"That's what a lady does."

I have discovered Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries on PBS and, despite the lead character's amorality, I love the show.  It takes place in Australia in, I believe, the 1920s.  The lead character is Phryne (pronounced Fry-nee) Fisher, an elegant, wealthy young woman who, among other good deeds, tries to help young street girls to better lives; she has taken Dot on as a lady's maid and has adopted Jane.  And, of course, she is an amateur detective who helps Inspector Jack Robinson to solve murders.  In last night's episode, she is teaching several such girls social graces.  One of them doesn't show to dinner, and they find her on the beach, drowned.  The mystery is rather complex and brilliantly solved by the combined efforts of Phryne and Jack, but another aspect is how the murder changes Phryne's teaching of the girls.

Here is the scene from which the title quote comes:  a day or two after the murder, the girls have gathered to practice dancing.  They are dressed nicely and, scattered about the room as they wait for Phryne, they are trying out graceful dance movements.  Phryne sweeps in wearing an elegant skirt set, looks about, and says, "Gather 'round, girls.  We're doing something different today."  She then demonstrates and sets to teaching them judo moves -- because self-defense will be far more practical for them than the fox-trot.

They are well into it when Inspector Robinson enters.  He seats himself near the door and observes with interest.  When his Detective Constable murmurs, "Miss Fisher knows judo, sir?" with some amazement, Jack merely replies, "Of course she does" -- he is beyond being surprised by her.

One of the girls finally sees the two men and alerts Phryne.  She turns, arches her eyebrows, and waits for Jack to speak.

Jack, deadpan:  "I hope you're not concealing a dangerous weapon under that skirt."

Phryne, archly:  "I'm concealing a lot of things.  That's what a lady does."

Ladies, let's be ladies!

Truth, Lies, and Exaggerations

Caveat (because you can't write anything without them anymore, it seems): I think that bearing false witness is a wretched sin for which we should never employ the gift of language. That said:

When we would catch my dad out in a somewhat different story from its original, he would grin and say, "It's just exaggeration for emphasis."

The other evening, I heard another take on it on some television show I was watching; one character had left out a significant element of a story about another, and when called on it replied: "Let's call it 'truth reimagined for the greater good.'"

I thought it was kinda cute, in the context.

I'll Take Mild Sauce, Thanks

The other day, I made a pot roast. K bought potatoes, carrots, and onions to go with it, but I used only a small portion of them. So I decided to cook the rest in the leftover broth, mash them up, and freeze them in one-meal portions.

The carrots were bubbling away in the broth, I'd cut up the onions and was getting ready to start on the potatoes -- both to go in later since they take less time to cook -- when K pointed to the two small, brilliant orange-red peppers the neighbors had given us, and said, "Hey, you could put those in."

I'm not much of a pepper person as a rule; bell peppers on pizza are about as daring as I get. If you bring stronger than mild salsa into my house for chips, you're welcome to it. So I demurred: "I thought you said they're hot; I want to be able to eat this, too."

"I don't know that they're hot; I'll find out." He cut off the tiny tip of one, chewed on it for awhile, and pronounced it no more hot than bell peppers. Well, okay, then. As long as they were small and bland, I could handle some pepper in the potatoes and carrots.

Holding the peppers in my left hand, I sliced and de-seeded and diced them, then scooped them up, also with my left hand, and dumped them in with the carrots. They were small; it didn't take long. Then I licked the juice off my fingers (and must have licked my lips immediately after).

Two seconds later, I said, "These are too hot." Five seconds later I was running cold water over my hands and very nearly screaming for ice. K came in, baffled, remarked again that the bit he'd eaten earlier hadn't been hot. Had I bitten into a seed, maybe? No, I had not; I had licked the juice from my fingers.

He took a bit from the pot, put it in his mouth, and almost instantly spit it out, horrified. He poured soap over my hands, got me ice, got me ice cream, got himself a popsicle. He took the pan outside and dumped out all those lovely carrots in that savory broth, then cleaned the pan, the knife I'd used, the chopping board, assiduously. Meanwhile I continued running ice cubes over my tongue and lips, moaning. I washed my hands, again and again, afraid to touch anything for fear of contaminating it with that flaming juice. I wiped my hands on my apron only, then threw it into the wash.

Two hours later, the fire in my tongue and lips had mostly abated. I accidentally touched the corners of my eyes with my fingertips and ran for the eyedrops; thankfully, I'd barely touched them before I thought and they only burned mildly for a few seconds. I wondered, seriously, if I'd have been blinded if I'd touched them earlier.

The worst pain gone, I began to realize that the fingers of my left hand were burning. Examining them closely, I found they had actually blistered from the pepper juice. If I touched them to my tongue, my tongue burned again. All night they burned; they still burned when I got up this morning. Only now, 16+ hours later, are they beginning to feel almost normal, the blisters receding, the burning relieved.

Who said beauty isn't dangerous?

Bemused

Because we are lazy, we shorten words:

telephone --> phone

refrigerator --> frig

weblog --> blog

Because we are lazy, we write long redundant phrases:

"all throughout" --> through

"due to the fact that" --> since

"the reason why is because" --> because

I don't understand human nature.

Startin' 'em Young

Conversation this evening on the phone:

I answer: "Hello?"

Pause; I hear child sounds in the background.

9-year-old voice: "Who is this?"

Me: "I'm pretty sure I'm your grandma, but who exactly are you?"

Same voice gives full child name of suspected male grandchild.

Me: "Well, how are you, Nate?"

Nate: "I'm fine. How are you?"

Me: "I'm fine, too."

Slight pause.

Nate: "Can I speak to Grandpa?"

I call Grandpa to the phone and hang up my extension to try to avoid the static problems we had earlier. Grandpa's side of the ensuing conversation:

"How are you, Nate? . . . You did? . . . Did you get to shoot it? . . . Who went with you? . . . Did he get to shoot, too? . . . Did you like it? . . . How much did you get to shoot? . . ."

This is the male conversation in my family: guns and politics. God love 'em!

Learn it you will . . .

I knew K. was watching a John Wayne war movie involving fighter pilots. Not particularly interested, I went to the study to read, dozed off for a bit, and woke to this, ringing out in that familiar gruff voice:

Believe me, gentlemen, I take no pleasure in re-teaching you what you should have already learned -- but learn it you will!

Laughed so hard it was a good thing I was already sitting down.

Visual Migraines

This morning I showed up in the wrong classroom, planning to teach my 12:00 class at 10:00. Melissa and Rob finally straightened me out and I got to the right place only seven minutes late. And what a great class -- they were discussing their homework while waiting patiently for me to arrive.

Excuses for absurdity are always nice -- so here's mine.

I had been putting together the handouts for the 12:00 class (the 10:00 was already planned). A student came in to talk about an essay; when she left, about 9:20, I turned to my computer and saw strange lights on the screen -- the kind you see if you've been staring at a bright light and then look away. But I hadn't been staring at a bright light. I blinked and closed my eyes for several seconds, but the odd light remained. I got up, walked out into the department suite, and the light came with me: that was when I knew what it was.

The first visual migraine I had was terrifyingly amazing. It looked almost exactly like the top simulation at this site, except that the lines were all jagged instead of blocky, and the colors seemed a little brighter. It happened in the summer, sometime after we had moved here ten years ago. When it faded away, within 30 seconds it began again. Overall, it lasted nearly an hour. When it finally stopped, I got up, stumbled outside where K. was working, and wailed to him, "I'm going blind!!!"

Since then, I've had three or four, none so spectacular, thank the Lord. They've lasted about half an hour, and look more like the "Scintillating Socoma" at the same site I linked above, or the "Optical Migraine," except with color. The simulation half-way down this page captures the shimmering nature of the phenomonon quite accurately. This clock figure shows how they typically grow and begin to fade.

I've been blessed that these visual migraines are not followed by full-blown migraine headaches; for some people they are a headache aura. But still they wear me out, making my brain feel tired and leaving my body a little shaky.

So when the migraine started this morning, and the last thing I'd been doing before was preparing for a class -- that's the class I went to. The migraine itself finally faded out as I entered the wrong classroom. And when I finally got to the right class, I felt like I was slogging through deep sand to pull a thought up and put it into words.

And that, boys and girls, explains why I was more weird than usual this morning. Thanks for your patience and for laughing with me. And may you never experience migraines of any sort!

Just Sensible

Found while working cryptograms today:

"Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing." --William James

Hmmm . . . so my lack of a sense of humor means I also lack common sense?

Obedience

Yesterday afternoon, I heard the Yorkie sisters from next door barking furiously, so I moseyed out to the front porch to see if I could cajole some playful cuddling from one or both. It was no go – they were focused on the neighborhood cat in regal procession down the middle of the street, her cool Queen of Sheba stroll declaring disdain for her enraged antagonists, the elder Sophie on the porch, intrepid Sadie in the drive. The disdain was well-placed, as we all knew that if Sadie dared to follow, the royalty need only turn, sit, and casually lick her fur to send the little grey-white creature into an even greater frenzy, backing away in consternation at the perceived challenge. When I called, both dogs merely glanced my way, impatient at the interruption, Sophie safely ensconced in her normal reserve, Sadie giving a good imitation of obedience to the convenient sharp calls of her owner, usually hopeless and unheeded, to “stay here!”

Laughing, I sat down on the steps to watch the show and enjoy the warm sun and cool breeze of the almost-autumn day. At mid-afternoon, the sun made luminous green of the trees at the top of the valley sides, melding into cool contrasting shadows in the depths. Looking up into the cloudless blue, I was greeted by the half-moon winking at me with a sardonic grin. Although it contributed no new light to the world, still it shone merrily, unconcerned with anything but its work of reflection, leaving the results to its master the sun.

And so back to work with a better will.

Slow Learner

Freshman Composition is the toughest class I teach. I don't know anyone who teaches it regularly who is ever entirely satisfied with any particular semester. The highest praise I've ever heard has been "It was okay, but . . ." I'm not sure why this is the case, except that there is so much we need to accomplish in just one or two semesters, and because teaching writing is not teaching information but teaching skills and performance, and the same techniques never work quite the same way with different students and even different mixes of students. After a few years one learns never to assume that because an activity was a stellar success this semester it will infallibly work the next. And there is always the matter of which readings will be most accessible, challenging, and helpful for each skill being taught; the book edition is likely different, with one's favorite readings no longer available, or one wonders if the students might respond better to different topics . . .

However, there are of course basic concepts one always addresses; it's the how, not the what, that causes our angst. I developed a basic structure years ago which I find the most helpful in building those concepts over the semester. (There is, of course, no textbook which follows this structure and/or defines its parts the way I do.) So every summer as I plan for the fall, I jot down this structure and then begin inserting specific assignments, activities, etc. into the daily schedule. Usually I'll forget part of the structure at first and have to start the planning over; then during the semester I'll forget that I had a handout or activity that would probably have helped this particular class with some specific skill until we're well past that point. In other words, I'm thoroughly organized but don't always remember that I am.

(I understand this is a quality of intuitive types. It's not bad, really, just inconvenient, kind of like having no concept of time, another intuitive trait I muddle along with.)

But God has a sense of humor. Last week a young lady asked if I could give her some tips on teaching her high-school aged brother composition this summer. Sure, I said, thinking of my well-defined structure; come on by. And then I realized that if I typed out that structure with brief explanations and a list of the handouts and activities that I use under each section, it would be really helpful to her and easy to explain . . . So, yes, after all these years, I am finally actually putting all this in writing so that it's readily available -- to me -- at any time . . . and, yes, I do feel a fool.

It won't make the class any easier to teach. But maybe the planning will take a few minutes less, and I won't forget as many possibilities as I have already available. Now, if I could make myself do the same for the second semester . . . but that might be asking rather too much for one lesson learned, to apply it elsewhere.

Aeolian Carpings

Some quotes from an underground newsletter of the English graduate students at a university which will remain nameless in order to protect the guilty:

Random Aphorism: You can lead a horse to water, give him lots of handouts on thirst and dehydration, present examples of quaffing in class, e-mail him reminders to imbibe, post notes and drinking assignments on Blackboard, call him in for one-on-one conferences on the shoreline, and send him to the Drinking Center for every assignment, but you can't make him drink.

Found: one medium-sized brain, gray, filled with facts about Victorian literature. Please claim in the faculty lounge refrigerator.

TA an Expert in Margin Manipulation Detection: "It's a gift,"he says.

Frustrated Instructor Resorts to Using Taser in Class: Says "Students are responding well to technology."

Emergency "Staple Requisition Route" Maps to be Posted in Every Classroom: TA says, "It's about time!"

Title of the annual interdisciplinary conference: "([Dis]Mi/ys)teyr (Post [Dis]Course(s) (?): (Un[Dis{P(Re)}])Establishing (!) ([Anti[De])flection(s) on [sic] His/Her(story/i)cal (Post[colon{:}]ial) (Hyper)Text(ual) Margin([al]s) :-)"


The long articles are even better, but I'd best be careful not to tempt the copyright fates, as someone I know is responsible for the publication . . . :) I just wish I could write this kind of thing myself; it makes me so jealous when I read it!

Red Hats and Social Conventions

Yesterday I chose a black skirt and a new red short-sleeved jacket to wear to church. I thought I would wear the red hat my mother-in-law gave me years ago; I love it but don’t have a lot of chance to wear it, and this seemed perfect. Then I remembered the Red Hat Society. I’d never heard of it till recently, when I discovered that several ladies in my church are part of it. They’re great women, always looking for ways to minister to others, especially younger women who need a friend or a meal or whatever.

But they wear red hats. And I began to wonder what others would think if I wore my red hat to church. I’m not a Red Hat lady, after all. Would members think I was flouting them somehow? Would others think I was flaunting a membership I don’t actually have? The Red Hat ladies don’t wear their red hats to church, you see; they reserve them to wear with their purple dresses in their meetings or when they explain the Society at retreats and so on. They are meant to symbolize eccentricity, and Southern ladies are not eccentric in church.

So I didn’t wear my red hat, which just a few years ago would have been merely a fashion choice but has suddenly become more than that: wearing it may send messages I don’t intend; not wearing it makes me a coward. Frustrating.

However, there’s a greater irony here. The Red Hat Society takes its name from a poem by Jenny Johnson called “Warning.” The first lines read “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple / with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.” The speaker goes on to tell the other things she will do unconventionally to “make up for the sobriety of [her] youth,” such as spending her pension on “brandy and summer gloves,” “gobbl [ing] up samples in shops,” and “learn[ing] to spit.”

For now, she knows “we must have clothes that keep us dry / and pay our rent and not swear in the street / and set a good example for the children,” though she ends the poem pondering if she shouldn’t begin to practice her unconventionality a bit so that “people who know me are not too shocked and surprised / When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.”

In other words, it’s all about choosing to do those things that she enjoys without having to bow to the conventions of the culture. She knows she’s got to be at least mostly conventional now, while she has children and needs to be a responsible adult in raising them. But someday, she knows too, she will be free of that responsibility and intends to be “shocking” by doing or having some of those “silly” or “extravagant” things that appeal to her.

So . . . now we have a whole Society devoted to the convention of wearing red hats and purple dresses, and making me – whom red suits quite well, thank you – feel that I can’t make a personal fashion choice that I used to make without much thought. In other words, they’ve undermined the whole point.

People are really strange.

(And yes, I include myself. If I really believed anything I say I believe, I’d have worn that hat yesterday.)

Okay, I Give In :-)

I've been tagged twice now, so just for fun:

Four movies you could watch over and over:
Annie
Fiddler on the Roof
Dead Poets Society
Princess Bride

Four places you have lived:
Lawrence, KS
Manhattan, KS
Springfield, MO
Jackson, MS

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Numbers
CSI Miami
Smallville
reruns of Diagnosis Murder

Four places you have been on vacation:
Creede, CO
Wyoming
Ozarks
various places our kids and parents live

Four websites you daily visit (besides blogs):
National Review Online
Townhall
Touchstone Mere Comments
The Corner
(the latter two are technically blogs, but they aren't personal ones, which I take the proscription to mean)

Four of your favorite foods:
Chocolate
Chocolate
umm . . . chocolate . . . .
oh, and . . . chocolate

Four places you would rather be right now:
home with my husband and son
with my parents
with any of my older kids and grandkids

Four bloggers you are tagging:
I believe all the ones I'd tag have been tagged already,
except maybe Amy at Over the Rainbow.

Imitation

When our grandson D. was one, we visited for a few days, and he fell in love with the boy (his uncle, only ten-eleven years older). D. had a beach ball that came nearly to his shoulders, which he loved to push around the room. The boy saw more potential, and one evening flung himself over the top of the ball and rode it to the ground, somersaulting away as he came down. D. thought this hilarious and decided he would do the same. As he threw himself at the ball, however, he quickly saw that the ride down would certainly be dangerous.

So he threw himself at the ball, jumped back from it, and dropped onto the floor in the exact same position as the boy’s when he landed from a somersault. Then he laughed wildly as he looked for our reaction, which was all he could possibly have hoped for.

They must have done this for half an hour, the boy somersaulting over the ball, D. imitating him to the best of his ability, the adults clapping and laughing at the fun, his mom and I wiping away tears of mirth.

It struck me later that perhaps we ask too much of ourselves and others when we try to imitate Jesus and godly folk we know. None of us expected D. to strictly imitate his uncle, to be able to do or even try the exact same actions. Rather, we delighted in his desire to imitate and applauded his vigorous efforts to do the best he could with his more childish abilities.

I wonder if the Father, laughing a bit at our awkwardness, applauds us a great deal more often than we realize, knowing that because we love Him we will continue to grow and to increase our ability to imitate His Son more closely. I wonder if we would grow more quickly if we rejoiced in His love instead of always fearing a wrath that is reserved not for us who are His children but for those who reject Him out of hand.

I hope that I can learn to accept more graciously both my own limitations and the limitations of others, seeing and rejoicing in the attempt to imitate, recognizing it as love which will lead to growth, instead of demanding an impossible perfection.

Incredible(s)!

Yes, we finally got to watch The Incredibles. Yes, we all loved it. A funny, well-created film that wasn’t an all-out assault on traditional values.

Low points:
Okay, maybe I’m a prude, but really – is it necessary in a family film to have one of the characters use God’s name inappropriately as a character tag? “My goodness” would have worked equally well in a film that has no other reference to God, after all. And apparently there was one pretty bad profanity which was equally gratuitous (our muter was on but it looked bad). Why insist on this in an otherwise completely clean film? Other than that, no complaints.

On being special:
When Dash has been chastised about using his super-powers at school to play a trick, his mom tells him that he’s special – that everyone is special. He scowls out the car window and mutters, “Which is just another way of saying no one is.” Later, the villain reveals his plan to give everyone his secret for having super-powers through technology, then says, “Then everyone will be special – which means that no one will be.”

I find this most interesting. Of course, every individual is special in the sense of being created uniquely by God and loved uniquely by Him. But in the realm of human affairs, obviously we have different strengths and weaknesses. And Dash sees that the demand to dumb everyone down to mediocrity is a way of trying to stamp out these essential differences. And Syndrome, even in his frantic attempts to become a superhero through his own means, knows that giving everyone superpowers will have the same result. So it doesn’t matter whether we are trying to dumb everyone down or bring everyone up, the goal is sameness, a destruction of the uniqueness of each human being.

This is a problem Richard Weaver commented on at mid-20th century in Ideas Have Consequences. Our country was founded on the principle of equal opportunity – anyone who had the ability and drive and right circumstances could become president, or whatever. But this is not the same as equal outcomes – anyone who wants to can become president was never the idea. I may want to be a pop music star, but anyone who has stood near me in church could assure you that no amount of voice lessons and hard work will ever make me one. And it is simply a fact of life that sometimes circumstances will hold us back from achieving some particular goal we otherwise might have. But the laws of our country do not prevent anyone from attempting to do or become anything they want. Social and financial circumstances are not the purview of the law, but how many people have overcome difficult circumstances to still achieve their goals? When we insist on social engineering, however, we have to make the laws apply unequally (think affirmative action), and then we no longer have equal opportunity and those with special ability will be discriminated against.

I kept thinking of Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron.” I recommend it highly as another view of a society which tries to make everyone equal and prevent special gifts from being exercised. A very funny read while critiquing a serious problem, much like this movie.

On family and working together:
Great, great, great here. Each Incredible has his or her own special powers, and only in using them together can they finally overcome evil. Very realistic family life, with various tensions and frictions that smooth away when adversity threatens. (Love the scenes where Dash is disgusted at waking up next to his sister, but then goes ballistic when she is threatened: “Don’t you dare hit my sister!”) The super-smart kids don’t save the super-dumb parents, but they play an essential role as the family faces each trial. They gain confidence when they have to face danger alone, but they still need mom and dad. And mom and dad need each other. Incrediman’s “I work alone” leads him into danger he can’t conquer, but allowing his wife to be his true partner, and the kids to join in, gives them the variety of abilities they need to win the battles.

On a victim society:
I loved the opening where the people saved by Incrediman sue him for saving them (or not saving them enough). This is a great critique of today’s litigious, victim-laden society. And of course, it’s a great way of showing what happens a) to the individual denied the use of his gifts (Incrediman is continually frustrated by his inability to help people and keeps undermining the system to try to do so anyway) and b) to the society which is vulnerable to danger and death when individuals cannot do what they were created to do. The bottom line, taking care of #1 (or the stockholders!), blaming the real victims for what happens to them . . . a stronger and stronger emphasis on selfishness and coldness.

All in all, a wonderful film. Lots of great lines -- "Go save the world, honey, one claim at a time!" If you haven’t seen it, find it and set aside a couple of hours for some good clean fun. (And that’s from someone who almost never watches movies.)

Discouragement

One who longs to write but honestly has not the time and resources to complete anything at a standard of excellence which would make it worth even sending out should not read biographies of famous writers.

We hates them, we hates them, we hates them forever!

I'll be better tomorrow when the effects have worn off. :)

Maintaining My Balance

As those who know me are aware, I often only notice immediate physical realities when they impinge, usually painfully, upon my life. Normally this deficiency is a source of amusement to others and only a mild annoyance to me. Paper cuts and bruised shins are simply an expected part of my day. Recently, however, I rammed my foot into a piece of furniture that I’d been successfully avoiding for several months. After hyper-ventilating for five or ten minutes, I decided I must have really broken my toe.

Since then, the bedroom has been rearranged, thanks to a sweetheart of a husband, and I have become painfully aware of just how valuable one’s little toe is. I am quite sure I’d never before paid attention to it other than to note its odd inherited shape while clipping my nails. Now, however, I realize that it governs my every movement.

I can count on one hand the number of days I’ve missed work in over twenty years. One of those was the day after breaking my toe; I tried, but by noon that Friday the pain so overwhelmed me that I had to go home and get my shoe off and my foot up. Throughout the weekend I limped about on the inside of my foot, causing my entire leg to tighten and ache. Sunday I had to stay home from church. Halfway into the week, finally wearing shoes again, I can’t walk down stairs and have to consider every step I take to avoid excruciating pain.

Because of all this, I’m constantly grabbing hold of things to maintain my balance. As I careen down the hallway or stagger up the stairs, fall into tables or grab the chalk tray to keep myself upright, I see the amusement in others' eyes. True, they try to hide it when they find out why I look like I'm half-drunk, but when I laugh about it they freely join in. It is, after all, pretty ridiculous.

The analogy is obvious, and perhaps old hat. But old hat often only means genuinely true, and the obvious often bears repeating. I, at least, tend to forget it all too readily.

How often we neglect to think of those who do their jobs out of sight and out of mind – until for some reason the jobs aren’t done. And when the restroom isn’t cleaned for a day or two, or boards aren’t erased in the classroom, or there’s no response to my aggravated call about the air conditioning freezing me out of my office again – how often do I whine and gripe instead of considering that the one who does such a job may be ill or overwhelmed with work or facing a family emergency, may need my prayer instead of my complaint, my friendship instead of my irritation? How often do I think to seek out these usually unnoticed workers and thank them for their sacrificial work on my behalf, instead of arrogantly accepting it as somehow my due?

And am I willing to be an unseen worker myself? Am I willing to just do my job without demanding and expecting recognition, to be unconcerned when I’m taken for granted and unnoticed? Do I work to be seen by men, or to the Lord to serve Him by serving His creation as He’s called me to do? And do I ever stop to realize how important my own spiritual health really is, that I can do harm to the entire body by neglecting His call on my life?

It’s not just about me. How hard that lesson is to learn, no matter how well I know it. Thank the Lord for His mercies, and His reminders of the obvious and often-taught. Even the ones that set me up as an object of amusement. A little laughter about oneself is, after all, rarely misdirected.