisa said.

'Good Lord!' I put down the makeup bag on the back of the basin, wrapped the towel round my shoulders and strode round her and out to my room.

'Are you mad?' she asked, following me.

'No. Not at you, anyway. I just think this Richard character is a little unnecessarily rakish for my little sister to be fraternising with.'

'He's just a boy,' she said. 'They're all like that.'

'Remind me to tell Mother to say something to the school then,' I said, and took out my clothes to get dressed.

'Jessy says you get fuzz when you get your buppies,' Lisa said.

I smiled a little then. 'Yes, a little before, sometimes.'

'Will I get it when I'm eleven?'

I smiled at her. 'Maybe. Maybe a little after that.'

'Will I get it when I'm twelve?'

I nodded. 'I would think so.'

She nodded too. 'Okay,' she said, and she turned to go then.

'Out of curiosity,' I said, and waited for her to turn back, 'why are you wondering about it?'

Lisa got a little red then. For whatever she doesn't know, she makes up for it by blushing really well. She's studied in all the ladylike graces already-- thanks to Mother, me, and Jessy, as well as Gran. I have no doubt that when she's twelve she will be the most dastardly little charmer in whatever school she's in then. 'I don't know....' She stood swivelling on her heels again-- she does that when she's shy or embarrassed. 'Will I be as pretty as Jessy is?'

I smiled and went to her, bent down, and kissed her head. 'You already are,' I said.

'No I'm not. She's pretty and has pretty hair and pretty eyes and pretty buppies.'

'And fuzz on her cootie?' I giggled.

Lisa giggled too. 'Yes.'

I bent over and kissed her again. When I do that, especially naked, she looks upwards and I know what she sees. But she never says much about me. It's well carried in the family that Lisa takes after Jessy more than me anyway-- they are two of a kind, separated by ten years, both playful, witty, cuddly and with a tendency to pamper themselves. Jessy may be her role model, but I am almost a second mother. I'm the one she comes in to snuggle with when she's having a bad dream or feeling too chilly, not Jessy, and I'm the one she asks the important questions to. And as I said, it's a pretty high honour, especially when I think that I am actually closer to Mother (my stepmother, Lisa's mummy) in age than I am to her child.

I remember one time when Mother was still our nanny, a beautiful young woman (actually a teenager) living with us as an au pair, and I happened to wander in to her room and came upon her just putting on her bra. And I stood there and stared at her as though she were a goddess. We always thought she was pretty, and I had seen her in swimsuits (almost always a bikini unless she was swimming laps) plenty of times, but suddenly I was eight and she was gorgeous and I felt terrifically envious. And I started asking her about things, when she got her first period and how she knew it was coming and how she felt when parts of her started developing, and she never flinched and never got embarrassed and never refused to answer anything I asked. She realised then I was her role model and she considered it a very high honour. And so when I think about that, I realise that the way I pay back my terrific role model is to be the best one I can be for her child.

'Well,' I said, 'you are already very pretty, and your mother is pretty, and your sister Jessy is pretty, and I know you will only get prettier and prettier as you grow up. So I want you to remember that, and don't worry too much about when everything will happen to you. God provides in His own time, you know.'

She nodded. 'I know. But what if it never comes?'

'What if what never comes?'

'My... you know. Fuzz on my cootie.'

'Oh, it will come, sweetie.'

'You have it and Jessy has it,' she said-- and now she looked down at me as though to remind herself-- but Richard's mother doesn't. And I'm pretty sure she's old enough.'

I got red then. 'Well, all girls get it, but some girls just shave it off.'

'Shave it? Like with a razor?'

I nodded.

'Isn't that sharp?'

'Very sharp,' I said.

'Ewww!' And she covered her crutch, in the nightgown, with both hands then. 'What if I don't want it off?'

I laughed. 'Then don't shave it,' I said simply.

She nodded then. 'I won't!'

There it is-- common sense from the mouths of babes. 'There's a good girl,' I said, and turned to go back and step into my panties.

'I want to be pretty like you are,' she said softly then.

I stood up, shimmying into the panties, and smiled over at her. 'You will be, sweetie.'

She giggled a little and scampered off.

On the way down to the car Jessy asked me, 'Did she come into your room again last night?'

'No,' I said. 'Just after my shower.'

'She adores you,' Jessy told me. 'She's lucky to have you.'

'And you,' I said.

Jessy shrugged. She's heard that before. 'She learns more from you.'

'I learn from her too. Like, this morning, she taught me a new word,' I said, and when we got into the car I told her about it.

...

Christmas observances at Terncote

24-25-26 December, 2009

Our family tends to over-celebrate most holidays, at least as far as putting events on the schedule. For example, I had two birthday parties, one for my friends on Friday and another for the family-- Gran, and my uncles and aunts and cousins-- who have much farther to travel to be with us. I recall times when I was much younger when I would have three parties, including one at school. And this is typical of us, you know-- why have one party when you can have more. And, of course, this calls for three cakes, which in turn calls for the rowing machine... but I digress.

Once all the shopping and baking is done and the tree is brought inside and trimmed there is candlelight Mass on Christmas Eve, including the singing of 'Silent Night' (the ONLY time that song occurs in the church liturgy), and then it is home again for hot cocoa and Christmas wishes and family thanksgiving prayers, and then Daddy reads 'A Visit From St Nicholas' from the the little book we have had since we were little, turning it round to show all the pictures as though he were a kindergarten teacher, and more often than not making fun of the verses and illustrations that Jessy and I, at least, have seen and heard over a dozen times before. Then the little ones are tucked in and everyone has kisses good-night and Jessy and I promise to not wake up too soon in the morning in order to allow Daddy and Mother a bit more rest than they've got these last few days.

Then Daddy does his magic-- and it's always magic, for always there is more than any one of us has expected, and I don't mean just a quantity of gifts, for since Lisa was old enough to understand the material aspect of Christmas Mother has been adamant that we won't 'buy into it'-- we really do not receive many gifts at all and our parents believe quality is better than quantity, so what we receive, and in turn give to each other, is what we all really want, and not just some stuff to outdo the neighbours, you know. Daddy has developed a certain knack for 'doing Christmas' over the years-- well, it perhaps started with our old house in Delaware with one electrical outlet under each window all on the same circuit, so the electric candles in the windows could be activated all at the same time (and still are, there as here, for the house in Delaware has always been decorated like a showpiece for Christmas). He once made a device in the attic there to simulate a patter of reindeer hoofs on the roof, but he found out that it was a little too subtle and that Jessy and I never heard it. In the past he has created mysterious footprints in the snow or rearranged things round certain rooms and left hints that someone benevolent but not of our family has been here. We always set out cookies and milk for Santa and they are always mostly gone, usually exchanged for a handwritten thank-you note that is apparently NOT in Daddy's handwriting. The year Mommy died I sent a letter to Santa asking him to bring her something for Christmas up in heaven and I received in my stocking a very pretty letter in return, in which Santa said he was sorry for our family's loss, that no amount of extra gifts could ever make up for it, and that sometimes these sad things happen even to very good children like me and the best we can all do is continue to have faith in God and to remember that He loves us, especially when we are so afflicted, and so on. I still have the letter, of course. (It will probably go on display at the house in Delaware some day.) The important thing is that the letter from Santa was NOT done on Daddy's computer. It was done in red ink-- and we did not have a colour printer at that time. It used a font Daddy never uses. And the envelope and signature are NOT in Daddy's handwriting (not Mother's either, as she was still our nanny then). I was nine then, almost to the age when you begin to doubt Santa, and the letter only reinforced Santa's existence to me for another couple of years.

(Jessy says I will grow up and marry Santa Claus and become Mrs Claus. I would be perfectly fine with that-- I would get to help make Christmas wonderful for children round the world, I would be working in charity, I would be able to bake cookies, and it would be one of those unselfish occupations that I seem to be drawn to. There are only two things I would need to change about the way Santa traditionally works. One is that I would NOT want to live at the North Pole. The other is that Santa would have to work out on the rowing machine. How someone has been able to last all those years on a high-fat diet of cookies and milk is beyond me... but it shall stop with me. Get used to it, Santa my future husband.)

In the morning JJ and Lisa will be up at about 6.00-- they are never up so early at any other morning of the year. Jessy and I are responsible for keeping them upstairs and in our end of the house till 7.00-- that's the limit Mommy set long ago and which we still keep as tradition. Then making sure everyone is in warm pyjamas or robes and slippers and socks, for the down-stairs of this house is never toasty-warm at that hour, we march down to our parents' room and knock on the door. This year JJ flew down the stairs ahead of us all. The tradition is that we empty stockings first-- there they all are, six in a row, hanging from the fireplace mantel in the small back parlour. They are all hand-knitted in wool yarn and decorated with bells and tassels and Christmas symbols both secular and Christian. Daddy's was made by his godmother for his first Christmas (when he was four weeks old). Mine and Jessy's were made by our Gran when we were infants (I was 2 weeks old at my first Christmas and Jessy was four months). Mother's was made by Mommy for the first year our lovely young au pair (and future nanny and stepmother) was with us. Of course all these have a very special significance, especially Mother's. And then there are the ones for JJ and Lisa, which Mother made, following the patterns Mommy left to her, which were left to Mommy by our Gran. Though it's only a secular symbol for the child's aspect of Christmas the stocking is something that will never be phased out of this family-- Daddy's is as old as he is and is still lovingly preserved and used every year.

We keep Mommy's own stocking, which Gran made for her as a welcome gift for her first Christmas in this family, preserved in paper and linen at the house in Delaware, which Jessy insists she will look after for ever. Of course Mommy is with us every Christmas in spirit, and always will be.

This year we had a horrid little snowfall on Saturday which interrupted the shopping spree Jessy and I had planned but actually did last till Christmas morning, so we can at least say we have had a white Christmas. We took plenty of pictures both out the windows and of us standing in front of the French windows at the back of the parlour with the snow in background. After an hour or so spent opening gifts we had a leisurely brunch of pancakes and listened to traditional carols on CD. Mommy served an early tea and then I helped her with making a pleasant Virginia ham supper.

We are honoured and happy to have with us this year Mother's mum from Queensland, who has been installed in our guest room since she flew in on Wednesday. We have not seen her in over a year. Our uncle and aunt are down from the Poconos and visited with our other uncle and aunt, and Gran, in New Jersey before driving down here for dinner. They never stay at Terncote with us but take a place at a motel in Chincoteague (about 30 minutes away). They stayed in this part of the world through our the Boxing Day party.

For the Boxing Day party we invited just about everyone we know, especially locally, like our friends from school and their parents, to come and crash on us for part of the afternoon. This is a new tradition, suggested by Mother kind of in honour of her mum being here but also because Boxing Day is a Saturday so for once people can actually observe it and not merely return to work like the whole holiday is over, because it's not, not yet, not till Epiphany at least.

At the party Daddy forced us all to sing-- maybe I would rather have not, but this is his way of insisting that we have as much experience before an audience as possible. I mean there were people there from school and everything. Daddy played guitar for Mother to sing 'Greensleeves' and I sang 'To Sir, With Love,' because I had been working on it, and there were a few others like this though the highlight was Jessy singing 'O Holy Night' which sends shivers down your spine. It's like listening to an angel. Daddy says he gets weepy-eyed from it. I do too. This year she sang it with Lisa holding her hand and staring up at her in boundless admiration. Those two really are two of a kind.

I write this Monday morning, catching my breath-- aside from the trip yesterday I was inside this house from church Christmas Eve till leaving for Philadelphia Sunday morning, but it's all been busy so I haven't had a chance to catch up on any of it till now. I truly hope everyone has been having a blessed and happy Christmas... and that we all remember the true reason for the season.

...

Thanksgiving weekend 2009

Our Thanksgiving weekend was very nice. As we have done in the past we drove up to the beach house in New Jersey, which is closer to family. Jessy and I left directly from school, with Roger driving us in the green Cadillac, and we met Lisa, who had have a day, and Mother and Daddy and JJ when we got there. On Thursday morning I helped in the kitchen whilst Jessy played with the little ones. Unfortunately the dining room here is only small, so we set up the other table in the kitchen for the six of us, Daddy's uncle and aunt, Daddy's cousin and his girlfriend, and Gran. Our two uncles were to go elsewhere for the evening-- though we did have a Skype conversation with our cousins after the meal.

Friday was crisp and clear, though I had a bit of a headache from overindulging in turkey and wine and stayed in bed for about half of it. Gran and Daddy's uncle and aunt came back, and with them, our uncle and aunt and cousins, for it was Daddy's birthday. Gran, who was staying with us, made the world's best chocolate cake which Daddy says is the best present he could ever ask for. My headache was gone and I indulged in two pieces (not very big ones though!).

On Saturday the day was a little warmer. Jessy and I had a walk on the beach and then went across town to visit some of our friends from this past summer. At their house we watched 'Twilight' on DVD (since none of us have seen 'New Moon' yet) and had crisps and pizza and soda. When it came time to walk home we were socked that the temperature had dropt about 20 degrees. Jessy and I attempted to brave it and finally ended up running full-tilt against the freezing-cold headwind and even that much exercise was not enough to make us sweat. I swear I went on shivering for half an hour after that.

And then on Sunday we had church on the Island, drove home, and arrived in time for an early-evening supper. It was somewhat warmer and I went online telling people I was in my usual bedtime ensemble, panties and socks and a sweatshirt (sometimes a jersey). Of course I had a nice fire in my room here and plenty of blankets.

Tonight (Monday) has been Mother's birthday. I made a cake using one of my mother's recipes which Mother loves, Jessy and Daddy made dinner (linguine and fish with pesto sauce) and we all sang the song and all. Later Mother's mother rang from Australia (I can never tell what time it is there! --sixteen hours one way or the other).

And, of course, school resumes....

Decompression

Monday evening 3 August 2009

Jessy and I left after tea, drove down to the Ferry, had an expensive supper in the terminal and ended up on the boat as the sun was going down on the Bay. This is a rare sight and a lovely treat. We sat outside in the wind, still in our swimsuits with t-shirts on over them, inhaling of the rare southeast breeze that carried salt spray and took our hair apart. Then it was a long and somewhat exhausting drive down through eastern Maryland and into the Virginia peninsula. I have grown to dislike this part of the journey-- the Maryland state troopers are everywhere, I hate their brown cars, they have this stupid law than in a construction zone you have to switch on your headlamps, and the scenery, though green and pristine and beautifully rural, becomes monotonous. I chose the shore road and went off 13 directly after 175. Jessy was asleep and didn't notice a thing.

Now we are both home and back in our own rooms. The castle is dark and still and even cool-- Roger was over some time in the week and reset the air-conditioning and light and sprinkler timers and I feel like I don't even belong here. At once I flung up my windows to that sea breeze, took off all my clothes, and draped myself over the bed for a nap. But I could not sleep, and now I am typing.

Becky rang-- she's coming over tomorrow. Jessy thinks we should just greet her like we are and see what she says about it. She's heard, but never experienced it, you know. Maybe she will want to. I really don't mind. I have had half a mind (and not much else) to go for a dip in the pool tonight-- it's been so long since I've done laps. But there will be bugs out. The county sprays round here but I can see the bugs on my screens so I don't know when they were round last.

When we are alone in this house we never feel like eating. The last week we were here alone I lost two pounds. It's no use blaming Mother-- it's not that what she makes is so filling. She makes the best food she knows how to and I never eat more than I should, really. I just don't happen to eat when I don't have to. Besides there is nothing fresh to eat in this whole house. There's not even any milk.

My parents will be home on Thursday, and then on Friday evening we're having a little premature party for Jessy's 16th. Rita and Josie and everyone from our circle here will come. Jessy's birthday is really not till St Mary's Day, the 15th, but we'll be in England then. On Thursday the 13th our parents and our little ones will join us over there and we'll have another party with our friends from HOH. This is how it is in this house... we have multiple parties for everything.

Since Jessy did Lisa's hair for her party, Lisa asked if she can do Jessy's. And Jessy assented... so this will be interesting, probably even funny. Actually, in spite of being lush and gorgeous and capable of causing jealous girls to commit crimes in order to wish they had hair like hers, Jessy's hair is actually pretty easy to manage. It is naturally curly, so curly that you need to brush it wet, and as soon as you do it starts springing back. For the beach she just yanks it all back in a ponytail that looks like a plume of blondness. For a party she does the same, only with wetting it first, to buy more time before it springs back, and a bit of hairspray and/or some clips. Someone suggested she cut it once and there came that characteristic Jessy glare, when she looks at the poor cretin like he'd said the oddest thing anyone could ever have said. You might as well have said 'The Martians are eating your rice' as 'You should cut your hair short some time.'

Speaking of a plume of hair I just remembered why I wanted to type this. (I am in serious need of decompression. Please don't expect more blogs till we get to England!) I did delete the guy we met on the beach, who had recognised me from AOL. How had he known? There were literally thousands of blonde chicks in bikinis on the beach this morning! How he could have put two and two-- and two and two-- together is beyond me. I suppose it just goes to show how close I get myself to too much risk. It's a fascination I have-- I tend to wade into risky (risqué) situations just to see how well I can handle myself so close to the devil's lair. I have never really fallen-- oh, there have been time when I ought to have kept my mouth shut and times I really felt out of my depth-- but I am a good girl and there's no cause for worry. It's just that sometimes my own too-trusting nature gets me in a little further than is best for me.

One of the things I like to do when we're alone in the house is dress up, for no real reason, only because I can. Right now my hair is all put up on my head like it might be for prom or if I were going to a wedding. And I was standing in front of the full-height mirror wearing nothing but my cross charm and my good white church shoes, which are like 2-1/2" heels. And I called out to Jessy and asked her what she thought. She giggled and said I looked like I was modelling, and she brought in her camera and took some randy-looking photos of me. We loaded them onto my computer (and hers, to avoid using email) and I have been seriously wondering if I would ever have the guts to send them out. Well, they really are good pictures. And you know me-- I wouldn't pose too inappropriately. It's just that I'm not ashamed of myself, and I just wish we lived in a world where other people could appreciate a certain amount of beauty in being natural and innocent and cute. Maybe that's only a fantasy that I have.

I am glad I have Jessy to keep me grounded. And I am glad we have put four and a half hours between the AOL stalker creep and where we are safe and sound.

...

One thing and then another

or, How my family does a beach house party

Sunday 2 August 2009

We attended Holy Innocents' this morning, but they do not know us so well here (in spite of Daddy having given them so much money over the years-- mostly anonymously), so they did not know to announce Lisa's 6th birthday. We did inform the rector in the receiving line and she was very pleased and proud to be congratulated one this milestone. She has lived 17 percent of her whole life since this time last year, when we were just arrived from England. When we moved in to the house in Virginia Lisa had only fuzzy memories of having lived in the US at all. She still bears that cute accent, though it is not so much from having gone to nursery school and Sunday school with other children in England as it is because her mother is Anglo-Australian, one of the scant minority native to Australia but of English and Protestant ancestry. Mother has only a hint of an Australian accent-- she sounds more like she is from East Anglia, where we stayed for two years, and little Lisa talks a lot like her mummy does.

People began arriving at about 3.00 or 4.00. I had a shower and dressed at about 3.30-- the day was nasty with clouds and thundershowers till about then and I had been inside, on the computer and not exactly dressed (okay, stark-naked), the closest I ever am to actually being bored. Then the house filled up. We eventually were able to move most of the party out to the deck. There was Daddy's uncle and aunt, having come up from their place down the Island. There was Gran, of course, and Daddy's brother and his family. There was Mother's dear best friend, having come up on the Ferry from Delaware, with her fiance, just for the occasion. Three of the girls from the ice-cream shop who were free came by. And Jessy's friends, Claire, Scotia and Edie, made sure to wander in round 5.00. Also Edie's mother showed up-- not so much out of some parental protection, to watch over her daughter at this party full of beer and wine and loud jokes and live music, of course, but because she carries something of a crush on Daddy, of whom she has been a fan these twenty-odd years or more now. Needless to say Daddy was in his element, telling funny stories, mugging with his family for the camera, serving up more food and drink to everyone than they wanted and making sure no one felt left-out. So I think Edie's mother had a really good time.

Mother (our stepmother) may be the most natural party-hoster next to Daddy. I remember my own mother was very good at it, preparing everything to the very highest standard and then presiding over the festivities-- that is to say, being a charming and gracious hostess who never let anyone down-- always with a smile and a hug and kiss for everyone. She was just like that naturally, and from having known her and learnt from her, our stepmother follows that example. Only Mother, being young in age and even younger at heart, is far more casual. For example, she rang the deli for a tray of food, and the bakery did the cake for the party. (She made a lovely homemade cake-- from scratch-- last night for our immediate-family celebration. She wouldn't dare not make one herself.) She wore a very pretty royal-blue bikini with a blue-and-white wrap-skirt draped round her hips, with her hair up and high-heeled shoes (okay, Easy-Walkers). This is remarkable because she is young and looks it, in spite of having borne two children, and of course she is very beautiful, and especially because she is... shall I say... well-endowed. She has the perfect figure for a bikini and always has had-- I do not mean she is anything other than pleasantly proportioned. And she wears the shoes really because of being so short. But I really think no one could overlook her at any party no matter what people are wearing. She just seems to exude sweetness and hospitality.

Of course Lisa takes after her as much as she takes after Jessy and me too. She wanted to wear a swimsuit and heels too, though of course she does not own any shoes with heels and discovered with near-tearful lament that both her swimsuits here were damp in the basket for the washing. Jessy soothed her-- I might have guessed-- and next she appeared, for her own birthday, in front of family and friends, everyone but J.J. being quite older than she is, in-- you guessed it-- the bandanna bikini. She absolutely loves it, you know. Jessy did fit her with another bandanna tied round her ribs as a top, and then did her hair up on her head like she was going to a prom, and everyone raved over how 'native' she looked even whilst she looked like a princess.

The bandanna bikini top didn't last all night, but she is six and no one really cared. I have to admit I thought she was even cuter with it off... bikini tops on little girls just seem so pretentious to me somehow!

I have to confess that by the time I was done playing piano and singing and crooning along with whoever else played, I had had about three full glasses of wine and was in no condition to be very gracious or hospitable to anyone. Fortunately Edie's mother did not notice. Scotia did, teased me about it, and then slyly asked me where the wine was. I made a face at her and pranced (okay, staggered) away from her. Fortunately Jessy is no drinker and would not enable her friends to either. But I was disappointed in Scotia-- she's younger than Jessy, having only turned 15 this June, and very cute... but what makes someone like that ask for a glass of wine at someone else's party? And what do we know of her history with it? I've had wine at the table since I was much younger than she is now, and so what if I have three glasses at one party? I don't have to defend my sense or propriety to someone who just wants to drink so she can say later that she was drinking.

Oh, sorry-- this is not the kind of thing I should write about before a good night's sleep, you know.

Anyway this party served as kind of a sendoff for Jessy and me, since we leave tomorrow for Virginia and will not be back here in New Jersey till nearly Labor Day. I have enjoyed it all, even though I have missed my friends at home, and missed Stephen (more on that later) and missed out on a few somewhat important events that were at the end of a four-hour drive because of having to work here that evening or the morning after, you know. I love this house and love this whole town, and the beach here is like no other in the world. But England calls, and I will heed that call. This time next week I will be five time zones away. And there will be friends there too.

There is a bit of wine left in this glass. I drink to the summer, well-spent.

...

An update

Monday 13 July 2009

I have not been on much lately as I have been busy with this and that. Jessy and I have been working pretty regularly at the breakfast & dessert place, in costume of course! Our shifts are pretty much the same, usually Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and then one or both of the days on the weekend. Most often it's been Sunday. This weekend Jessy and I arranged to be off and drove home Friday night, to hang out with the girls at home (meaning Terncote). On Saturday five of them came over and we had a sort of meeting of the girls' club. That evening I had dinner with Stephen and his family whilst Jessy went over to Josie's. Jessy and I went to church on Sunday and had brunch with Rita and Josie after lunch Becky joined us at home. We just hung round the pool and so on. On Sunday evening Josie stayed over as Jessy's guest. As I write this they are both out back, still, even though it's past 7.00 pm.

Josie is the one who has embraced the freedom of being naked round the house as much as Jessy and I have. She even does it at home. Her mother is single and not dating and her younger sister is only about 9 and thinks it's silly, so at least till her mother gets home she will be naked in the house (Jessy and I have been there; we know it's true). The two of them are cute-- I served tea this afternoon and they both sat at the outside table with their ankles crossed and napkins in their laps and used all the most perfect table manners. I understand why Mother does not want us undressed at the dinner table but for me it is no bother especially when we are being proper in every other respect. I promised them some frozen pizza later wen we decide to watch something down in the TV room.

This weekend Daddy and Mother and our little ones are at the house in Lewes-- they sailed down at the end of last week and now the boat rides her mooring off the beach on the Bay (you can see it from the Ferry). Little J.J. always hates the lifejacket and I heard he had to receive some stern words from Daddy about it-- the rule is he is either down below (and that means NOT on the ladder!) or wearing the lifejacket on deck. He has grown grudgingly used to it and plays at typing knots, doing puzzles and 'making wine' (playing in a bucket of seawater in the cockpit). Meanwhile Lisa in her own lifejacket scampers all over the deck and is nearly impossible to restrain. I think being on only 34 feet of boat bores her and makes her feel confined. Mother did say on the phone that she allowed Lisa to take off her swimsuit-- provided she got enough sunblock all over, you know-- and then teased Jessy and me, saying that it reminded her of us and that Lisa's tendency is our fault. I laughed at that. But like Josie she just enjoys the freedom, and it's only harmless.

Tomorrow Jessy and I, with Josie and Becky, drive back up to NJ. We will stop at the house in Lewes for lunch and take a late-afternoon ferry to Cape May. Then of course we will have to work Wednesday, usually our one guaranteed off day, whilst Becky and Rita either sleep in or bask on the beach. There is one good thing about our schedule though and that is that the place is only open 7-11 am and 7-11 pm, which leaves the entire middle of the day open for fun in the sun. Of course it's a public beach and there's no chance for sunning all bare as we do here at Terncote. --though I am sure that after this weekend none of us desperately need more of that (especially in some places!).

I shall make every effort to keep up with my blog a little more frequently than I have been doing over the last month; but honestly it's been very busy this end!

...

An unwanted phone call

Thursday, 4 June

I arrived home this afternoon to my father standing in the foyer beckoning me with his finger. 'Janine,' he said, not amused. 'Come up here.'

I had just walked into the house and followed him up stairs to his little library on the third floor of the tower, at the back of the house. He sat down at once, turned to the computer, and brought up a .jpg picture of an instant-message conversation I had had online, late at night, a few weeks ago. I read it-- thankfully it was not long! --and my face went white. Then it went red. 'How did....'

So he told me he had got a phone call this afternoon from a police detective in Ohio. Yes-- that scared me. Then he explained further that the police detective had received the TOS complaint I had filed in response to the instant-message in question. The message was from a guy in Ohio, with a screen name that included something about a fireman, asking me for-- shall I say-- something immoral. I had reported him after about four comments-- that was all-- and the sheriff in Ohio had ended up investigating it. They wanted to know my age, because as you know I always just say 'under 18.' The police detective's point was that sometimes that's not enough to protect me.

I started to say something to my dad about that but of course he just told me to shut up a moment. His point, and the detective's point, was that in Ohio a 16-year-old can solicit and accept solicitations about sex. The guy was not guilty of a statutory crime, only a case of immorality and rudeness. Once again AOL and the rest of the world enable crudeness and victimise me.

The IM read that the guy asked me, 'How young and how nude?' That's from one of my usual rooms. Normally I don't mind this question. But of course-- as all my online friends must know by now-- I answered the first part first. I had typed, 'under 18'. The guy must have known his rights because 'under 18' didn't stop him from asking the next thing. The police officer had seen the 'under 18' that I had promptly and clearly typed and investigated it in case I were like 12 or something, you know. For a moment I almost wished I were.

My dad started to smile and pointed out two things about the message, still sitting there in small text, a .jpg file from a scan of a faxed piece of paper with the violator's screen name mostly blacked out with Sharpie marker. He said, 'There are two things that impress me about this.'

I was blushing. 'Okay....'

'The first thing is that you were polite. No baiting, no arguing, no attempting to debate a pointless point with him. You answered his question-- at least half of it-- and you asked him about what he wanted till he explained it.'

'But that's all I would ever do,' I said.

'I know,' he said, 'because you won't judge people.' He smiled at him. 'You're a good Christian, Janine. Even when you're wading among the slime of humanity. I can't fault you for that.'

I nodded. 'Okay....'

'The other thing is that, according to this, you stopped it the moment you knew what he wanted was wrong. Wrong, not only because you thought it was illegal, but because you found it offensive. And then, of course, you did your civic duty and reported it so the next girl wouldn't get hit with the same thing.'

I was nodding. 'But that's all I would never do,' I said again.

'I know.' He put out his arm and pulled me over to sit sideways upon his leg, like I used to when I was much littler. 'You're a good girl, Janine. I have always known that. And this, this right here--' he turned and poked at the screen-- 'this shows me why I don't worry about you. Because you know what to do. Because you are not... sucked-in by it all. Because you are better than them, and you uphold that.'

I nodded, still blushing but not for the same reason.

He bounced me a little on his leg like he did when I was about four. 'This is why I am very happy with you,' he said, and he squeezed me closer.

'I love you, Daddy,' I said.

'I love you too, good child. Now, go-- get off my leg before it falls asleep and you'll have to help me down the stairs.'

I laughed and got up. 'I'm sorry about the online thing,' I said.

He looked at it again. 'Yes, well.... Do try to be a little more careful. I don't mind the unclothed thing in the house, in your room, but I don't think it's so wise to advertise yourself to strangers too much.'

I nodded, standing up straight. 'No. You are right. I'm sorry, Daddy.'

He waved me away like a little gnat. 'Be gone with you. I want to email this detective back and tell him what we talked about.'

'Okay. Thank you, Daddy.'

He turned the chair round to the computer. 'Thank you, child.'

I descended the stairs and moped round to my room with the embarrassment fading and a more immodest blush of confidence, even pride, growing. 'What was that about?' asked my sister Jessy, sitting up on her bed with her own laptop, already naked as she so often is after school.

I made a smug kind of smile at her. 'Do you ever say you're naked when you're chatting online?'

She wrinkled her nose. 'Not to strangers. My friends don't ask.'

I nodded. 'Good,' I said, and went into my room... to type this.

...

Such is the gentle life.

Whitsunday, 31 May 2009

As we are back in the US again we must become used to American ways all over again, and one of them is the way the church here celebrates Whitsunday as 'Pentecost' and emphasises the colour red. Jessy and I would be unswayed however and with Lisa we all wore white. We each have a new soft cotton dress, and I wore my white sandals. Of course at church half the people teased us-- 'You forgot to wear red!' --none of the poor dears knowing that we really were commemorating the day, only in a different way. There were two baptisms as this is a traditional day for it, but, unusually, one was an adult-- a mother and a the newborn (actually about 2 months old). Then there was the usual reception with tea and doughnuts and all, which Daddy and Mother wanted to stay for since it meant we did not have to go out for pancakes.

At home I rang Dottie at the ice-cream parlour up in New Jersey, because I promised to, just to find out how she was doing. So by the time I was ready to go outside the cloudiness and drizzle had cleared up. I put away the dress and sandals and in my underthings went into Jessy's room, where she was complaining about not being able to go all bare outside. After some comforting I got her to come out with Lisa and me anyway. I went out in my panties too, to not let Jessy feel left out, but she was still a little miffed that my panties were white. Hers could not be-- she of course had worn a slip with her white dress to church.

And little Lisa went bare, such as she is prone to do. She doesn't have these problems!

We did not merely lie out but did a bit of straightening-up round the yard, as the recent rains have cluttered the side yard with sticks from the trees and so on. We rearranged some potted plants round the bottom of the steps from the upper garden and finally dragged our chaises down to the lawn to settle in. The sun was very bright, even intense, which was what we wanted. Jessy and I imposed on Lisa to put the lotion on our backs. She never minds this-- she considers it an honour. Of course I put it all over her too. She giggles when you rub lotion onto her bottom. I always make sure to tickle her because that's sort of called-for when she is only 5 and prone to giggling.

When we moved the chaises down we sort of set them up a little closer to the water. The walled garden is very formal and solid, with plenty of rip and even a spare little beach between the easternmost wall and the water of the Bay. But the yards to either side just sort of roll down in a series of shallow terraces till a fringe of grass is separating the area we maintain from a short dune and then the sand and the water. The fringe of grass is never trimmed and so provides a kind of screen between the fishermen's eyes and where we lie. I have never felt uncomfortable lying there. I am quite sure none of them would ever even think to look for us with binoculars and as I said I don't think they would see us. So last summer we gradually came to make this our usual sunning zone. Because of the wall we are out of sight from the first storey if anyone should happen to come over-- although we'd still have the problem of sneaking back into the house!

I nodded off-- too many late nights online I am sure! --and had a very bizarre dream about these horrible steel frames which rolled on a track and you put scrap metal into them to burn so that they would move together, which was the end. And some terrorist group was using them as an execution device. One prisoner I had become friendly with and I remember reaching out and holding his hand in farewell, saying, 'I love you, brother!' And he said, 'I am safe now.- --meaning he was in God's hands. He knew I would be the last friendly human being he would see on this earth. And I woke up shaking.

Jessy was out of her chaise and wandering down along the fringe of grass. There were boats out-- I wondered how modest she would be, but none of the boats seemed close enough to worry about. As I watched she said down cross-legged in the grass and toyed with a small stick. She was bored. She would rather have been naked. Lisa was long gone by this time-- she never lies long but wanders round the yard too, sometimes doing some questionably modest things herself-- once last summer we found her on the other side of the house exploring the construction site that would become the ballfield... and naked, but for her sneakers which she put on 'to be safe'. I got up and strolled down to where Jessy sat. 'What's wrong?'

She shrugged. I watched her toy with the stick for a bit and then she looked up at me. 'We're not going to be able to do this at the Shore,' she said.

Both of us are intending to work at the ice-cream parlour this summer. We'll be staying in our old house, the little house Daddy built on the beach when he and Mommy were first married. It's cosy, but of course the beach there is very popular with even unsavoury characters and there's no opportunity do do as we do here. I folded my legs under me and sat down. 'I know,' I said. 'But we'll be back often. Dottie's giving us a very lenient schedule.'

'I know....' She leaned back on her hands and stretched out her legs. 'I didn't think I would love here, and now I do.'

I smiled at her. 'Because of this?'

She shrugged. In that pose it looked very cute. 'Yes.... And the house. And the quiet. And because of Daddy.'

'Daddy?'

'He loves it here,' she said. 'He's busy all the time. He scarcely even works now. And now with the ballfield....'

I knew what she meant. Daddy drives over on the tractor and mows the whole outfield and surrounding yard as well as our own. You would think someone like him would be content to hire someone-- but the only paid people who do our yard are for cleaning the pool and trimming the trees with that tall thing on the arm. He actually enjoys driving round in circles on that tractor, often with little JJ on the 'copilot seat' (which is a seat with a seatbelt he bolted to the fender beside his seat in his lap) or in the trailer with Lisa. We see very few visitors here, being so far away from all our usual acquaintance. And we did not go away for New Year's and scarcely have gone anywhere since. I feel as Jessy does-- that when we are working up in New Jersey this summer I will miss this place terribly. It's become a home in more than a physical sense.

Little Lisa came running-- I mean really running, full tilt-- round the front corner of the house and down the whole yard to where we sat. 'You guys!' she said. And she skidded to a halt and slid in on her side beside us in the grass. 'What are you doing?'

'Talking,' Jessy told her.

'Ha-ha-ha. Is it girl talk?'

I turned at her. 'What if it is? You're a girl.'

'Ha. Yes I am.' And she shrugged, as though unsure of that. But really there isn't much we refuse to talk about in front of her. What she doesn't get doesn't matter. 'So are you going steady with Stephen?'

I smiled at her. So did Jessy. 'That's not exactly what we were talking about, you know. But, for your information, no, I'm not.'

'Ohhh. Did he ask you?'

'No.'

She nodded, understanding that. 'Does he have another girlfriend?'

I laughed. 'No.'

'Then why hasn't he asked you?'

Lisa is adorable when she gets like this. The first reason is because she has about half of Mother's Anglican Australian accent-- she uses words like 'hasn't' well and never seems to say anything that's not well said, meaning articulately pronounced. The other thing is that she's uncommonly persistent. She doesn't actually nag and she never really becomes a nuisance-- if you just tell her you'd rather stop talking about this she will respect that and stop. But she will ask everything that comes into her mind and she asks it because she really does want to know the answer. She is clearly the precocious product of a brilliant and charming mother, a mature and worldly father, and two older sisters who converse with her like an equal. She is the epitome of the 'triple threat' and will be absolutely terrifying to puerile boys (and the men they grow up to be) some day.

(The 'triple threat' is what Mother calls the concept of being good-looking, intelligent, and virtuous, to the point where most men are completely stymied. Invariably they can accept two out of three. It's that third one that drives them nuts. But, as Mother says, it's what all decent and intelligent men really want. It only falls to the men to figure that out, appreciate it for what it is, and then lift themselves out of the gutter to deserve you. Invariably they can do two out of three. It's that third one that they give up on.)

We got up and with Lisa holding each of our hands strolled back along the lawn towards the chaises. When we were halfway there Daddy came round the corner with the tractor and JJ on the 'copilot seat'. Seeing us he hit the horn and raced the tractor towards us. Lisa giggled, let go of our hands, and ran off towards the trees squealing as though she were being chased. Daddy stopped the tractor and then she approached him, warily, standing a few yards away and hooking her fingers in front of herself and twirlling on her heels like she does when she's being bashful. Before we got there Daddy had put JJ down and the two of them ran hand-in-hand up the garden steps to the house.

'What is it?' I called.

'Nothing,' he said. 'Tea. That's all.'

We both nodded. Jessy paced off towards the steps, not saying anything. I stopped beside Daddy in the idling tractor.

'What's with her?' he asked me.

'She's just being pensive,' I said. 'She says she will miss being here this summer.'

'Well, I don't expect you two to be gone all the time.'

'No,' I said, 'I don't expect us to either.'

'I would miss you,' he said.

I smiled at that. The house at the beach is his house-- he can come and go as he likes. What he was saying is that he would prefer to be here, or at Lewes. He has become gentry-- I hid a laugh at the notion of my father the ex-performer taking the peace of his own 'vine and fig tree'. This is his house and the husbandry of it is what he loves best. So-- is that what we have come to? We are gentry? My father has land, tenants in houses, even a tenant farmer and gardener, so that must mean I am a gentleman's daughter. Well-- there might be worse things to be.

...

On the town

Tuesday, 14th April 2009

I went down stairs in my good jeans, a black long-sleeved t-shirt, and black socks. Jessy was still having her shower. Lisa and the Barbies had set a place for me at the kitchen table and the moment I came in Mother brought a dish of (instant) oatmeal over for me. 'What's with the special treatment?'

Mother just smiled, maybe blushed a little, and went back round into the kitchen. She loves that kitchen. It's like her domain here. If there were a computer in it she might never leave it.

Daddy came in and said, 'Is that what you're wearing?'

I looked down. 'Um, yes, these clothes are on me, so I would say I am wearing them--'

'You'd better ask the other one then. She said she was wearing a dress.'

I made a face. 'Oh, no.' But Jessy came in with jeans on and a pretty nice long-sleeved bright-blue top with a little white cotton shrug tied at her middle. It was a very cute look. Gran came in and sat with me, once again saying how sorry she was that she had wrecked her car. I said, 'It's hardly wrecked, right? It's only a fender.'

She said, 'Yes, but I will have no car this week.'

I smiled at her. 'So you can't go to exercise class, and you have to ride round in a limousine till then.'

She made a face like that would be utterly distasteful.

Of course Daddy grilled us on his instructions for the trip, insisting that we phone him or our uncle in southern NJ in case anything happened to Roger that he could not collect us. Gran, the eternal optimist, insisted there was no need for worry. I came back down stairs with my dark-brown high-heeled maryjane shoes on and my patchwork leather jacket that was new for my birthday. Jessy wore a cute black leather sport jacket and her black block-heeled shoes-- with her naturally-curly hair all drawn back and cinched in a low ponytail ring she looked like a child of the '70s. We both had umbrellas and our purses-- though for the city I always take most of my stuff out of it in case I should lose it, either negligently or violently (it's happened before) and my phone goes in my pocket.

At about 2.30 we would go. Roger had pulled up outside-- the long dark-green classic Cadillac rumbled calmly at the foot of the steps. Daddy kissed Jessy and then me and then turned to say goodbye to Gran. Roger stepped out with an umbrella for her and Jessy and then I followed into the light drizzle. Daddy put Gran's bags into the boot and leaned in to say goodbye again. Then, we were off.

Whenever Daddy or Mother is not with us I sit on the right in back. It's the seat with the intercom phone and the window and TV controls (this car was built before wireless controls were so common even though it has a DVD player now and the control pad is just like a remote, only one that's just wired in place). Gran sat beside me and rather than sit between us Jessy took the seat facing me, next to the console. At once she kicked off her shoes and slouched with her heels up on the seat cushion beside my leg. I closed my hand round her pink socks and squeezed her foot a few times. She likes being pampered like that, but she is my sister and I adore the little twit, you know.

When we went past 175 on Rt.13 Gran showed us where the other car had hit hers. Roger had rolled the window down before then and listened to her story, asking her some questions. Then he reassured her that Daddy's friend (who is also Roger's friend) in Delaware would be more than capable of fixing a 1987 Jaguar. She adores that car-- she had always dreamt of having one till Daddy bought it for her back then, and then our uncle insisted on upgrading it a few years ago to a Chevrolet engine and gearbox, so it's perfectly reliable and yet still looks like a Jaguar, you know. We look forward to seeing her get it back again.

The ride up Rt.1 and I-95 was uneventful and quick. Despite rain, some traffic, and stopping for McNuggets and drinks we got into Philadelphia well before 8.00. Roger took us on a short tour of Penn's Landing and Society Hill, mainly for Gran, who has been in this car often enough but said she could not recall ever having a pleasant nighttime tour of her hometown like this. As we drew up in front of the theater it began to rain... hard. There were two vans and trailers right in front of the place, probably belonging to the bands, but Roger stopped the car right in the street and hurried round to open the door for us. We said our good-byes to Gran and him and hurried to the kerb-- without our umbrellas. Of course people looked-- they always do when there is a long car, you know. Jessy and I have learnt to pay it no mind (though I do notice and I apologise if that looks bad, you know).

The show was fine-- mostly, as my dad would say, TDL (too darned loud). The musicians wander round before and after their acts and you get to meet them, have your pictures taken, buy their t-shirts and CDs and so on. Naturally we located Jessy's friend (from FaceBook) straight away. We stood (there are no seats) and chatted amiably and it was really fun. Of course hanging round with our father has taught us that pop stars, whether they are up-and-coming or well-established, tend to be pleasant, positive people who welcome friendship and happy smiles from just about anyone. We had a few pictures taken, by each other and by strangers of both of us, you know.

After the show and during the later acts we got to talk some more with the band. I don't mention them by name here because Jessy and I are all over their MySpace page with comments, and it would be a dead cert to identify us and locate us from there-- Daddy would hate that. And Jessy's friend in the band comments frequently on hers. What proves this point is that both of us were recognised at the show by some of their other fans who have seen us on the band's MySpace pages. It was a form of celebrity-- we walked past people now and then and heard, 'Is that--?' Well that might be because we are our father's daughters. Sometimes we are recognised for that. But the worst was, 'I've seen her on their site!' --as though we were rivals for their idols' attention. So THIS is why I do not mix my chatting on AOL with my last name or my pictures!

We stood in the lobby chatting with the band whilst the people closed up and finally kicked us out. I got a text from Roger than he was waiting up the block, and we needn't hurry. It was beneficial however because Jessy's friend came out with autographed posters for each of us, and we made sure to have bought their t-shirts first anyway. Then there were hugs and kisses all round and we were 'escorted' out to the pavement.

That was at 11.45. We both stepped up the wet street to the car and promptly fell asleep, me on one of the pillows against the side of the car and Jessy lying all the way over with a pillow for her head on my leg.

...

Wednesday, 15th April

So we got home at about 3.30 am. Having slept in the car I woke up at the unreasonable hour of 8.15, then went back to sleep till 9.30, then sat up and typed in this. Jessy's friend has sent her a text message much earlier this morning, while they were on the road going back home, and she typed back, 'How on earth are you even awake!' But his enthusiasm and energy is boundless-- as with most drummers we've known!

It's raining rather steadily but it is not cold. I sit here naked typing in this... looking forward to a long pleasant rest today!

...

Hail thee, festival day

Easter Day, 12th April 2009

The Lord is risen! Yay Jesus!

After a what has seemed like a pretty long fast (46 days) we all woke up this morning cheerful and making silly (but also sincere) comments like 'Jesus lives!' and so on. Daddy raved on about the end of the fast, striding round the house announcing, 'And we can have pepperoni! And steak! And hamburgers! And sausage! And cheese steaks! And hot dogs! And ground-beef casserole! And pork chops! And ham! And gravy! And chicken ala king! And creamed chipped beef on toast! And veal parmigiana! And steak!' --whilst we all giggled hysterically, even Mother and especially JJ.

'You said "steak" again, Daddy!' little Lisa laughed.

'Well we can have it again!'

This is how he is, you know.

We had not got cards for Daddy and Mother and so whilst Lisa and JJ were devouring about half their candy (not really) we coloured cards with crayons on folded paper, making cute childish pictures, you know. Jessy made one for Daddy that showed a cross fallen over and an emaciated-looking Jesus with his unkempt beard waving both arms in the air and cheering like a football fan. All round it she wrote 'Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!' like a wild chant. At this we laughed till had tears in our eyes. That's not such an inappropriate response on this day.

Daddy loved that card and said he would frame it.

I wore a new dress with three-quarter sleeves and an almost-closed neck-- it's a floral pattern of white on a deep shade of peach-pink. It's not quite a Barbie pink- it's a little warmer. Nevertheless little Lisa insisted it was a Barbie colour--

Lisa: 'That looks like Barbie pink.'
Me: 'It's not. Not exactly.'

Five minutes later, while I am still getting dressed--
Lisa: 'Isn't that the Barbie pink?'
Me: 'No, not quite the same pink.'

A few minutes later, while I was putting on makeup--
Lisa: 'That looks like a Barbie dress!'
Me: 'It's not the same pink!
Lisa: (giggles)

In the car on the way to church--
Lisa: 'Janine looks like Barbie!'
Me: 'It's NOT the same pink!'

It really isn't.

Church filled up but we got a whole pew (we need it) and I was on the end with Lisa. Fully half the people in church were not regulars. I don't know if it's too judgemental to say, but I do notice that kind of thing. You can tell the E & C (Easter & Christmas) people because they're more concerned with what they're all wearing and whom they're sitting with than what the liturgy is doing. They miss cues, rarely remember to bow or cross themselves, and sit when we're supposed to kneel-- they're always eager to sit. This is awkward when they're in front of you and you have to kneel against the back of their seat, you know. I whispered something to Jessy once and she leaned over and said, 'At least they're here now.' I suppose she is right. Forgive me, E & C people. I'll see you for Christmas.

Needless to say, someone had to go to the potty before Communion. Fortunately we still had the Prayers of the People to go and I saw my chance. 'Come on,' I whispered to her, and grabbed her hand. Lisa nodded and hurried a little head, nearly dragging me forward in the aisle and over towards the back gallery. I tugged her back to genuflect as we turned at the crossing. The E & C people would need the example, you know. Coming back there were two boys about my age a few pews ahead of us. Both of them stared at me. I met their eyes once and sort of blushed. 'She is not!' one of them whispered, obviously. I didn't know what that meant, but that's what they said about me.

We have a routine for stepping out the pew for Communion. Jessy and I step out first, back up and wait for Daddy, then Daddy steps out, usually with JJ's hand, and Mother steps out with Lisa and they go ahead first. Then Daddy used to want us to go ahead of him, but Jessy and I began sort of insisting that he stay with Mother and we go after them. It's tradition-- the mother always goes first and the parents always stay together. Then, following etiquette, I should follow and then Jessy and the littler ones, though JJ usually needs guidance to go anywhere and Lisa holds hands with either Jessy or me anyway. It can become a mess if the usher has let too many people out into the aisle at once, but they all know us by now and expect it.

Coming back the two E & C boys had returned to their pew first and were looking at me again. Really I think they were just surprised to see girls at church-- so many guys our age are surprised that girls actually attend regularly. They seem to assume that because they don't, the girls who might interest them don't either. (It's another case of perception vs reality.) The truth is that we have always gone regularly-- okay, we miss a few weeks a year. That's a lot different from coming only a few weeks a year. Maybe that's judgemental. But I believe faith is the single most important thing to have in common with someone-- what you believe, how you feel about it, how you apply it your life, including how often you go to church and why you do, and so on. It's the first thing I care about when I meet someone I might possibly date seriously. Anything else is doomed to stay casual, you know.

After the service there was the long reception line saying hello to our rector and his wife, and people were given flowers and greeting cards and there were all sorts of delays. Naturally Daddy had more than a few words with our rector. Jessy and I stepped outside, with Lisa in tow, all of us closing our nice white cotton sweaters against the crisp cool air and the bracing breeze. The two E & C boys, with no sport coats and their ties fluttering, lingered nearby, urgently whispering to each other about, I think, Sarah and her sister ahead of us. They're cuter than we are and a little younger. The two boys were probably better ages for them. I don't think they were more than about 16 and 15 and already they assumed themselves to be the most desirable male creatures in sight.

We said hello to Sarah, and her sister, and stepped aside to allow other people out of the building. A little boy, looking cute in his blue suit and red tie, came up to us and said politely, 'You girls are so pretty.'

I smiled and bent down a little to him. 'That is such a sweet thing to say!' I said. He blushed a little. I put out my hand and we shook and said 'Happy Easter' to each other. Then he went off, blushing.

The two E & C boys watched the whole thing. Jessy leaned in and said to me, 'I think you've gained another admirer.'

I made a wry face. 'I think you've gained two,' I teased, indicating the two guys by pressing on her side with my finger. Jessy squirmed, inadvertently. The two boys soaked that up like syrup. Jessy blushed.

Sarah suggested we all ride down to Lynnhaven later in the week and see the Hannah Montana movie. I did not demur and in fact we all stood and discussed the previews and reported plot of the store, speaking of Miley Cyrus as though we knew her personally and not caring what the two teenaged boys would have thought of us for discussing a movie aimed at 11-year-olds. Still they stood over there gazing at us. But they never did make any motion to say hullo or even to greet us as Christians should with 'The Lord is risen' or anything similar. Soon they went off-- with their mother, it looked like.

When we got back to the house I got out of the good dress, saving it for later when Gran got here. Gran must have left straight after church with our uncle in southern New Jersey because it was 2.00 when we got a shaky phone call from her. Going past the 175 intersection for Chincoteague-- like 15 miles from our house-- someone made an illegal left onto 13 and pulled out in front of her, scraping up the side of her car that the front left wing panel was in on the tyre. Daddy calmed her down on the phone and went straight out in his car to go get her. The police had a lift truck there but he made sure to ring his car-restoring partner in Delaware and insisted he would pay only for a short move off the highway. This is how he is. He and Gran, with Gran's luggage (and the pie she made for us), arrived at just before 4.00. And all will be well. Jessy and I are scheduled to see a show in Philadelphia this week and Gran was only going to drive up on our about the same day anyway. So Roger will drive all of us home. And Daddy's friend will repair Gran's car and Daddy can drive it up to her by week's end.

So there is an easy solution, and none of this upset our lovely Easter dinner at Terncote. I helped Mother with the ham and mashed the potatoes and tossed the salad, and she and I took off our aprons and seated ourselves and Daddy said Grace. 'The Lord is good,' he said. Over dinner he told us of hearing from an old high-school friend who is pastor of a Protestant church up in New Jersey whose email made the point that we have the ONLY world religion that is represented to God's people by God Himself-- in the person of Jesus Christ. All others have only prophets, for for US God came down to the world, lived and suffered and died as a man, and saved us as only God Himself can do.

How often we hear that expression, 'Jesus died for the sins of the whole world.' But what that means is that He took upon us the penalty for our own sins. What he endured, suffering in agony on the cross, was what WE deserved. WE deserved to be hung there and bled or suffocated to death, not Him. WE are the ones with all the sins we should be punished and condemned for. And that's a hard thing for most people to accept. But as my lovely stepmother once explained to me, we always have at least one or two things to confess that we're not happy admitting. She says that when you confess your sins, even in secret to only God, you should confess till it hurts. 'If you're not weeping, you haven't confessed enough,' she says. I never have any trouble weeping. I am proud, arrogant, conceited, judgemental, selfish, thoughtless, rude, and stingy. And so when I go to the Altar I always remember what my stepmother taught me, what her mother taught her, and I recite to myself, 'Lord, regard not my sins, nor my good deeds, for by neither am I to be counted worthy.' I am not worthy-- I deserve none of this-- I deserve to be crucified. And so in all my confessing I am grateful to God who accepts me in my sin and forgives me, because He does for me what I do not deserve. Without Him I am nothing.

...

Soothing the savage beast

Monday, 6th April 2009

Normally-placid Jessy was in an emotional upheaval tonight after enduring a slightly unflattering audition for a local summer production of 'Beauty and the Beast'. I did not go with her-- I was attending practice for 'Music Man' and so Mother drove her. For some reason (and probably rightly) they did not have Roger drive them but Mother drove her in the small van. Talk about carrying a low profile! --but the last thing Jessy would have wanted was for Daddy's daughter to arrive in a stretched Cadillac and come prancing in like a superstar in her own mind to show up all the other girls. Not a way to get yourself a fair audition! --and NO, this is only local or regional theatre and there's no way they would have responded positively to an entrance like that. It'd have been thespian suicide.

I do worry that Jessy will think differently now and will be secretly wishing she had had Daddy's notoriety to rely on. I know she likes to pamper herself, even psychologically, even though that's kind of like saying she has an ego. I don't think it's a matter of ego at all. And I don't want her to be in this blaming mode, because all she will blame is herself. There really wasn't much she could have done that she did not do. For one thing there was a little more ballet than she expected and a LOT more jazz dancing. Who knew that ahead of time? --not Jessy. Also, her usually sweet, crystalline voice was a little too hoarse from practice for 'The Music Man' earlier tonight and even giving 100 percent of what she had left for the night she could not have been at her best. Still, as Daddy says, 'silver shines through'. The directing staff are not idiots. If a girl is a good singer and just not singing at her best this very minute, they can tell that. If a girl is cutting out early from rehearsing another show just to make this audition and appears a little stiff or tired, they will give her some credit. Was she at 100 percent? --no. Could she be? --absolutely.

Jessy is no egoist and is guilty only of disappointing her own very high standards. I suppose Daddy feels guilty too, for instilling in both of us such a passion for performing well that we take it too personally sometimes. But it is what it is when you are in a performing-arts family. Mother had the best thing to say about it. 'They're churchgoing Christians,' she said of the director and his staff. 'They're not going to condemn you. It's a chance for you to grow.' (And it is parent-supported teens' theatre. They took Mother's cheque.)

Daddy used to say he preferred to be the worst player in the band, not the best one. If you're the best, there's only one direction you can go. But if there's something to be learnt, and you can learn it, that's a growth opportunity. If you think about it there's really only one of those things to be preferred, and it's the one Jessy has right now.

Jessy's in the shower now, she will go to bed straight away, and we will be at school tomorrow where she will meet some of her friends (at least one of whom is cast in 'B and B' already), and by the time she gets home she will feel better about the whole thing. So I am glad she won't read this blog till at least then. And who knows? --she'll probably get a callback anyway.

Of course if she does not-- well, we have an acting job of our own lined up for this summer, working in our Colonial costumes at our late mother's beloved ice-cream parlour on the New Jersey shore. And no one can cut us from that.

...

Castle Field.

Friday 20 March 2009

Some time ago I promised my blog readers I would let them in on a secret and then I honestly forgot I said that and the secret never got spilt. Please forgive me-- this is what I was going to tell you about.

Since we came back from England Daddy has wanted to try a little 'experiment' and broke ground on it last fall. There is a tract of land immediately to the south of ours that he was able to buy up with the stipulation that he could NOT built residences on it. But he already had a plan for something else.

We all got into softball a lot during the two or three years we were home-schooled in Delaware. We didn't have PE class and so joining a team was valuable for a lot of reasons. It became a lot of fun for the whole family. Daddy found out how inexpensive it is to support a team and vowed that if he ever had the property to do it he would build a playing field and give the kids a really nice place to call home. And so was created Castle Field.

Castle Field is a modest but well-equipped girls' softball stadium. It is intended to host two, possibly three teams, specifically 5-6-7, 8-9-10, and 11-12-13. It has permanent stadium seats for about 150 people. At each end is a flat terrace for like a barbecue area. The dugouts are low in front with a 'secret door' to the locker rooms. Under the guests' side is a snack bar, some really nice restrooms, and the guests' locker room. Just to one side of the backstop is an actual tower, identical to the top two floors of the tower where Lisa's room is, with a real announcer booth at the top-- hence, 'Castle Field'.

Under the home- team's side is a weight room and offices for coaches. The individual players' lockers are these really cool stainless-steel forms that Daddy designed. The whole place is a soft grey and white colour scheme. The home team's locker room has a wide red stripe round the top of the wall because red and white are our team's colours. While it is set up only for girls' softball, Daddy designed an annexe on the home team's side with more locker-room space and another workout room for when J.J. is old enough to join a team.

The best part is that Jessy and I will both be assistant coaches. Jessy chose the 5-6-7 team. They are called the Ladybits. They have red t-shirts and cute pale grey pants. The 5-6-7 league is a 'coach pitching' league. Jessy is perfect for that age group... and Lisa will be on the team.

I have chosen to co-coach the 8-9-10 league. We are called the Ladybugs. We wear red jerseys with white polkadots. The caps and jerseys will be done next week. We have already drafted to the team and have a lineup of eleven girls. (The league assigns the players to the teams. We just coach and host them.) We will be looking for two more for when practice starts next weekend.

We are leaving the 11-12-13 team till later, to be made up of players who advance from the Ladybugs. They will be called The Ladybirds. (It's all 'lady' as in the ladies of the castle.) I will probably move up and co-coach them while Jessy moves up with Lisa. Lisa is phenomenally excited over this. As of right now she wants to play about 15 field positions.

We all contributed to most of the phases, from the layout of the field to the kind of food we will serve there. Mother came up with the uniforms and the colour scheme. It was almost red-and-black, like a ladybug, but we all thought that was too severe for nice little girls. My job is to be the den mother (ha!). I will teach them to be polite as well as sportsmanlike and our coach and his wife, who played on an NCAA college team, will teach them the major skills.

The first team meeting is Saturday the 21st... at Castle Field. I'll get to meet everyone and show them round what will be their team home. Then we'll go out for water ice [wink]. The first practice is Saturday the 28th. They will be on Saturday mornings till Easter and then we'll have them after school or in evenings till the season begins the first week of May.

The worst part of all this is that last month I found (and bought) a red-and-white polkadot bikini. Jessy dared me to wear it to practices, 'just to stir things up'. I wonder what kind of role model that will make me. Jessy's friend Josie says it might be more positive than I think. 'Everyone likes a pretty girl who cares about little kids,' she says. That of course describes herself. But, as to me... we shall see....

...

We accommodate a visitor.

Thursday 19 March 2009

We have had a visitor these past few days. Josie's father had to go out of town for a few days and her mother works an early-morning shift, so Josie would have been alone when she woke up. Even though she is 15 this would still have been awkward. So Mother, in her infinite generosity, just suggested, 'Why doesn't she stay with us?' So Josie's little sister went to stay with one of her friends and Josie has come here.

You may want to believe this is a big house, because I refer to it as a castle. It is a castle, architecturally, in that it is a castellated dwelling capable of surviving a storm, a famine, or an assault with conventional weapons (okay, just guns). But it is not so castlelike when it comes to size. My room is the biggest bedroom (after my parents') and it is only 13 x 14 feet. You may want to believe it is a big house, because there are nine bedrooms. But one is for my parents, each of us girls have one, little J.J. has the one that will eventually be a guest room or Mother's parlour, Gran has one down stairs and two are intended for housekeepers (which we don't currently have). And the one in the tower above Lisa's room is currently a playroom with almost no furniture. So if you are staying over, and Gran's room is not available or desirable, we kind of don't have anywhere to put you up. (We do have a guest house-- that's not finished yet-- but who would want to sleep out there when we're all in here?)

Of course Jessy intended that Josie would stay in her room. No one doubted that. Josie came over at 7.00 on Wednesday morning and has been here or at school with us since. Roger drives us all to school, we have plenty of room at the table, and Josie takes her shower in the evening like Jessy does so we scarcely even know she is here. She is a very sweet girl and we are all fond of her. It's especially nice because she is so attentive towards Lisa, who in turn has proclaimed Josie her new best friend.

And, of course, Jessy and Josie are sharing the bed. I find this terribly cute-- well, when Becky stayed over New Year's she stayed with me and Rita stayed with Jessy... no problem. Why do so many people think this is awkward, even risque? We girls don't mind. Especially with this weather trend, Jessy's been keeping as comfortable as she can, considering what week it is. Lisa was in there earlier this evening, right after her bath (say no more) and the three of them were lying across Jessy's bed looking through 'Teen Vogue' and, may I say, there was only one shirt between them. I saw the laugh in Josie's eye-- she thinks it's hysterical, in a really cute kind of way. And so do I.

At the risk of indulging the puerile, I think Jessy would sleep in the bed naked if it were convenient this week, even with Josie on the other side. It's all she does usually anyway, and Josie knows that. Of course I have not looked in on them to see, but-- Maybe we'll just let that one go.

...

St Patrick's Day... bah!

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Jessy took Daddy up on a dare this morning and came down stairs in her close-fitting khakis, black shoes, and a navy-blue long-sleeved tee with another tee over it... and the other tee was her St Patrick's Day shirt.

Daddy claims he has never been a fan of the Irish cause. The whole issue of the Troubles aggravates him so much that ever since Bloody Sunday he has been avoiding green on St Patrick's Day. But he has reasons.

1. Our family heritage does not include ANY Irish. Actually, my sister Jessy and I are ethnically English three times more than anything else.

2. We are not liberals. We do not support the overthrow of a monarchy that has worked, in one form of another, for over 1100 years.

3. We are nonviolent and Christian and believe in the Martin Luther King philosophy that all good things come to those who keep faith and refrain from violence, and not the Malcolm X philosophy that you have to achieve your goals by violence if it's easier or necessary, like Sein Fein and the IRA believe. (The British in Northern Ireland have used police force when necessary. The IRA have used terroristic tactics when expedient. They are not the same thing at all.)

4. We are not Catholic. In fact as a family we object to a culture that believes in 'one island, one nation, one religion' as Irish President Mary Fitzpatrick said in the 1980s. We also object to liberal American Catholics seeking capitalist American money to support a political action group who seek to establish 'one nation, one religion' in a foreign country. These are the same Americans who would object very loudly indeed if a president of this country were to take foreign money and say, 'one nation, one religion'-- unless of course it was THEIR religion. Being liberal relativists they should therefore understand my family's objections... but they don't because they're just liberal relativists.

5. We are more 'politically correct' than most people who say they are. The problem with the liberal/relativists' concept of 'politically correct' is that it's only considered 'correct' if it supports THEIR side. But if you look at it objectively you will see that, on a cultural level, it's kind of offensive to assume that 'everyone has a little Irish in them'. It's also kind of offensive to support a cause that deliberately offends what someone else believes in. I always thought 'political correctness' was about not offending anyone, but it seems to be more about certain people being allowed to offend only certain people. After all, in modern American culture, the English are the only people you're actually SUPPOSED to offend. As an Anglo-American, that offends me.

6. St Patrick was an English Roman Catholic monk who was sent to Ireland to convert druids in about 375 AD. Ironically, while the Irish complain that their native celtic (Druid) culture has been deliberately washed away or covered up by the English, as a nation they are firm supporters of the religion this Englishman gave them. Who is the hypocrite?

Jessy's St Patrick's Day shirt has a screen print of the Union Flag front and back (though it is intended to be a shirt and not a flag). I have one too-- we each bought one in London when we were visiting the Tower-- but as this is a new school I was a little wary of wearing it. Jessy would not shrink from the dare. Daddy congratulated her (laughing though. This is really only as serious as people wearing green is... but there is a point to it). All day at school people were coming up and saying to her, 'Cool shirt' (it's the first she's worn it since we moved here). It was funny because although everyone noticed it was not green, only a few people happened to notice that it was making a statement. Some people really don't see the significance of symbolism like this.

Then again-- maybe that's just living in America.

(Now all the liberal/relativists will email or IM me to say I have offended them for saying that I have been offended by a tradition they took for granted. Either you're tolerant of all points of view, or you're not.)

...