Sunday, 14 March 2010
Recently I have been having a series of compelling conversations with a somewhat-mature (okay, older) man about a daydream we both-- quite innocently-- discovered we share. I do not remember which of us brought it up first, but it's gone on some three nights or so now and finally I mentioned the gist of it to my parents.
Of course anyone knows I do not chat about anything inappropriate. It's not that kind of daydream! But I do often indulge people's imaginations, like to say, 'If you could live anywhere, where would you live?' --or 'If you could do any job, what would you do?' --and then, of course, ask why. And that evolves into a sensible, interesting discussion. (It's certainly more respectable than asking, 'If you could touch me anywhere, where would you touch me first?' --right? I mean I really don't need to know THAT kind of daydream from anyone!)
The daydream we discussed was about finding a private tropical island somewhere and then what one's life would be like if he or she had the opportunity to live there. I learned that a woman's fantasy about that is very different from a man's. For one thing, the man dreams of having some shack that requires no maintenance at all, a lazy man's retreat, if you will. Most men would probably like to avoid all forms of work, like home maintenance, personal hygiene, laundry, shaving, and so on. Also, a man would probably like to go fishing all day long, whenever he wants to. And, of course, he dreams of having some beautiful young (female) thing there to share it all with.
As a woman I dream of having some small but beautiful house for which I don't have to do all the work (that's the fantasy part). I don't like fishing and would rather eat fruit, or cultivate an orchard like we had at Lewes, and just pick whatever I want to eat whenever I want to eat it. I think that walking, swimming, and climbing trees along with a mostly-fruit diet would probably keep me strong and slender. I'm pretty sure I would shave at least as much as I do now, and I cannot abide my hair at all once it's been a day or two since a good shampooing. But as far as laundry is concerned I think I would be pretty happy with not having to worry about any of it (beyond what nature makes absolutely necessary for a week or so each month of course).
And just maybe, if he were the right choice, I would like to have a special someone to share it all with.
My friend online actually looked up 'Islands for sale' under Google and discovered a whole web site from some estate agents in Belize advertising about a dozen whole islands as well as parcels on slightly-larger islands. The islands are mostly small-- under 15 acres. Once I saw a few pictures of them I was infatuated and browsed them all till very late one night. I decided upon Harbour Cay. It's five acres and is for sale at $550,000. Honestly.
Harbour Cay has a natural lagoon, sheltered on almost four sides, about 6 or 7 feet deep. The whole island is to the north of the lagoon with only a narrow spit south of it, and the entrance to the west-southwest makes it perfect for sheltering a yacht in a hurricane. The interior is lovely, all soft green grass populated by small trees that have grown back since the last time some dreamer cleared it and left off the project. The advert says it might need filling to be high enough above the tide levels, but if one were to dredge the lagoon to about 8 or 9 feet, to accommodate a decent sailboat, there would be enough from that to fill a building site quite well.
I studied it (for at least an hour into the night) and decided where I would put my house. Now, my house would not be a low-maintenance shack. It would be an elegant little low-maintenance pirate's retreat, the kind of place an 18th-century sea captain would retire to when he gave up his ship to settle down, full of Oriental carpets, tile fireplaces, wooden panelling, mahogany furniture, and all (much like a small version of this house, and simpler). It would be of block, like this house is, with the local sand providing about half the concrete ingredients. It would have a three- or four-storey tower surrounded by lower wings, two bedrooms on the second floor, a ballroom, dining room and small parlour on the first, a semidetached kitchen and pantry, and then at the end of a long cloister bridge, a guest room. The first storey would be about 6 feet off the ground in case of flooding. Across the lagoon there is a knob of land jutting out where I would have another tower, only two storeys, with a guest room on the bottom floor, really just as a kind of landmark or lookout point as though to protect the harbour entrance.
That made me think of protection. Maybe, being a woman, I care more about this than some people might. But I can't imagine the southwestern Caribbean to be profoundly free of crime. I started thinking about black-powder guns mounted on the parapets of the towers, and then thought maybe just a good World War II machine gun. The problem would be in getting actual ammunition. I don't suppose World War II machine-gun bullets are very easy to come by even in Belize. This is why I fall back on my typically 18th-century idea of black powder. I just don't know how or where I would like to store it, since it's very volatile. (Daddy does not keep all of his in the house, only what will fit in the small safety niche he has in the kitchen fireplace stack. That's actually the traditional way of storing it at home.)
And then came the fateful storm on Saturday, when the power went out for five and a half hours, and (by candlelight, appropriately) I looked into Daddy's now-dated catalogue from that place in Ohio where all the Amish shop that's full of appliances that don't use electricity. (We got our kitchen stove there.) And I got to thinking, that my version of the tropical-island house has too many bathrooms and toilets that wouldn't really work. I mean-- where do you get water pressure to flush if the whole island is flat? And why do you need private bathrooms if the whole island is private? Wouldn't just one composting toilet, maybe in the basement, be good enough?
Anyway I did make the mistake of mentioning this idea to my dad, who immediately poured over the whole website and concluded, as I did, that Harbour Cay is the very plum of the whole selection, and for the same reasons I said. We then started drawing plans on his computer using the home-design programme he has (he designed this house with it). We ironed out a lot of the issues I had and came up with more problems and then solved those too. And then, of course, Daddy had to mention it at dinner.
'Five hundred thousand dollars,' he said. 'Empty lots in South Jersey cost more than that.'
Mother only shook her head, smiling. 'They're improved, dear,' she said. 'Where do we get water? --or power?'
'We make it,' he said, 'or we do without.' Then he and I ranted on about our ideas so far. This got Jessy and Lisa and even JJ all enthused about it and we all went on and on and on till someone, I don't remember which of us, realised that this wasn't such a kooky plan but could actually work. I mean-- Daddy has offshore savings accounts, and, as he said, Belize is as good a place as any to invest. It's politically stable, it's actually enjoying a pretty good investment market, it's got a temperate climate, it's mostly improved with power, cable TV, and Internet, it's full of North American necessities like natural gas, gasoline, fresh water supplies and sewage systems, everyone speaks English and the US dollar is taken everywhere. And Harbour Cay is hardly remote, only about five miles offshore and therefore within sight of a mainland boatyard. Theoretically we lived farther offshore than that when we lived at Long Beach Island!
Daddy said it would be cool to fly down and have a look at it. After all, if they know who he is, it's sure that they'll consider him seriously as a potential customer. Lots of retired rock musicians buy properties in the Caribbean. He could probably even get a good deal on it.
Then Mother said, 'Well, you can't blame me if I think it's a little nuts to just pack up and leave for some tropical island on a second's notice like this.'
We all sighed and looked at her. Mother is as much a daydreamer as anyone, but she's also too intelligent to give over all sense, you know. Daddy sighed too. 'I suppose you're right,' he said quietly.
'I mean,' Mother said, not quite looking up yet, 'I've put away all my swimsuits. You'd have to give me about twenty minutes.'
When she looked up we were all staring back at her with our mouths hanging open. I still have shivers in my spine from it.
...
Showing posts with label father. Show all posts
Showing posts with label father. Show all posts
15 March 2010
Older men and young women
Thursday, 11 March 2010
The regularly-scheduled meeting of our girls' social club convened in our basement, as the last few have done. We have been holding them-- believe it or not-- in the TV theatre room, because it works pretty well as a small auditorium. There are couches on the platform across the back to seat about seven girls (if they all truly like each other) and chairs and a couch in front to see five more. The club officers (that would be me, Jessy, Paulette and Rita) sit in chairs in front of the TV screen (which does NOT get turned on till the whole meeting's actual agenda gets accomplished, honest. And no, we don't use PowerPoint). The club numbers 14 now, plus Lisa when she thinks to wander in. No-one thinks she is a bother and she is rarely conspicuous-- unless someone grabs her to sit on a lap, as happened tonight.
We did not, however, quite get to finish the whole agenda because of someone else making an interruption. And though the interruption came from the far end of the house, it was more than anyone wanted to ignore for long.
Daddy has recently started jamming with a couple of guys from the neighbouring area, two brothers about his age who like a lot of the same '80s music. They set up the guitar amps and a PA system in the 'work room' that connects Mother's exercise room to the garages and meet there about once a week just to drink beer and run through their repertoire. They have no drummer and usually just use an electronic rhythm box, but often they are singing or telling jokes to each other through the PA and it's kind of hard to not hear them.
I really do not know why they did not observe the five or six extra cars in the front yard tonight. Maybe they did.
Anyway Lisa jumped off Sally's lap and went running in the moment she recognised one of Daddy's old songs, and, of course, being Lisa, she left the door open. Obviously she left the door to the exercise room open too, for next we were inundated with super-distortion guitar sounds and someone (one if his friends, not Daddy) wailing out lyrics. The girls all giggled, then one or two got up to look out the door, and by 8.30 the meeting was pretty much over. I got up, planted my hands on my hips, and stomped down through the house to scold you-know-who (I don't mean Lisa). I got down there and Daddy was just sitting down to the drums-- oh, right, now he has drums in there! --to play. The three men (and Lisa) all looked up and I stood my ground. I was still in the navy-blue tights and plaid club skirt and grey club sweatshirt and still with my hands on my hips. I must have looked like a very angry Sunday-school teacher.
'Oh, hello,' Daddy said, from behind the drums. Then-- drum crash, cymbals, cymbals, cymbals, cymbals....
'"Oh, hello"?' I said. 'Did you happen to know there's a meeting going on the other end of this house?'
The men laughed. Daddy looked a little sheepish. 'Oh, but I thought the doors were closed.'
Then I turned and scowled at Lisa. She immediately got a little red and scurried round behind the drums-- where, of course, Daddy put her on her lap. Before I could get out another word she was tapping cymbals.
Someone looked up and when I turned round there were five or six faces crowding in the door behind me. This was not a good omen.
And 'omen' is what I call it, for it did portend the next hour and a half, namely that first I, and then Jessy, and then a few other girls, all had to-- really were told to, but it amounts to the same thing-- sing along to whatever the men played. I personally sang lead on 'Favorite Waste of Time' and, ironically, 'Favorite Mistake'. Jessy sang with Daddy on 'Stop Dragging My Heart Around'. Lisa sang 'Stop In The Name of Love' (yes, she knows it-- we were all 'raised on the classics' as Daddy says. And she has the volume for it). Some other people sang some other songs. Mother came down with iced tea and, of course, little JJ, whose room is two storeys above the exercise room and so he couldn't get to sleep either. Mother would not be prevailed upon to sing-- not in front of Daddy's friends anyway. But when JJ had been taken back up stairs after falling asleep in the party room down the hall and Lisa was being tucked into bed, Mother descended to the big parlour and sat at the piano in the near-darkness. I heard her tender touch from the kitchen and for fear of disturbing her only lurked just the other side of the open doorway in the small parlour.
It was one of Daddy's songs (I shall not say which), the ballad he had given A Certain British Ingenue during his sojourn in London. It's Mother's half-sister's favourite work if his. But who knew Mother knew it so well?
I listened whilst she played it, with no hesitation or mistakes, and my eyes went wet. Only Daddy's footfalls as he came up to the kitchen, about to find her there himself, made me tiptoe out to the front hall and dash up stairs.
...
The regularly-scheduled meeting of our girls' social club convened in our basement, as the last few have done. We have been holding them-- believe it or not-- in the TV theatre room, because it works pretty well as a small auditorium. There are couches on the platform across the back to seat about seven girls (if they all truly like each other) and chairs and a couch in front to see five more. The club officers (that would be me, Jessy, Paulette and Rita) sit in chairs in front of the TV screen (which does NOT get turned on till the whole meeting's actual agenda gets accomplished, honest. And no, we don't use PowerPoint). The club numbers 14 now, plus Lisa when she thinks to wander in. No-one thinks she is a bother and she is rarely conspicuous-- unless someone grabs her to sit on a lap, as happened tonight.
We did not, however, quite get to finish the whole agenda because of someone else making an interruption. And though the interruption came from the far end of the house, it was more than anyone wanted to ignore for long.
Daddy has recently started jamming with a couple of guys from the neighbouring area, two brothers about his age who like a lot of the same '80s music. They set up the guitar amps and a PA system in the 'work room' that connects Mother's exercise room to the garages and meet there about once a week just to drink beer and run through their repertoire. They have no drummer and usually just use an electronic rhythm box, but often they are singing or telling jokes to each other through the PA and it's kind of hard to not hear them.
I really do not know why they did not observe the five or six extra cars in the front yard tonight. Maybe they did.
Anyway Lisa jumped off Sally's lap and went running in the moment she recognised one of Daddy's old songs, and, of course, being Lisa, she left the door open. Obviously she left the door to the exercise room open too, for next we were inundated with super-distortion guitar sounds and someone (one if his friends, not Daddy) wailing out lyrics. The girls all giggled, then one or two got up to look out the door, and by 8.30 the meeting was pretty much over. I got up, planted my hands on my hips, and stomped down through the house to scold you-know-who (I don't mean Lisa). I got down there and Daddy was just sitting down to the drums-- oh, right, now he has drums in there! --to play. The three men (and Lisa) all looked up and I stood my ground. I was still in the navy-blue tights and plaid club skirt and grey club sweatshirt and still with my hands on my hips. I must have looked like a very angry Sunday-school teacher.
'Oh, hello,' Daddy said, from behind the drums. Then-- drum crash, cymbals, cymbals, cymbals, cymbals....
'"Oh, hello"?' I said. 'Did you happen to know there's a meeting going on the other end of this house?'
The men laughed. Daddy looked a little sheepish. 'Oh, but I thought the doors were closed.'
Then I turned and scowled at Lisa. She immediately got a little red and scurried round behind the drums-- where, of course, Daddy put her on her lap. Before I could get out another word she was tapping cymbals.
Someone looked up and when I turned round there were five or six faces crowding in the door behind me. This was not a good omen.
And 'omen' is what I call it, for it did portend the next hour and a half, namely that first I, and then Jessy, and then a few other girls, all had to-- really were told to, but it amounts to the same thing-- sing along to whatever the men played. I personally sang lead on 'Favorite Waste of Time' and, ironically, 'Favorite Mistake'. Jessy sang with Daddy on 'Stop Dragging My Heart Around'. Lisa sang 'Stop In The Name of Love' (yes, she knows it-- we were all 'raised on the classics' as Daddy says. And she has the volume for it). Some other people sang some other songs. Mother came down with iced tea and, of course, little JJ, whose room is two storeys above the exercise room and so he couldn't get to sleep either. Mother would not be prevailed upon to sing-- not in front of Daddy's friends anyway. But when JJ had been taken back up stairs after falling asleep in the party room down the hall and Lisa was being tucked into bed, Mother descended to the big parlour and sat at the piano in the near-darkness. I heard her tender touch from the kitchen and for fear of disturbing her only lurked just the other side of the open doorway in the small parlour.
It was one of Daddy's songs (I shall not say which), the ballad he had given A Certain British Ingenue during his sojourn in London. It's Mother's half-sister's favourite work if his. But who knew Mother knew it so well?
I listened whilst she played it, with no hesitation or mistakes, and my eyes went wet. Only Daddy's footfalls as he came up to the kitchen, about to find her there himself, made me tiptoe out to the front hall and dash up stairs.
...
Go-go, GAGA
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Following last week's meeting with the school administration staff, a schedule has been set up for the GAGA 'executive board' to meet regularly with the principal, or assistant principal(s), to discuss current issues of harassment as perceived by students. First, of course, we had to name an 'executive board'. Most of the girls named me to it. I refused, of course, but then saw their point, that as one of the eldest students involved in this (my birthday being in December) I should have some sense of wisdom to impart here. Also, whether they like me or not (there is ample evidence on both sides), the assistant principals both know me and how to deal with me. So, I accepted.
The rest of the weekly delegation shall consist of Becky as recording secretary, one of Jessy's classmates acting sort of as 'vice president" (though I certainly throw off the suggestion that I am therefore the 'president' --I prefer 'paralegal' --ha!) and two floating delegates who are to be chosen by agenda at the preceding GAGA meeting (which is on Thursday afternoon) so that all members of GAGA have the opportunity to participate at least partly in the process. You'd be surprised how many of these girls don't really want to be 'on the front lines' in these administration meetings. Then you might be surprised about which girls actually do want to be.
Becky has developed into an intimidating force for righteousness. Even though she only takes notes, she has had a lot to contribute at the preparatory meetings we've had over the last week. This afternoon on her way down the gallery to the meeting she was swinging her clipboard under her arm and whistling 'When Johnny Goes Off To War Again' --which in itself is kind of scary, but, of course, also funny. She is thrilled to be part of a process by which she can leave a legacy on people who might otherwise never have noticed her. And, of course, she is very responsible towards that legacy and I am sure it will only be positive.
My sister Jessy couldn't really care less. She sat in on last week's meeting and because she chose to not sit in on this week's she kind of initiated the floating-delegate concept. This is good, though, because it does give other girls a chance and because, in her softhearted, egalitarian way, she refuses to allow there to be any kind of hierarchy in the GAGA movement. All girls are equal-- they should not have to defer to others' voices all the time. And she is right about that, and that's really the whole point of GAGA in the first place.
Today's meeting was to establish certain terms, definitions of things like 'harassment' as opposed to 'bullying' (one is inadvertent and careless, and one is deliberate and nasty) and a process for registering complaints, especially anything that happens between meetings. We did all agree that nothing a student considers either 'bullying' or 'harassment' should be shelved till some arbitrary time like the next GAGA meeting. It has to be stopped at the very moment it happens. ('What's right to be done can never be done too soon' --Jane Austen.) The APs assured us they would handle such issues just like any other behaviour problem, with the same degree of timeliness and severity as they've always considered appropriate.
It's important to remember that our complaint is not that our APs act too slowly or too leniently. They don't. Our complaint is that they do not recognise that some of the age-old policies of this school are in themselves the problems we girls face. This is a quiet, rural, working-class area, and people just aren't attuned to racism or sexism the way Jessy and I are used to. And you might think it's not a problem, but being a girl I have seen how some girls feel absolutely belittled by what everyone else, even female teachers, thinks is just 'the way things are'. So we hope to do is show how people-- everyone, from the superintendent on down to the newest freshmen-- can demonstrate sincere respect for each other and therefore receive more respect for themselves as well. And, of course, part of that means treating a young lady like a young lady.
The really sad part of all this is that Jessy and I, and, by extension, our parents, have been accused of being 'liberal Northerners' and even by some people we might have thought had more respect and even admiration for our differences. So let me make this perfectly clear-- I may have been born about 11 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line, but I have spent all my life (but the two years in England) living south of it. And my father is about as liberal as Margaret Thatcher. In spite of being in the rock-and-roll music business, he did grow up under the 1980s concept of 'compassionate conservatism' and really does live the ideal of 'noblesse oblige' --the absolute requirement that the good people must do the right thing. If you knew him personally, you would quickly put aside the longish hair and the ripped jeans and the (sometimes shockingly) up-to-date vocabulary and especially the super-distortion guitar volume, and you would see a real, bona-fide, dyed-in-the-wool old-fashioned Christian gentleman, someone George Washington or Robert Walpole would definitely respect. And Mother, 23 years younger than he, is no less the traditional country lady with her homemade pies and gentle Old-World sweetness and her devout love for the divinity of Jesus-- and her impassioned ferocity whenever she sees anything even slightly unfair. So as compassionate conservatives, we donate liberally (of our own free will and to whom we choose), keep the neighbourhood roads and greenways clean, conserve energy as well as money, refrain from polluting from the lawn, pool, rubbish, or boats, and most especially practise respect towards everyone else, whether 'less fortunate' or not, regardless of race, heritage, native language, or gender identity. The good people do the right thing-- and no so-called liberal ought to disagree with that, whichever way we happen to vote.
In this way the GAGA movement reminds me of President Lincoln, who insisted that 'noblesse oblige' rule the day--
'Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'
If it takes another four years of GAGA girls standing up for respect and sitting down arguing with administrators till all girls in this county feel comfortable and safe and respected at school and in their community, as they always ought to have felt over all of the last 200 years, like ladies whose reputations are as important to them as a man's pride, then none of that time and effort is wasted. Lincoln would have agreed-- in fact, his Second Inaugural Address shows that he did.
And, for what it's worth, Lincoln was not a liberal! [wink]
...
Following last week's meeting with the school administration staff, a schedule has been set up for the GAGA 'executive board' to meet regularly with the principal, or assistant principal(s), to discuss current issues of harassment as perceived by students. First, of course, we had to name an 'executive board'. Most of the girls named me to it. I refused, of course, but then saw their point, that as one of the eldest students involved in this (my birthday being in December) I should have some sense of wisdom to impart here. Also, whether they like me or not (there is ample evidence on both sides), the assistant principals both know me and how to deal with me. So, I accepted.
The rest of the weekly delegation shall consist of Becky as recording secretary, one of Jessy's classmates acting sort of as 'vice president" (though I certainly throw off the suggestion that I am therefore the 'president' --I prefer 'paralegal' --ha!) and two floating delegates who are to be chosen by agenda at the preceding GAGA meeting (which is on Thursday afternoon) so that all members of GAGA have the opportunity to participate at least partly in the process. You'd be surprised how many of these girls don't really want to be 'on the front lines' in these administration meetings. Then you might be surprised about which girls actually do want to be.
Becky has developed into an intimidating force for righteousness. Even though she only takes notes, she has had a lot to contribute at the preparatory meetings we've had over the last week. This afternoon on her way down the gallery to the meeting she was swinging her clipboard under her arm and whistling 'When Johnny Goes Off To War Again' --which in itself is kind of scary, but, of course, also funny. She is thrilled to be part of a process by which she can leave a legacy on people who might otherwise never have noticed her. And, of course, she is very responsible towards that legacy and I am sure it will only be positive.
My sister Jessy couldn't really care less. She sat in on last week's meeting and because she chose to not sit in on this week's she kind of initiated the floating-delegate concept. This is good, though, because it does give other girls a chance and because, in her softhearted, egalitarian way, she refuses to allow there to be any kind of hierarchy in the GAGA movement. All girls are equal-- they should not have to defer to others' voices all the time. And she is right about that, and that's really the whole point of GAGA in the first place.
Today's meeting was to establish certain terms, definitions of things like 'harassment' as opposed to 'bullying' (one is inadvertent and careless, and one is deliberate and nasty) and a process for registering complaints, especially anything that happens between meetings. We did all agree that nothing a student considers either 'bullying' or 'harassment' should be shelved till some arbitrary time like the next GAGA meeting. It has to be stopped at the very moment it happens. ('What's right to be done can never be done too soon' --Jane Austen.) The APs assured us they would handle such issues just like any other behaviour problem, with the same degree of timeliness and severity as they've always considered appropriate.
It's important to remember that our complaint is not that our APs act too slowly or too leniently. They don't. Our complaint is that they do not recognise that some of the age-old policies of this school are in themselves the problems we girls face. This is a quiet, rural, working-class area, and people just aren't attuned to racism or sexism the way Jessy and I are used to. And you might think it's not a problem, but being a girl I have seen how some girls feel absolutely belittled by what everyone else, even female teachers, thinks is just 'the way things are'. So we hope to do is show how people-- everyone, from the superintendent on down to the newest freshmen-- can demonstrate sincere respect for each other and therefore receive more respect for themselves as well. And, of course, part of that means treating a young lady like a young lady.
The really sad part of all this is that Jessy and I, and, by extension, our parents, have been accused of being 'liberal Northerners' and even by some people we might have thought had more respect and even admiration for our differences. So let me make this perfectly clear-- I may have been born about 11 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line, but I have spent all my life (but the two years in England) living south of it. And my father is about as liberal as Margaret Thatcher. In spite of being in the rock-and-roll music business, he did grow up under the 1980s concept of 'compassionate conservatism' and really does live the ideal of 'noblesse oblige' --the absolute requirement that the good people must do the right thing. If you knew him personally, you would quickly put aside the longish hair and the ripped jeans and the (sometimes shockingly) up-to-date vocabulary and especially the super-distortion guitar volume, and you would see a real, bona-fide, dyed-in-the-wool old-fashioned Christian gentleman, someone George Washington or Robert Walpole would definitely respect. And Mother, 23 years younger than he, is no less the traditional country lady with her homemade pies and gentle Old-World sweetness and her devout love for the divinity of Jesus-- and her impassioned ferocity whenever she sees anything even slightly unfair. So as compassionate conservatives, we donate liberally (of our own free will and to whom we choose), keep the neighbourhood roads and greenways clean, conserve energy as well as money, refrain from polluting from the lawn, pool, rubbish, or boats, and most especially practise respect towards everyone else, whether 'less fortunate' or not, regardless of race, heritage, native language, or gender identity. The good people do the right thing-- and no so-called liberal ought to disagree with that, whichever way we happen to vote.
In this way the GAGA movement reminds me of President Lincoln, who insisted that 'noblesse oblige' rule the day--
'Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'
If it takes another four years of GAGA girls standing up for respect and sitting down arguing with administrators till all girls in this county feel comfortable and safe and respected at school and in their community, as they always ought to have felt over all of the last 200 years, like ladies whose reputations are as important to them as a man's pride, then none of that time and effort is wasted. Lincoln would have agreed-- in fact, his Second Inaugural Address shows that he did.
And, for what it's worth, Lincoln was not a liberal! [wink]
...
02 February 2010
Emergent occasions
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
We got a phone call very early this morning that my uncle had had a heart attack and had been flown to Philadelphia for surgery. This immediately upset my father to the point of insisting that he drive up there straight away. Little JJ was not even out of bed (and he is an early riser) and Daddy and Mother were packing things and getting ready to go. I stood there stuffing a toasted muffin into my mouth whilst they scurried round with suitcases and so on.
Of course Mother would not let him go alone. They would be taking JJ with them, so that he could stay with our other uncle's family in southern New Jersey for a few days whilst Mother and Daddy went on to Philadelphia. We were fortunate to have had Roger here the last few days-- working on the new (old) Buick project with Daddy, and so they would have him and the dark-green car for the ride. But it meant that I would be left to see little Lisa off to school for the next few mornings, and to arrive late each day myself (as her school starts an hour after mine, so I will miss first and half of second period by the time I get there. But, it cannot be helped).
Before they left this morning we did get another phone call and the news that our uncle had probably not had a true heart attack but that he has significant arterial blockage and so will need some bypass surgery. Other than this (significant but manageable) problem he is doing well. Daddy was relieved. But still they would leave at 9.00.
Roger drove Jessy in so she would not be late today and then would return for Daddy and Mother and little JJ who was getting dressed though crankily. I made a breakfast for Lisa and helped her get dressed and drove her in myself, a few minutes late, in the Regal and then got myself over to the high school. Of course we get out earlier so I was able, with Jessy, to drive over there and pick up Lisa when she got done. As of right now we are three girls on our own in the castle for probably the rest of the week.
Our uncle is out of his surgery and doing well-- they expect him to be much improved by week's end when they will release him. I rang my aunt in southern New Jersey and got a few updates and got to talk with JJ too. He is having fun with his cousins and does not fully understand the serious issues of his visit there. This is probably best.
I spoke with Daddy too and though he is relieved he is still concerned. 'It could happen to any of us,' he said. 'You always think it'll be the other guy, but it could be you, you know.'
'But you are very healthy,' I told him, 'and you work out and walk and ride the bike. And you don't smoke.'
Our uncle has always smoked cigarettes. It is a source of concern through the whole family. 'Yeah, but I could be better. And they're saying it's not due to the cigarettes.'
'What else would it be due to?' I asked (yes, incorrect grammar and all).
'I don't know. I told him as soon as he gets better we're all starting a fitness routine.'
Daddy already has a fitness routine. As casual as he has always been about other things (diet, paying bills, wearing ironed clothes) he has always enjoyed just doing physical things like walking, running, riding stationary and two-wheeled bicycles and of course swimming. He and I have a little competition on the rowing machine down stairs, trying to improve our 2k times. I am down to about 9:17-- and, by the way, have lost about 2 lbs of holiday-season fat.
Our other uncle tends to be a bit more rigorous in his fitness than either of his elder brothers and we worry perhaps less about his health than anyone's. Tonight they are both at Gran's house farther up in New Jersey and one aunt stays with her husband in hospital and the other is minding four little kids at the farmhouse. All the signs look good and so I have relaxed my own concern and left it all to God. I think sometimes this is all we can do.
For supper Jessy and Lisa (meaning Jessy, with Lisa sitting on the counter asking questions and talking incessantly) made a frozen entree of roast beef with fried mashed potatoes left over from Gran's birthday dinner and cranberry sauce and (mostly cold) broccoli. I planned for tomorrow to have macaroni-and-cheese casserole with the leftover chicken in it. I think we will not starve soon.
Lisa did ask to sleep in with me tonight but as of now she is in Lisa's bed, probably asleep if I care to go look whilst Jessy bangs away on the computer on FaceBook and Twitter and wherever else she needs to broadcast her news to her friends. We made sure Lisa brushed her teeth early because we kind of figured she would end up like this. I will leave my door open on the gallery side anyway in case she comes looking for me at two AM.
Oh, and I wrote a note for the school saying I will be missing first period all week because of getting my little sister to school and of course the teacher and the guidance people were fine with that-- British literature? --my major? --are you kidding? There is another section of the same class during fifth and they asked if I wanted to just sit in on that and miss lunch, but I said no way. Anyway I have the textbook, like I haven't read all that stuff already. And I can write my paper from home.
So we will be all right for the short term. Thanks be to God.
...
We got a phone call very early this morning that my uncle had had a heart attack and had been flown to Philadelphia for surgery. This immediately upset my father to the point of insisting that he drive up there straight away. Little JJ was not even out of bed (and he is an early riser) and Daddy and Mother were packing things and getting ready to go. I stood there stuffing a toasted muffin into my mouth whilst they scurried round with suitcases and so on.
Of course Mother would not let him go alone. They would be taking JJ with them, so that he could stay with our other uncle's family in southern New Jersey for a few days whilst Mother and Daddy went on to Philadelphia. We were fortunate to have had Roger here the last few days-- working on the new (old) Buick project with Daddy, and so they would have him and the dark-green car for the ride. But it meant that I would be left to see little Lisa off to school for the next few mornings, and to arrive late each day myself (as her school starts an hour after mine, so I will miss first and half of second period by the time I get there. But, it cannot be helped).
Before they left this morning we did get another phone call and the news that our uncle had probably not had a true heart attack but that he has significant arterial blockage and so will need some bypass surgery. Other than this (significant but manageable) problem he is doing well. Daddy was relieved. But still they would leave at 9.00.
Roger drove Jessy in so she would not be late today and then would return for Daddy and Mother and little JJ who was getting dressed though crankily. I made a breakfast for Lisa and helped her get dressed and drove her in myself, a few minutes late, in the Regal and then got myself over to the high school. Of course we get out earlier so I was able, with Jessy, to drive over there and pick up Lisa when she got done. As of right now we are three girls on our own in the castle for probably the rest of the week.
Our uncle is out of his surgery and doing well-- they expect him to be much improved by week's end when they will release him. I rang my aunt in southern New Jersey and got a few updates and got to talk with JJ too. He is having fun with his cousins and does not fully understand the serious issues of his visit there. This is probably best.
I spoke with Daddy too and though he is relieved he is still concerned. 'It could happen to any of us,' he said. 'You always think it'll be the other guy, but it could be you, you know.'
'But you are very healthy,' I told him, 'and you work out and walk and ride the bike. And you don't smoke.'
Our uncle has always smoked cigarettes. It is a source of concern through the whole family. 'Yeah, but I could be better. And they're saying it's not due to the cigarettes.'
'What else would it be due to?' I asked (yes, incorrect grammar and all).
'I don't know. I told him as soon as he gets better we're all starting a fitness routine.'
Daddy already has a fitness routine. As casual as he has always been about other things (diet, paying bills, wearing ironed clothes) he has always enjoyed just doing physical things like walking, running, riding stationary and two-wheeled bicycles and of course swimming. He and I have a little competition on the rowing machine down stairs, trying to improve our 2k times. I am down to about 9:17-- and, by the way, have lost about 2 lbs of holiday-season fat.
Our other uncle tends to be a bit more rigorous in his fitness than either of his elder brothers and we worry perhaps less about his health than anyone's. Tonight they are both at Gran's house farther up in New Jersey and one aunt stays with her husband in hospital and the other is minding four little kids at the farmhouse. All the signs look good and so I have relaxed my own concern and left it all to God. I think sometimes this is all we can do.
For supper Jessy and Lisa (meaning Jessy, with Lisa sitting on the counter asking questions and talking incessantly) made a frozen entree of roast beef with fried mashed potatoes left over from Gran's birthday dinner and cranberry sauce and (mostly cold) broccoli. I planned for tomorrow to have macaroni-and-cheese casserole with the leftover chicken in it. I think we will not starve soon.
Lisa did ask to sleep in with me tonight but as of now she is in Lisa's bed, probably asleep if I care to go look whilst Jessy bangs away on the computer on FaceBook and Twitter and wherever else she needs to broadcast her news to her friends. We made sure Lisa brushed her teeth early because we kind of figured she would end up like this. I will leave my door open on the gallery side anyway in case she comes looking for me at two AM.
Oh, and I wrote a note for the school saying I will be missing first period all week because of getting my little sister to school and of course the teacher and the guidance people were fine with that-- British literature? --my major? --are you kidding? There is another section of the same class during fifth and they asked if I wanted to just sit in on that and miss lunch, but I said no way. Anyway I have the textbook, like I haven't read all that stuff already. And I can write my paper from home.
So we will be all right for the short term. Thanks be to God.
...
22 January 2010
A welcome phone call
Friday 22 January 2010
My mobile rang in the car on the way home. 'Janine?' came a long-familiar voice.
I gasped. 'Shirley?'
It was my friend from HOH ringing from England. 'Hi hun!' she giggled.
'My God! You are phoning me! What on earth--?'
'I couldn't wait till FaceBook, love!' she squealed. 'Did you get your letter?'
'My--' Then I gasped.
'It's not what you think,' she said. 'But as soon as I got mine I rang them this afternoon to ask after you.'
'Me!' I was still in shock that she was ringing me from Norwich.
'They're not emailing it,' she said. 'They've posted them all. Yours will be a few days then. I hope I shan't spoil it by telling you--'
'Tell me!' By now Jessy was staring at me in the car.
'Well, love.... It's Pemb.'
I held my breath. Pembroke College. 'Honestly,' I said quietly, to be sure.
'Yes, love. I even checked-- we're in Foundress Court. The icky building, but it's where they put first-years, you know.'
I was shivering. 'I can't believe it....'
Shirley giggled. 'Was I wrong to ring you then?'
'No! Oh, no... love. I love it. I just....'
'I'm sorry it's not St John's,' she said, 'but it was our backup and they seem very eager. I did speak with the director a little about you....'
'Oh, Lord. What did he say?'
She giggled. 'Oh, plenty. And that we must do a duet at the piano, for the Michaelmas bop. He says it'll be expected of you. I'm afraid your father's reputation does precede you.' And she giggled again.
'So....' I drew a breath. 'We're really in.'
'Yes, love. We're really in.'
I shivered all over, right there in the car. I mean I felt like I was about to wet myself. 'We're in,' I whispered, and Jessy's eyes went wide. 'We're in.'
'I suggested they ring you, since you'll be getting your notice last of all,' Shirley said. 'Unless they've already rung your family today. It's eight here now; I reckon they're closed now.'
'Yes, of course,' I said. 'Well, look, love,' I said then, 'let me text you on FaceBook as soon as I get home. We're in the car.'
'The big green car?'
'Um... yes.'
'You must promise me a ride in that car, for when I come,' she said.
'That you may be assured of,' I smiled. 'And anything else you want. You are... a dear, sweet girl.' And I blotted my eye.
'I adore you, Janine. Oo, I can't wait till this spring!'
She is coming to visit over her spring break. We've already planned it. 'I can't either. Give your sister a hug for me.'
'And Jessy for me,' she said.
I reached over and caught Jessy's hand in the car. 'Absolutely.'
Of course there was an expected reaction at home, involving lots of squealing and cheering-- Daddy had got the call and already knew. 'Now comes the fun part,' he said-- meaning the sending of cheques for housing, postadmissions testing, books, tuition, and of course air fare-- but we will probably all go over in late August just to see me settled there. This is a dream come true for me and I cannot sit still even now.
The princess of Terncote is accepted at Cambridge. Eeek!
...
My mobile rang in the car on the way home. 'Janine?' came a long-familiar voice.
I gasped. 'Shirley?'
It was my friend from HOH ringing from England. 'Hi hun!' she giggled.
'My God! You are phoning me! What on earth--?'
'I couldn't wait till FaceBook, love!' she squealed. 'Did you get your letter?'
'My--' Then I gasped.
'It's not what you think,' she said. 'But as soon as I got mine I rang them this afternoon to ask after you.'
'Me!' I was still in shock that she was ringing me from Norwich.
'They're not emailing it,' she said. 'They've posted them all. Yours will be a few days then. I hope I shan't spoil it by telling you--'
'Tell me!' By now Jessy was staring at me in the car.
'Well, love.... It's Pemb.'
I held my breath. Pembroke College. 'Honestly,' I said quietly, to be sure.
'Yes, love. I even checked-- we're in Foundress Court. The icky building, but it's where they put first-years, you know.'
I was shivering. 'I can't believe it....'
Shirley giggled. 'Was I wrong to ring you then?'
'No! Oh, no... love. I love it. I just....'
'I'm sorry it's not St John's,' she said, 'but it was our backup and they seem very eager. I did speak with the director a little about you....'
'Oh, Lord. What did he say?'
She giggled. 'Oh, plenty. And that we must do a duet at the piano, for the Michaelmas bop. He says it'll be expected of you. I'm afraid your father's reputation does precede you.' And she giggled again.
'So....' I drew a breath. 'We're really in.'
'Yes, love. We're really in.'
I shivered all over, right there in the car. I mean I felt like I was about to wet myself. 'We're in,' I whispered, and Jessy's eyes went wide. 'We're in.'
'I suggested they ring you, since you'll be getting your notice last of all,' Shirley said. 'Unless they've already rung your family today. It's eight here now; I reckon they're closed now.'
'Yes, of course,' I said. 'Well, look, love,' I said then, 'let me text you on FaceBook as soon as I get home. We're in the car.'
'The big green car?'
'Um... yes.'
'You must promise me a ride in that car, for when I come,' she said.
'That you may be assured of,' I smiled. 'And anything else you want. You are... a dear, sweet girl.' And I blotted my eye.
'I adore you, Janine. Oo, I can't wait till this spring!'
She is coming to visit over her spring break. We've already planned it. 'I can't either. Give your sister a hug for me.'
'And Jessy for me,' she said.
I reached over and caught Jessy's hand in the car. 'Absolutely.'
Of course there was an expected reaction at home, involving lots of squealing and cheering-- Daddy had got the call and already knew. 'Now comes the fun part,' he said-- meaning the sending of cheques for housing, postadmissions testing, books, tuition, and of course air fare-- but we will probably all go over in late August just to see me settled there. This is a dream come true for me and I cannot sit still even now.
The princess of Terncote is accepted at Cambridge. Eeek!
...
07 January 2010
The bed-bug
Thursday morning, 7 January 2010
'Janiiiiine!' came the urgent whisper.
I squeezed my eyes shut and turned onto my back in the bed. As I turned back onto my side I found the strength to open them, and there she was in her shin-length flannel nightgown, hair mussed, pink fluffy bunny held up to her chest, staring straight at me in the near-blackness of the room, two feet away. Instantly my eyes went wide-open. 'What's wrong?' I asked, worried.
'I'm collllld!'
I made half a face. 'You're cold?'
She nodded, urgently, as though this were an issue of the gravest importance.
'What's wrong with your bed? Go get yourself tucked in.'
'I can't! The covers are all twisted.'
I sighed and rolled onto my back again, turning my head to see the clock. It glowed, faintly-- 2.10 a.m. I sighed more and turned back to her, lifting the covers to let her in. She seemed to brighten immediately and snuggled in on her side in front of me as I shifted backwards a little to the other pillow. Then I pulled over the flannel sheet, cotton comforter, heavy bedspread and thick microfleece blanket, tucking it all in round her knees and elbows and leaving my arm round her hips, actually holding her lower hip to keep her close to me. It was actually very cosy, with her soft flannel bottom nestled into my lap and her head right under my chin.
She sighed, happy to be warm and to have got her way, and I batted some of her hair aside and got myself comfortable again against the colder pillow. I let out another sigh, the deep sigh of getting comfortable again, and she mimicked me, like that game we sometimes play-- one of us will exhale like that and the other will copy it, and it evolves into this teasing contest of holding our breath and seeing who has to inhale or exhale first, and there are plenty of tricks to fool the other one into breathing in too much or not holding onto enough air long enough, you know. But I would not play with her tonight. In another minute-- I think-- we were asleep.
...
'Janiiiiine!'
This time I didn't move. I just opened my eyes.
Lisa lay facing me, her nose about eight inches from my own. 'What's that music?'
It was the Brandenburg No.6 playing quietly on my iPod which goes off as my alarm-- not the first movement... so that meant it was barely 6.05. I sighed. 'Are you still here?'
She made a cute little smile at me. 'My room is still cold,' she whispered.
'Were you up?'
'No.' She held the bunny up under her chin, like she does, right between us. I kissed the bunny's face and peeled back the covers behind myself to back out, leaving her in the warm middle of the bed. With Bach still playing I pulled out some black underwear and a black t-shirt and went round to my bathroom.
Halfway through my shower she tapped lightly on the door and then opened it a bit. 'Can I come in?' she called, in a scarcely-louder version of the same urgent whisper she uses in the middle of the night.
'You don't have to get up,' I told her from behind the curtain.
'I need the potty!' she said, half giggling, and went round the bath to it. When she was done she knocked on the vinyl shower curtain. 'When are you coming out?'
'When I'm done, of course. Go get yourself back into the bed and stay warm.'
'Okay!' she said happily, for she knew we both expected her to get back into MY bed.
She was asleep when I came out. I pulled on the black leggings and the oversize oatmeal sweater I had left on the chair for last night, and Jessy came in, in her own charcoal-grey leggings and heavy blue-and-black chequered flannie, as I was pulling up my socks. 'Hey. What's happened to--'
'Shhh,' I said, and pointed. Jessy saw the little lump under all my covers and nodded. 'Two a.m.,' I told her.
Jessy smiled. 'Are you just going to let her stay there?' she whispered.
I shrugged. 'Why not?'
'Well, at least she got warm. Her door was open. All hers are on the floor.'
I turned off the iPod to let her sleep and Jessy and I went down stairs. I suppose I should have done homework last night, but there was Epiphany Mass and the vicar's party afterwards and we had all got home quite late. I would have to get myself out of this predicament somehow.
In the kitchen there was a lovely little fire going. Mother took a kettle off the fire and poured out for tea. I informed her that Lisa had come into my bed last night so she'd know where to find her, and Jessy and I stood at the counter to share a toasted English muffin with strawberry jam with our tea. Daddy came down the side stairs and appeared in the doorway. 'Do you have anything important to do today?' he wondered.
I looked over at him. 'Well, school,' I said.
Jessy looked up. 'I have a test in history,' she said.
Daddy pointed at her. 'You'll go for that,' he said, and then he turned and pointed at me, like to tease. 'And you?'
I recognised my opportunity. 'Nothing I can't make up,' I said at once. 'Although I didn't get much sleep last night, seeing as the bed-bug came into my bed at about two o'clock.'
He smiled. 'Did she? Well, you can sleep in the car. David and Kurt are coming round to put down vocals and I could use you on the board... probably in the booth too.'
I nodded and set the books bag down in a chair. So! --I wouldn't need that today! 'But of course. When do we go?'
'We'll drop this one on the way out, and then leave. Roger's driving us. It might not be all day. It's supposed to snow tonight.'
Jessy scowled at me. 'I have a test in history, and you have this?'
I shrugged. 'You wouldn't want to have to take it tomorrow.'
'We might not even have school tomorrow,' she said.
'And then you'd have to take it Monday.'
'It won't be a big snow,' Daddy said, and went out to the side stairs again.
Just as we were gathering in the hall, little Lisa came hurrying down the front stairs. Without a word she ran up and threw her arms round me. I hugged her back. 'Thank you for keeping me warm,' she said sweetly.
I bent down and kissed her. 'You kept me warm too!'
She giggled. 'Can I keep you warm tonight too?'
'I think what we will do is get your bed all in order, and all your covers tucked-in, and then you and that silly rabbit will be just fine together.'
She smiled at me. 'Okay,' she said, and leaned up and kissed me too. 'I love you.'
'And I love you, good angel.'
'Snug as two bugs in a rug,' Jessy said to me as we descended outside to the car with Daddy. 'She really is a good little snuggler.'
I smiled. 'Like you were,' I reminded her.
'Hey! Still am.'
'I'm sure.'
...
'Janiiiiine!' came the urgent whisper.
I squeezed my eyes shut and turned onto my back in the bed. As I turned back onto my side I found the strength to open them, and there she was in her shin-length flannel nightgown, hair mussed, pink fluffy bunny held up to her chest, staring straight at me in the near-blackness of the room, two feet away. Instantly my eyes went wide-open. 'What's wrong?' I asked, worried.
'I'm collllld!'
I made half a face. 'You're cold?'
She nodded, urgently, as though this were an issue of the gravest importance.
'What's wrong with your bed? Go get yourself tucked in.'
'I can't! The covers are all twisted.'
I sighed and rolled onto my back again, turning my head to see the clock. It glowed, faintly-- 2.10 a.m. I sighed more and turned back to her, lifting the covers to let her in. She seemed to brighten immediately and snuggled in on her side in front of me as I shifted backwards a little to the other pillow. Then I pulled over the flannel sheet, cotton comforter, heavy bedspread and thick microfleece blanket, tucking it all in round her knees and elbows and leaving my arm round her hips, actually holding her lower hip to keep her close to me. It was actually very cosy, with her soft flannel bottom nestled into my lap and her head right under my chin.
She sighed, happy to be warm and to have got her way, and I batted some of her hair aside and got myself comfortable again against the colder pillow. I let out another sigh, the deep sigh of getting comfortable again, and she mimicked me, like that game we sometimes play-- one of us will exhale like that and the other will copy it, and it evolves into this teasing contest of holding our breath and seeing who has to inhale or exhale first, and there are plenty of tricks to fool the other one into breathing in too much or not holding onto enough air long enough, you know. But I would not play with her tonight. In another minute-- I think-- we were asleep.
...
'Janiiiiine!'
This time I didn't move. I just opened my eyes.
Lisa lay facing me, her nose about eight inches from my own. 'What's that music?'
It was the Brandenburg No.6 playing quietly on my iPod which goes off as my alarm-- not the first movement... so that meant it was barely 6.05. I sighed. 'Are you still here?'
She made a cute little smile at me. 'My room is still cold,' she whispered.
'Were you up?'
'No.' She held the bunny up under her chin, like she does, right between us. I kissed the bunny's face and peeled back the covers behind myself to back out, leaving her in the warm middle of the bed. With Bach still playing I pulled out some black underwear and a black t-shirt and went round to my bathroom.
Halfway through my shower she tapped lightly on the door and then opened it a bit. 'Can I come in?' she called, in a scarcely-louder version of the same urgent whisper she uses in the middle of the night.
'You don't have to get up,' I told her from behind the curtain.
'I need the potty!' she said, half giggling, and went round the bath to it. When she was done she knocked on the vinyl shower curtain. 'When are you coming out?'
'When I'm done, of course. Go get yourself back into the bed and stay warm.'
'Okay!' she said happily, for she knew we both expected her to get back into MY bed.
She was asleep when I came out. I pulled on the black leggings and the oversize oatmeal sweater I had left on the chair for last night, and Jessy came in, in her own charcoal-grey leggings and heavy blue-and-black chequered flannie, as I was pulling up my socks. 'Hey. What's happened to--'
'Shhh,' I said, and pointed. Jessy saw the little lump under all my covers and nodded. 'Two a.m.,' I told her.
Jessy smiled. 'Are you just going to let her stay there?' she whispered.
I shrugged. 'Why not?'
'Well, at least she got warm. Her door was open. All hers are on the floor.'
I turned off the iPod to let her sleep and Jessy and I went down stairs. I suppose I should have done homework last night, but there was Epiphany Mass and the vicar's party afterwards and we had all got home quite late. I would have to get myself out of this predicament somehow.
In the kitchen there was a lovely little fire going. Mother took a kettle off the fire and poured out for tea. I informed her that Lisa had come into my bed last night so she'd know where to find her, and Jessy and I stood at the counter to share a toasted English muffin with strawberry jam with our tea. Daddy came down the side stairs and appeared in the doorway. 'Do you have anything important to do today?' he wondered.
I looked over at him. 'Well, school,' I said.
Jessy looked up. 'I have a test in history,' she said.
Daddy pointed at her. 'You'll go for that,' he said, and then he turned and pointed at me, like to tease. 'And you?'
I recognised my opportunity. 'Nothing I can't make up,' I said at once. 'Although I didn't get much sleep last night, seeing as the bed-bug came into my bed at about two o'clock.'
He smiled. 'Did she? Well, you can sleep in the car. David and Kurt are coming round to put down vocals and I could use you on the board... probably in the booth too.'
I nodded and set the books bag down in a chair. So! --I wouldn't need that today! 'But of course. When do we go?'
'We'll drop this one on the way out, and then leave. Roger's driving us. It might not be all day. It's supposed to snow tonight.'
Jessy scowled at me. 'I have a test in history, and you have this?'
I shrugged. 'You wouldn't want to have to take it tomorrow.'
'We might not even have school tomorrow,' she said.
'And then you'd have to take it Monday.'
'It won't be a big snow,' Daddy said, and went out to the side stairs again.
Just as we were gathering in the hall, little Lisa came hurrying down the front stairs. Without a word she ran up and threw her arms round me. I hugged her back. 'Thank you for keeping me warm,' she said sweetly.
I bent down and kissed her. 'You kept me warm too!'
She giggled. 'Can I keep you warm tonight too?'
'I think what we will do is get your bed all in order, and all your covers tucked-in, and then you and that silly rabbit will be just fine together.'
She smiled at me. 'Okay,' she said, and leaned up and kissed me too. 'I love you.'
'And I love you, good angel.'
'Snug as two bugs in a rug,' Jessy said to me as we descended outside to the car with Daddy. 'She really is a good little snuggler.'
I smiled. 'Like you were,' I reminded her.
'Hey! Still am.'
'I'm sure.'
...
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.
...
20 December 2009
She's got legs
Wednesday 16 December 2009
Here in the US the girls have a fashion trend of wearing extremely tight spandex-blend tights with no feet which they call 'leggings'. Of course at HOH we all wore school uniform and never had to deal with this. For one thing it's much, much colder in England during the winter and plain spandex-cotton blend would feel about like wearing underwear or a swimsuit round your whole body in winter, which would hardly be warm at all. In England we all wore skinny jeans or just regular jeans when we were not at school, and that was really only practical.
(All right, I am a priss and wore skirts and winterweight tights a lot too.)
I have been wearing skirts and winterweight tights most often since about the middle of November. This is my usual costume for school (and shopping and church and really anywhere else). The tights are not too warm for indoors and do stop a lot of draught outside-- they are really about the equivalent of wearing close-fitting jeans, plus they have the added benefit of being supremely comfortable with plenty of 'give' and almost feel like they're not on at all, except they're warm. I get most of mine from Land's-End. I have lots of colours, mostly dark ones.
Jessy and some of her friends were shopping at Lynnhaven recently and she came back with what they are calling 'leggings' here. I always thought 'leggings' were just leg-warmers, you know, with no top and no feet, just for your legs, like in ballet. Apparently they are either really close-fitting pants or really heavy tights. Girls at school have been wearing them for a while. Anyway she bought some for me as well.
A few weeks ago I heard a girl in the school corridor say, 'I am so tired of not wearing pants.' And I looked, and she had cute black leggings on. So apparently you do not consider leggings 'pants'. They are a thing apart. Most girls wear them with some kind of long shirt that covers up most of the top of the leggings, at least to the very bottom of their bottom. It's considered very bad form to show more than that-- for example you must never show the TOP of the leggings. This is probably because most girls pull them up drastically high on their tummies to keep them up and keep them tight all round everywhere else. I can see the logic of this. Jessy's so slender that only the very smallest size will do for her.
And of course, there is the issue of what to wear under them. Of course I always wear panties under my tights-- this isn't ballet or gymnastics and the tights I wear are more spandex and microfibre and less cotton, so they're not exactly the most sanitary or comfortable thing to wear without, you know. (I really should give less information!) But leggings are mostly cotton, or at least more breathable fabric, because they're meant to take some amount of abrasion, like jeans, and not be fragile, like tights. After all, you have to sit on them. Jessy modelled hers in her room for me and then said, 'Janine, I think we may have actually found the elusive logical reason for thong panties.'
I wrinkled my nose at her. 'Ugh. No.'
She turned, clapped her hands to her own bottom, and looked in the mirror. 'Well,' she said, 'these aren't too bad....'
The black leggings, pulled up on her tummy, revealed very little of her panty lines. I stood there staring at the mirror too. 'Well, if you had flat seams and flat hems....'
'Yes,' Jessy said. Like me she abhors thong panties. She is even more of a priss than I am. 'Well,' she said, 'I do have some somewhere.'
I thought a little more. 'Well,' I finally said, 'you shouldn't be showing that much of them anyway. I mean you're going to wear something over that. A pulli, or a shirt, or jacket or something.'
'A jacket would be cute,' she said.
'Sure it would. Or just a nice long flannie.'
'Yes,' she said.
'A girl's got to have standards, love,' I said. 'Just because the pants fit doesn't mean you have to show all you've got.'
She turned and smiled at me. 'I know. You're right. You're always right about these things.'
I made a smile at her too. 'I'm going to wear mine with the blue-and-white flannie.'
She giggled and then spun round, in her bare feet-- for she had nothing else on but the black leggings and the almost-invisible panties-- and flung open her wardrobe to find a shirt. I went back to my room and chose carefully from my wardrobe for what I would wear in the morning.
Of course you have to wear socks with them too, because they stop before your ankles. I prefer to pull up socks outside them, because I find the ends of the leggings as undesirable as the top. They're really just a skintight body covering between two more important fashion statements-- your shoes and socks and your top. I think that once you embrace that concept, you will choose leggings that are a pretty neutral colour and that don't take away from what else you are wearing. I mean, they're not supposed to be the fashion statement themselves, right? They're just... there.
The first morning I came down stairs wearing leggings, my dad was there to say good-bye to us. I had on the deep-navy leggings and a pale-green-and-white flannie with a white sash tied round my middle as a belt and white socks with my Reeboks. (For some reason only sneakers look good with leggings.) And I had my hair all pushed up with a little white Scünci. 'What's this,' Daddy asked, 'the pixie look?'
'Pixie look?' I wondered. Then I remembered when he had been a performer in the '80s and had been somewhat famous (if I may use that word) for wearing dance tights with long shirts and thick socks (or leg warmers) and ballet shoes, like some sort of modern-day Robin Hood or Romeo Montague, and he had got known for being cute like that, you know. Of course when my dad was in his 20s he was deplorably cute. I suppose there really is nothing new after all.
'It's cute,' Daddy said. 'Just remember to take your pepper spray.'
I blushed. 'Daddy....'
So for the last five or six days at school I have been wearing leggings, not skirts. I admit they are warmer than tights, though not quite as warm as jeans but they are cuter than jeans. I tend to wear a long shirt with curvy tails, which is acceptable. One time last week I wore a polartec pulli, which I had to keep tugging down-- standing up it was fine, long enough to hook over the bottom of my bottom, you know, but whenever I sat down I had to really tuck it underneath myself and then of course it rode up in my lap. But that was manageable and anyway it's a cute look... though I prefer something I have to worry about a little less, you know.
Then, of course, there are the boys who stare at you. Well, I don't mean stare in the way that half the males in the known universe stare at girls. I mean they practically examine you to see what they can see of what they shouldn't be seeing. Leggings tend to invite that-- maybe that's one of the cases in which we girls bring it on ourselves. It is a cute look, and if it's worn properly it's perfectly modest. I mean we all have legs and bottoms and everyone knows that. But to see guys staring up stairways at you, bending down in the class to see up your legs, dropping pencils in the corridors-- it's just horrid. The leggings aren't quite THAT revealing! Maybe they're just hoping to see if they can tell if we're wearing thong panties-- though I can't possibly imagine what importance that knowledge could ever have to some loser guy's life. Why would it matter? I mean, for a real lady, it shouldn't matter what kind of underwear she's wearing because it should never be shown in any way. So I could have on any sort of underwear at all-- even none-- and you wouldn't be able to tell and you wouldn't ever find out. So why should anyone else care?
Even though I'm NOT wearing thong panties with my leggings anyway!
...
Here in the US the girls have a fashion trend of wearing extremely tight spandex-blend tights with no feet which they call 'leggings'. Of course at HOH we all wore school uniform and never had to deal with this. For one thing it's much, much colder in England during the winter and plain spandex-cotton blend would feel about like wearing underwear or a swimsuit round your whole body in winter, which would hardly be warm at all. In England we all wore skinny jeans or just regular jeans when we were not at school, and that was really only practical.
(All right, I am a priss and wore skirts and winterweight tights a lot too.)
I have been wearing skirts and winterweight tights most often since about the middle of November. This is my usual costume for school (and shopping and church and really anywhere else). The tights are not too warm for indoors and do stop a lot of draught outside-- they are really about the equivalent of wearing close-fitting jeans, plus they have the added benefit of being supremely comfortable with plenty of 'give' and almost feel like they're not on at all, except they're warm. I get most of mine from Land's-End. I have lots of colours, mostly dark ones.
Jessy and some of her friends were shopping at Lynnhaven recently and she came back with what they are calling 'leggings' here. I always thought 'leggings' were just leg-warmers, you know, with no top and no feet, just for your legs, like in ballet. Apparently they are either really close-fitting pants or really heavy tights. Girls at school have been wearing them for a while. Anyway she bought some for me as well.
A few weeks ago I heard a girl in the school corridor say, 'I am so tired of not wearing pants.' And I looked, and she had cute black leggings on. So apparently you do not consider leggings 'pants'. They are a thing apart. Most girls wear them with some kind of long shirt that covers up most of the top of the leggings, at least to the very bottom of their bottom. It's considered very bad form to show more than that-- for example you must never show the TOP of the leggings. This is probably because most girls pull them up drastically high on their tummies to keep them up and keep them tight all round everywhere else. I can see the logic of this. Jessy's so slender that only the very smallest size will do for her.
And of course, there is the issue of what to wear under them. Of course I always wear panties under my tights-- this isn't ballet or gymnastics and the tights I wear are more spandex and microfibre and less cotton, so they're not exactly the most sanitary or comfortable thing to wear without, you know. (I really should give less information!) But leggings are mostly cotton, or at least more breathable fabric, because they're meant to take some amount of abrasion, like jeans, and not be fragile, like tights. After all, you have to sit on them. Jessy modelled hers in her room for me and then said, 'Janine, I think we may have actually found the elusive logical reason for thong panties.'
I wrinkled my nose at her. 'Ugh. No.'
She turned, clapped her hands to her own bottom, and looked in the mirror. 'Well,' she said, 'these aren't too bad....'
The black leggings, pulled up on her tummy, revealed very little of her panty lines. I stood there staring at the mirror too. 'Well, if you had flat seams and flat hems....'
'Yes,' Jessy said. Like me she abhors thong panties. She is even more of a priss than I am. 'Well,' she said, 'I do have some somewhere.'
I thought a little more. 'Well,' I finally said, 'you shouldn't be showing that much of them anyway. I mean you're going to wear something over that. A pulli, or a shirt, or jacket or something.'
'A jacket would be cute,' she said.
'Sure it would. Or just a nice long flannie.'
'Yes,' she said.
'A girl's got to have standards, love,' I said. 'Just because the pants fit doesn't mean you have to show all you've got.'
She turned and smiled at me. 'I know. You're right. You're always right about these things.'
I made a smile at her too. 'I'm going to wear mine with the blue-and-white flannie.'
She giggled and then spun round, in her bare feet-- for she had nothing else on but the black leggings and the almost-invisible panties-- and flung open her wardrobe to find a shirt. I went back to my room and chose carefully from my wardrobe for what I would wear in the morning.
Of course you have to wear socks with them too, because they stop before your ankles. I prefer to pull up socks outside them, because I find the ends of the leggings as undesirable as the top. They're really just a skintight body covering between two more important fashion statements-- your shoes and socks and your top. I think that once you embrace that concept, you will choose leggings that are a pretty neutral colour and that don't take away from what else you are wearing. I mean, they're not supposed to be the fashion statement themselves, right? They're just... there.
The first morning I came down stairs wearing leggings, my dad was there to say good-bye to us. I had on the deep-navy leggings and a pale-green-and-white flannie with a white sash tied round my middle as a belt and white socks with my Reeboks. (For some reason only sneakers look good with leggings.) And I had my hair all pushed up with a little white Scünci. 'What's this,' Daddy asked, 'the pixie look?'
'Pixie look?' I wondered. Then I remembered when he had been a performer in the '80s and had been somewhat famous (if I may use that word) for wearing dance tights with long shirts and thick socks (or leg warmers) and ballet shoes, like some sort of modern-day Robin Hood or Romeo Montague, and he had got known for being cute like that, you know. Of course when my dad was in his 20s he was deplorably cute. I suppose there really is nothing new after all.
'It's cute,' Daddy said. 'Just remember to take your pepper spray.'
I blushed. 'Daddy....'
So for the last five or six days at school I have been wearing leggings, not skirts. I admit they are warmer than tights, though not quite as warm as jeans but they are cuter than jeans. I tend to wear a long shirt with curvy tails, which is acceptable. One time last week I wore a polartec pulli, which I had to keep tugging down-- standing up it was fine, long enough to hook over the bottom of my bottom, you know, but whenever I sat down I had to really tuck it underneath myself and then of course it rode up in my lap. But that was manageable and anyway it's a cute look... though I prefer something I have to worry about a little less, you know.
Then, of course, there are the boys who stare at you. Well, I don't mean stare in the way that half the males in the known universe stare at girls. I mean they practically examine you to see what they can see of what they shouldn't be seeing. Leggings tend to invite that-- maybe that's one of the cases in which we girls bring it on ourselves. It is a cute look, and if it's worn properly it's perfectly modest. I mean we all have legs and bottoms and everyone knows that. But to see guys staring up stairways at you, bending down in the class to see up your legs, dropping pencils in the corridors-- it's just horrid. The leggings aren't quite THAT revealing! Maybe they're just hoping to see if they can tell if we're wearing thong panties-- though I can't possibly imagine what importance that knowledge could ever have to some loser guy's life. Why would it matter? I mean, for a real lady, it shouldn't matter what kind of underwear she's wearing because it should never be shown in any way. So I could have on any sort of underwear at all-- even none-- and you wouldn't be able to tell and you wouldn't ever find out. So why should anyone else care?
Even though I'm NOT wearing thong panties with my leggings anyway!
...
03 December 2009
Thanksgiving weekend 2009
Our Thanksgiving weekend was very nice. As we have done in the past we drove up to the beach house in New Jersey, which is closer to family. Jessy and I left directly from school, with Roger driving us in the green Cadillac, and we met Lisa, who had have a day, and Mother and Daddy and JJ when we got there. On Thursday morning I helped in the kitchen whilst Jessy played with the little ones. Unfortunately the dining room here is only small, so we set up the other table in the kitchen for the six of us, Daddy's uncle and aunt, Daddy's cousin and his girlfriend, and Gran. Our two uncles were to go elsewhere for the evening-- though we did have a Skype conversation with our cousins after the meal.
Friday was crisp and clear, though I had a bit of a headache from overindulging in turkey and wine and stayed in bed for about half of it. Gran and Daddy's uncle and aunt came back, and with them, our uncle and aunt and cousins, for it was Daddy's birthday. Gran, who was staying with us, made the world's best chocolate cake which Daddy says is the best present he could ever ask for. My headache was gone and I indulged in two pieces (not very big ones though!).
On Saturday the day was a little warmer. Jessy and I had a walk on the beach and then went across town to visit some of our friends from this past summer. At their house we watched 'Twilight' on DVD (since none of us have seen 'New Moon' yet) and had crisps and pizza and soda. When it came time to walk home we were socked that the temperature had dropt about 20 degrees. Jessy and I attempted to brave it and finally ended up running full-tilt against the freezing-cold headwind and even that much exercise was not enough to make us sweat. I swear I went on shivering for half an hour after that.
And then on Sunday we had church on the Island, drove home, and arrived in time for an early-evening supper. It was somewhat warmer and I went online telling people I was in my usual bedtime ensemble, panties and socks and a sweatshirt (sometimes a jersey). Of course I had a nice fire in my room here and plenty of blankets.
Tonight (Monday) has been Mother's birthday. I made a cake using one of my mother's recipes which Mother loves, Jessy and Daddy made dinner (linguine and fish with pesto sauce) and we all sang the song and all. Later Mother's mother rang from Australia (I can never tell what time it is there! --sixteen hours one way or the other).
And, of course, school resumes....
Friday was crisp and clear, though I had a bit of a headache from overindulging in turkey and wine and stayed in bed for about half of it. Gran and Daddy's uncle and aunt came back, and with them, our uncle and aunt and cousins, for it was Daddy's birthday. Gran, who was staying with us, made the world's best chocolate cake which Daddy says is the best present he could ever ask for. My headache was gone and I indulged in two pieces (not very big ones though!).
On Saturday the day was a little warmer. Jessy and I had a walk on the beach and then went across town to visit some of our friends from this past summer. At their house we watched 'Twilight' on DVD (since none of us have seen 'New Moon' yet) and had crisps and pizza and soda. When it came time to walk home we were socked that the temperature had dropt about 20 degrees. Jessy and I attempted to brave it and finally ended up running full-tilt against the freezing-cold headwind and even that much exercise was not enough to make us sweat. I swear I went on shivering for half an hour after that.
And then on Sunday we had church on the Island, drove home, and arrived in time for an early-evening supper. It was somewhat warmer and I went online telling people I was in my usual bedtime ensemble, panties and socks and a sweatshirt (sometimes a jersey). Of course I had a nice fire in my room here and plenty of blankets.
Tonight (Monday) has been Mother's birthday. I made a cake using one of my mother's recipes which Mother loves, Jessy and Daddy made dinner (linguine and fish with pesto sauce) and we all sang the song and all. Later Mother's mother rang from Australia (I can never tell what time it is there! --sixteen hours one way or the other).
And, of course, school resumes....
22 November 2009
My dad still likes to drag-race
Saturday 21 November 2009
Depending on what car he is driving, my dad likes to drive fast. I don't mean he drives ridiculously fast, like it's unsafe. He just has a habit of going a little more than the posted limits. He says a higher average speed keeps up his times... as though he's racing.
Actually at one time my dad did get a sports-car-racing licence. It has long since elapsed, since he no longer logs any time on race tracks (unlike my uncle who races frequently up in Pennsylvania). But he always says it is one of two reasons why he looks at every driving situation like he would look at a race. He has these sayings, like 'Lane selection is key' and 'Check six for challenges', things like that. The whole purpose of driving for him is to get where you're going as quickly and safely as possible. He says, 'A good race is when you arrive at the finish line alive. A great race is when they can use the car again someday.' The other reason is that he grew up learning to drive when they had the 55-MPH speed limits, which truckers hated because it meant they could not legally average a mile a minute. So like the truckers my dad learned to push the limits a little-- which, yes, kind of made the 55-MPH speed limit sort of ineffective.
We were out this morning in the '65 Wildcat convertible, going up to the music store in Salisbury and on the way home, trying to get back for my all-call at 6.00, we found ourselves in the middle lane needing to get over to the right. And on our right was a 1968 Dodge Charger being driven by a girl-- young woman-- not much older than me, about 21 maybe, with bushy curly dark hair and pretty dark eyes-- Italian-looking, very pretty. I wondered how she had got such an exquisite old car-- it was deep maroon with a black top such as they had then and gleaming chrome wheels, very pretty like herself actually. Maybe it was her father's and he had let her drive it-- unlike my dad who won't let me close to the driver's seat on any of his! Anyway she had a stick shift-- we could hear her going through gears. I sort of envied her.
Daddy ran up through second upon leaving the traffic light. There were cars everywhere-- the mild weather had brought people out for shopping and just plain cruising. And a lot were classic cars-- part of the reason Daddy wanted to take the Wildcat on this trip, you know. And maybe it was why this lucky girl had stolen a chance to drive her daddy's Dodge Charger. She was accelerating mildly out of the traffic light and we pulled even with her. Daddy needed to get over to her lane for an upcoming turn and wound second out a little higher. That big Buick engine ran up and the exhaust growled. The girl, whom I could see now was not alone in the car, heard it and accelerated a little harder too. Daddy laughed.
'I think we're going to miss our exit,' he said, and leaned harder on the throttle.
The girl did too. The nose of the Charger pulled even with the nose of the Buick. Suddenly her whole car rocked back-- she had floored it.
Daddy floored it. 'Uh-oh,' he said, 'there goes the six-pack.'
'The what?' But I was shoved back into the seat with the acceleration then. Both of us roared off up the highway, fifty, sixty-- Daddy shifted to third-- seventy, nearly eighty when Daddy put it into fourth and let the girl go. The big Buick settled in at about 80 for a few moments and then he backed off. Fortunately the girl had made her point for she settled in just ahead of us as we glided into the right lane for the next exit. I knew that under any other circumstances Daddy would have run any guy about his age through 100 or so, whatever the two cars would take. But he was feeling a little protective of the girl in the Charger-- she was only some good man's daughter, as he likes to say, and it would look awful if he were the one who incited her to some horrific accident. If she would not know any better, he would, you know.
Nevertheless he went in to the exit ramp with the big wide tyres whining a little and proceeded to drive us home a little faster the whole way. I know he thinks fondly on the days when he had his first 1965 Wildcat and used to cruise the Boulevard on Long Beach Island with it all summer, attracting girls and the envy of boys as well. I know he got this second Wildcat and had it painted like the first just to relive, even a little, those days of teenaged glory. And I know he thinks Jessy and I find it a little immature, and he probably thinks Mother does too-- but, the thing is, we don't. We find it just one more part of him. You see, my dad has always been 'cool', not in the immature, irrational way like some young guys imagine they are 'cool'. My dad has always been sensible, rational, intelligent, you know, but there is a small slice of him that likes to look good in all situations. In the '80s he was noted as a fashion plate in rock-and-roll. He had the hair and the clothes and the guitars and was seen in places the average rocker was not-- Sotheby's auction, the National Trust sites, art museums and classical-music concerts and at the ballet. He paid attention to his widowed mother and participated in family functions. He hosted (conservative) politicians at his big place up in Menlo Park and gave to charities. He was seen with a number of young women, in New Jersey, New York, and London, where he tended to work in those days. And he made people's careers, not merely as a 'fashion plate' but as someone whose attention and concern-- almost as a father's-- made the difference between a young star making a stupid decision and a young star moving forward like a responsible professional. I never mention names-- not even my own here-- but if I were to, you would be surprised at who he has known and what he has done for them.
In many ways my dad is my hero. There are a few things about him I would not like to see in anyone who would become my husband-- he is very sloppy about clothes, procrastinates little things because of working on big things, spends too much time by himself and overtalks literature, music, art and philosophy, all of which my dear stepmother, who once adored him as a favourite teacher, has found out about him since she married him. But in most important things he is my role model for a man. He is naturally happy, optimistic, encouraging. He is artistic, creative, intelligent-- really a genius. He is warm, thoughtful, generous, affectionate. He is careful and logical, not prone to making stupid decisions for selfish reasons. And he is truly concerned about the welfare of the world, from the healthcare plan to the first club show of the newest starving future singing star.
And he drives the coolest metallic-blue 1965 Buick Wildcat convertible known to mankind, a car that will probably become mine some day (or J.J.'s) because it would never, ever be sold by Daddy or anyone else, if only because it reminds us all of what Daddy is-- a man who sees no great period of time between when he was 20 and when he was 50, because in all that time he has only ever been the same person through and through. He has matured and grown older, but he has remained the same in what really matters.
People have asked me if this is some weird Oedipus complex, and I can only say I don't know. First I have to ask, is there any reason my dad should NOT be my role model? Is there any reason I should not want to keep him company on a ride to the music store? Is there any reason why I should not ask him my most personal questions and then take his advice? Is there any reason why I should not admire him?
And then those people will ask me, if he were not my father, would I want to date him?
Well, maybe if he were still 20. [ha]
...
Depending on what car he is driving, my dad likes to drive fast. I don't mean he drives ridiculously fast, like it's unsafe. He just has a habit of going a little more than the posted limits. He says a higher average speed keeps up his times... as though he's racing.
Actually at one time my dad did get a sports-car-racing licence. It has long since elapsed, since he no longer logs any time on race tracks (unlike my uncle who races frequently up in Pennsylvania). But he always says it is one of two reasons why he looks at every driving situation like he would look at a race. He has these sayings, like 'Lane selection is key' and 'Check six for challenges', things like that. The whole purpose of driving for him is to get where you're going as quickly and safely as possible. He says, 'A good race is when you arrive at the finish line alive. A great race is when they can use the car again someday.' The other reason is that he grew up learning to drive when they had the 55-MPH speed limits, which truckers hated because it meant they could not legally average a mile a minute. So like the truckers my dad learned to push the limits a little-- which, yes, kind of made the 55-MPH speed limit sort of ineffective.
We were out this morning in the '65 Wildcat convertible, going up to the music store in Salisbury and on the way home, trying to get back for my all-call at 6.00, we found ourselves in the middle lane needing to get over to the right. And on our right was a 1968 Dodge Charger being driven by a girl-- young woman-- not much older than me, about 21 maybe, with bushy curly dark hair and pretty dark eyes-- Italian-looking, very pretty. I wondered how she had got such an exquisite old car-- it was deep maroon with a black top such as they had then and gleaming chrome wheels, very pretty like herself actually. Maybe it was her father's and he had let her drive it-- unlike my dad who won't let me close to the driver's seat on any of his! Anyway she had a stick shift-- we could hear her going through gears. I sort of envied her.
Daddy ran up through second upon leaving the traffic light. There were cars everywhere-- the mild weather had brought people out for shopping and just plain cruising. And a lot were classic cars-- part of the reason Daddy wanted to take the Wildcat on this trip, you know. And maybe it was why this lucky girl had stolen a chance to drive her daddy's Dodge Charger. She was accelerating mildly out of the traffic light and we pulled even with her. Daddy needed to get over to her lane for an upcoming turn and wound second out a little higher. That big Buick engine ran up and the exhaust growled. The girl, whom I could see now was not alone in the car, heard it and accelerated a little harder too. Daddy laughed.
'I think we're going to miss our exit,' he said, and leaned harder on the throttle.
The girl did too. The nose of the Charger pulled even with the nose of the Buick. Suddenly her whole car rocked back-- she had floored it.
Daddy floored it. 'Uh-oh,' he said, 'there goes the six-pack.'
'The what?' But I was shoved back into the seat with the acceleration then. Both of us roared off up the highway, fifty, sixty-- Daddy shifted to third-- seventy, nearly eighty when Daddy put it into fourth and let the girl go. The big Buick settled in at about 80 for a few moments and then he backed off. Fortunately the girl had made her point for she settled in just ahead of us as we glided into the right lane for the next exit. I knew that under any other circumstances Daddy would have run any guy about his age through 100 or so, whatever the two cars would take. But he was feeling a little protective of the girl in the Charger-- she was only some good man's daughter, as he likes to say, and it would look awful if he were the one who incited her to some horrific accident. If she would not know any better, he would, you know.
Nevertheless he went in to the exit ramp with the big wide tyres whining a little and proceeded to drive us home a little faster the whole way. I know he thinks fondly on the days when he had his first 1965 Wildcat and used to cruise the Boulevard on Long Beach Island with it all summer, attracting girls and the envy of boys as well. I know he got this second Wildcat and had it painted like the first just to relive, even a little, those days of teenaged glory. And I know he thinks Jessy and I find it a little immature, and he probably thinks Mother does too-- but, the thing is, we don't. We find it just one more part of him. You see, my dad has always been 'cool', not in the immature, irrational way like some young guys imagine they are 'cool'. My dad has always been sensible, rational, intelligent, you know, but there is a small slice of him that likes to look good in all situations. In the '80s he was noted as a fashion plate in rock-and-roll. He had the hair and the clothes and the guitars and was seen in places the average rocker was not-- Sotheby's auction, the National Trust sites, art museums and classical-music concerts and at the ballet. He paid attention to his widowed mother and participated in family functions. He hosted (conservative) politicians at his big place up in Menlo Park and gave to charities. He was seen with a number of young women, in New Jersey, New York, and London, where he tended to work in those days. And he made people's careers, not merely as a 'fashion plate' but as someone whose attention and concern-- almost as a father's-- made the difference between a young star making a stupid decision and a young star moving forward like a responsible professional. I never mention names-- not even my own here-- but if I were to, you would be surprised at who he has known and what he has done for them.
In many ways my dad is my hero. There are a few things about him I would not like to see in anyone who would become my husband-- he is very sloppy about clothes, procrastinates little things because of working on big things, spends too much time by himself and overtalks literature, music, art and philosophy, all of which my dear stepmother, who once adored him as a favourite teacher, has found out about him since she married him. But in most important things he is my role model for a man. He is naturally happy, optimistic, encouraging. He is artistic, creative, intelligent-- really a genius. He is warm, thoughtful, generous, affectionate. He is careful and logical, not prone to making stupid decisions for selfish reasons. And he is truly concerned about the welfare of the world, from the healthcare plan to the first club show of the newest starving future singing star.
And he drives the coolest metallic-blue 1965 Buick Wildcat convertible known to mankind, a car that will probably become mine some day (or J.J.'s) because it would never, ever be sold by Daddy or anyone else, if only because it reminds us all of what Daddy is-- a man who sees no great period of time between when he was 20 and when he was 50, because in all that time he has only ever been the same person through and through. He has matured and grown older, but he has remained the same in what really matters.
People have asked me if this is some weird Oedipus complex, and I can only say I don't know. First I have to ask, is there any reason my dad should NOT be my role model? Is there any reason I should not want to keep him company on a ride to the music store? Is there any reason why I should not ask him my most personal questions and then take his advice? Is there any reason why I should not admire him?
And then those people will ask me, if he were not my father, would I want to date him?
Well, maybe if he were still 20. [ha]
...
23 October 2009
When Daddy gets mad
Wednesday 21 October
My dad almost never gets angry. I said this to someone once and the other person said, 'What does he have to get angry about, with his money.' That was very impolitic and I was offended. I do not think money has much to do with it at all. For one thing, many people with money are greedy and want more. My dad would probably rather get rid of some (and he does, to charity, but I won't go into that now). It's just that he has a positive mental attitude about most things. And if that's connected to money at all, it's that a positive mental attitude leads to money and not that money leads to a positive mental attitude, if you know what I mean.
Even so, I have seen him get mad a few times. Well-- more than a few times. He tends to become frustrated and irritated about injustices-- especially when they're directed at us or other she loves. He doesn't seem to care about other people's opinions or actions against himself. He says, 'Consider the source' --you know, because my dad is not an idiot and anyone who would think my dad is an idiot would be an idiot. An idiot's point of view is not worth considering. But he becomes simply warriorlike when something threatens his family or our happiness. I remember at our old house in Lewes when he woke up in the middle of the night and fired a live round out of the musket at two burglars who were creeping through the front yard to the house and then chased them round into the preserve and back along the beach with two Queen Anne black-powder pistols. One got away and one ended up in the pool, where he held him till the police came. And he pressed charges for 'trespass with criminal intent.' When I was in 5th grade the teacher assigned a paper on heroes and I wrote about Jesus, quoting all these miracles and unconditional love and the teacher said 'That's not what I had in mind' --and made me write another paper. Mother (our new stepmother then) marched in to school and insisted this was prejudicial and unfair and when the school administrators refused to take a 20-year-old stepmother seriously Daddy went in and read them a riot act. After all Mother had legally adopted us-- we were her children by then too. The result was that Mother dared the school to let her withdraw us and teach us at home, and when the school again suggested she was not capable of that, Daddy marched in and signed us out in one afternoon. We then were taught at home (by Mother) till we went off to England three years ago now.
The thing about my daddy is that when he says he's going to do something about it, he does-- and if you don't believe he will, you should watch him whilst he does it.
And of course I have seen him throw a hammer or a hatchet and over-rev the yard tractor and utter a few choice words and rant on about some awful politician. He was trying to hit a particularly nasty raccoon once at the house at Delaware and out of frustration fired the musket off at a tree, and the ball snapped the limb off about 15 feet off the ground which then landed on the fence and about 10 feet of it had to be replaced. And of course this made him madder-- I won't say what happened then (although the raccoon went on to live a long happy life, probably snickering every time he came back to the vegetable garden).
But at least once his frustration was exciting, even fun. This past summer we were out in the ski boat, just Daddy, Jessy and I, on Barnegat Bay. Daddy was taking us over to Tuckerton for lunch at Stewart's Root Beer stand. We were both in bikinis and Daddy was in some wild multicoloured shirt like something from the 50s. I was sitting in front and Jessy was half-lying across the back seat, right in front of the motor that made it hard to really hold any kind of conversation. I know it looked like my dad was some super-cool older guy with two cute chicks in swimsuits with him-- this is one thing we like to lend him and he's always happy to hang out with us like this. Anyway we were in the middle of the channel about halfway there, doing, I would say, about 35, when some fishermen in a 19-ft Whaler kind of pulled up along side. They only had us by about 5 MPH or so and it was not a big deal-- not every other boat out there has to be in a race, you know. But we were closing on a marker and the guy in the other boat didn't know that passing on the right, approaching a marker, means he has to either get in well ahead of us or go round behind us ('duck' us as it's called in sailboat racing). This guy figured he was important enough to cut in close and show us who really owns the bay.
Well, this set off Daddy, because of the principle of the thing. The Whaler cut in, much too close for comfort, about 20 yards at 35 MPH. Daddy snarled. I heard it. 'Idiot,' he said, and then pushed down the throttle. On the Sidewinder he had moved the front seats closer together and the throttle is actually on the left of the driving seat, down near the floor, so I could see it. He put it right down with his knuckles on the carpet. The big Buick engine roared up, the bow lifted, and Daddy swung it out to the left to pass him-- in the proper side of course.
The guys in the Whaler cheered, like they were happy to have a race. At once the guy driving it cut over in front of us-- where they should have been if they had been alone in the channel, but if someone is overtaking you the rule is that you hold course and speed-- not move over in front of him and speed up. So, it was a race.
The Whaler had a new outboard on it, and it was fast, but nothing beats the ski boat. We were up to 55 in about 5 seconds. I held on. Jessy squealed back there. The Whaler was no longer holding with us, but of course Daddy wouldn't let it stand with just a victory in name only. We were still accelerating-- 60, 65. Trimmed out flat, we were doing about 72 by the time he lifted the throttle a little. It was pretty scary up till then, but finally I laughed. I knew what he was doing. Of course we were in the proper lane of channel traffic and still obeying all the rules-- out in the middle of the Bay there are theoretically no speed limits. Daddy held it over 60 all the way in to the Tuckerton turnoff. Finally when we were idling up the long meandering back channel to Stewart's he said, not too loudly (because from a motorboat everyone else can hear everything), 'Sorry. I just got mad at him.'
We both giggled. 'We know,' I said.
'I just figured he kind of deserved that,' Daddy said.
Jessy leaned forward then, kneeling on the floor behind the two front seats. 'Can you get mad again like that on the way home, Daddy?'
I don't think any root-beer floats Stewart's could have had could have made that afternoon any better than that.
...
My dad almost never gets angry. I said this to someone once and the other person said, 'What does he have to get angry about, with his money.' That was very impolitic and I was offended. I do not think money has much to do with it at all. For one thing, many people with money are greedy and want more. My dad would probably rather get rid of some (and he does, to charity, but I won't go into that now). It's just that he has a positive mental attitude about most things. And if that's connected to money at all, it's that a positive mental attitude leads to money and not that money leads to a positive mental attitude, if you know what I mean.
Even so, I have seen him get mad a few times. Well-- more than a few times. He tends to become frustrated and irritated about injustices-- especially when they're directed at us or other she loves. He doesn't seem to care about other people's opinions or actions against himself. He says, 'Consider the source' --you know, because my dad is not an idiot and anyone who would think my dad is an idiot would be an idiot. An idiot's point of view is not worth considering. But he becomes simply warriorlike when something threatens his family or our happiness. I remember at our old house in Lewes when he woke up in the middle of the night and fired a live round out of the musket at two burglars who were creeping through the front yard to the house and then chased them round into the preserve and back along the beach with two Queen Anne black-powder pistols. One got away and one ended up in the pool, where he held him till the police came. And he pressed charges for 'trespass with criminal intent.' When I was in 5th grade the teacher assigned a paper on heroes and I wrote about Jesus, quoting all these miracles and unconditional love and the teacher said 'That's not what I had in mind' --and made me write another paper. Mother (our new stepmother then) marched in to school and insisted this was prejudicial and unfair and when the school administrators refused to take a 20-year-old stepmother seriously Daddy went in and read them a riot act. After all Mother had legally adopted us-- we were her children by then too. The result was that Mother dared the school to let her withdraw us and teach us at home, and when the school again suggested she was not capable of that, Daddy marched in and signed us out in one afternoon. We then were taught at home (by Mother) till we went off to England three years ago now.
The thing about my daddy is that when he says he's going to do something about it, he does-- and if you don't believe he will, you should watch him whilst he does it.
And of course I have seen him throw a hammer or a hatchet and over-rev the yard tractor and utter a few choice words and rant on about some awful politician. He was trying to hit a particularly nasty raccoon once at the house at Delaware and out of frustration fired the musket off at a tree, and the ball snapped the limb off about 15 feet off the ground which then landed on the fence and about 10 feet of it had to be replaced. And of course this made him madder-- I won't say what happened then (although the raccoon went on to live a long happy life, probably snickering every time he came back to the vegetable garden).
But at least once his frustration was exciting, even fun. This past summer we were out in the ski boat, just Daddy, Jessy and I, on Barnegat Bay. Daddy was taking us over to Tuckerton for lunch at Stewart's Root Beer stand. We were both in bikinis and Daddy was in some wild multicoloured shirt like something from the 50s. I was sitting in front and Jessy was half-lying across the back seat, right in front of the motor that made it hard to really hold any kind of conversation. I know it looked like my dad was some super-cool older guy with two cute chicks in swimsuits with him-- this is one thing we like to lend him and he's always happy to hang out with us like this. Anyway we were in the middle of the channel about halfway there, doing, I would say, about 35, when some fishermen in a 19-ft Whaler kind of pulled up along side. They only had us by about 5 MPH or so and it was not a big deal-- not every other boat out there has to be in a race, you know. But we were closing on a marker and the guy in the other boat didn't know that passing on the right, approaching a marker, means he has to either get in well ahead of us or go round behind us ('duck' us as it's called in sailboat racing). This guy figured he was important enough to cut in close and show us who really owns the bay.
Well, this set off Daddy, because of the principle of the thing. The Whaler cut in, much too close for comfort, about 20 yards at 35 MPH. Daddy snarled. I heard it. 'Idiot,' he said, and then pushed down the throttle. On the Sidewinder he had moved the front seats closer together and the throttle is actually on the left of the driving seat, down near the floor, so I could see it. He put it right down with his knuckles on the carpet. The big Buick engine roared up, the bow lifted, and Daddy swung it out to the left to pass him-- in the proper side of course.
The guys in the Whaler cheered, like they were happy to have a race. At once the guy driving it cut over in front of us-- where they should have been if they had been alone in the channel, but if someone is overtaking you the rule is that you hold course and speed-- not move over in front of him and speed up. So, it was a race.
The Whaler had a new outboard on it, and it was fast, but nothing beats the ski boat. We were up to 55 in about 5 seconds. I held on. Jessy squealed back there. The Whaler was no longer holding with us, but of course Daddy wouldn't let it stand with just a victory in name only. We were still accelerating-- 60, 65. Trimmed out flat, we were doing about 72 by the time he lifted the throttle a little. It was pretty scary up till then, but finally I laughed. I knew what he was doing. Of course we were in the proper lane of channel traffic and still obeying all the rules-- out in the middle of the Bay there are theoretically no speed limits. Daddy held it over 60 all the way in to the Tuckerton turnoff. Finally when we were idling up the long meandering back channel to Stewart's he said, not too loudly (because from a motorboat everyone else can hear everything), 'Sorry. I just got mad at him.'
We both giggled. 'We know,' I said.
'I just figured he kind of deserved that,' Daddy said.
Jessy leaned forward then, kneeling on the floor behind the two front seats. 'Can you get mad again like that on the way home, Daddy?'
I don't think any root-beer floats Stewart's could have had could have made that afternoon any better than that.
...
22 September 2009
Long beautiful hair
Tuesday 22 September
'It's time for you to get a haircut,' I told Lisa as I brushed out her hair last night.
'But I like it long!' she protested.
I brushed it all down straight along her bare back. 'It's beautiful long,' I told her. 'But we always have to trim it just a little. You don't want it getting frizzy. If it's going to be long it's got to be nice and strong and thick.'
She squirmed, sitting on top of my bed wrapt in a towel and still a little damp from her bath. 'Is it as long as yours?' she asked me.
I turned my back to her and lifted my chin so my hair fell down my back. 'I think it's longer. You have a smaller back, but for someone as tall as you, it's longer than anyone else's.'
She mimicked the pose, letting me look at it. When it's still wet, her intensely-wavy, thick, lush curly blonde hair reached the middle of her back. She is six now and has never had short hair. Mother has trimmed her ends a few times, but we are all sure there's still baby hair in there somewhere. 'Is it longer than Mummy's?'
I smiled at her, arranging her part again and brushing it out to either side. 'Might be,' I said. Mother has gorgeous blonde hair, long, thick and curly like a Pre-Raphaelite goddess-- that's where Lisa gets it, although Daddy's hair is somewhat famous for being long and thick. In the long-hair '70s he joked that he had 'Farrah hair'. Some music magazine caught hold of that concept and more than one fan magazine said he belonged on a Vogue or Cosmopolitan cover. So I guess it's something in the genes, for all four of his offspring have good hair. Even little J.J. who has never had more than half an inch trimmed off has beautiful almost-blonde hair. Strangers who have met him have sometimes assumed he's a girl. Daddy takes an amused sort of pride in that. Fortunately J.J. doesn't get the reference... yet.
I conducted Lisa into the common bathroom and got out the scissors and comb and sorted out what I would cut off whilst she stood on the little stool beside the basin and tossed her head round at the mirror. I often say that Jessy is a pampered princess but Lisa's not far behind. Already she seems to enjoy her own femininity, revelling in her lush, beautiful hair and big blue eyes and perfect complexion. 'When can I wear makeup?' she asked once.
'When you need to,' Jessy told her then.
At the time Lisa only smiled smugly at herself in the mirror and then pursed her lips, to be cute.
She stood very still and watched as I combed off a bit here and there and clipped it very close to the end. Each time she turned her head from side to side as though to admire the change. I doubt she really noticed. 'That's good, like that,' she said, like any of us would to the hair stylist.
'Are you sure?' I asked, placating her. 'We could take a little off here.' I lifted a bit on the very top.
Lisa sighed, theatrically. 'Oh, well! I guess, if you must.'
I clipped it, batted it away with the comb, and then leaned down and kissed her head. 'Perfect,' I said.
She glowed, smiling at herself in the mirror.
That was when J.J. came in, in his pyjama shorts and his bushy hair mussed from crawling on the carpet. 'Oh, no!' he announced loudly. 'What's going on here?'
Lisa turned and smirked at him from the stool. 'I'm having my hair done!' she said. 'Don't tell Mummy.'
'Why not?' he asked.
Lisa turned back and looked at herself in the mirror whilst I brushed out her newly-coiffed hair. 'It's a surprise,' she said.
'And you have no clothes on!' J.J. complained, and started to go out.
He gets like this when we're naked in the house. At this point it's kind of offensive to him. 'Wait,' I said, and turned to him with the scissors and comb in my hand. 'Do you want me to trim yours?'
'Ew,' he said. 'I like it long!' And he stomped off.
'Hmph!' Lisa said, shrugging, and lifted her chin at the mirror. 'I like it,' she decided.
I'm not sure she can tell, but I can. Her ends are firm and golden now. It'll grow another two inches by Christmas and be gorgeous then too.
Lisa is no good for surprises and went down stairs directly-- still naked, I might add-- to show off her coif for Mother. Mother came up with her a few minutes later. 'Janine,' she said softly to me, guiding Lisa into her room, 'how did you get her to let you?'
I shrugged. 'I didn't think she wouldn't want me to.' Then I smiled at her. 'Do you mind?'
'Mind? No. I've been trying to get her to let me cut it for weeks. Now if only I could get the other guy to....'
I laughed. 'You'd better asked Daddy to do that one,' I said.
She laughed too.
Lisa called me in after her prayers and I went into her dark room and knelt beside her bed. 'Thank you,' she said to me. 'I really like it.'
I kissed her. 'You're welcome, princess,' I said.
'Do you want me to cut yours for you, tomorrow?'
I laughed. 'No, sweetie. Jessy will get it.'
'I think Jessy's is longer than yours.'
I nodded. It is, a little. I had mine cut when I was in 4th grade because of a stupid 'experiment' in which I cut my own bangs. Mother performed an 'emergency coiffure' on me that evening before supper, and it's taken this long for it to grow back to what you could call 'long'. Meanwhile Jessy, like Lisa, has never had her hair cut shorter than her shoulders and it's all the way down her back. There might still be baby hair in there somewhere too. 'I'm just going to leave it go for a while,' I told her. 'I like it long too.'
She lifted a hand and took a piece of it, feeling it as though she knew anything of hair texture. 'It's very pretty. Will I be as pretty as you?'
I smiled and leaned in and kissed her again. 'You already are,' I said, because it seemed like the best thing to say. 'Now go to sleep.'
'I love you, Janine.'
'I love you too, princess.'
When Jessy came in to trim mine later I kept her to just the very ends. I don't think she took a quarter-inch off the bottom. Don't blame me if I'm envious of the two of them.
...
'It's time for you to get a haircut,' I told Lisa as I brushed out her hair last night.
'But I like it long!' she protested.
I brushed it all down straight along her bare back. 'It's beautiful long,' I told her. 'But we always have to trim it just a little. You don't want it getting frizzy. If it's going to be long it's got to be nice and strong and thick.'
She squirmed, sitting on top of my bed wrapt in a towel and still a little damp from her bath. 'Is it as long as yours?' she asked me.
I turned my back to her and lifted my chin so my hair fell down my back. 'I think it's longer. You have a smaller back, but for someone as tall as you, it's longer than anyone else's.'
She mimicked the pose, letting me look at it. When it's still wet, her intensely-wavy, thick, lush curly blonde hair reached the middle of her back. She is six now and has never had short hair. Mother has trimmed her ends a few times, but we are all sure there's still baby hair in there somewhere. 'Is it longer than Mummy's?'
I smiled at her, arranging her part again and brushing it out to either side. 'Might be,' I said. Mother has gorgeous blonde hair, long, thick and curly like a Pre-Raphaelite goddess-- that's where Lisa gets it, although Daddy's hair is somewhat famous for being long and thick. In the long-hair '70s he joked that he had 'Farrah hair'. Some music magazine caught hold of that concept and more than one fan magazine said he belonged on a Vogue or Cosmopolitan cover. So I guess it's something in the genes, for all four of his offspring have good hair. Even little J.J. who has never had more than half an inch trimmed off has beautiful almost-blonde hair. Strangers who have met him have sometimes assumed he's a girl. Daddy takes an amused sort of pride in that. Fortunately J.J. doesn't get the reference... yet.
I conducted Lisa into the common bathroom and got out the scissors and comb and sorted out what I would cut off whilst she stood on the little stool beside the basin and tossed her head round at the mirror. I often say that Jessy is a pampered princess but Lisa's not far behind. Already she seems to enjoy her own femininity, revelling in her lush, beautiful hair and big blue eyes and perfect complexion. 'When can I wear makeup?' she asked once.
'When you need to,' Jessy told her then.
At the time Lisa only smiled smugly at herself in the mirror and then pursed her lips, to be cute.
She stood very still and watched as I combed off a bit here and there and clipped it very close to the end. Each time she turned her head from side to side as though to admire the change. I doubt she really noticed. 'That's good, like that,' she said, like any of us would to the hair stylist.
'Are you sure?' I asked, placating her. 'We could take a little off here.' I lifted a bit on the very top.
Lisa sighed, theatrically. 'Oh, well! I guess, if you must.'
I clipped it, batted it away with the comb, and then leaned down and kissed her head. 'Perfect,' I said.
She glowed, smiling at herself in the mirror.
That was when J.J. came in, in his pyjama shorts and his bushy hair mussed from crawling on the carpet. 'Oh, no!' he announced loudly. 'What's going on here?'
Lisa turned and smirked at him from the stool. 'I'm having my hair done!' she said. 'Don't tell Mummy.'
'Why not?' he asked.
Lisa turned back and looked at herself in the mirror whilst I brushed out her newly-coiffed hair. 'It's a surprise,' she said.
'And you have no clothes on!' J.J. complained, and started to go out.
He gets like this when we're naked in the house. At this point it's kind of offensive to him. 'Wait,' I said, and turned to him with the scissors and comb in my hand. 'Do you want me to trim yours?'
'Ew,' he said. 'I like it long!' And he stomped off.
'Hmph!' Lisa said, shrugging, and lifted her chin at the mirror. 'I like it,' she decided.
I'm not sure she can tell, but I can. Her ends are firm and golden now. It'll grow another two inches by Christmas and be gorgeous then too.
Lisa is no good for surprises and went down stairs directly-- still naked, I might add-- to show off her coif for Mother. Mother came up with her a few minutes later. 'Janine,' she said softly to me, guiding Lisa into her room, 'how did you get her to let you?'
I shrugged. 'I didn't think she wouldn't want me to.' Then I smiled at her. 'Do you mind?'
'Mind? No. I've been trying to get her to let me cut it for weeks. Now if only I could get the other guy to....'
I laughed. 'You'd better asked Daddy to do that one,' I said.
She laughed too.
Lisa called me in after her prayers and I went into her dark room and knelt beside her bed. 'Thank you,' she said to me. 'I really like it.'
I kissed her. 'You're welcome, princess,' I said.
'Do you want me to cut yours for you, tomorrow?'
I laughed. 'No, sweetie. Jessy will get it.'
'I think Jessy's is longer than yours.'
I nodded. It is, a little. I had mine cut when I was in 4th grade because of a stupid 'experiment' in which I cut my own bangs. Mother performed an 'emergency coiffure' on me that evening before supper, and it's taken this long for it to grow back to what you could call 'long'. Meanwhile Jessy, like Lisa, has never had her hair cut shorter than her shoulders and it's all the way down her back. There might still be baby hair in there somewhere too. 'I'm just going to leave it go for a while,' I told her. 'I like it long too.'
She lifted a hand and took a piece of it, feeling it as though she knew anything of hair texture. 'It's very pretty. Will I be as pretty as you?'
I smiled and leaned in and kissed her again. 'You already are,' I said, because it seemed like the best thing to say. 'Now go to sleep.'
'I love you, Janine.'
'I love you too, princess.'
When Jessy came in to trim mine later I kept her to just the very ends. I don't think she took a quarter-inch off the bottom. Don't blame me if I'm envious of the two of them.
...
30 August 2009
The modelling show, and other stuff
Saturday, 29 August 2009
I was saying to someone once how I love waking up naked. There really is nothing more refreshing. I kick off the sheet and prop myself up on my elbows and blink in the sunlight streaming in my windows here, and I feel new and pure and clean and happy. I thrust my feet way up and eject myself from the bed with all my morning energy, and I fling open the sash and the drapery and stand there, staring out at the sun over the bay and the ocean, at three thousand miles of natural view. Sometimes I imagine the people in Portugal are staring out across the ocean during their afternoon tea and wondering if there is some naked blonde girl at the other shore staring back. If they're not, there is no one else out there to see me like this, and so I rarely ever close my draperies at all.
Josie and Jessy slept like a litter of kittens in the other room, both of them curled round almost together under one sheet, hair loose and all over, tanned shoulders dark against the off-white bedclothes, Josie breathing gently over Jessy's head, sweet baby smiles on their faces. I woke them gently, poking their shoulders till they were both stirring. 'Pancakes,' I said softly. 'It's Saturday.'
So they got up.
Whilst the pancakes seethed on the cooker I sauntered out back and dove in. I was into the 18th lap when Mother came out, but she only watched me continue till I had done all 25. 'Are those other birds coming down?' she asked me in a gentle voice, almost too soft for outdoors.
I nodded. 'They said they would be.'
She nodded too and then stepped back as I rose, dripping with no towel, from the water. She smiled at me then. 'You've missed this pool,' she said.
'I did laps twice yesterday,' I told her.
'Did you? As though you need it!' And she laughed.
'I do need it,' I said.
'You don't,' she told me, 'not for your looks anyway. But the exercise never hurts.'
I went up to get dressed in the same shorts and t-shirt from last night, passing Jessy and Josie, now dressed too, coming down on the way.
Daddy excused himself early, having caught up with Roger, and drove up to Delaware at about 9.30. Mother announced she was taking J.J. down to the mall at Lynnhaven, 60 miles way, meeting some local friends (other mothers and kids from church) to make a day of it. So we girls would be alone.
'Well I know what you girls will be doing today,' Mother told us. 'Just remember your father will be home about five.'
This was for Josie, you know. 'We will,' Jessy said.
'And be good to Lisa. She looks up to you girls. You have to be the best you can be for her.'
I just met Mother's eyes. 'I promise we will be,' I said.
She nodded and took J.J.'s hand to go down to the car.
I followed her, my arms folded across my tummy, and gave her a hug and a kiss when she left. 'I love you, Mother,' I told her.
'And I love you, good girl. Have fun.'
I smiled. 'I'm sure we will.'
'And you'll stay in?'
'In, and round the house, yes. Do not worry.'
I waved as she drove off. J.J. waved back.
So it was another day essentially on our own. Jessy and Josie came down, both naked, and dove into the pool. Lisa asked me if I would join them and then ran, really ran, out across the terrace and cannonballed into the centre of the pool. Like her mother she is a born swimmer and absolutely indefatigable in the water.
But soon even this got somewhat dull and we were at a loss for something interesting to do. 'We should do something we never get to do any other time,' Jessy said.
'Like what?' Josie asked eagerly.
Jessy shrugged, avoiding spending mental energy. We brainstormed a few ideas and finally decided to have a little photo shoot, dressing up in whatever we found that was cute, and modelling for each other and for a camera. 'What will we wear?' I asked.
'Something we can't usually wear,' Josie said. 'Something that's....'
'Nothing obscene,' Jessy said.
I made a face. 'Since when are we ever obscene?'
Josie laughed. 'We're not,' she said. 'It'll just be cute.'
So we decided we would all get dressed in panties and high heels, and then Josie suggested, when she had looked into Jessy's dresser, that we wear stockings too. Lisa, thrilled with the chance to do as the big girls do, scampered round to her room and proceeded to change outfits about every ten minutes till her bed was a heap of panties she had tried or rejected, her church tights, ballet tights, and cotton stockings from her Colonial outfits. Honestly she must have worn eight or ten pairs of panties, all the same but for colour or pattern, those simple cotton ones that she pulls up too high on her bottom and too tightly in her crutch. She was so enthusiastic for it that we began teasing her about being an underwear model. But really the pics of her are nothing terrible-- just pics of a nice little girl in her panties. In what way is that obscene?
I went in to my room and pawed through my dressers till I decided on something cute. The stockings are mostly cotton, thigh-high with gripper tops, in a pretty dense tone-on-tone textured pattern of roses and leaves. My shoes were my good ones for church, white cotton eyelet uppers with an open toe and about 2-1/2" heels. My hair was put up with a thick white terry Scünci. And my panties were just plain white cottons, some low-rise ones that are just about new and still very bright. I stepped out of my room feeling absolutely lovely, all in white, like an angel, sexy and pure at the same time, which is a pretty good look for any girl. Jessy and Josie, still getting dressed, raved over it. In front of Jessy's full-height mirror I turned and posed, admiring myself, and was quite pleased with how I looked.
Then little Lisa came in, in her plain black ballet leotard, pink shoes with no tights, and a little bright-pink scarf cleverly wrapt round her middle. 'Oh, all white,' she said to me. 'Is that all you have?'
I turned on my toes and smiled down at her. 'Don't you like it?'
Lisa shrugged. 'The stockings are pretty,' she said.
'They are, aren't they?' And I smiled at myself again.
Lisa stepped a little closer and when I turned she was right in front of me. 'What's that?' she asked.
We all looked. I looked down ahd she was pointing, her finger not six inches from the front of my panties. 'Uh-oh,' Jessy said. 'Is it a spot?'
No. The panties were clean. It's just that they were also very thin, and there it was, a dark shadow showing through the white cotton. 'It's just me, sweetie,' I said to Lisa.
'You?' she wondered.
I lifted the cotton away from my tummy and she peered in, seeing what I meant. 'It's just what I have,' she said.
'Oh,' said Lisa. Of course she knows what I look like. I'm sure she only didn't realise I would show through like that. I hadn't thought of it either. Really I hadn't wanted to think that there could be any way I could outgrow white cotton panties-- they're always my favourite.
'Well,' Josie said, 'while we're all getting made-up.... You know you wouldn't have to worry about it showing, if....'
'If what?' I asked, too innocently I guess.
Josie smiled at me and then shrugged. 'If you got rid of it,' she said.
I wrinkled my nose then. 'Ew. No way.'
'Why not? It would look better. And you wouldn't have to worry about certain bathing-suits....'
'I don't wear anything that what I do have would be a problem,' I told her.
Josie shrugged again. 'Well, it might make you feel or look sexier,' she said.
I met eyes with Jessy, who only rolled hers. Then I said, 'I would say that takes a very particular kind of vanity, wouldn't you?'
Jessy giggled. Josie looked at her, not knowing what I had meant or why Jessy had laughed, and Jessy said, 'Why would anyone do that? So they can admire how they look themselves or show off to other people?'
Josie got red then, now realising how it sounded. 'Oh,' she said. 'Well, I just thought....'
'Remind me not to let her take any pictures of herself naked now,' I said to Jessy, and we both laughed till Josie got over it.
Lisa trotted back into the room, now in her own white panties, the pink scarf round her middle, and the ballet shoes. Josie reached out and tickled her, which Lisa likes. 'This one doesn't have the problem at all, lucky little thing!' Josie said.
'What problem?' Lisa wanted to know.
'Never mind,' I said.
'Is it lady stuff?' she asked.
I smiled at her. 'Kind of.'
'Okay, never mind,' she said-- for she's sure she's heard it all enough before.
'So change,' Jessy said to me then, and then shrugged, like to encourage me.
I shrugged too and went back to my room, a little disappointed. But I found some lacy ones in my drawer, also white and mostly cotton, but with elegant lace appliqués that sort of complement the stockings. Lisa stood and watched as I peeled the other ones off over my shoes and pulled up the lacy ones. 'Those I like better,' she said.
'Can you still see--?'
Lisa actually bent and examined me. 'No.'
I patted her head and pranced back round to Jessy's room then. Jessy had on her navy-blue stockings and shoes and cute panties with yellow-and-white flowers on the blue cotton. Josie had found Jessy's old bright fuscia stockings (from a Hallowe'en costume party-- don't ask) and a pair of bright pink panties almost the same tone. They were debating what shoes she would wear with that ensemble. I suggested plain black. Of course Josie and Jessy wear the same sizes (in all but bras) but at least Jessy has got so many clothes and shoes, including panties and lingerie, that it's not likely the two of them together could ever run out of combinations they both could wear.
Josie supervised everyone's makeup-- she's the best one at that. The plan was that we would all have something showy done for the camera but neutral enough that it could go with any other outfits (okay, panties and stockings). I wasn't exactly thrilled with how she made me look but I have to admit that I turned out all right in the pictures.
Grabbing a few other things to change into we all went down the side stairs to the basement. There we hung up a plain white bedsheet against one wall and set up the camera on a tripod and a few lights with the shades cocked to illuminate us. Of course Jessy and I have done this before and by now it's a pretty reliable system. Mostly the pics were taken of one girl at a time-- we would set up, say, Jessy, let her pose as much as she wanted, and shoot about 35 frames. Then whilst she changed her outfit we'd do someone else.
Jessy looks like an angel in her shots. She always does. In some she let her hair down, in others it was pinned up-- the difference was so extraordinary that she looked like two different girls sometimes. I look like... me. Really it's all right... I just didn't really surprise myself. I guess I am not fond of having my pic taken. But I have to admit the makeup made me look great. Josie pouted, rolled her tongue behind her teeth, stuck out her chest and rocked her up bottom, doing all the carefully-exaggerated manoeuvres that exotic models do in those pictures we've all seen on the Web. In one she had her legs spread apart, which didn't really flatter her in any modest way, you know. (I wanted to delete that one but she made me keep it.) It's really kind of scary that she knows how to do things like that-- but she is an only child and has lots of time alone in her room in the evenings, I guess.
The surprising one was Lisa, of course-- she has a very practised smile and a very good idea of how to pose herself. She's no JonBenet-- she's only a normal 6-year-old girl-- but she's very pretty and is very comfortable in front of the camera. She was the one who came up with the idea of lying down on the piano bench like a classical odalisque, which we all did later. She really ought to make a great model or actor some day.
We hooked up Jessy's laptop to the camera so we could review the pics straight away. Some were bad. Most were pretty good. I saved about 40 of mine.
Lisa came down once in her bandanna bikini, the one Jessy and I made for her (only the bottom half of course) and Jessy was shooting her a while. That made some pretty cute shots-- and she becomes the first of us to formally model the bandanna bikini--mainly because, being 6, she can get away with wearing only a bottom piece, you know. I contributed some ideas but got too many ideas for myself and bolted back up stairs to change. On my way by Jessy's open door I happened to peer in.
Josie was sitting up against the pillows and headboard of Jessy's bed, the heels sort of digging into the covers, her knees up and her hand occupied in the bright-pink panties. At first she did not see me. But when she did she could hardly have stopped anyway. 'Oh!' she sighed, going on even faster. 'I'm sorry! I just--'
I only smiled. 'It's okay,' I said, and stepped back to pull the door closed.
'Oh! Thank you!' And she put back her head then and dug in.
I stepped into my room feeling myself blush. Of course Jessy and I have seen each other self-engaged before. I had never seen Josie, though, but it was hardly anything worse than whatever I could have expected. Of course she was aroused by this. I was myself, a little. (Some of the pics showed it.) I only giggled and then I couldn't even think about getting changed and just went back down as I was, all in white. I think I was really just hoping to divert Lisa from going into Jessy's room till Josie was done
Jessy went up later and about 15 minutes later they were both back down. 'It's so hot,' Jessy said.
That was for Josie, you know. I am sure she was very warm. So I suggested we have a walk or something outside, in all our finery, you know. So in our fancy shoes, cute panties and completely over-the-top stockings, we strolled out across the garden terrace and descended to the side yard. We went round the front lawn of the house and through the driveway area to the preserve path that leads through the trees and bushes to the softball field. It was hot and there ought to have been rain, but the sky actually had cleared more. We were all sweating in the stockings-- but we looked great!
Lisa wanted to play on the swings but none of the rest of us did-- it was just too hot, and I didn't want any of us to tear the stockings, and of course there was always a chance someone would drive by on the road and happen to look in the gate and see us there. So we strolled back to the garden, put the preserve gate safely closed behind us, and then stripped on the terrace for the pool. Jessy and Josie got off their shoes and stockings and then dared each other to dive in wearing the panties. I knew why-- Josie's (which were Jessy's actually) were probably in need of a good rinsing!
I was feeling cute and prised off the panties first. As I stood up straight, in just the lacy white stockings and the shoes, Lisa looked up admiringly and finally said, 'Ohhh. I see why now.'
I smiled down at her. 'But you know what I look like,' I said.
She nodded. 'I know. But those don't show.'
'No,' I said, dropping the panties into a chair. 'I just wish the others didn't.'
Lisa shrugged. 'Oh well. Do you think I can go swimming in this?'
She was still in the all-cotton bandanna bikini. I bent and inspected the knots, retying one side more snugly. 'Sure, try it,' I said. 'If it comes off, you can just leave it.' I giggled at her then. 'None of us will mind.'
'Yes, but-- do you think it will show?'
The other two, in the pool, and I all laughed. 'You don't have anything to show!' Jessy teased her.
Lisa got a little red, looking over at me. 'I wish I did,' she said quietly.
I reached down and hugged her. 'You sweet little girl!' I told her. 'Don't worry about that. You don't want to grow up too soon.'
'I want to be beautiful,' she said, 'like you are.'
I squeezed her. 'You are beautiful. And, trust me, sweetheart, when you are my age, you will be more beautiful than any of us. I can tell already from how beautiful you are now.'
She smiled at me. 'Do you think this will stay on if I jump? I want it to stay on.'
I smiled and stood up straight. 'Only one way to find out,' I said.
Lisa giggled and jumped into the water. The bandanna bikini stayed on.
Daddy did not come home by 5.00 and when I went in I saw a message blinking beside the phone. He had rung and said he would be at the studio till maybe 8.00 or 9.00. Mother had not come home yet either and so I prepared some frozen pizza and we all decided to curl up in the TV room and watch videos. For Lisa's sake we watched the Hannah Montana movie first. We were all in our panties-and-stockings outfits again-- Josie actually in the pink-and-fuscia ensemble she had worn up in Jessy's room. Jessy sat down front with Lisa but before starting '17 Again' (which we had watched in England but which Lisa and Josie had never seen) Lisa sat up with me. Josie had a potty break, sat with Jessy, then ended up down front with Lisa, and Jessy sat in back with me. Those two did not see then as Jessy went on petting herself in her all-blue outfit. I ignored her-- this is old news for me. Lisa fell asleep in the chair right in front of me, which was a good thing since Lisa began to make some inevitable noise. Josie finally turned round and realised what she was doing. 'Oh, God,' she said, and shivered.
'Mm,' Jessy said, pretty committed to it by then.
'Ohhh....' Josie was going weaker. 'Oh, I really need to--'
'No, you don't,' I said to her.
She looked at me. 'Um, no,' she said softly, 'I guess I don't. Still....'
'Let her go,' I whispered.
'Ahhh!' Jessy sighed deeply, and pushed the panties right off then. From what we heard she was pretty successful in what she hoped for.
Josie remained very good and by the time we were all going in to bed the episode had faded into the past. But sometimes I worry about those two. When they stay over each other's house they sleep in the same bed, usually naked or at least very close to it. I know neither of them is inappropriate about it-- they're just good friends, really much more like little kids than anything else. But I do worry about how much they will indulge themselves or encourage each other in it.
Tonight I was online with a friend, whom I'll call 'Kelly', and I told her about what happened in Jessy's room and in the TV room. Kelly admitted she masturbates a lot, nearly every day. I said I do it so infrequently that I usually don't remember the exact date of the last time. 'I'm just not very sexually oriented, like that,' I said to her. Kelly admitted that chatting about intimate details like this often arouses her a little and that it's kind of hard to avoid the temptation. I really don't mind that my friends yield so easily to it, so long as they don't hold it against me that I don't. In turn I expect my real friends to not judge me as a hypocrite if I occasionally yield to it myself.
Kelly and I promised we'd do it when we signed off AOL tonight. I kept my promise-- and my bed has got the puddle from it!
...
I was saying to someone once how I love waking up naked. There really is nothing more refreshing. I kick off the sheet and prop myself up on my elbows and blink in the sunlight streaming in my windows here, and I feel new and pure and clean and happy. I thrust my feet way up and eject myself from the bed with all my morning energy, and I fling open the sash and the drapery and stand there, staring out at the sun over the bay and the ocean, at three thousand miles of natural view. Sometimes I imagine the people in Portugal are staring out across the ocean during their afternoon tea and wondering if there is some naked blonde girl at the other shore staring back. If they're not, there is no one else out there to see me like this, and so I rarely ever close my draperies at all.
Josie and Jessy slept like a litter of kittens in the other room, both of them curled round almost together under one sheet, hair loose and all over, tanned shoulders dark against the off-white bedclothes, Josie breathing gently over Jessy's head, sweet baby smiles on their faces. I woke them gently, poking their shoulders till they were both stirring. 'Pancakes,' I said softly. 'It's Saturday.'
So they got up.
Whilst the pancakes seethed on the cooker I sauntered out back and dove in. I was into the 18th lap when Mother came out, but she only watched me continue till I had done all 25. 'Are those other birds coming down?' she asked me in a gentle voice, almost too soft for outdoors.
I nodded. 'They said they would be.'
She nodded too and then stepped back as I rose, dripping with no towel, from the water. She smiled at me then. 'You've missed this pool,' she said.
'I did laps twice yesterday,' I told her.
'Did you? As though you need it!' And she laughed.
'I do need it,' I said.
'You don't,' she told me, 'not for your looks anyway. But the exercise never hurts.'
I went up to get dressed in the same shorts and t-shirt from last night, passing Jessy and Josie, now dressed too, coming down on the way.
Daddy excused himself early, having caught up with Roger, and drove up to Delaware at about 9.30. Mother announced she was taking J.J. down to the mall at Lynnhaven, 60 miles way, meeting some local friends (other mothers and kids from church) to make a day of it. So we girls would be alone.
'Well I know what you girls will be doing today,' Mother told us. 'Just remember your father will be home about five.'
This was for Josie, you know. 'We will,' Jessy said.
'And be good to Lisa. She looks up to you girls. You have to be the best you can be for her.'
I just met Mother's eyes. 'I promise we will be,' I said.
She nodded and took J.J.'s hand to go down to the car.
I followed her, my arms folded across my tummy, and gave her a hug and a kiss when she left. 'I love you, Mother,' I told her.
'And I love you, good girl. Have fun.'
I smiled. 'I'm sure we will.'
'And you'll stay in?'
'In, and round the house, yes. Do not worry.'
I waved as she drove off. J.J. waved back.
So it was another day essentially on our own. Jessy and Josie came down, both naked, and dove into the pool. Lisa asked me if I would join them and then ran, really ran, out across the terrace and cannonballed into the centre of the pool. Like her mother she is a born swimmer and absolutely indefatigable in the water.
But soon even this got somewhat dull and we were at a loss for something interesting to do. 'We should do something we never get to do any other time,' Jessy said.
'Like what?' Josie asked eagerly.
Jessy shrugged, avoiding spending mental energy. We brainstormed a few ideas and finally decided to have a little photo shoot, dressing up in whatever we found that was cute, and modelling for each other and for a camera. 'What will we wear?' I asked.
'Something we can't usually wear,' Josie said. 'Something that's....'
'Nothing obscene,' Jessy said.
I made a face. 'Since when are we ever obscene?'
Josie laughed. 'We're not,' she said. 'It'll just be cute.'
So we decided we would all get dressed in panties and high heels, and then Josie suggested, when she had looked into Jessy's dresser, that we wear stockings too. Lisa, thrilled with the chance to do as the big girls do, scampered round to her room and proceeded to change outfits about every ten minutes till her bed was a heap of panties she had tried or rejected, her church tights, ballet tights, and cotton stockings from her Colonial outfits. Honestly she must have worn eight or ten pairs of panties, all the same but for colour or pattern, those simple cotton ones that she pulls up too high on her bottom and too tightly in her crutch. She was so enthusiastic for it that we began teasing her about being an underwear model. But really the pics of her are nothing terrible-- just pics of a nice little girl in her panties. In what way is that obscene?
I went in to my room and pawed through my dressers till I decided on something cute. The stockings are mostly cotton, thigh-high with gripper tops, in a pretty dense tone-on-tone textured pattern of roses and leaves. My shoes were my good ones for church, white cotton eyelet uppers with an open toe and about 2-1/2" heels. My hair was put up with a thick white terry Scünci. And my panties were just plain white cottons, some low-rise ones that are just about new and still very bright. I stepped out of my room feeling absolutely lovely, all in white, like an angel, sexy and pure at the same time, which is a pretty good look for any girl. Jessy and Josie, still getting dressed, raved over it. In front of Jessy's full-height mirror I turned and posed, admiring myself, and was quite pleased with how I looked.
Then little Lisa came in, in her plain black ballet leotard, pink shoes with no tights, and a little bright-pink scarf cleverly wrapt round her middle. 'Oh, all white,' she said to me. 'Is that all you have?'
I turned on my toes and smiled down at her. 'Don't you like it?'
Lisa shrugged. 'The stockings are pretty,' she said.
'They are, aren't they?' And I smiled at myself again.
Lisa stepped a little closer and when I turned she was right in front of me. 'What's that?' she asked.
We all looked. I looked down ahd she was pointing, her finger not six inches from the front of my panties. 'Uh-oh,' Jessy said. 'Is it a spot?'
No. The panties were clean. It's just that they were also very thin, and there it was, a dark shadow showing through the white cotton. 'It's just me, sweetie,' I said to Lisa.
'You?' she wondered.
I lifted the cotton away from my tummy and she peered in, seeing what I meant. 'It's just what I have,' she said.
'Oh,' said Lisa. Of course she knows what I look like. I'm sure she only didn't realise I would show through like that. I hadn't thought of it either. Really I hadn't wanted to think that there could be any way I could outgrow white cotton panties-- they're always my favourite.
'Well,' Josie said, 'while we're all getting made-up.... You know you wouldn't have to worry about it showing, if....'
'If what?' I asked, too innocently I guess.
Josie smiled at me and then shrugged. 'If you got rid of it,' she said.
I wrinkled my nose then. 'Ew. No way.'
'Why not? It would look better. And you wouldn't have to worry about certain bathing-suits....'
'I don't wear anything that what I do have would be a problem,' I told her.
Josie shrugged again. 'Well, it might make you feel or look sexier,' she said.
I met eyes with Jessy, who only rolled hers. Then I said, 'I would say that takes a very particular kind of vanity, wouldn't you?'
Jessy giggled. Josie looked at her, not knowing what I had meant or why Jessy had laughed, and Jessy said, 'Why would anyone do that? So they can admire how they look themselves or show off to other people?'
Josie got red then, now realising how it sounded. 'Oh,' she said. 'Well, I just thought....'
'Remind me not to let her take any pictures of herself naked now,' I said to Jessy, and we both laughed till Josie got over it.
Lisa trotted back into the room, now in her own white panties, the pink scarf round her middle, and the ballet shoes. Josie reached out and tickled her, which Lisa likes. 'This one doesn't have the problem at all, lucky little thing!' Josie said.
'What problem?' Lisa wanted to know.
'Never mind,' I said.
'Is it lady stuff?' she asked.
I smiled at her. 'Kind of.'
'Okay, never mind,' she said-- for she's sure she's heard it all enough before.
'So change,' Jessy said to me then, and then shrugged, like to encourage me.
I shrugged too and went back to my room, a little disappointed. But I found some lacy ones in my drawer, also white and mostly cotton, but with elegant lace appliqués that sort of complement the stockings. Lisa stood and watched as I peeled the other ones off over my shoes and pulled up the lacy ones. 'Those I like better,' she said.
'Can you still see--?'
Lisa actually bent and examined me. 'No.'
I patted her head and pranced back round to Jessy's room then. Jessy had on her navy-blue stockings and shoes and cute panties with yellow-and-white flowers on the blue cotton. Josie had found Jessy's old bright fuscia stockings (from a Hallowe'en costume party-- don't ask) and a pair of bright pink panties almost the same tone. They were debating what shoes she would wear with that ensemble. I suggested plain black. Of course Josie and Jessy wear the same sizes (in all but bras) but at least Jessy has got so many clothes and shoes, including panties and lingerie, that it's not likely the two of them together could ever run out of combinations they both could wear.
Josie supervised everyone's makeup-- she's the best one at that. The plan was that we would all have something showy done for the camera but neutral enough that it could go with any other outfits (okay, panties and stockings). I wasn't exactly thrilled with how she made me look but I have to admit that I turned out all right in the pictures.
Grabbing a few other things to change into we all went down the side stairs to the basement. There we hung up a plain white bedsheet against one wall and set up the camera on a tripod and a few lights with the shades cocked to illuminate us. Of course Jessy and I have done this before and by now it's a pretty reliable system. Mostly the pics were taken of one girl at a time-- we would set up, say, Jessy, let her pose as much as she wanted, and shoot about 35 frames. Then whilst she changed her outfit we'd do someone else.
Jessy looks like an angel in her shots. She always does. In some she let her hair down, in others it was pinned up-- the difference was so extraordinary that she looked like two different girls sometimes. I look like... me. Really it's all right... I just didn't really surprise myself. I guess I am not fond of having my pic taken. But I have to admit the makeup made me look great. Josie pouted, rolled her tongue behind her teeth, stuck out her chest and rocked her up bottom, doing all the carefully-exaggerated manoeuvres that exotic models do in those pictures we've all seen on the Web. In one she had her legs spread apart, which didn't really flatter her in any modest way, you know. (I wanted to delete that one but she made me keep it.) It's really kind of scary that she knows how to do things like that-- but she is an only child and has lots of time alone in her room in the evenings, I guess.
The surprising one was Lisa, of course-- she has a very practised smile and a very good idea of how to pose herself. She's no JonBenet-- she's only a normal 6-year-old girl-- but she's very pretty and is very comfortable in front of the camera. She was the one who came up with the idea of lying down on the piano bench like a classical odalisque, which we all did later. She really ought to make a great model or actor some day.
We hooked up Jessy's laptop to the camera so we could review the pics straight away. Some were bad. Most were pretty good. I saved about 40 of mine.
Lisa came down once in her bandanna bikini, the one Jessy and I made for her (only the bottom half of course) and Jessy was shooting her a while. That made some pretty cute shots-- and she becomes the first of us to formally model the bandanna bikini--mainly because, being 6, she can get away with wearing only a bottom piece, you know. I contributed some ideas but got too many ideas for myself and bolted back up stairs to change. On my way by Jessy's open door I happened to peer in.
Josie was sitting up against the pillows and headboard of Jessy's bed, the heels sort of digging into the covers, her knees up and her hand occupied in the bright-pink panties. At first she did not see me. But when she did she could hardly have stopped anyway. 'Oh!' she sighed, going on even faster. 'I'm sorry! I just--'
I only smiled. 'It's okay,' I said, and stepped back to pull the door closed.
'Oh! Thank you!' And she put back her head then and dug in.
I stepped into my room feeling myself blush. Of course Jessy and I have seen each other self-engaged before. I had never seen Josie, though, but it was hardly anything worse than whatever I could have expected. Of course she was aroused by this. I was myself, a little. (Some of the pics showed it.) I only giggled and then I couldn't even think about getting changed and just went back down as I was, all in white. I think I was really just hoping to divert Lisa from going into Jessy's room till Josie was done
Jessy went up later and about 15 minutes later they were both back down. 'It's so hot,' Jessy said.
That was for Josie, you know. I am sure she was very warm. So I suggested we have a walk or something outside, in all our finery, you know. So in our fancy shoes, cute panties and completely over-the-top stockings, we strolled out across the garden terrace and descended to the side yard. We went round the front lawn of the house and through the driveway area to the preserve path that leads through the trees and bushes to the softball field. It was hot and there ought to have been rain, but the sky actually had cleared more. We were all sweating in the stockings-- but we looked great!
Lisa wanted to play on the swings but none of the rest of us did-- it was just too hot, and I didn't want any of us to tear the stockings, and of course there was always a chance someone would drive by on the road and happen to look in the gate and see us there. So we strolled back to the garden, put the preserve gate safely closed behind us, and then stripped on the terrace for the pool. Jessy and Josie got off their shoes and stockings and then dared each other to dive in wearing the panties. I knew why-- Josie's (which were Jessy's actually) were probably in need of a good rinsing!
I was feeling cute and prised off the panties first. As I stood up straight, in just the lacy white stockings and the shoes, Lisa looked up admiringly and finally said, 'Ohhh. I see why now.'
I smiled down at her. 'But you know what I look like,' I said.
She nodded. 'I know. But those don't show.'
'No,' I said, dropping the panties into a chair. 'I just wish the others didn't.'
Lisa shrugged. 'Oh well. Do you think I can go swimming in this?'
She was still in the all-cotton bandanna bikini. I bent and inspected the knots, retying one side more snugly. 'Sure, try it,' I said. 'If it comes off, you can just leave it.' I giggled at her then. 'None of us will mind.'
'Yes, but-- do you think it will show?'
The other two, in the pool, and I all laughed. 'You don't have anything to show!' Jessy teased her.
Lisa got a little red, looking over at me. 'I wish I did,' she said quietly.
I reached down and hugged her. 'You sweet little girl!' I told her. 'Don't worry about that. You don't want to grow up too soon.'
'I want to be beautiful,' she said, 'like you are.'
I squeezed her. 'You are beautiful. And, trust me, sweetheart, when you are my age, you will be more beautiful than any of us. I can tell already from how beautiful you are now.'
She smiled at me. 'Do you think this will stay on if I jump? I want it to stay on.'
I smiled and stood up straight. 'Only one way to find out,' I said.
Lisa giggled and jumped into the water. The bandanna bikini stayed on.
Daddy did not come home by 5.00 and when I went in I saw a message blinking beside the phone. He had rung and said he would be at the studio till maybe 8.00 or 9.00. Mother had not come home yet either and so I prepared some frozen pizza and we all decided to curl up in the TV room and watch videos. For Lisa's sake we watched the Hannah Montana movie first. We were all in our panties-and-stockings outfits again-- Josie actually in the pink-and-fuscia ensemble she had worn up in Jessy's room. Jessy sat down front with Lisa but before starting '17 Again' (which we had watched in England but which Lisa and Josie had never seen) Lisa sat up with me. Josie had a potty break, sat with Jessy, then ended up down front with Lisa, and Jessy sat in back with me. Those two did not see then as Jessy went on petting herself in her all-blue outfit. I ignored her-- this is old news for me. Lisa fell asleep in the chair right in front of me, which was a good thing since Lisa began to make some inevitable noise. Josie finally turned round and realised what she was doing. 'Oh, God,' she said, and shivered.
'Mm,' Jessy said, pretty committed to it by then.
'Ohhh....' Josie was going weaker. 'Oh, I really need to--'
'No, you don't,' I said to her.
She looked at me. 'Um, no,' she said softly, 'I guess I don't. Still....'
'Let her go,' I whispered.
'Ahhh!' Jessy sighed deeply, and pushed the panties right off then. From what we heard she was pretty successful in what she hoped for.
Josie remained very good and by the time we were all going in to bed the episode had faded into the past. But sometimes I worry about those two. When they stay over each other's house they sleep in the same bed, usually naked or at least very close to it. I know neither of them is inappropriate about it-- they're just good friends, really much more like little kids than anything else. But I do worry about how much they will indulge themselves or encourage each other in it.
Tonight I was online with a friend, whom I'll call 'Kelly', and I told her about what happened in Jessy's room and in the TV room. Kelly admitted she masturbates a lot, nearly every day. I said I do it so infrequently that I usually don't remember the exact date of the last time. 'I'm just not very sexually oriented, like that,' I said to her. Kelly admitted that chatting about intimate details like this often arouses her a little and that it's kind of hard to avoid the temptation. I really don't mind that my friends yield so easily to it, so long as they don't hold it against me that I don't. In turn I expect my real friends to not judge me as a hypocrite if I occasionally yield to it myself.
Kelly and I promised we'd do it when we signed off AOL tonight. I kept my promise-- and my bed has got the puddle from it!
...
More intense decompression
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Under threat of a drizzle I came inside and am sitting here in my room, my usual room, up stairs at Terncote in Virginia. It has been a very dizzying three weeks! But England is always England and that is the best part about it, so it is worth any amount of airplane rides and waiting in queues. Daddy said once, after his first tour there, in the '80s, that there'll always be an England because people in England say that there'll always be an England. Or, as people would say now, it is what it is. And that is why you go to see it.
A few things changed in the year since we were there last. Of course the house we had taken is let again, this time to a nice American doctor and his wife whom everyone knows and likes. It is a lovely all-brick multi-gabled house from about 1870 with a red-gravel garden walk and a bright blue door above which is the room Jessy and I had for two years. There is a dovecote in the eave, there are mice in the garage and rabbits live under the back steps. In back is a garden that trips down gentle terracing to the preserve, which is mostly overgrown behind the house but spreads out into a marvellous copse of wild fruit trees and thick green grass. I used to wander out there by myself and take off my clothes and inhale the sweet wet fragrances of the woods, and it was like I was getting high on the whole idea of being there, being naked, being free and happy, and being myself (which of course is how I am since we have come back and have lived here). Once on a fine English summer afternoon I lay down naked in a bed of that thick grass and stared up through a few gaps in the trees at the clouds passing by, and I was there over an hour like that till I realised people would be wondering about me. It is a unique memory-- for I only ever got to do that once-- and something I know only I will ever appreciate. But it is the kind of innocent indulgence that Jessy and I do here, now, and I know that no one else really fully understands it.
Our friends from HOH have all moved along with their lives-- some are dating new people, some are not dating any more, some have left the school, which is very sad. English schools thrive on people being committed to them, but it is always a case of 'school choice' as it is called here, and there are always times when someone leaves before 5th or 6th year and is missed horribly. Even less welcome, I did run into Henry, the boy I dated during 4th and part of 5th year, who is a year older and having completed 6th form, with honours, moves on to university. 'You look well, Janine,' he said to me. I blushed (WHY?). I do look well. From so much sun I am tanner and my face is clearer and I am probably a little better shaped, but his opinion can't possibly matter to me now. Still I suppose it was inevitable we would meet, if only at the food court in the shopping arcade, and I handled it as well as I could have. My journal from that time is still kept in handwritten notes and is not on this computer. I let my stepmother read it once and she got as far as the part when Henry was petting me under my skirt and I had not said 'no' yet, and she put it away and said, 'No, thank you, Janine!' I giggled at that at the time because her journal, most of which she has let me read, is somewhat racier than mine could ever have been (I won't say in what way!) and like hers mine is only honest and accurate, you know. I felt at the time that Henry's 'attempts' (for no, he was never successful in what he wanted from me) were important enough to be included. Now when I look back on it it's pretty embarrassing. This happens to girls all the time, and it's little more than a mild nuisance, and here I was in my journal making it into a momentous occasion. But it was a first for me, and at the time I had wondered how it would be, for the rest of my life, to be able to say that a not-so-blessed event had taken place during my family's two-year stay in England... and how many girls could have said that?
I consider that such an event would have been much worse than 'not so blessed' and it didn't happen there and hasn't here either, and, since Henry has no way of knowing that, I revel in his uncertainty. He may accuse me of 'going back to my own kind' all he wants now. What I have gained from having lived there far outweighs what I would have lost had I followed his wishes.
Also I had on a great little pale-green twill skirt and my sleeveless navy cotton top and looked great that day in the arcade (Jessy said some other guys were watching me). So Henry can suffer.
Speaking of Jessy she did-- well, after we had arrived at Lady B's- let me know that a certain little-more blessed event had taken place when she went in to change and wash up in the airplane toilet on the way over. We had taken a change of things for the ride, just to arrive feeling fresh. I had not really taken advantage of it, feeling much too sleepy (I napped in Lady B's car halfway up the A11) and you know the experience of getting out of everything in the tiny airplane toilet just to change your panties is just too much effort. Last time I tried it I bumped the latch on the door and it opened (only a little) and that was too disconcerting to forget this time. But Jessy climbed past my seat and went in there with her little bag, and of course, being Jessy, she took much more advantage of the opportunity than I had expected. She told me that night in bed.
'You didn't!' I said.
She nodded, somewhat proud of herself.
'That's why you were in there so long?'
'It almost didn't come,' she said. 'And then it got frustrating.'
'You didn't have to!' I said.
'Yes, but I wanted to try it, to say I've done it.'
I giggled. 'How was it?'
She shrugged in the bed. 'It got pretty hard to keep my mouth shut.'
Airplane toilets are hardly secure, you know. One must be very quiet no matter what business you are doing.
'So were you short of breath?' I teased. You know, because the air in an airliner is pressurised only to about 8000 feet, so it would be like doing it whilst up in the Rockies. Hence the expression 'mile-high club'.
'Yes,' she said. 'But not because of the cabin.'
I laughed at her. Well-- that is one event she can say for ever that she's done.
There were many more adventures we had on our trip and I will attempt to relate some of them as this blog proceeds. For now I will say that when we got in to Philadelphia on Tuesday evening we were all very exhausted and drove out to the beach house (in NJ) straight away, where there was a party of some friends and relatives that went quite late. Little J.J. slept through it all-- he tends to sleep very well. I, typically for a twit, attempted to live a perfectly normal life in Greenwich DST+5 till Wednesday morning when Jessy and I walked over the dune to the beach and I fell asleep on the blanket for about two or three hours. Passing people thought I was dead. Jessy covered me with a towel against the sun and explained to two men who passed by that I was not hung over, that it was only jet lag. But in a way what the men assumed was correct too, for I am still coming down from the reverie of having been to England again.
This morning Roger arrived and drove Jessy and me home to Terncote in order than we may keep some engagements, specifically a dinner with the girls' club tonight. As the car pulled up in the yard I kicked off my shoes. As we walked up the steps I unbuttoned the shirt. We carried our own bags in to the house, leaving Roger to take the car back on his own. Jessy went round opening windows in the back to the sea air. I dropped my bags in the front hall with the shirt. I peeled down my shorts and left them in the parlour. I opened the French windows and went out, prising off the bra and leaving it on the step. I shimmied out of the panties on the terrace and dove straight into the pool. Jessy came out and giggled at me. But I felt absolutely great and within ten minutes, after she had joined me, I was swimming my 'usual' 25 laps. Today I did 30. And I still feel great.
Now I sit here in my room, not having got dressed, revelling in all that has happened in this very long and still-incomplete blog. Well-- I have two weeks left in which to finish it before school begins!
And I still haven't picked up my clothes.
...
Under threat of a drizzle I came inside and am sitting here in my room, my usual room, up stairs at Terncote in Virginia. It has been a very dizzying three weeks! But England is always England and that is the best part about it, so it is worth any amount of airplane rides and waiting in queues. Daddy said once, after his first tour there, in the '80s, that there'll always be an England because people in England say that there'll always be an England. Or, as people would say now, it is what it is. And that is why you go to see it.
A few things changed in the year since we were there last. Of course the house we had taken is let again, this time to a nice American doctor and his wife whom everyone knows and likes. It is a lovely all-brick multi-gabled house from about 1870 with a red-gravel garden walk and a bright blue door above which is the room Jessy and I had for two years. There is a dovecote in the eave, there are mice in the garage and rabbits live under the back steps. In back is a garden that trips down gentle terracing to the preserve, which is mostly overgrown behind the house but spreads out into a marvellous copse of wild fruit trees and thick green grass. I used to wander out there by myself and take off my clothes and inhale the sweet wet fragrances of the woods, and it was like I was getting high on the whole idea of being there, being naked, being free and happy, and being myself (which of course is how I am since we have come back and have lived here). Once on a fine English summer afternoon I lay down naked in a bed of that thick grass and stared up through a few gaps in the trees at the clouds passing by, and I was there over an hour like that till I realised people would be wondering about me. It is a unique memory-- for I only ever got to do that once-- and something I know only I will ever appreciate. But it is the kind of innocent indulgence that Jessy and I do here, now, and I know that no one else really fully understands it.
Our friends from HOH have all moved along with their lives-- some are dating new people, some are not dating any more, some have left the school, which is very sad. English schools thrive on people being committed to them, but it is always a case of 'school choice' as it is called here, and there are always times when someone leaves before 5th or 6th year and is missed horribly. Even less welcome, I did run into Henry, the boy I dated during 4th and part of 5th year, who is a year older and having completed 6th form, with honours, moves on to university. 'You look well, Janine,' he said to me. I blushed (WHY?). I do look well. From so much sun I am tanner and my face is clearer and I am probably a little better shaped, but his opinion can't possibly matter to me now. Still I suppose it was inevitable we would meet, if only at the food court in the shopping arcade, and I handled it as well as I could have. My journal from that time is still kept in handwritten notes and is not on this computer. I let my stepmother read it once and she got as far as the part when Henry was petting me under my skirt and I had not said 'no' yet, and she put it away and said, 'No, thank you, Janine!' I giggled at that at the time because her journal, most of which she has let me read, is somewhat racier than mine could ever have been (I won't say in what way!) and like hers mine is only honest and accurate, you know. I felt at the time that Henry's 'attempts' (for no, he was never successful in what he wanted from me) were important enough to be included. Now when I look back on it it's pretty embarrassing. This happens to girls all the time, and it's little more than a mild nuisance, and here I was in my journal making it into a momentous occasion. But it was a first for me, and at the time I had wondered how it would be, for the rest of my life, to be able to say that a not-so-blessed event had taken place during my family's two-year stay in England... and how many girls could have said that?
I consider that such an event would have been much worse than 'not so blessed' and it didn't happen there and hasn't here either, and, since Henry has no way of knowing that, I revel in his uncertainty. He may accuse me of 'going back to my own kind' all he wants now. What I have gained from having lived there far outweighs what I would have lost had I followed his wishes.
Also I had on a great little pale-green twill skirt and my sleeveless navy cotton top and looked great that day in the arcade (Jessy said some other guys were watching me). So Henry can suffer.
Speaking of Jessy she did-- well, after we had arrived at Lady B's- let me know that a certain little-more blessed event had taken place when she went in to change and wash up in the airplane toilet on the way over. We had taken a change of things for the ride, just to arrive feeling fresh. I had not really taken advantage of it, feeling much too sleepy (I napped in Lady B's car halfway up the A11) and you know the experience of getting out of everything in the tiny airplane toilet just to change your panties is just too much effort. Last time I tried it I bumped the latch on the door and it opened (only a little) and that was too disconcerting to forget this time. But Jessy climbed past my seat and went in there with her little bag, and of course, being Jessy, she took much more advantage of the opportunity than I had expected. She told me that night in bed.
'You didn't!' I said.
She nodded, somewhat proud of herself.
'That's why you were in there so long?'
'It almost didn't come,' she said. 'And then it got frustrating.'
'You didn't have to!' I said.
'Yes, but I wanted to try it, to say I've done it.'
I giggled. 'How was it?'
She shrugged in the bed. 'It got pretty hard to keep my mouth shut.'
Airplane toilets are hardly secure, you know. One must be very quiet no matter what business you are doing.
'So were you short of breath?' I teased. You know, because the air in an airliner is pressurised only to about 8000 feet, so it would be like doing it whilst up in the Rockies. Hence the expression 'mile-high club'.
'Yes,' she said. 'But not because of the cabin.'
I laughed at her. Well-- that is one event she can say for ever that she's done.
There were many more adventures we had on our trip and I will attempt to relate some of them as this blog proceeds. For now I will say that when we got in to Philadelphia on Tuesday evening we were all very exhausted and drove out to the beach house (in NJ) straight away, where there was a party of some friends and relatives that went quite late. Little J.J. slept through it all-- he tends to sleep very well. I, typically for a twit, attempted to live a perfectly normal life in Greenwich DST+5 till Wednesday morning when Jessy and I walked over the dune to the beach and I fell asleep on the blanket for about two or three hours. Passing people thought I was dead. Jessy covered me with a towel against the sun and explained to two men who passed by that I was not hung over, that it was only jet lag. But in a way what the men assumed was correct too, for I am still coming down from the reverie of having been to England again.
This morning Roger arrived and drove Jessy and me home to Terncote in order than we may keep some engagements, specifically a dinner with the girls' club tonight. As the car pulled up in the yard I kicked off my shoes. As we walked up the steps I unbuttoned the shirt. We carried our own bags in to the house, leaving Roger to take the car back on his own. Jessy went round opening windows in the back to the sea air. I dropped my bags in the front hall with the shirt. I peeled down my shorts and left them in the parlour. I opened the French windows and went out, prising off the bra and leaving it on the step. I shimmied out of the panties on the terrace and dove straight into the pool. Jessy came out and giggled at me. But I felt absolutely great and within ten minutes, after she had joined me, I was swimming my 'usual' 25 laps. Today I did 30. And I still feel great.
Now I sit here in my room, not having got dressed, revelling in all that has happened in this very long and still-incomplete blog. Well-- I have two weeks left in which to finish it before school begins!
And I still haven't picked up my clothes.
...
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