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.
...
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
17 February 2010
28 December 2009
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.
...
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.
...
30 August 2009
In England, week 2+
August 15-25, 2009 (posted by Janine, 20.50, Sun 30 Aug 2009-- Terncote)
Sat 15 Aug
- Touring British Museum. Little J.J. ecstatic with fossils, paleoglyphs, and-- for some reason-- stuffed birds. Dinner in Kensington High Street
Sun 16 Aug
- Attend Mass at St Martin's.
- Ride tourist boat down river to Greenwich, see Cutty Sark (J.J.'s treat). Lunch at same Italian restaurant at which Daddy and his bandmates ate on first tour of England in '80s. Visit to Observatory, Queen's House.
- Ride ferry across to Dockyards and ride light rail/tube to Covent Garden, see street show. Returned to hotel very late & very tired!
Mon 17 Aug
- Shopping with Jessy in Chelsea King's Road. Bought silk scarf, ugly but genuine jade-and-sterling bracelet, cute linen/wool charcoal miniskirt.
- Lunch in King's Road, met two cute guys, talked, etc.
- Out for pizza with family.
Tue 18 Aug
- Drizzle today. Drove up to Norwich with family.
- Shopping in town, ran into Henry (ex) in the arcade. This was a little odd, or just awkward.
- Jessy and I to Melanie's sister's 13th BD party near where we used to live.
Wed 19 Aug
- Horseback riding in preserve (adjacent to house we had there) with Jill and Pam.
- Sleepover at friends' house, 6 girls in one room half on top of each other which reminded us of HOH dorms!
Thu 20 Aug
- Late brunch at friends' house, which meant a late lunch at pub in town. Shopping-- mailed postcards and gifts home
- An (indoor) swim party at other friend's house, afternoon/evening. barbecue, etc. This was mainly in our honour.
Fri 21 Aug
- Long-scheduled garden party at Lady B's (her delayed birthday), a lovely catered affair in a lovely 17th-century garden. I wore my new short charcoal miniskirt and navy pumps with a bright chartreuse top and matching socks. A professor friend of Daddy's (older than he is) made conversation and we talked about uni. Someone said later I looked 25 but not 17. I did NOT consider this offensive!
Sat 22 Aug
- Daddy led the usual trip to the fens, went for long hike along sea wall, played on swings, had fish-and-chips in small pub.
- Dinner at Pizza Hut with Daddy's friend (his drummer from second band) and his family-- kind of a reunion.
Sun 23 Aug
- Drove back down to London, returned rental car (can't drive into the city!) and checked back in to Swallow.
- Met friends from HOH in KHS for late supper.
Mon 24 Aug
- Swimming in bikinis in hotel (indoor) pool, met (or were ogled by) some German guys with really bad English and worse body odor.
- Lunch with Jessy, Daddy and two of his music-business associates, discussed my future CD (if you can believe that) and got encouraged to take up dance again (because it helps when doing a music video... if you can believe that). Daddy just does not want me to go to university!
- Went down to club in Piccadilly with Jessy, Daddy to see live band. Met members, exchanged numbers & email, etc. Returned to hotel very late.
Tue 25 Aug
- Flying home with family, arrived home at beach house in NJ about 7.30 pm. Some friends and relatives welcomed us home with small party. I stayed up very late and as a result would be completely knackered on beach tomorrow!
...
Sat 15 Aug
- Touring British Museum. Little J.J. ecstatic with fossils, paleoglyphs, and-- for some reason-- stuffed birds. Dinner in Kensington High Street
Sun 16 Aug
- Attend Mass at St Martin's.
- Ride tourist boat down river to Greenwich, see Cutty Sark (J.J.'s treat). Lunch at same Italian restaurant at which Daddy and his bandmates ate on first tour of England in '80s. Visit to Observatory, Queen's House.
- Ride ferry across to Dockyards and ride light rail/tube to Covent Garden, see street show. Returned to hotel very late & very tired!
Mon 17 Aug
- Shopping with Jessy in Chelsea King's Road. Bought silk scarf, ugly but genuine jade-and-sterling bracelet, cute linen/wool charcoal miniskirt.
- Lunch in King's Road, met two cute guys, talked, etc.
- Out for pizza with family.
Tue 18 Aug
- Drizzle today. Drove up to Norwich with family.
- Shopping in town, ran into Henry (ex) in the arcade. This was a little odd, or just awkward.
- Jessy and I to Melanie's sister's 13th BD party near where we used to live.
Wed 19 Aug
- Horseback riding in preserve (adjacent to house we had there) with Jill and Pam.
- Sleepover at friends' house, 6 girls in one room half on top of each other which reminded us of HOH dorms!
Thu 20 Aug
- Late brunch at friends' house, which meant a late lunch at pub in town. Shopping-- mailed postcards and gifts home
- An (indoor) swim party at other friend's house, afternoon/evening. barbecue, etc. This was mainly in our honour.
Fri 21 Aug
- Long-scheduled garden party at Lady B's (her delayed birthday), a lovely catered affair in a lovely 17th-century garden. I wore my new short charcoal miniskirt and navy pumps with a bright chartreuse top and matching socks. A professor friend of Daddy's (older than he is) made conversation and we talked about uni. Someone said later I looked 25 but not 17. I did NOT consider this offensive!
Sat 22 Aug
- Daddy led the usual trip to the fens, went for long hike along sea wall, played on swings, had fish-and-chips in small pub.
- Dinner at Pizza Hut with Daddy's friend (his drummer from second band) and his family-- kind of a reunion.
Sun 23 Aug
- Drove back down to London, returned rental car (can't drive into the city!) and checked back in to Swallow.
- Met friends from HOH in KHS for late supper.
Mon 24 Aug
- Swimming in bikinis in hotel (indoor) pool, met (or were ogled by) some German guys with really bad English and worse body odor.
- Lunch with Jessy, Daddy and two of his music-business associates, discussed my future CD (if you can believe that) and got encouraged to take up dance again (because it helps when doing a music video... if you can believe that). Daddy just does not want me to go to university!
- Went down to club in Piccadilly with Jessy, Daddy to see live band. Met members, exchanged numbers & email, etc. Returned to hotel very late.
Tue 25 Aug
- Flying home with family, arrived home at beach house in NJ about 7.30 pm. Some friends and relatives welcomed us home with small party. I stayed up very late and as a result would be completely knackered on beach tomorrow!
...
03 August 2009
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.
...
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.
...
13 July 2009
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!
...
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!
...
27 June 2009
Home alone
Saturday, 27 June 2009
It was a long and busy week up in NJ. Both Jessy and I have worked almost every shift at the ice-cream parlour since we got up there. We don't take a salary-- it's the family's business, and June is usually a pretty rough start on the season, with most of the girls not knowing what their schedules will be and when they're actually able to be done with school and all. Wednesday we had off completely, and spent the day on the beach with little Lisa. Thursday we were on the the morning, and then Daddy had promised to drive the two of us over to Tuckerton in the jet boat for lunch at Stewart's root beer which is right on the water at the seaport museum there. That was a nice time. The jet boat is blindingly fast, if the water is flat, which it was. I think Daddy said we hit 65 MPH. That feels like about twice that when it's on the water. Jessy and I sat in back by the roar of the motor and squealed like blonde bimbos. Daddy laughed.
We worked Thursday night and then Friday morning, and finally I begged out of one shift in order to see Stephen. Friday evening Roger arrived and drove me down in the dark-green Cadillac to Terncote, where I got dressed in something nice (blue paisley dress and heels) before Stephen showed up to take me to dinner. I felt very elegant, the acting lady of the house when he arrived. I had never been so fully alone here-- the other times my parents and siblings have been absent from home but close by-- now they were over 4 hours' drive away! But, no worries-- it's all proper between us. Stephen just took my hand and handed me into the car and we went out to the nice place on the water in Onancock, where we toasted ourselves on a kind of reunion.
I got in at about 11.00 after a very pleasant walk along the waterfront (I shall not say more!). I just undressed, washed up, and ended up on the computer till late. This morning I awoke rather late and decided I would not care. Daddy rang at about noon, asked how my date had gone, and then wanted to know when I would be back. I felt completely indolent and asked if I could stay on here another day and come back up after church tomorrow.
'Well, I don't see why not,' he said, 'if you really feel like being alone.'
I laughed. 'Well, you know me, Daddy... I'm just doing nothing.'
'Hmmm,' he said. 'As long as there's not something you're not telling me.'
I thought for a moment and realised what he probably meant. 'Daddy! But I tell you everything.'
'All right,' he said.
'Really, I do. Stephen dropped me at the door and we said our goodnights--' I said no more about that-- 'and he made sure I got into the house and left. And I called him when I knew the house was safe. That's all.'
He hesitated on the phone. 'Are you going out today too?'
'Um, no. He's working... and then supposed to go bowling with his people.'
'Oh. So, what will you do today then?'
I shrugged. 'Probably lie out back. I do want to clean my bathroom. I will clean Jessy's too, if I'm not a total mess. That's about it.'
'All right. Your mother wants someone to look in on the geraniums. You might weed a little back there too. You'll be out in the sun, and....'
'Yes, Daddy. All right. I will do that.'
'Keep to the house and the garden,' he told me. 'Call us if you're going out and when you get back. I don't want to not hear from you today.'
I smiled. 'Yes, Daddy.'
So I did clean my bathroom, I did get to be a total mess, and I crawled-- actually crawled-- from mine out my door and across the hall to the one Jessy and Lisa use and I did theirs too. Usually I clean my bathroom before I get dressed, often in connection with having a shower, like on a weekend. It's a messy job and some cleaners can damage clothing dyes, you know. By the time I was done with that I smelled of Lysol and my hands were all dried out and I still had not had a shower, so I rinsed out all the cleaning stuff and left the bathroom fans on and windows open, and I went down stairs and dove right into the pool. And I did about twelve laps and then lolled in the corner of the pool staring up at the sun till I decided I had better put on sunblock.
I lay in the chaise at the side of the house for about two hours. This is extraordinarily long for me-- I had on SPF 45 and kept turning over, but I really do think I got unusually dark today. Daddy had said to keep to the garden, but it becomes hot there inside the surrounding wall and the sun reflection off green grass is always cooler than that off paving blocks and potting soil. There is a 'fringe', as we call it, of tall untended grass about five yards wide separating the lawn from the salt marsh of the bay, and it grows tall enough that boaters really can't see us lying in the chaises here. So it's safe enough. However I did hear a peculiarly smooth engine drone approaching. The sound of a boat approaching usually waves with the water-- it's never a single steady tone. I opened my eyes and there, coming right down the edge of the bay, was a high-winged airplane. I had my hand over my eyes against the sun and there was no chance to cover myself... so apparently I was a vision for the pilot and his passengers down here on the chaise as they flew right over me at about 60 MPH and about 250 feet up. Oh, well.
When I got up I had another dip in the pool and then went in for tea. I really have done nothing much of anything at all-- definitely have not weeded or swept out back and definitely don't want to now. I will go to church in the morning-- in the Regal-- and drive up by myself to the ferry at Lewes. I really should stop in at the old house but I am supposedly working at the parlour at 7 and would like to get there early. Also, I miss Jessy. All that remains is to find a good book to read on the ferry ride-- I have read pretty much everything in this room already....
It was a long and busy week up in NJ. Both Jessy and I have worked almost every shift at the ice-cream parlour since we got up there. We don't take a salary-- it's the family's business, and June is usually a pretty rough start on the season, with most of the girls not knowing what their schedules will be and when they're actually able to be done with school and all. Wednesday we had off completely, and spent the day on the beach with little Lisa. Thursday we were on the the morning, and then Daddy had promised to drive the two of us over to Tuckerton in the jet boat for lunch at Stewart's root beer which is right on the water at the seaport museum there. That was a nice time. The jet boat is blindingly fast, if the water is flat, which it was. I think Daddy said we hit 65 MPH. That feels like about twice that when it's on the water. Jessy and I sat in back by the roar of the motor and squealed like blonde bimbos. Daddy laughed.
We worked Thursday night and then Friday morning, and finally I begged out of one shift in order to see Stephen. Friday evening Roger arrived and drove me down in the dark-green Cadillac to Terncote, where I got dressed in something nice (blue paisley dress and heels) before Stephen showed up to take me to dinner. I felt very elegant, the acting lady of the house when he arrived. I had never been so fully alone here-- the other times my parents and siblings have been absent from home but close by-- now they were over 4 hours' drive away! But, no worries-- it's all proper between us. Stephen just took my hand and handed me into the car and we went out to the nice place on the water in Onancock, where we toasted ourselves on a kind of reunion.
I got in at about 11.00 after a very pleasant walk along the waterfront (I shall not say more!). I just undressed, washed up, and ended up on the computer till late. This morning I awoke rather late and decided I would not care. Daddy rang at about noon, asked how my date had gone, and then wanted to know when I would be back. I felt completely indolent and asked if I could stay on here another day and come back up after church tomorrow.
'Well, I don't see why not,' he said, 'if you really feel like being alone.'
I laughed. 'Well, you know me, Daddy... I'm just doing nothing.'
'Hmmm,' he said. 'As long as there's not something you're not telling me.'
I thought for a moment and realised what he probably meant. 'Daddy! But I tell you everything.'
'All right,' he said.
'Really, I do. Stephen dropped me at the door and we said our goodnights--' I said no more about that-- 'and he made sure I got into the house and left. And I called him when I knew the house was safe. That's all.'
He hesitated on the phone. 'Are you going out today too?'
'Um, no. He's working... and then supposed to go bowling with his people.'
'Oh. So, what will you do today then?'
I shrugged. 'Probably lie out back. I do want to clean my bathroom. I will clean Jessy's too, if I'm not a total mess. That's about it.'
'All right. Your mother wants someone to look in on the geraniums. You might weed a little back there too. You'll be out in the sun, and....'
'Yes, Daddy. All right. I will do that.'
'Keep to the house and the garden,' he told me. 'Call us if you're going out and when you get back. I don't want to not hear from you today.'
I smiled. 'Yes, Daddy.'
So I did clean my bathroom, I did get to be a total mess, and I crawled-- actually crawled-- from mine out my door and across the hall to the one Jessy and Lisa use and I did theirs too. Usually I clean my bathroom before I get dressed, often in connection with having a shower, like on a weekend. It's a messy job and some cleaners can damage clothing dyes, you know. By the time I was done with that I smelled of Lysol and my hands were all dried out and I still had not had a shower, so I rinsed out all the cleaning stuff and left the bathroom fans on and windows open, and I went down stairs and dove right into the pool. And I did about twelve laps and then lolled in the corner of the pool staring up at the sun till I decided I had better put on sunblock.
I lay in the chaise at the side of the house for about two hours. This is extraordinarily long for me-- I had on SPF 45 and kept turning over, but I really do think I got unusually dark today. Daddy had said to keep to the garden, but it becomes hot there inside the surrounding wall and the sun reflection off green grass is always cooler than that off paving blocks and potting soil. There is a 'fringe', as we call it, of tall untended grass about five yards wide separating the lawn from the salt marsh of the bay, and it grows tall enough that boaters really can't see us lying in the chaises here. So it's safe enough. However I did hear a peculiarly smooth engine drone approaching. The sound of a boat approaching usually waves with the water-- it's never a single steady tone. I opened my eyes and there, coming right down the edge of the bay, was a high-winged airplane. I had my hand over my eyes against the sun and there was no chance to cover myself... so apparently I was a vision for the pilot and his passengers down here on the chaise as they flew right over me at about 60 MPH and about 250 feet up. Oh, well.
When I got up I had another dip in the pool and then went in for tea. I really have done nothing much of anything at all-- definitely have not weeded or swept out back and definitely don't want to now. I will go to church in the morning-- in the Regal-- and drive up by myself to the ferry at Lewes. I really should stop in at the old house but I am supposedly working at the parlour at 7 and would like to get there early. Also, I miss Jessy. All that remains is to find a good book to read on the ferry ride-- I have read pretty much everything in this room already....
31 May 2009
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.
...
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.
...
07 May 2009
When almost is good enough
Sunday 3 May 2009
Over the weekend it was warm enough to... get comfortable [wink]. The team had practice on Saturday and I rushed home looking forward to a pleasant day on my chaise in the garden, and it began to rain. I growled and the rain got worse. I ranted about it and it got worse yet. So I shut up and went online, as I am often wont to do, and complained to people there about it. And it rained all weekend.
So mostly I was in my room, but that didn't mean I didn't have to be... comfortable [wink]. Mother came up on Sunday afternoon and asked if I was coming down for tea. She likes to have proper tea at 4.00, after school and especially on Sundays. I said I would and put on my pale blue cover-up shirt, buttoned at least some of it, and put on a little silver belt round it to hold it down, you know. And I stepped into my silver shoes, just because. Well-- it was like 80 degrees in the house. When I descended Mother took one look at me and giggled. 'Oh, Janine! I might have guessed!'
'What?'
Then she told me two of the ladies from church were coming. In fact a car pulled up outside as I stood there. I stomped a foot and went back up stairs.
I met Jessy in the gallery. She had on a t-shirt and panties and I said, 'Not enough. We have company.'
As I passed her she stomped her foot too and turned to go back to her room.
I was frustrated from not getting to lie out back. At least Jessy and Lisa had been out there playing, earlier-- I have had no sun since Tuesday afternoon and then only a little. So I just pulled on the grey HOH skirt I had worn for church and went back down. Mother smiled at me-- was that a wink? Daddy came in and started a conversation and we all got wrapt-up in politics and no one paid much attention to what I had on. I didn't care.
Jessy kept trying to meet eyes with me from across the table. She'd put on her stuff from church again and looked nice. By contrast I looked like a slob with the shirt hanging out over the little grey skirt. I didn't care.
'I can't believe you did that,' Jessy said quietly to me in the gallery, after they had gone.
I just shrugged. 'So--? It doesn't matter.'
She looked at me. I knew what she meant-- I could have had on a bra, but-- 'Well,' she said, 'maybe it doesn't.'
I smiled at her. 'You think--?' I stood up straight.
She gave me one look. 'Um-- No.'
Oh, well.
...
Over the weekend it was warm enough to... get comfortable [wink]. The team had practice on Saturday and I rushed home looking forward to a pleasant day on my chaise in the garden, and it began to rain. I growled and the rain got worse. I ranted about it and it got worse yet. So I shut up and went online, as I am often wont to do, and complained to people there about it. And it rained all weekend.
So mostly I was in my room, but that didn't mean I didn't have to be... comfortable [wink]. Mother came up on Sunday afternoon and asked if I was coming down for tea. She likes to have proper tea at 4.00, after school and especially on Sundays. I said I would and put on my pale blue cover-up shirt, buttoned at least some of it, and put on a little silver belt round it to hold it down, you know. And I stepped into my silver shoes, just because. Well-- it was like 80 degrees in the house. When I descended Mother took one look at me and giggled. 'Oh, Janine! I might have guessed!'
'What?'
Then she told me two of the ladies from church were coming. In fact a car pulled up outside as I stood there. I stomped a foot and went back up stairs.
I met Jessy in the gallery. She had on a t-shirt and panties and I said, 'Not enough. We have company.'
As I passed her she stomped her foot too and turned to go back to her room.
I was frustrated from not getting to lie out back. At least Jessy and Lisa had been out there playing, earlier-- I have had no sun since Tuesday afternoon and then only a little. So I just pulled on the grey HOH skirt I had worn for church and went back down. Mother smiled at me-- was that a wink? Daddy came in and started a conversation and we all got wrapt-up in politics and no one paid much attention to what I had on. I didn't care.
Jessy kept trying to meet eyes with me from across the table. She'd put on her stuff from church again and looked nice. By contrast I looked like a slob with the shirt hanging out over the little grey skirt. I didn't care.
'I can't believe you did that,' Jessy said quietly to me in the gallery, after they had gone.
I just shrugged. 'So--? It doesn't matter.'
She looked at me. I knew what she meant-- I could have had on a bra, but-- 'Well,' she said, 'maybe it doesn't.'
I smiled at her. 'You think--?' I stood up straight.
She gave me one look. 'Um-- No.'
Oh, well.
...
14 April 2009
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.
...
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.
...
05 April 2009
Saying goodbye to old friends
Sunday, 5th April 2009
Most people on AOL know me as the girl who starts the risque-sounding chat rooms, with names like 'CutePanties' and 'LikesNudism' and so on. And I confess a weakness for answering some pretty odd questions, especially about my panties. Someone asked me why, if I am such a lady (which I am, I really am!), I would even consider a topic of conversation like that. And the truth is that I just think it's funny. The whole topic is funny and for several reasons. One is that it's irrelevant, because it can't possibly matter what panties I have on. You can ask about my panties and I will tell you the truth, but you'll never get to see either the panties themselves or me in them. So why do you really need to know?
This leads to another reason. Many men online say inanely irrelevant things like, 'I wish I were there now to see you.' Now this is just silly-- if you were here now, I would NOT be lounging round in my panties. You would be a guest and we would be down stairs in the parlour having tea, or iced tea, and quite fully dressed whilst conversing about much more polite topics than my panties in order to actually get to know each other as people. So, once again, whatever panties I have got on is irrelevant.
And the third reason I can think of why the topic is funny is just because it really is funny. Panties really are pretty funny when you think for a moment. For one thing, they're not plural, they're singular. (Bras are plural... right?) It's just a piece of fabric folded up and sewn at the sides, with two holes cut out and elastic fitted round the top. By itself a pair of panties is just a funny-looking little garment that only people built a certain way (let's call them 'women') can properly wear. The sad part of this is that some people go absolutely obsessive over them. I have seen whole chat rooms dedicated to the proposition that women might actually SELL their panties to desperate men who want to smell them. This is either distressingly sad or just plain gross. I have never had the idea of doing that myself (with men's undershorts, since I am a woman), but if I were so curious about the scent of a man I would prefer to smell the man himself and not just his undershorts, if you know what I mean.
Now that I am fully on the subject I will tell about my day. Today was Palm Sunday and we attended at 10.00 and received our palms and then all sort of subtly batted each other in the face, or chin, or neck with them as we stood in the pew and sang 'All Glory, Laud, And Honour' and so on. Sometimes I leaned the palm way over, round behind Jessy, and was able to tickle Mother or little Lisa with it. Daddy started it, of course-- he used to tease us with the palms all the time when we were little. The truth is we all do it to each other now. It's not to be rude or irreverent but just a kind of family tradition.
I wore my pale grey wool dress with the boat neck and the pale pink and yellow and blue stripes in it, with white tights and my dark-grey shoes. I ordinarily love the Palm Sunday service, in spite of its length (the longest scheduled service of the church year), but I was profoundly uncomfortable the entire time-- and I really mean the entire time, from when I first knelt down to when I finally got to the ladies' room during coffee hour. The reason was because my panties were up in my bottom the whole time.
I didn't do anything unusual to make this happen, though I have figured out why it did happen. The tights fit more tightly than the panties did. Usually you would hope that the panties are closer-fitting. If the tights were looser they wouldn't be able to alter the fit of the panties. But when it's the other way round it's obnoxiously uncomfortable. I stood there, singing, praying, greeting people, ever so subtly trying to wiggle myself just a little to work them loose. When we knelt I kept trying to tug at myself-- but the pews are not high and a young family with a nosy little girl were right behind us and I wasn't going to make myself any more obvious. It was fortunate I had worn a slip, for the dress is wool and would cling to my legs, especially with the cotton-blend tights on, so I know nothing looked wrong to anyone else's eyes. I just suffered through the service and hurried off to the ladies' straight away.
The little grey cotton panties were hardly new-- I'd had them since August and have worn them often. They were just plain cheap cottons that you find in the three-for-seven-dollars bins in the stores. And they were pretty well stretched-out from normal wear and washing by now. In the ladies' at church I had a couple of options and one of them was to throw the panties into the dustbin and to rely on just the tights till I got home. That would not have been terrible at all and under normal circumstances that's what I would have done... but the tights are white and this week I need all the protection I can get. So I adjusted them the best I could and when I pulled up the tights I left them a little loose and was able to make it home when I could get changed.
It's only occurred to me now that someone in one of those chat rooms might have liked to buy those panties from me, since I certainly won't be wearing them any more. But, oh, well-- they're already gone. If anyone out there may be interested for next time, make me a cash offer now and I'll try to remember to stuff them in an envelope and post them out to you.
...
Most people on AOL know me as the girl who starts the risque-sounding chat rooms, with names like 'CutePanties' and 'LikesNudism' and so on. And I confess a weakness for answering some pretty odd questions, especially about my panties. Someone asked me why, if I am such a lady (which I am, I really am!), I would even consider a topic of conversation like that. And the truth is that I just think it's funny. The whole topic is funny and for several reasons. One is that it's irrelevant, because it can't possibly matter what panties I have on. You can ask about my panties and I will tell you the truth, but you'll never get to see either the panties themselves or me in them. So why do you really need to know?
This leads to another reason. Many men online say inanely irrelevant things like, 'I wish I were there now to see you.' Now this is just silly-- if you were here now, I would NOT be lounging round in my panties. You would be a guest and we would be down stairs in the parlour having tea, or iced tea, and quite fully dressed whilst conversing about much more polite topics than my panties in order to actually get to know each other as people. So, once again, whatever panties I have got on is irrelevant.
And the third reason I can think of why the topic is funny is just because it really is funny. Panties really are pretty funny when you think for a moment. For one thing, they're not plural, they're singular. (Bras are plural... right?) It's just a piece of fabric folded up and sewn at the sides, with two holes cut out and elastic fitted round the top. By itself a pair of panties is just a funny-looking little garment that only people built a certain way (let's call them 'women') can properly wear. The sad part of this is that some people go absolutely obsessive over them. I have seen whole chat rooms dedicated to the proposition that women might actually SELL their panties to desperate men who want to smell them. This is either distressingly sad or just plain gross. I have never had the idea of doing that myself (with men's undershorts, since I am a woman), but if I were so curious about the scent of a man I would prefer to smell the man himself and not just his undershorts, if you know what I mean.
Now that I am fully on the subject I will tell about my day. Today was Palm Sunday and we attended at 10.00 and received our palms and then all sort of subtly batted each other in the face, or chin, or neck with them as we stood in the pew and sang 'All Glory, Laud, And Honour' and so on. Sometimes I leaned the palm way over, round behind Jessy, and was able to tickle Mother or little Lisa with it. Daddy started it, of course-- he used to tease us with the palms all the time when we were little. The truth is we all do it to each other now. It's not to be rude or irreverent but just a kind of family tradition.
I wore my pale grey wool dress with the boat neck and the pale pink and yellow and blue stripes in it, with white tights and my dark-grey shoes. I ordinarily love the Palm Sunday service, in spite of its length (the longest scheduled service of the church year), but I was profoundly uncomfortable the entire time-- and I really mean the entire time, from when I first knelt down to when I finally got to the ladies' room during coffee hour. The reason was because my panties were up in my bottom the whole time.
I didn't do anything unusual to make this happen, though I have figured out why it did happen. The tights fit more tightly than the panties did. Usually you would hope that the panties are closer-fitting. If the tights were looser they wouldn't be able to alter the fit of the panties. But when it's the other way round it's obnoxiously uncomfortable. I stood there, singing, praying, greeting people, ever so subtly trying to wiggle myself just a little to work them loose. When we knelt I kept trying to tug at myself-- but the pews are not high and a young family with a nosy little girl were right behind us and I wasn't going to make myself any more obvious. It was fortunate I had worn a slip, for the dress is wool and would cling to my legs, especially with the cotton-blend tights on, so I know nothing looked wrong to anyone else's eyes. I just suffered through the service and hurried off to the ladies' straight away.
The little grey cotton panties were hardly new-- I'd had them since August and have worn them often. They were just plain cheap cottons that you find in the three-for-seven-dollars bins in the stores. And they were pretty well stretched-out from normal wear and washing by now. In the ladies' at church I had a couple of options and one of them was to throw the panties into the dustbin and to rely on just the tights till I got home. That would not have been terrible at all and under normal circumstances that's what I would have done... but the tights are white and this week I need all the protection I can get. So I adjusted them the best I could and when I pulled up the tights I left them a little loose and was able to make it home when I could get changed.
It's only occurred to me now that someone in one of those chat rooms might have liked to buy those panties from me, since I certainly won't be wearing them any more. But, oh, well-- they're already gone. If anyone out there may be interested for next time, make me a cash offer now and I'll try to remember to stuff them in an envelope and post them out to you.
...
20 March 2009
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.)
...
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.)
...
01 March 2009
Culture clash
Wednesday 25 February 2009
Mother and I drove up to the beach house last night so that we could have an early start this morning for my appointment. Georgian Court is a Catholic women's college in Ocean County, probably the closest campus to a beach in all of New Jersey and definitely-- by statistics-- the safest one. I had read over all their stuff and decided that in spite of all the Catholic influences-- they have nuns on campus-- I like it. For what it's worth jessy likes it too, which may be a good sign that she'll follow me there. But she's not allowed to have a day off from school for MY college visitation and so she's not here with us.
I drove the Regal, up to the Ferry terminal, up the Parkway, and today up Route Nine to Lakewood. We arrived a little early and were shown to a very pretty waiting room at the admissions office. Both Mother and I were in skirts and tights and sweaters, typical for both of us though I wore a pretty cute pink-and-black striped skirt and white sweater with my leather patchwork jacket and grey pumps. We sat with three other girls and their parents and listened to the school's presentation. Several times Mother caught my hand and squeezed it. I know she is excited about seeing me go off to university somewhere. It's what she did, but it's also that since I am not her actual child she hasn't had me round so long as to miss me. I am sure when Lisa goes away she will feel something a lot different. For example, I know Daddy hates the thought of it-- he would rather have me stay home till I become a forty-something spinster writing stupid romance novels... and he has said exactly that, more than once. Personally I am ambivalent about it all. Maybe Mother's enthusiasm for my university career will energise me. I really don't know yet.
We were given a campus tour by a very sweet girl with good manners and excellent diction who wore snug jeans and a school jersey. She seemed to embody everything good about the school itself, both pretty and pleasant as well as polite and proper. I suppose that was a good influence on me, then. I will say that Mother's accent, though mostly English, gave her away as Australian and since most Aussies are Catholic this seemed to make sense to the admissions people. And once or twice we were asked for our last name and someone knew who Daddy was. My being his daughter then began to hold some weight. Of course we cannot expect much from financial aid. Daddy has trust funds set up for all of us that have matured as we have, and mine is just about able to cover the whole tuition in cash. But we have applied anyway and found that Georgian Court offers scholarships for 'college-preparatory' study and also for church involvement, even if it's not a Catholic church. I also have come with letters of recommendation from HOH, my old school in England, and also from our church rector there who wrote about my organising a children's Epiphany pageant the year I turned 16. The people at Georgian Court were impressed by that and asked if I want to study for a schoolteacher. I said I don't know.
Actually I am inclined to study English, but I really don't know what I will do with that. Will I teach school? Will I take a graduate degree and teach at university? Will I go into journalism? Mother never applied her degree in English beyond writing her journal and hundreds of letters and the odd article or two... but she is a happy homemaker now and doesn't need to do more at this stage of her life. I am not anyone's nanny-- nor am I inclined to be, much as I love little ones-- and I do not have any grand penchant in my life at all. Listening to these other girls today made me feel like a profound nothing. They all have grand schemes for their futures. Somewhat sceptically I wonder how many of them will amount to anything in the way that they think they will. I mean, what is accounting? --but counting someone else's money? What is 'computer science'? --I don't even know what job that would be. What is business administration? --but becoming trained in a management job you might not ever have the experience to deserve?
I am sorry for how this sounds but I promise you I am very clueless about anything regarding my future.
I do have to say that Lakewood, where the university is, is a very funny community. From what we saw of it, there seems to be a large Mexican neighbourhood on one side of Route Nine and a positively enormous Orthodox Jewish community on the other side. One the one sides, idle Mexican men stand round street corners like the workers in the Gospel story waiting for someone to call them up and hire them for the day. On the other side Jewish men all in black stride rapidly about on some business that keeps them out of doors on a cold winter's day. Neither community seems to work very hard at anything-- they've all got too much time being outside in plain view doing, well, nothing. I wonder who pays the taxes in this town!
(I hope it's not the university!)
Mother and I had some errands to run and so I drove us over to the shopping arcade after our appointment. We had plenty to eat-- the admissions people are positively lavish with food and apparently feed everyone at every event. At the food market Mother needed the 'little blue box' as she calls it and I wanted to pick up some conditioner as I had brought the only bottle I had at home and it's run out. Whilst we stood in the checkout line her phone rang and she handed me some money and stepped aside to report to Daddy about our visit. A young Jew in his black clothes stepped up behind me. I could not tell if he were 16 or 21-- they all dress the same. But he was young and so gravely serious that I was nearly afraid of him. To be rid of my anxiety I said hello to him when we happened to meet eyes.
'Hello,' he replied, nodding more than he spoke.
'Is this place always so crowded?' I asked, merely for conversation.
He only shrugged and then looked away as though I were not worth any more of his time. That kind of hurt, you know-- I am not a monster and will always be friendly to strangers, even people who are markedly different from me. I just believe it's a way to bridge divides, you know. But the young man did not seem to care. I thought maybe that was because his belief system tells him to not meddle with Gentiles-- that's a terrible way to think but it's all I came up with at the time. And I did not like the thought. My belief system is the way of the Good Samaritan, to accept and respect all people regardless of their race or creed, in the same way as I would want to be respected by them. That means I say hello to people I don't know-- yet-- and I will help anyone who needs me. In that way I don't judge.
One thing about us girls, however, is that we can always tell when someone is checking us out. It's not such a difficult skill to master-- you first rule out your own ego and then sort of focus on people's eyes, and you can tell what they think of how you look. I usually get guys looking at my chest. To avoid feeling totally humiliated I usually amuse myself by saying something completely esoteric and profound to see if he can even hear me. Usually he cannot. Guys have a very narrow band of attention... it's about as wide as a girl's hips and doesn't allow for much past that.
The Jewish guy behind me was looking at me. I found that terribly hypocritical-- he will not exchange pleasantries with me, but he will look down at my short skirt and my legs in the white tights and have some kind of thought about me. Of course the girls my age in his community don't dress like I do. They're all in cute little button-up black jackets and calf-length black skirts and black socks and low-heeled black shoes. And they keep their eyes down when a guy looks at them. I didn't keep my eyes down. I looked right at his head till he looked up again and realised I had seen him looking. But he didn't blush. He didn't even flinch. He seemed to regard it as his right to check out Gentile girls in short skirts as though we don't matter. He doesn't have to safeguard my reputation or treat me with respect. He can just look, and imagine, and he doesn't even have to apologise for that because his creed only applies to other Jews. A Gentile is an outcast, a heathen-- any unclean thoughts about me don't count as sin because, since I don't matter, anything he thinks about me doesn't matter.
I am sorry if this sounds prejudiced. I know a little about the Orthodox faiths from my evangelism study at my old church, and I won't pretend to be an expert on any of them. But I do know that most of them consider themselves as set apart by God, for some special treatment, and that it is their responsibility to keep themselves 'unstained by the world'. To them that means not mixing up with nonbelievers in social situations. They don't go to parties, they don't go to the beach, they don't go to concerts or anywhere they might be exposed to outside influences. I find that cowardly and foolish. Jesus scolded the Pharisees when they attempted to correct Him and His disciples for eating with unclean hands. He told them that nothing that goes into a man can defile him, only what comes out of him can. I could go to wild parties every night of the week and sit there, sip tea, and talk with other people about the Lord's work in my life, and would that be a sin? But if I were go to church every day of the week, participate in ECW, teach Sunday school, and attend evangelism seminars and Bible study whenever it was held, but take drugs and sleep around and lie and condemn God in the rest of my life, I would not be a Christian.
People online have asked me why I go into questionable chat rooms, and this is the reason. I challenge those people-- have I ever done anything wrong in those rooms? Jesus went and sat with sinners and tax collectors, because it was there that His influence was needed. Nothing anyone says to me in a chat room can defile me, only what I say to other people can. I remain unafraid of outside influences. I am not the frightened little Jewish guy in the market at Lakewood. I am stronger and better than that. I am a Christian.
...
Mother and I drove up to the beach house last night so that we could have an early start this morning for my appointment. Georgian Court is a Catholic women's college in Ocean County, probably the closest campus to a beach in all of New Jersey and definitely-- by statistics-- the safest one. I had read over all their stuff and decided that in spite of all the Catholic influences-- they have nuns on campus-- I like it. For what it's worth jessy likes it too, which may be a good sign that she'll follow me there. But she's not allowed to have a day off from school for MY college visitation and so she's not here with us.
I drove the Regal, up to the Ferry terminal, up the Parkway, and today up Route Nine to Lakewood. We arrived a little early and were shown to a very pretty waiting room at the admissions office. Both Mother and I were in skirts and tights and sweaters, typical for both of us though I wore a pretty cute pink-and-black striped skirt and white sweater with my leather patchwork jacket and grey pumps. We sat with three other girls and their parents and listened to the school's presentation. Several times Mother caught my hand and squeezed it. I know she is excited about seeing me go off to university somewhere. It's what she did, but it's also that since I am not her actual child she hasn't had me round so long as to miss me. I am sure when Lisa goes away she will feel something a lot different. For example, I know Daddy hates the thought of it-- he would rather have me stay home till I become a forty-something spinster writing stupid romance novels... and he has said exactly that, more than once. Personally I am ambivalent about it all. Maybe Mother's enthusiasm for my university career will energise me. I really don't know yet.
We were given a campus tour by a very sweet girl with good manners and excellent diction who wore snug jeans and a school jersey. She seemed to embody everything good about the school itself, both pretty and pleasant as well as polite and proper. I suppose that was a good influence on me, then. I will say that Mother's accent, though mostly English, gave her away as Australian and since most Aussies are Catholic this seemed to make sense to the admissions people. And once or twice we were asked for our last name and someone knew who Daddy was. My being his daughter then began to hold some weight. Of course we cannot expect much from financial aid. Daddy has trust funds set up for all of us that have matured as we have, and mine is just about able to cover the whole tuition in cash. But we have applied anyway and found that Georgian Court offers scholarships for 'college-preparatory' study and also for church involvement, even if it's not a Catholic church. I also have come with letters of recommendation from HOH, my old school in England, and also from our church rector there who wrote about my organising a children's Epiphany pageant the year I turned 16. The people at Georgian Court were impressed by that and asked if I want to study for a schoolteacher. I said I don't know.
Actually I am inclined to study English, but I really don't know what I will do with that. Will I teach school? Will I take a graduate degree and teach at university? Will I go into journalism? Mother never applied her degree in English beyond writing her journal and hundreds of letters and the odd article or two... but she is a happy homemaker now and doesn't need to do more at this stage of her life. I am not anyone's nanny-- nor am I inclined to be, much as I love little ones-- and I do not have any grand penchant in my life at all. Listening to these other girls today made me feel like a profound nothing. They all have grand schemes for their futures. Somewhat sceptically I wonder how many of them will amount to anything in the way that they think they will. I mean, what is accounting? --but counting someone else's money? What is 'computer science'? --I don't even know what job that would be. What is business administration? --but becoming trained in a management job you might not ever have the experience to deserve?
I am sorry for how this sounds but I promise you I am very clueless about anything regarding my future.
I do have to say that Lakewood, where the university is, is a very funny community. From what we saw of it, there seems to be a large Mexican neighbourhood on one side of Route Nine and a positively enormous Orthodox Jewish community on the other side. One the one sides, idle Mexican men stand round street corners like the workers in the Gospel story waiting for someone to call them up and hire them for the day. On the other side Jewish men all in black stride rapidly about on some business that keeps them out of doors on a cold winter's day. Neither community seems to work very hard at anything-- they've all got too much time being outside in plain view doing, well, nothing. I wonder who pays the taxes in this town!
(I hope it's not the university!)
Mother and I had some errands to run and so I drove us over to the shopping arcade after our appointment. We had plenty to eat-- the admissions people are positively lavish with food and apparently feed everyone at every event. At the food market Mother needed the 'little blue box' as she calls it and I wanted to pick up some conditioner as I had brought the only bottle I had at home and it's run out. Whilst we stood in the checkout line her phone rang and she handed me some money and stepped aside to report to Daddy about our visit. A young Jew in his black clothes stepped up behind me. I could not tell if he were 16 or 21-- they all dress the same. But he was young and so gravely serious that I was nearly afraid of him. To be rid of my anxiety I said hello to him when we happened to meet eyes.
'Hello,' he replied, nodding more than he spoke.
'Is this place always so crowded?' I asked, merely for conversation.
He only shrugged and then looked away as though I were not worth any more of his time. That kind of hurt, you know-- I am not a monster and will always be friendly to strangers, even people who are markedly different from me. I just believe it's a way to bridge divides, you know. But the young man did not seem to care. I thought maybe that was because his belief system tells him to not meddle with Gentiles-- that's a terrible way to think but it's all I came up with at the time. And I did not like the thought. My belief system is the way of the Good Samaritan, to accept and respect all people regardless of their race or creed, in the same way as I would want to be respected by them. That means I say hello to people I don't know-- yet-- and I will help anyone who needs me. In that way I don't judge.
One thing about us girls, however, is that we can always tell when someone is checking us out. It's not such a difficult skill to master-- you first rule out your own ego and then sort of focus on people's eyes, and you can tell what they think of how you look. I usually get guys looking at my chest. To avoid feeling totally humiliated I usually amuse myself by saying something completely esoteric and profound to see if he can even hear me. Usually he cannot. Guys have a very narrow band of attention... it's about as wide as a girl's hips and doesn't allow for much past that.
The Jewish guy behind me was looking at me. I found that terribly hypocritical-- he will not exchange pleasantries with me, but he will look down at my short skirt and my legs in the white tights and have some kind of thought about me. Of course the girls my age in his community don't dress like I do. They're all in cute little button-up black jackets and calf-length black skirts and black socks and low-heeled black shoes. And they keep their eyes down when a guy looks at them. I didn't keep my eyes down. I looked right at his head till he looked up again and realised I had seen him looking. But he didn't blush. He didn't even flinch. He seemed to regard it as his right to check out Gentile girls in short skirts as though we don't matter. He doesn't have to safeguard my reputation or treat me with respect. He can just look, and imagine, and he doesn't even have to apologise for that because his creed only applies to other Jews. A Gentile is an outcast, a heathen-- any unclean thoughts about me don't count as sin because, since I don't matter, anything he thinks about me doesn't matter.
I am sorry if this sounds prejudiced. I know a little about the Orthodox faiths from my evangelism study at my old church, and I won't pretend to be an expert on any of them. But I do know that most of them consider themselves as set apart by God, for some special treatment, and that it is their responsibility to keep themselves 'unstained by the world'. To them that means not mixing up with nonbelievers in social situations. They don't go to parties, they don't go to the beach, they don't go to concerts or anywhere they might be exposed to outside influences. I find that cowardly and foolish. Jesus scolded the Pharisees when they attempted to correct Him and His disciples for eating with unclean hands. He told them that nothing that goes into a man can defile him, only what comes out of him can. I could go to wild parties every night of the week and sit there, sip tea, and talk with other people about the Lord's work in my life, and would that be a sin? But if I were go to church every day of the week, participate in ECW, teach Sunday school, and attend evangelism seminars and Bible study whenever it was held, but take drugs and sleep around and lie and condemn God in the rest of my life, I would not be a Christian.
People online have asked me why I go into questionable chat rooms, and this is the reason. I challenge those people-- have I ever done anything wrong in those rooms? Jesus went and sat with sinners and tax collectors, because it was there that His influence was needed. Nothing anyone says to me in a chat room can defile me, only what I say to other people can. I remain unafraid of outside influences. I am not the frightened little Jewish guy in the market at Lakewood. I am stronger and better than that. I am a Christian.
...
14 February 2009
Looking back
Friday 13 February 2009
Jessy and I packed last night and we drove in to school in the Regal. Both of us were in skirts-- this is only typical. We also brought nice stuff to wear for church on Sunday though we have both admitted we are not sure we will go. Holy Innocents' has services at odd times during the off season.
After school we hurried out to the car and got on our way. The light fades fast here and so we went directly to the Ferry, not even checking on the house at Lewes, where Mommy is buried, that's even just a few blocks farther on. It was my first time driving onto the boat but I did well and Jessy was totally composed as though we had done this a hundred times before.
The boat ride is 70 minutes. It was one of the new boats and we got tea, but it was too cold to stay outside and we took a table by the windows. The wind seemed very strong in the middle of the Bay-- the water was mostly whitecaps and the boat tended to roll a lot. We were both happy to get ashore.
Of course I had never driven this way either by myself but it was not hard, and Route 9 turns into the Parkway and then it's just 65 MPH till you get there. I also had never driven this fast before, but I was very careful and not long before our exit Jessy rang Daddy and told him we were fine.
Our house in Surf City was the house we had when I was born. In fact this was to be our only home, I was to start school on the Island and to high school at Southern, and Mommy started her ice-cream parlour and the book store and we might have been very happy here. But my parents thought we should have the experience of growing up with a yard and a swimming pool and a slightly bigger house, so they built the place at Lewes and just after Jessy was born we moved there. So the house at Surf City has always been mainly a summer place for us. It is modest and old-fashioned (like everything about my parents and my family anyway) and has a lovely view of the ocean as well as up and down the beach.
The room that was always meant for Jessy and me to share is on the third floor, facing across the Island at the Bay actually. We each have an old-fashioned four-posted bed and there is a desk and wide dresser. It is an attic room with low walls and a sloping ceiling,. Round the top of the low walls, and across the end walls at the same level, is a cute wallpaper border of sailboats and seashells and dune grass that Mommy put up for us, sort of by surprise, about ten years ago. Neither of us has ever had any inclination to ever take it down. Also we have no inclination to take separate rooms-- there is a very nice guest room below our room that one of us could take, but neither of us could ever decide to be the one to not stay in this room where Mommy's wallpaper border is and so we continue to share. For now Lisa and little J.J. share the other room up here, a smaller, narrower, lower room over Mother and Daddy's room that sticks out in front towards the ocean. Some day one of them (probably Lisa) will adopt the guest room anyway, so it's just as well Jessy and I keep this one together.
Jessy and I have slowly been coming to the idea that we would like to stay here and work in Mommy's ice-cream parlour all summer. It is only what Mother (our stepmother) did when she was our nanny, the summer before and the summer after Mommy died. And she was only a year older then than I am now. I think Mommy would like us to do that, and, like Mother did, help manage the ice-cream parlour and carry on her tradition.
I have begun to believe that I would much rather do something like that than even to go to university somewhere. I could stay at this house all year and commute to Ocean County and try to figure out what I really do want to do. I only know I would miss Jessy, at least for that first year when I have done with school and she is still finishing. I suppose I could work with Daddy for that period. I know he would like that, especially because I would be home near him, which is what he really wants.
I apologise for rambling like this. I confess it is how I write when I am here-- I am less single-minded.
As soon as we got to this house we got changed into our Colonial dresses, just for fun. I have about eight different outfits, mostly handmade, of which I brought three for this weekend. In about 1750 I would have worn one not till I was sick of it but till I could not wear it any more. This weekend we're going to try to live at least in some ways like that. This afternoon I put on my light-blue skirt and bed-jacket with a plain muslin shift (undershirt like a nightgown) and stays (not exactly like a corset) under it and high socks with garters (round my calf of course) and slippers that are like ballet flats. This would have been typical for someone who was not a princess 250 years ago (and yes, I have said ALL that I have on... also typical). Jessy has on her dark-green bodice and plain muslin skirt over her shift and stays.
There are no boys to see us right now but in my experience they tend to love this gear on us girls. The bodice flatters her (I'll leave it for you to imagine why). We both feel very comfortable-- I often wish I could dress like this forever, but for now it is like a little game we are playing, like we did when Mother used to tutor us in the tea room at home in Lewes.
We made a fire in the kitchen, heated water for tea and, though we did (shamefully) cook two of the instant dinners we brought along in the microwave, we did eat by candlelight. I hooked up the laptop to the house network and by about 18.00 I was able to report to Daddy that everything was all right. Afterwards we put on our long winter coats and boots and went over the dunes to the beach. I remember happy times with Mommy, and later with our stepmother, dressing like this and skipping round the beach like we were living here 250 years ago. In the off-season there is hardly anyone here and when we were littler we didn't think that we may have looked odd to modern people. If Mommy could stroll the beach in her gorgeous handmade gowns and black stockings certainly we young girls could. I remember, the summer after she died, my nanny (as she was then) and I hiking the beach to work at the ice-cream parlour, in our long gowns and carrying our shoes, in front of everyone who was on the beach on a summer's evening in the high season. People stared, you know. But they all knew where we were going and smiled and waved as though we were celebrities. That's usually people's reaction, and it always makes me feel, even then, that something was good and right about being a girl who dressed in traditional clothes.
We saw only one person, some blocks down, with a dog. The night was going bitter. We returned to the house, set ourselves up at the kitchen table, and did our homework by candlelight till the fire faded, and then we watched DVDs ('Emma' AND 'Persuasion') till we went to bed. However I woke up at like midnight and typed in this, and I am going online to post it.
I will post more later as our 'retro' weekend proceeds.
...
Jessy and I packed last night and we drove in to school in the Regal. Both of us were in skirts-- this is only typical. We also brought nice stuff to wear for church on Sunday though we have both admitted we are not sure we will go. Holy Innocents' has services at odd times during the off season.
After school we hurried out to the car and got on our way. The light fades fast here and so we went directly to the Ferry, not even checking on the house at Lewes, where Mommy is buried, that's even just a few blocks farther on. It was my first time driving onto the boat but I did well and Jessy was totally composed as though we had done this a hundred times before.
The boat ride is 70 minutes. It was one of the new boats and we got tea, but it was too cold to stay outside and we took a table by the windows. The wind seemed very strong in the middle of the Bay-- the water was mostly whitecaps and the boat tended to roll a lot. We were both happy to get ashore.
Of course I had never driven this way either by myself but it was not hard, and Route 9 turns into the Parkway and then it's just 65 MPH till you get there. I also had never driven this fast before, but I was very careful and not long before our exit Jessy rang Daddy and told him we were fine.
Our house in Surf City was the house we had when I was born. In fact this was to be our only home, I was to start school on the Island and to high school at Southern, and Mommy started her ice-cream parlour and the book store and we might have been very happy here. But my parents thought we should have the experience of growing up with a yard and a swimming pool and a slightly bigger house, so they built the place at Lewes and just after Jessy was born we moved there. So the house at Surf City has always been mainly a summer place for us. It is modest and old-fashioned (like everything about my parents and my family anyway) and has a lovely view of the ocean as well as up and down the beach.
The room that was always meant for Jessy and me to share is on the third floor, facing across the Island at the Bay actually. We each have an old-fashioned four-posted bed and there is a desk and wide dresser. It is an attic room with low walls and a sloping ceiling,. Round the top of the low walls, and across the end walls at the same level, is a cute wallpaper border of sailboats and seashells and dune grass that Mommy put up for us, sort of by surprise, about ten years ago. Neither of us has ever had any inclination to ever take it down. Also we have no inclination to take separate rooms-- there is a very nice guest room below our room that one of us could take, but neither of us could ever decide to be the one to not stay in this room where Mommy's wallpaper border is and so we continue to share. For now Lisa and little J.J. share the other room up here, a smaller, narrower, lower room over Mother and Daddy's room that sticks out in front towards the ocean. Some day one of them (probably Lisa) will adopt the guest room anyway, so it's just as well Jessy and I keep this one together.
Jessy and I have slowly been coming to the idea that we would like to stay here and work in Mommy's ice-cream parlour all summer. It is only what Mother (our stepmother) did when she was our nanny, the summer before and the summer after Mommy died. And she was only a year older then than I am now. I think Mommy would like us to do that, and, like Mother did, help manage the ice-cream parlour and carry on her tradition.
I have begun to believe that I would much rather do something like that than even to go to university somewhere. I could stay at this house all year and commute to Ocean County and try to figure out what I really do want to do. I only know I would miss Jessy, at least for that first year when I have done with school and she is still finishing. I suppose I could work with Daddy for that period. I know he would like that, especially because I would be home near him, which is what he really wants.
I apologise for rambling like this. I confess it is how I write when I am here-- I am less single-minded.
As soon as we got to this house we got changed into our Colonial dresses, just for fun. I have about eight different outfits, mostly handmade, of which I brought three for this weekend. In about 1750 I would have worn one not till I was sick of it but till I could not wear it any more. This weekend we're going to try to live at least in some ways like that. This afternoon I put on my light-blue skirt and bed-jacket with a plain muslin shift (undershirt like a nightgown) and stays (not exactly like a corset) under it and high socks with garters (round my calf of course) and slippers that are like ballet flats. This would have been typical for someone who was not a princess 250 years ago (and yes, I have said ALL that I have on... also typical). Jessy has on her dark-green bodice and plain muslin skirt over her shift and stays.
There are no boys to see us right now but in my experience they tend to love this gear on us girls. The bodice flatters her (I'll leave it for you to imagine why). We both feel very comfortable-- I often wish I could dress like this forever, but for now it is like a little game we are playing, like we did when Mother used to tutor us in the tea room at home in Lewes.
We made a fire in the kitchen, heated water for tea and, though we did (shamefully) cook two of the instant dinners we brought along in the microwave, we did eat by candlelight. I hooked up the laptop to the house network and by about 18.00 I was able to report to Daddy that everything was all right. Afterwards we put on our long winter coats and boots and went over the dunes to the beach. I remember happy times with Mommy, and later with our stepmother, dressing like this and skipping round the beach like we were living here 250 years ago. In the off-season there is hardly anyone here and when we were littler we didn't think that we may have looked odd to modern people. If Mommy could stroll the beach in her gorgeous handmade gowns and black stockings certainly we young girls could. I remember, the summer after she died, my nanny (as she was then) and I hiking the beach to work at the ice-cream parlour, in our long gowns and carrying our shoes, in front of everyone who was on the beach on a summer's evening in the high season. People stared, you know. But they all knew where we were going and smiled and waved as though we were celebrities. That's usually people's reaction, and it always makes me feel, even then, that something was good and right about being a girl who dressed in traditional clothes.
We saw only one person, some blocks down, with a dog. The night was going bitter. We returned to the house, set ourselves up at the kitchen table, and did our homework by candlelight till the fire faded, and then we watched DVDs ('Emma' AND 'Persuasion') till we went to bed. However I woke up at like midnight and typed in this, and I am going online to post it.
I will post more later as our 'retro' weekend proceeds.
...
28 December 2008
The south wind
Sunday, 28 December 2008
The south wind blows up the coast, bringing with it humidity and the threat of rain. This is supposed to be winter-- and it's like weather made for being undressed. It was so deplorably warm today that as soon as we got home from church and brunch I went straight up stairs and got out of everything-- really, for the first time in a long while. I read for a while and then Jessy came in and asked if I wanted to watch TV. She was, of course, entirely naked. I really did think of going down there like this but thought better of it. As I was pulling up a clean pair of panties Mother knocked and came in. 'Hey,' she said softly.
'Hey,' I said. Then she stepped in and I saw her. 'You look cute.'
She smiled a little, almost blushing. 'Well, I kind of took your example from yesterday.'
I smiled. 'Good.'
Her hair was all down and brushed out, thick and lush and blonde well past her shoulders. She had on her nice navy-blue sweater, plain white short shorts, opaque white dress tights, and bright pink socks--pretty much the same scheme we three girls have been wearing since Christmas. On Mother, who has just turned 27, the look is as cute as it is on any of us. She smiled a little shyly and sat on the end of my bed. 'Were you going down to watch the movie?'
I shrugged. 'Not if you wanted me for something.'
She shrugged too. 'I just wanted to visit.'
I smiled and leaned back on the table, folding my arms over my stomach. 'What's up?'
'Well,' she said, 'do you think you would mind if we did not go up to New Jersey tomorrow?'
I shrugged again. 'Hm, I don't think so. Why?'
'Your father wants to have New Year's here. We can go up after that,' she said.
I nodded. 'That's all right.'
'And I can see from how you and your sister are with this weather that you'd probably prefer staying here.'
'I guess. Really, Mother, it doesn't matter at all either way.'
She smiled and me and stood up. 'I would like to see everyone too, but I'd rather be here seeing them than travelling up there. So as long as there are no objections--?'
I smiled at her. 'I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for Jessy too. There are no objections.'
She nodded and went to the door. 'Do remember your father's rule, Janine. I'll be making dinner for about four.'
'Yes, of course, Mother.'
Down in the TV theatre we watched 'WALL-E' and neither Jessy nor I put any more on till dinner. After dessert we took off out t-shirts and returned to as we were. Right now Jessy's watching 'House' reruns and I'm typing this. well-- at least I've put socks on. And the south wind continues.
...
The south wind blows up the coast, bringing with it humidity and the threat of rain. This is supposed to be winter-- and it's like weather made for being undressed. It was so deplorably warm today that as soon as we got home from church and brunch I went straight up stairs and got out of everything-- really, for the first time in a long while. I read for a while and then Jessy came in and asked if I wanted to watch TV. She was, of course, entirely naked. I really did think of going down there like this but thought better of it. As I was pulling up a clean pair of panties Mother knocked and came in. 'Hey,' she said softly.
'Hey,' I said. Then she stepped in and I saw her. 'You look cute.'
She smiled a little, almost blushing. 'Well, I kind of took your example from yesterday.'
I smiled. 'Good.'
Her hair was all down and brushed out, thick and lush and blonde well past her shoulders. She had on her nice navy-blue sweater, plain white short shorts, opaque white dress tights, and bright pink socks--pretty much the same scheme we three girls have been wearing since Christmas. On Mother, who has just turned 27, the look is as cute as it is on any of us. She smiled a little shyly and sat on the end of my bed. 'Were you going down to watch the movie?'
I shrugged. 'Not if you wanted me for something.'
She shrugged too. 'I just wanted to visit.'
I smiled and leaned back on the table, folding my arms over my stomach. 'What's up?'
'Well,' she said, 'do you think you would mind if we did not go up to New Jersey tomorrow?'
I shrugged again. 'Hm, I don't think so. Why?'
'Your father wants to have New Year's here. We can go up after that,' she said.
I nodded. 'That's all right.'
'And I can see from how you and your sister are with this weather that you'd probably prefer staying here.'
'I guess. Really, Mother, it doesn't matter at all either way.'
She smiled and me and stood up. 'I would like to see everyone too, but I'd rather be here seeing them than travelling up there. So as long as there are no objections--?'
I smiled at her. 'I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for Jessy too. There are no objections.'
She nodded and went to the door. 'Do remember your father's rule, Janine. I'll be making dinner for about four.'
'Yes, of course, Mother.'
Down in the TV theatre we watched 'WALL-E' and neither Jessy nor I put any more on till dinner. After dessert we took off out t-shirts and returned to as we were. Right now Jessy's watching 'House' reruns and I'm typing this. well-- at least I've put socks on. And the south wind continues.
...
Christmas panties
Saturday 27 December 2008
Jessy and I were shopping last week and we found these adorably cute all-cotton panties in Family Dollar for Christmas. They are just plain bikini cut, a bit higher on the leg than most of mine, which is comfortable, all-cotton, and they were available in a variety of colours, all with the same print candy canes and snowmen and holly sprigs and snowflakes. We giggled to see them and then decided to treat ourselves to some Christmas cheer. The ones I got are bright green and hers are pale pink. Later in the mall we bought for each other, as sort of a present, a couple pairs of these very high knee socks with a cute pattern of little secular symbols round a white band at the top and along the sides, like the seam in those sexy stockings. We each got a set in bright red and a set in a lighter green. This is pretty much what I have been wearing this season-- I've already washed this stuff three times.
Half of the time since Christmas I have been lolling round this room mostly undressed and the socks, which come over my knee, and the big fluffy light-grey polartec pulli have made a pretty comfortable outfit. The night we watched the video with Gran I pulled on white ballet tights and pulled the socks on over them again and that was perfectly comfortable and presentable for round the house since the pulli comes down almost like a minidress. Daddy said I looked cute-- that was of course before Jessy came down in bright-red boxer shorts under her long navy-blue sweater and looked cuter. Little Lisa came down for the video in her actual ballet leotard and tights, and a new sweater she got for Christmas, and then sent the cute-o-meter off the stops. But it's the Christmas season and I enjoy being able to be warm and cosy and somehow relieved of the responsibility to wear clothes, or at least proper clothes.
We have got church in the morning (and yes already picked out my clothes) and I am not going to stay online at 4.00 am rambling about junk like this!
...
Jessy and I were shopping last week and we found these adorably cute all-cotton panties in Family Dollar for Christmas. They are just plain bikini cut, a bit higher on the leg than most of mine, which is comfortable, all-cotton, and they were available in a variety of colours, all with the same print candy canes and snowmen and holly sprigs and snowflakes. We giggled to see them and then decided to treat ourselves to some Christmas cheer. The ones I got are bright green and hers are pale pink. Later in the mall we bought for each other, as sort of a present, a couple pairs of these very high knee socks with a cute pattern of little secular symbols round a white band at the top and along the sides, like the seam in those sexy stockings. We each got a set in bright red and a set in a lighter green. This is pretty much what I have been wearing this season-- I've already washed this stuff three times.
Half of the time since Christmas I have been lolling round this room mostly undressed and the socks, which come over my knee, and the big fluffy light-grey polartec pulli have made a pretty comfortable outfit. The night we watched the video with Gran I pulled on white ballet tights and pulled the socks on over them again and that was perfectly comfortable and presentable for round the house since the pulli comes down almost like a minidress. Daddy said I looked cute-- that was of course before Jessy came down in bright-red boxer shorts under her long navy-blue sweater and looked cuter. Little Lisa came down for the video in her actual ballet leotard and tights, and a new sweater she got for Christmas, and then sent the cute-o-meter off the stops. But it's the Christmas season and I enjoy being able to be warm and cosy and somehow relieved of the responsibility to wear clothes, or at least proper clothes.
We have got church in the morning (and yes already picked out my clothes) and I am not going to stay online at 4.00 am rambling about junk like this!
...
27 December 2008
God save the queen
Friday evening, 26 December 2008
Someone online asked me this afternoon if I had noticed, or if I appreciated, that I have an 'affectation' of using 'Britishisms' (a term I despise though I knew what he meant). I said yes, I know I do; but it is mostly habit and less deliberate. I spent two years in an English public school (read that, in the US: 'private school') and what I came to appreciate was a culture which was always part of my family heritage and always interested me, but to which I had always been only an outsider. It was one thing to hear about a real-life city being lived in by real-life people that happens to have a 10th-century castle right in the middle of it-- it is quite another thing to actually BE one of those people living there and being able to actually touch the 10th-century castle on a daily basis. It gives you a unique perspective, and it has expanded, not narrowed, my own. I discovered and came to love the routines of being English-- singing the national anthem and reciting a prayer for the sovereign in church (and in school) and driving on the left and calling the 'sidewalk' the 'pavement' and so on. Returning to the US a wiser and older person I honestly found it hard to remember all the words to the Pledge of Allegiance and the 'N' form of the past participle and that I have to look left, not right, when crossing a street from the kerb.
I did NOT 'pick up an accent', as someone asked me once, though at one point before I got there I did consider doing that. I confess it's been a temptation, especially living with my stepmother for so long, but though I am often accused of being a thespian I decided it would be disrespectful to do it badly and so left it to Gwyneth Paltrow who does it much, much better.
Some people will remain convinced it is really just an affectation and that by continuing to use the grammar and spellings I use I am trying to say I consider myself superior to most American people. That is a common accusation I get. My stepmother, being ethnic English and Anglican but raised in Roman Catholic Australia, has had it all her life. The saddest part of it is, as my father says, how everyone in America may be so quick to judge all things British as being inferior, but, as he says, 'not one of them would refuse an honorary knighthood.'
One 'Americanism' I have learnt to utterly deplore is the tendency to so quickly judge everything by American standards. For a country which pretends to be so 'tolerant' and 'open-minded' and 'liberal' we Yanks really are not. We do not really accept other cultures' ways of doing things without at least a little bit of feeling superior to them all, and this is nowhere truer than with the British. Disney and Mel Gibson and so many others have made millions from belittling, disparaging and incorrectly portraying British history and culture, and their ugly assumptions are what Americans have come to accept as truth. I got into an argument once online after mentioning that I had read Churchill's book 'Their Finest Hour' over the summer which clearly shows how the British fought World War Two totally ALONE on about five fronts for nearly three years before the Americans chose to become involved-- and all I got for saying this clear FACT was 'Oh, no, WE "bailed out" the Brits.' ('Well the book was written by a Brit', someone said.) The FACT is that America allowed Mr Churchill's government to suffer immeasurable losses and only got involved in the war when it served American interests to do so-- and yet, even so, the British people extend to America a grateful, admiring respect because they're just that unselfish, humble, and affectionate. It's one of the things that makes them British.
For Christmas, Mother gave to Gran the movie 'The Queen' on DVD, and we watched it tonight. When I say 'we' I mean all of us, even little J.J., nearly three, who played quietly, 'as good as gold', on the floor of the TV theatre down stairs. It is a very well-made, serious and sympathetic portrayal of HRH The Queen as she and her household coped with the death of estranged princess Diana in 1997. Naturally the filmmakers had two options with this story-- the most likely was that they would depict the queen as being cold, ruthless, hateful and spiteful, deliberately ignoring anyone's feelings but her own, sticking to principle at the cost of ethics, and so on. The least likely was that they would depict that whole situation as being so unorthodox and unpredictable that the queen deserves our sympathy for simply not knowing how to handle it. The strangest thing of all was that the filmmakers did both.
The most important statement the film 'The Queen' made was nearly at the end, when the queen explains to the eager and innocent PM Tony Blair that 'This is how I was brought up.' She (played by Dame Helen Mirren) explained that she believed the best of the British people would expect their queen to be somewhat stoic, not easily moved to mush at the loss of one person (who by her own choice wasn't even family any more). The character of PM Blair actually gets mad at one of his assistants and says how 'this woman' (the queen) has devoted her life to quiet, principled leadership, including towards a young girl (Diana) who devalued everything the queen offered to her and spent the last years of her life vocally denouncing it all over the world. The American-style mourning for Princess Di, public, emotional, unreasonable and completely out of proportion to her actual, formal status, even called for lowering the British flag on top of the palace-- though the British NEVER observe that custom even when a PM or king dies, the royal family were prevailed upon to adopt it 'just this once' for someone who had willingly and gratefully left their family and that house altogether. People (and the press, on both sides of the Atlantic) were sending public hate letters to the queen personally. This could have made me cry if not for the strong, almost stoic way in which Dame Helen played her. And when you understand what the actress was going for (yes, we watched all the 'making of' special features too) you must have some appreciation for the queen herself. After all what has made Britain as great as it has always been is the very British way in which they do things. To a Briton there really is no other way to do them.
My father has on his office wall a copy of the queen's formal Coronation portrait from 1953. He says he likes the picture, but we all sort of know better. True-- the queen herself is very pretty, a 26-year-old young mother and wife who ascends to her father's place almost shyly, but willingly-- that's a role model for any woman. But Daddy likes more what the picture represents-- almost 1000 years of unbroken tradition in culture and government without which this country of America would never have stood. America broke free of Britain because of the British way of doing things, and yet it survives for the same reason. After all there can be no unselfish, elected service and leadership without the English concept of 'noblesse oblige'-- the philosophy that the good people do the right thing just because it IS the right thing. It is 'Deus et mon droit' = 'God and my right hand' --God blesses what I do that is right, or, when I do the right thing God is with me doing it too. The point is that it is right because it is right.
The British motto is the Old French is 'Hony soi qui mal pence' -- 'Evil to he who thinks evil of it.' How Americans should learn this! It means that you condemn, you deserve to be condemned. If you judge, you deserve to be judged-- since the truly right thing is so right that only the truly evil could ever condemn it. Or, as Alexander Pope said, 'Whatever IS is right' --because it comes from God. God's will be done-- and God save the queen.
...
Someone online asked me this afternoon if I had noticed, or if I appreciated, that I have an 'affectation' of using 'Britishisms' (a term I despise though I knew what he meant). I said yes, I know I do; but it is mostly habit and less deliberate. I spent two years in an English public school (read that, in the US: 'private school') and what I came to appreciate was a culture which was always part of my family heritage and always interested me, but to which I had always been only an outsider. It was one thing to hear about a real-life city being lived in by real-life people that happens to have a 10th-century castle right in the middle of it-- it is quite another thing to actually BE one of those people living there and being able to actually touch the 10th-century castle on a daily basis. It gives you a unique perspective, and it has expanded, not narrowed, my own. I discovered and came to love the routines of being English-- singing the national anthem and reciting a prayer for the sovereign in church (and in school) and driving on the left and calling the 'sidewalk' the 'pavement' and so on. Returning to the US a wiser and older person I honestly found it hard to remember all the words to the Pledge of Allegiance and the 'N' form of the past participle and that I have to look left, not right, when crossing a street from the kerb.
I did NOT 'pick up an accent', as someone asked me once, though at one point before I got there I did consider doing that. I confess it's been a temptation, especially living with my stepmother for so long, but though I am often accused of being a thespian I decided it would be disrespectful to do it badly and so left it to Gwyneth Paltrow who does it much, much better.
Some people will remain convinced it is really just an affectation and that by continuing to use the grammar and spellings I use I am trying to say I consider myself superior to most American people. That is a common accusation I get. My stepmother, being ethnic English and Anglican but raised in Roman Catholic Australia, has had it all her life. The saddest part of it is, as my father says, how everyone in America may be so quick to judge all things British as being inferior, but, as he says, 'not one of them would refuse an honorary knighthood.'
One 'Americanism' I have learnt to utterly deplore is the tendency to so quickly judge everything by American standards. For a country which pretends to be so 'tolerant' and 'open-minded' and 'liberal' we Yanks really are not. We do not really accept other cultures' ways of doing things without at least a little bit of feeling superior to them all, and this is nowhere truer than with the British. Disney and Mel Gibson and so many others have made millions from belittling, disparaging and incorrectly portraying British history and culture, and their ugly assumptions are what Americans have come to accept as truth. I got into an argument once online after mentioning that I had read Churchill's book 'Their Finest Hour' over the summer which clearly shows how the British fought World War Two totally ALONE on about five fronts for nearly three years before the Americans chose to become involved-- and all I got for saying this clear FACT was 'Oh, no, WE "bailed out" the Brits.' ('Well the book was written by a Brit', someone said.) The FACT is that America allowed Mr Churchill's government to suffer immeasurable losses and only got involved in the war when it served American interests to do so-- and yet, even so, the British people extend to America a grateful, admiring respect because they're just that unselfish, humble, and affectionate. It's one of the things that makes them British.
For Christmas, Mother gave to Gran the movie 'The Queen' on DVD, and we watched it tonight. When I say 'we' I mean all of us, even little J.J., nearly three, who played quietly, 'as good as gold', on the floor of the TV theatre down stairs. It is a very well-made, serious and sympathetic portrayal of HRH The Queen as she and her household coped with the death of estranged princess Diana in 1997. Naturally the filmmakers had two options with this story-- the most likely was that they would depict the queen as being cold, ruthless, hateful and spiteful, deliberately ignoring anyone's feelings but her own, sticking to principle at the cost of ethics, and so on. The least likely was that they would depict that whole situation as being so unorthodox and unpredictable that the queen deserves our sympathy for simply not knowing how to handle it. The strangest thing of all was that the filmmakers did both.
The most important statement the film 'The Queen' made was nearly at the end, when the queen explains to the eager and innocent PM Tony Blair that 'This is how I was brought up.' She (played by Dame Helen Mirren) explained that she believed the best of the British people would expect their queen to be somewhat stoic, not easily moved to mush at the loss of one person (who by her own choice wasn't even family any more). The character of PM Blair actually gets mad at one of his assistants and says how 'this woman' (the queen) has devoted her life to quiet, principled leadership, including towards a young girl (Diana) who devalued everything the queen offered to her and spent the last years of her life vocally denouncing it all over the world. The American-style mourning for Princess Di, public, emotional, unreasonable and completely out of proportion to her actual, formal status, even called for lowering the British flag on top of the palace-- though the British NEVER observe that custom even when a PM or king dies, the royal family were prevailed upon to adopt it 'just this once' for someone who had willingly and gratefully left their family and that house altogether. People (and the press, on both sides of the Atlantic) were sending public hate letters to the queen personally. This could have made me cry if not for the strong, almost stoic way in which Dame Helen played her. And when you understand what the actress was going for (yes, we watched all the 'making of' special features too) you must have some appreciation for the queen herself. After all what has made Britain as great as it has always been is the very British way in which they do things. To a Briton there really is no other way to do them.
My father has on his office wall a copy of the queen's formal Coronation portrait from 1953. He says he likes the picture, but we all sort of know better. True-- the queen herself is very pretty, a 26-year-old young mother and wife who ascends to her father's place almost shyly, but willingly-- that's a role model for any woman. But Daddy likes more what the picture represents-- almost 1000 years of unbroken tradition in culture and government without which this country of America would never have stood. America broke free of Britain because of the British way of doing things, and yet it survives for the same reason. After all there can be no unselfish, elected service and leadership without the English concept of 'noblesse oblige'-- the philosophy that the good people do the right thing just because it IS the right thing. It is 'Deus et mon droit' = 'God and my right hand' --God blesses what I do that is right, or, when I do the right thing God is with me doing it too. The point is that it is right because it is right.
The British motto is the Old French is 'Hony soi qui mal pence' -- 'Evil to he who thinks evil of it.' How Americans should learn this! It means that you condemn, you deserve to be condemned. If you judge, you deserve to be judged-- since the truly right thing is so right that only the truly evil could ever condemn it. Or, as Alexander Pope said, 'Whatever IS is right' --because it comes from God. God's will be done-- and God save the queen.
...
13 December 2008
Terncote for Advent
Friday 11 December 2008
As of the first week of Advent (following the fourth Sunday before Christmas, for those who don't follow such things), we put up the candles in our windows. At the Landing, our old house in Lewes, there is an electric outlet under each window, the top receptacle of which is operated by a separate switch down stairs (actually two, one for in front and one for in back, since the house is visible from the Ferry). The 'candles' are actually slender white tubes fitted with small bulbs, gently clamped on the windowsill so the bulb is in the middle of the lower pane of glass. The bulbs are fluorescent and flicker slightly which adds to the effect. Down stairs in the basement the switches are on a timer to turn them on just before dusk and off sometime around 1.30 or 2.00 am.
At Poplar Landing there are 14 lights in front and 15 in back, including the third-floor dormers, the glass porch centre windows and the two casements of the window over the kitchen sink. That's a lot of twinkling candlelight! I remember when I was littler I disliked having that bulb in my room lit all night and insisted that we turn it off. Naturally Jessy, taking my example, wanted hers turned off then too. Daddy rigged up a pretty good shield out of bent metal to hold the light close to the glass and it made each room dark enough to sleep in. But I have to smile at how my parents never even considered turning off the lights or just omitting them from the bedroom windows. It was a tradition, and if I have to say so that house was (and still is) such a showplace in the neighbourhood that there is a definitely element of pride that my parents took had at decorating the house in this modest, solemn and elegant way.
At Terncote here in Virginia we have the same system. Daddy actually had other lights made exactly like the ones he made himself for the Landing and the window sills and electrical outlets are set up the same way. (In fact the period-authentic sash windows are identical-- one thing in common that this 1720s-style towered manor house and that 1740s plantation house share.) But though we have many more windows in each facade here, we do not have them in the ends (the towers), because Lisa's room is in front up stairs, and it would look odd with the first-floor windows lit and the ones above them not. So the candle lights are in only each inside wing, that's three windows each side, each floor, and in the two above the front door. We do not have them in back here (though the specially-switched outlets are there) because there isn't really anyone out there to see them in this season. All of the windows with candle lights in front are in galleries, not rooms, except the three in the big parlour (which is under my room). So those can be left on whilst people are trying to sleep.
When we were saying good-bye to the friends who came for my birthday, I got to look at the house from in front after dark. I must say it looks very well. From the road you can see straight up the lane at the two wall sconces outside the front doors and all 14 lights. This is because the masonry wall is cut down for the width of the front entrance wing and the inside wings and our sapling trees along the drive are not yet big enough to block the view. The yellowish colour of the stucco glows warm in the low light and makes the place look welcoming even on a raw, cold night. Above the end towers are dark (except for Lisa's window as she got ready for bed the night I looked) and the centre one is almost invisible if the sky is dark enough. It's definitely not the way it looked for our Hallowe'en party!
I will say here that Daddy and Mother are no believers in illuminating the facade with floodlights like so many people are. As Daddy says that's only foolish as a security measure. The correct thing is to have the view from the house unobstructed-- that means shining light AWAY from the house, not ON it. Our emergency and motion-sensing lights shine down at the ground along the foundation, not at the windows, so we are able to see what's going on out there.
The other Advent tradition that we have always observed is that we NEVER decorate for Christmas, nor even buy, nor even shop for, a tree, till after church on the fourth Sunday. In some years this has been on Christmas Eve itself-- yet Daddy will not relent. Christmas is Christmas and Advent is Advent. Then we have a pleasant, relaxing evening of setting up and trimming our tree. I asked Mother where we would put it this year. At the Landing it always went in the big parlour-- because we had only that and the keeping room (family room), and we were more likely to have a fire in the keeping room which would have only dried out a live tree. She thinks it will be easiest to set it up in our little square parlour on the first floor of the centre tower, straight back from the entrance foyer. We will rearrange the small sofa there and maybe put away one chair, and we will hang the stockings over that fireplace which doesn't get used often (only once that I know of, so far) anyway. So we will have the big parlour for entertaining.
We don't know how much entertaining we will do this season. We are four and a half hours away from our next nearest relations (my uncle and his family in southern New Jersey) but everyone has been issued a standing invitation and Gran has promised to come visit us over Christmas. Gran has her own room here, as she did at the Landing, though so far she has only stayed over here a few nights. I look forward to inviting my friends here as well-- they too, by my parents' permission, have standing invitations to visit during the school break. The season promises (or threatens) to be colder and harsher than the last few years, but we still have plenty of cut trees, driftwood, and lumber left over from the construction and so we'll be cosy and warm.
...
As of the first week of Advent (following the fourth Sunday before Christmas, for those who don't follow such things), we put up the candles in our windows. At the Landing, our old house in Lewes, there is an electric outlet under each window, the top receptacle of which is operated by a separate switch down stairs (actually two, one for in front and one for in back, since the house is visible from the Ferry). The 'candles' are actually slender white tubes fitted with small bulbs, gently clamped on the windowsill so the bulb is in the middle of the lower pane of glass. The bulbs are fluorescent and flicker slightly which adds to the effect. Down stairs in the basement the switches are on a timer to turn them on just before dusk and off sometime around 1.30 or 2.00 am.
At Poplar Landing there are 14 lights in front and 15 in back, including the third-floor dormers, the glass porch centre windows and the two casements of the window over the kitchen sink. That's a lot of twinkling candlelight! I remember when I was littler I disliked having that bulb in my room lit all night and insisted that we turn it off. Naturally Jessy, taking my example, wanted hers turned off then too. Daddy rigged up a pretty good shield out of bent metal to hold the light close to the glass and it made each room dark enough to sleep in. But I have to smile at how my parents never even considered turning off the lights or just omitting them from the bedroom windows. It was a tradition, and if I have to say so that house was (and still is) such a showplace in the neighbourhood that there is a definitely element of pride that my parents took had at decorating the house in this modest, solemn and elegant way.
At Terncote here in Virginia we have the same system. Daddy actually had other lights made exactly like the ones he made himself for the Landing and the window sills and electrical outlets are set up the same way. (In fact the period-authentic sash windows are identical-- one thing in common that this 1720s-style towered manor house and that 1740s plantation house share.) But though we have many more windows in each facade here, we do not have them in the ends (the towers), because Lisa's room is in front up stairs, and it would look odd with the first-floor windows lit and the ones above them not. So the candle lights are in only each inside wing, that's three windows each side, each floor, and in the two above the front door. We do not have them in back here (though the specially-switched outlets are there) because there isn't really anyone out there to see them in this season. All of the windows with candle lights in front are in galleries, not rooms, except the three in the big parlour (which is under my room). So those can be left on whilst people are trying to sleep.
When we were saying good-bye to the friends who came for my birthday, I got to look at the house from in front after dark. I must say it looks very well. From the road you can see straight up the lane at the two wall sconces outside the front doors and all 14 lights. This is because the masonry wall is cut down for the width of the front entrance wing and the inside wings and our sapling trees along the drive are not yet big enough to block the view. The yellowish colour of the stucco glows warm in the low light and makes the place look welcoming even on a raw, cold night. Above the end towers are dark (except for Lisa's window as she got ready for bed the night I looked) and the centre one is almost invisible if the sky is dark enough. It's definitely not the way it looked for our Hallowe'en party!
I will say here that Daddy and Mother are no believers in illuminating the facade with floodlights like so many people are. As Daddy says that's only foolish as a security measure. The correct thing is to have the view from the house unobstructed-- that means shining light AWAY from the house, not ON it. Our emergency and motion-sensing lights shine down at the ground along the foundation, not at the windows, so we are able to see what's going on out there.
The other Advent tradition that we have always observed is that we NEVER decorate for Christmas, nor even buy, nor even shop for, a tree, till after church on the fourth Sunday. In some years this has been on Christmas Eve itself-- yet Daddy will not relent. Christmas is Christmas and Advent is Advent. Then we have a pleasant, relaxing evening of setting up and trimming our tree. I asked Mother where we would put it this year. At the Landing it always went in the big parlour-- because we had only that and the keeping room (family room), and we were more likely to have a fire in the keeping room which would have only dried out a live tree. She thinks it will be easiest to set it up in our little square parlour on the first floor of the centre tower, straight back from the entrance foyer. We will rearrange the small sofa there and maybe put away one chair, and we will hang the stockings over that fireplace which doesn't get used often (only once that I know of, so far) anyway. So we will have the big parlour for entertaining.
We don't know how much entertaining we will do this season. We are four and a half hours away from our next nearest relations (my uncle and his family in southern New Jersey) but everyone has been issued a standing invitation and Gran has promised to come visit us over Christmas. Gran has her own room here, as she did at the Landing, though so far she has only stayed over here a few nights. I look forward to inviting my friends here as well-- they too, by my parents' permission, have standing invitations to visit during the school break. The season promises (or threatens) to be colder and harsher than the last few years, but we still have plenty of cut trees, driftwood, and lumber left over from the construction and so we'll be cosy and warm.
...
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