Compositions Circa 1928 (Part One)

I have a scribbler that belonged to my mother in 1928 in which she wrote stories for English Composition.  She would have been eleven years old.  They are done with a fountain pen, or with a pencil, or sometimes with a combination of both.  The pencil lead broke, the inkwell went dry – who knows.  The penmanship is sometimes exquisite, and sometimes a hurriedly scrawled mess with a careless spelling mistake or two.  I think these must have been assigned subjects, because some of them are less enthusiastically done than others.  No matter.   I’m just thrilled to be able to get a small glimpse of the child my mother used to be.

A Tramp In The Woods

“This is a very good year for nuts, isn’t it Marguerite?”  I asked one fine October morning.  “Let’s go to the bush after Saturday’s work is done.”  This was agreed to at once.

The Saturday’s work was done in a few hours.  And away we went after making up a small lunch.

The leaves were very pretty.  “If we would stand still or even sit here for awhile we would be covered in leaves,” I happened to say.  “Indeed we would”, said Marguerite.

We saw very many small animals and at last caught a small white rabiit that was lame.  It was a very nice pet.  After lunch we visited the Maple Syrup Camp, an old cave, and an owl’s home.

At last we were on our way home with the rabbit.  We were all as hungry as bears.  But as happy as larks.

*****

A Tramp Coming To Our Home

One fine summer afternoon mother asked me to stay at home while she went to town.  I said I would.  As my favourite pastime was reading, I sat behind the table and read a very interesting book called “Edna’s Escape”.  In a little while I heard a rap at the door.  It made me shiver for I had been reading about the awful time Edna had been having.  All I could do was to go to the door and this I dreaded.  But at last I gained courage and went.

There in front of me was an ugly tramp.  Mother often said that tramps are dangerous.  I made up my mind to take no chances.  “Well my girl, you are a regular housekeeper.  What are you going to do when you are big?” the tramp began.

“Well I don’t think that’s for me to tell”  I said.  The tramp frowned at me.  “But what do you want?” I said.

“A match, a piece of bread, and any other things you have”, said the tramp.  “What do you want with all these things?”  said I.  “I want the match to light my pipe, and the bread to eat, of course”  “But where is your pipe?” I said.  The tramp turned and walked to the other side of the door and then he said “Get me the bread.  Then I will tell.”  I went and got a loaf of bread.  He smacked his lips and said “Give it to me.”  I gave it to him.  He turned around very quickly and said as he went away “I’ve got the bread now.  I’ll come back for the matches another day.”  He then disappeared down the lane.

I thought he had played a good trick on me.  I never saw him again, nor he never came back for his matches.

Margaret Elaine Scott, 1928.

 

Ophiuchus? Really?

Yesterday was my birthday, the 13th of May.  I had a brief panic attack, which surprisingly enough had nothing to do with my age.  It’s all this nonsense about a thirteenth sign of the Zodiac. And a perfect example of a little knowledge being a dangerours thing.  And jumping to conclusions being stupid.  And stuff like that.

Turns out it’s a technically inaccurate description of Ophiuchus when it’s being called a ’sign’ of the zodiac, although the public misconception dates back to the 1970′s  and a misunderstanding about the differences between the Tropical and Sidereal Zodiacs, and the Parazodiacal Constellations.  Which, when you think about it, is not that hard to imagine happening with all this astronomical gobbledegook being thrown about as if we’re all supposed to understand what the hell they’re going on about.  I blame it entirely on the stars and the planets which don’t seem to remember from year to year how to keep themselves properly aligned.  According to Wikipedia “the irregular astronomical demarcation of visible constellations does not relate to the separate frame of reference provided by the equally spaced twelve-fold longitude division of the ecliptic into zodiacal signs.”  So we all need to calm down.

My alarm was caused by suddenly noticing a discrepancy in the dates.  By the Tropical (Western) Zodiac I’m still a Taurus, but by the Sidereal (Eastern or Hindu) Zodiac and the Constellation calculations I’m Aries.  Inconceivable.  No offense to Aries people, but seriously, I am nothing like you.  Even on the cusp, I do not share your traits.

Adventurous.  Not even remotely.  If you ever ask me “Where’s your sense of adventure?”  your question will be met with a blank stare.

Ambitious.  Huh.  Not really.  I strive not so much for success as for creature comforts.  I am ambitiously involved in the pursit of laziness and inertia.  With a less than normal  level of enthusiasm.

Impulsive.  Rarely.  Everything I do requires thought and planning.  Sometimes to the point where nothing much at all gets accomplished because the thought and planning hasn’t yet ended.  Maybe it never will.

Impatient.  Never.  I am the most patient person on the face of the earth.  I can wait you out no matter what.  Let’s just wait and see what happens is always the relentless phrase in the back of my head.

Self-reliant.  Well sort of, I suppose.  But I’d never refuse help.  And if you want to do whatever it is on your own for my benefit, that’s certainly fine with me.

Undiplomatic.  Quite the opposite, actually.  I will do just about anything to avoid conflict. I will knock myself out to see the other person’s point of view.

Then there are the Taurean traits which (in some cases unfortunately) describe me a whole lot better.

Stubborn.  Sigh.  Yes.  Just because I’m diplomatically seeing your point of view and smiling and nodding like I get it, doesn’t mean I’ll ever change my mind about anything.  Because I’m always right.  Just ask W.  And if he says no, he’s obviously lying.

Dependable.  Yes, I am reliable and responsible to the point of boring everyone to tears.

Persistent.  Yep,  In an elephant never forgets sort of way. In for the long haul.  Stick in the mud forever without end.

Materialistic and Possessive.  I admit it’s true.  I do like lots of things. I like lots of things to be mine.  I prefer that you do not borrow my things.  In fact don’t even touch them.

Affectionate.  Of course. It almost goes without saying.  Doesn’t all of the above make it sound like I’m just bursting with love and kindness and benevolence and magnanimity?  Well, I can be sentimental and emotional.  It’s the same thing, isn’t it?

What it all boils down to is the fact that I am not adventurous or impulsive enough to embrace a different zodiac with altered dates after all these years of stubbornly and persistently believing myself to be a Taurus through and through.  If I ever move to India perhaps I will have to accept the Sidereal one which tells me I’m Aries, but since that’s not ever going to happen in this lifetime, I’ll just carry on and wait for the next one and then see what happens.

And if you think you might be an Ophiuchus (November 29th to December 17th) chances are you’re still a Scorpio or a Sagittarius here in the real world and some hot shot astrological buff is just pulling your chain.

 

Never Say Die

Here we go again with the questions you never wanted to ask and the answers you never wanted to think about.  Come on, read it anyway.  Things you don’t like are usually good for you.

Have you ever wanted to build your own house?  What would it look like?  My mother always used to say there was an ideal house for every stage in your life.  On your own, newly married, with little kids, with teenagers, with an empty nest, retired, needing care.  But who wants to start over that many times?  Your needs are met and then they change.  So yes, I’ve wanted to build a house.  I love the look of an A-frame chalet with towering windows, a huge stone fireplace, cathedral ceiling and an open loft.

But – so many buts.  It would look rather silly in a city suburb, next to a mall.  Too many windows to clean, too many stairs to climb.  It was, and still is, a lovely dream.  I’ve designed it a hundred times in my mind, perfecting all the details.  Probably the reality could never live up to my aspirations. I’m not unhappy if it remains a castle in the air.

What’s your favourite way to cook eggs?  Broken, flipped, mutilated.  It might as well be my favourite, because that’s how they end up.

Do you think people can change?  Well of course they can.  The process starts with growing up.  For a lot of us, that period in our lives is very long and drawn out and we think we’ll never get to the end of it.  If you learn one new thing a day, it’s impossible to stay the same.  How great is that?  You need never be stuck with whoever you are right now.  You can just keep on getting better and better.  Promise yourself you’re not going to die until you’re perfect.  My gawd, think about it.  You could live forever.

Share a story about someone you admire.  It’s Mother’s Day.  I admired my mother, although I never told her that.  She would have been embarrassed and shrugged it off because conceit to her was a deadly sin.  Funny how the people who have every reason to be proud, generally aren’t, really.  Mother’s are a strange bunch.  Even when they’re doing a crappy job, they mean well.  Hug your mother today.

When you need creative inspiration, where do you go?  To sleep.  By the time I wake up I’m usually over it.

Do you support same sex marriage?  What a funny word – support.  Do same sex marriages, or opposite sex marriages for that matter, need my encouragement?  Does ANY marriage need me to be an advocate for it?  Go ahead and get married to whoever you want.  Make the choices and the promises that work for you and leave the rest of us out of it.  Because, guess what – it’s really none of our business.   People are people first, and sorted out into categories second.   Any loving relationship can be a beautiful thing.

If tatoos lasted for only one year, would you want one?  Are you kidding?  Go through all that pain and agony to have it fade away to nothing in a year?  There’s a reason why it’s done with sharp needles – to ensure that you’re damned serious about it and willing to suffer for it and live with it forever.  Sort of like marriage in a way.  As for me, just give me one of those painless stick on ones that disappears after a couple of showers and I’m good to go.

 

Movies! and More Movies!

Man, I have become some kind of movie watching machine in the last little while.  Trying to get my money’s worth out of Netflix I guess. Or trying to prove that as long as it involves sitting down I’ll watch just about anything.

 

If I had to pick just one out of all of these to recommend, it wouldn’t be this one:

Age of Darkness in French, but Days of Darkness in English, with English subtitles that someone complained were very poorly done.  And the story was just plain weird.

I love Lost in Austen, but never watched it from start to finish before.  I’m sure it’s been on tv.

And NOW, I’ve decided I need some Will Ferrell, best of, volumes one and two, from SNL.  Then I will blame the fact that I have nothing to write about on all this zombie-like movie watching.

Which is actually what I’m doing right now, if you think about it.

 

Queen Alice

I don’t know why more queens aren’t called Alice, since it rhymes so nicely with palace.  Whereas Elizabeth doesn’t rhyme with anything.  But on with the story.  I am proud to present:

Little Queen 

(I’ve taken the liberty of changing the spelling)  (Maybe there just was no room for that second T)

This is a little hand-made booklet, on very faded paper, put together with a couple of staples and completed with pencil illustrations.  It’s in the box with my various other ‘finds’ but I don’t know who created it.  The McArthur side of the family was the most artistic, but beyond that I can’t guess.

Little Queen Alice sat in her palace.

Never was maiden more happy than she.

By her playmates beloved, she had risen above

And now was as happy as happy could be.

Little Bob Concord Is her Majesty’s landlord,

As there she did sit in her queenly array,

With a wreath on her head from the autumn leaf bed,

She tried very hard her piano to play.

And now near her home and in fields did she roam.

Her pony was lively, that much she could say.

But whatever betide, with wee Bob for her quide,

She’d be safer than anyone ‘neath the sun’s rays.

The End.

(Well, except for this)

(And finally, this.)

She leant upon the mantel fine

A mother grieved and sad.

And by her on the carpet stood

A charming little lad.

“Why did you hurt wee brother Ned?”

She said with voice so sad.

“Why don’t you know”, the laddie said,

“Because I was so bad.”

This doesn’t seem to have much of a connection to the Queen Alice story, unless it’s a postcript of some sort.  Personally I think it’s just a page filler and then the creativity ran dry, because two blank pages follow. 

So we didn’t exaclty have a Beatrix Potter in the family, but I’m glad somebody thought this special little book was worth tucking away.

 

How I Spent My Day, And I’m Not Even Kidding

It’s been one of those perfectly do-nothing uninspiring days. Unexciting and uninteresting to the point where I contemplated skipping this post-a-day nonsense to see if the world might come to a screeching halt.  But I’m into month FIVE of never missing a day, and apparently the habit is fairly well ingrained.

This post may cause drowsiness.  So if you’re driving, please pull over.  If you’re an insomniac desperate for sleep, you’re welcome.

What I did on my day off (in chronological order):

1.  Slept late.  The furnace kept coming on and all that heat makes me lethargic.  Somnolent.  I love that word.

2.  Got up and made coffee and had a shower and started some laundry.  Crap, I forgot all about finishing the laundry.  Because….

3.  Because, I had to drive to a hair appointment.  Why is it that something as simple as getting my hair cut makes me nervous?  I fret about what to wear and what to talk about and what in the name of all that’s holy they’re going to do to me today.  Even though I explained to the girl who chopped all my hair off the last time that I don’t like it THAT SHORT and I don’t mind the waves, she chopped it all off that short again and smoothed it down straight as a poker.  I believe in giving people a second chance, but when they asked me if I wanted to book my next cut in six weeks with her ”in case your stylist is all booked up”  I said no.  This is the second time I phoned one day and got in the next.  It could just be wishful thinking on their part that she will be booked solid for six weeks in advance.  I could be bald in six weeks.  I feel that way already.  If I’m ever going back there, I will call and take my chances on seeing the same girl.  She’s very sweet, but man, does she love those scissors.

4.  Before driving home and before unplastering my hair from my skull I took a picture of myself on my I-Phone to prove to my friend Laura that I’m not making any of this up. Sorry I’m not sharing it with you.  I always look so completely pissed off in pictures.  I’m SURE I don’t look like that in real life.

Kevin Bacon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

5.  I made lunch, drank more coffee, played all my word games, discovered I’d received a lovely surprise comment on my blog from someone who shares some of my ancestors (and was actually willing to admit it).  What’s that six degrees of Kevin Bacon thing – proving it’s a small world?  Six degrees of separation.  Think about it.  Everyone in the world could be connected to me somehow.  Although why you would want to find out how is a total mindboggler.  Anyway just look at that face.  You could share ancestors with this man.  Or someone you know might be related to his hair stylist.  There are a lot of possibilities.  Some other day perhaps I’ll explore them all.

6.  I contemplated going for a walk, but it’s cold outside.  People are tossing about the S word.  I watched two movies on Netflix in my nice warm house instead.

7.  Made a salad, baked a potato in the microwave, put a frozen steak on the George Foreman Grill, poured a glass of red wine, and ate while reading more of “Odd Jobs” on my Kindle.  I know you should thaw steaks first, but that would involve planning ahead.  And I know you shouldn’t read while you eat, but nobody saw me.

8.  I had a nap.  That wasn’t pre-planned either.  All the stuff I’ve been doing all day must have been exhausting.  Or bored me into a comatose state.

9.  Then I realized I hadn’t yet done my blog-a-day-365-project-six-degree-crazy blogging from hell thing and so I got up off the couch and wandered off to sit down at the computer and here it is.  Such as it is.  I did warn you, if you remember.

10.  I’m going to finish the laundry now and watch another movie.  I’ve been kind of a waste of human space all day today, so why switch it up now?  I’ll get on with saving the world tomorrow.  I also have to do something with this hair.

 

So What Are YOU Reading?

Because I am living alone at the moment (and for the next five months or so of moments) I have a lot of time for uninterrupted reading.  It’s one of the best feelings there is, to have the quiet time to sit down with a good book, and to just let whatever else needs doing wait.  Kind of a delicious spaced-out interlude in which the rest of the world ceases to matter.

Just finished Escape by Barbara Delinsky.  It’s one of those feel good stories with a happy ending.  Of course there’s a lot of stress and trauma and mucking about to get there, but you just know things will work out eventually for ALMOST everybody.  And the ones it doesn’t all work out for, well that was their own damned fault.  In the crazy world of workaholic lawyers in New York,  Emily suddenly decides to walk away from it all and figure out her priorities in life because she’s mega stressed and no longer happy.  How many people do you know who are working their butts off doing something they hate to do for all the wrong reasons?  Take a good look in the mirror – one of them might be you.

Odd Jobs by Ben Lieberman is turning out to be a real page turner and everybody’s fate is up in the air.  Of course I’m referring to the characters who are still alive at this point in the story.  I’m about half way through it.  If I review it now I’m less likely to give away the ending. Here’s the little blurb from Amazon:

College student Kevin Davenport is working any and every odd job to make it through school. He discovers who killed his father while working at the corrupt, mob-controlled, Kosher World Meat factory. Now he will stop at nothing to prevent the killers from ruining other families and to get his revenge, as well. Conventional techniques, such as going to the police, have not only been ineffective for others, these methods have proven to be virtual suicide.

So all bets are off and Davenport uses the grittiest and strangest methods as tools to bring down the killers. The characters, misadventures and odd jobs will have the readers laughing. But the hazard is real and Davenport is in over his head.

It’s very well written and hard to put down.  Unless you get interrupted by something like this next book.

Shift or Get off the Pot by Linda Edgecombe.  My boss gave it to me as a gift.  Do you think she’s trying to tell me something??  I started reading it last night at work and finished it when I got home, and decided I already have a life, thank you very much.  There are some very insightful things in it of course, not that I needed to hear any of them.  Okay, all sarcasm aside, it’s actually an excellent motivational book, which is why I was able to quickly read the whole thing.  And also just in case there’s a test later I like to brown nose and appear to be smart.  Funnily enough, it’s a lot like the Escape book, advising us to get rid of the negative things in our lives, discover what it is that makes us truly happy and fulfilled, and then get out there and have fun and enjoy life.  Instead of being on “The Deferred Life Plan”, working ourselves to death so we can be happy some time in the future, we need to start living right now.  Accept who you are, do your best, and learn to laugh again.

Apparently I need to accept the fact that I’m a Relator.  (Not to be confused with realtor – I would suck at that job.)  The other choices are Socializer, Thinker, and Director.  Get the book and find out who you are!  Or if, like me, you already know everything, never mind.  And now, back to the grizzly murder mystery.  I definitely have my priorities straight.

 

More From The Autograph Files

Of all the autographs in these three little books, I think these are the two I like the best, simply because they’re from my mother’s sisters.

I must assume they knew her well.  There are other gems:

***

In the parlour there were three, He, the parlour light and she.

Two is company without a doubt. That is why the light went out.

***

Always do a deed of kindness, Never say you don’t know how.

If you ever see a cowslip, Quickly run and help the cow.

***

If in heaven we do not meet

Hand in hand we’ll stand the heat.

***

Think of me when far away and only half awake.

Think of me on your wedding day and send me a piece of cake.

***

Love many, trust few, But always paddle your own canoe.

***

All things are not as they seem

Skim milk masquerades as cream

Black sheep dwell in every fold

And all that glitters is not gold.

***

Many a ship was lost at sea through lack of coal and rudder.

Many a fellow lost his girl by running after another.

***

Life is but a one way street – we have to trust to luck.

If we can’t thumb a swell sedan, we have to climb a truck.

***

Drifting down the stream of life in your little birch canoe

May you have a very pleasant time and room enough for two.

***

It’s hard to lose a friend when your heart is full of hope

But it’s harder still to lose the towel when your eyes are full of soap.

***

When you get old and ugly, as people often do

Remember that you have a friend who is old and ugly too.

***

There was a terrible hurricane and all the world was shaken.

A little pig turned up his tail and ran to save his bacon.

***

As over lifes road you jog along, May you always have room in your heart for a song,

Always a rift in the clouds so gray, And many and many a perfect day.

***

And finally, one from her future husband, always a wealth of information, who would have been embarrassed to write anything too personal for others to see.

Related articles

• Autograph Art (grandmalin.wordpress.com)

 

Remove the Bay Leaf or Die

Yesterday morning before work I threw one of those dry soup mix packages into the crock pot.  It consisted of a little plastic bag filled with layers of split peas and barley and lentils and other unidentifiable seedy/grainy things, plus a packet of spices and a bay leaf.  Just add water and cook the hell out of it.  My kind of meal preparation.  The directions also suggested adding fresh vegetables, so, although I really didn’t have time for all this, I chopped up some celery, a few carrots, some green onions and half a turnip, threw all that in there too, covered it with water, played around with the beeping buttons on the crock pot until it appeared to be saying 8 hours on high and left for work.

This is the kind of confidence I have in my culinary abilities, coupled with a blind faith that the house won’t burn down while I’m away.  I also leave the dryer running.  Life on the edge.  The directions actually did suggest six to eight hours in a slow cooker on high, and although that sounded a bit excessive to me I definitely wanted all those little pellet things to get soft and edible.  There’s nothing worse than a crunchy split pea.

When I got home I was greeted by a completely delightful vegetable soup aroma, a crock pot that is smart enough to switch itself to the “warm” setting after eight hours of bubbling away like a witches cauldron, and a concoction that actually appeared to be edible.  I was hungry, so it was delicious.  Would have been even better if I’d had left over meat of some kind, or the ambition to cook and chop up some sausage rounds or something, but a slice of rye bread and a piece of cheese were faster and just as filling.

Fast forward to much later where I’m in bed and drifting off to sleep when it suddenly hits me like a bolt of lightning.  REMOVE THE BAY LEAF.  I did NOT remove the bayleaf.  I did not even SEE the stupid bay leaf, so what happened to it?  Recipes are always reminding you to discard bay leaves, but since I’ve never had one kicking around to add to things it’s never been an issue.  And then suddenly it is.  Because one of those deadly things snuck into my soup and I forgot all about it.  Are they supposed to remain intact in a crock pot for hours and hours on high?  If they disintigrate, am I supposed to be responsible for picking out all the pieces?  If they’re ingested, will they kill me?  I really did not want to die in my sleep, but I couldn’t sleep anyway for fretting about it, so I got up to google “why must you remove the bay leaf?”  It was extremely comforting to see that I was not the first idiot to ask that question.

A leaf of the Bay Laurel Laurus nobilis. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Turns out it’s not poisonous, although I’m pretty sure in a more conscious state I might have figured that out on my own, since putting poisonous ingredients in your soup is probably against the law or something.  The bay leaf is supposed to remain tough and inedible, with sharp edges, and the ability to make you choke if you try to swallow it. Thus removing it is the best course of action to take before serving your guests.  Unless you don’t like them much.  But still, I think there are less drastic ways to get them to go home.

I went back to bed making a mental note to search the leftover containers of soup for chunks of bay leaf.  And then I remembered that story about Stone Soup from way back in grade two.

The Stone Soup Story 

After they made the stone soup, did they remember to take out the stone before they ate it?  I sure hope so.  It’s not really mentioned, but they must have.  If one of them had choked on it, the story would have had a whole new meaning.  But the tramp offers to give his magic stone to the old woman and she gratefully accepts.  So it couldn’t have been lost somewhere at the bottom of the pot.  That stone could have been the original Bay Leaf.  Sorting out this kind of thing in my mind is no doubt what has given me grey hair and wrinkles and restless nights of sleep deprivation wishing things like bay leaves had never been invented.  Or maybe cooking itself.  Why can’t we just wash things off and eat them raw?  We’d all sleep better.

 

Movie Night

Seemed like a good idea to have a Netflix Night last night, so I did.  Quite often I spend so much time chosing what to watch that I don’t have any time left to watch it.  So I just clicked on some random thing in my list and here’s what I got.

Sandra Bullock is a great actress, but what a weird character she portrayed in this one!  I watched the whole thing though, without any fast forwards.  And that’s certainly not something that happens all the time. Then, still amazingly awake, I clicked on movie number two.

And once again surprised myself by sitting throught the entire thing, even though movies about making movies are not my idea of great stories for movies.  Just like reading a book about someone who is writing a book is not my favourite kind of plot.

Perhaps I could write a blog about someone who is writing a blog.  And then make it into a book about someone who makes her blog into a book and then takes the blogging book and turns it into a movie about a person who blogs and publishes her work and eventually stars in her own film.  I’m searching for the fast forward button just thinking about it.