Cruel April
Cranking up the furnace again this morning; what a tension between hopes for balminess and the reality of drippy chilliness. Only way to look at it positively: Such extremes are stimulating.
The echocardiogram evidently went well. I took my mom up to the cardiology department, put her into the hands of the tech, and came back some time later to pick her up. No questions had to be answered, no further information extracted via my translation. I went out and walked in the neighborhood for a bit, stopped into a used bookstore and found a Margaret Laurence novel; she was a Canadian writer, by whom I 've read one novel about an aging woman who "runs away" and gets herself sort of lost, since she forgets why she's left and why she went to the place she gets stranded in temporarily; kind of a nightmarish scenario. Excellent writing. Found a couple of freshly baked macaroons at a local bakery, tender and coconutty beyond description.
When we got home, heard from a friend with whom I climb, and headed over to the gym for a workout. Another friend joined us, and we three women had a pleasant time; beats the hell out of cards at this point in life.
Another tidbit from Elizabeth Bowen, from an essay called, "ON NOT RISING TO THE OCCASION":
"Rising to the occasion: I do not remember that it was ever called that. No, I am sure it was not. There was no name for what one was asked to do - in a way, this made it all the more ominous. A name, the grown-ups may have thought, would have made too much of it - pandered too much to juvenile self-importance. Children, in my Edwardian childhood, were decidedly played down rather than played up. 'Just be natural,' - they used to say, before the occasion; 'nobody wants you to show off.' What a blow to ambition - what a slap in the face! 'Be natural'; really, what a demand! I could scent an occasion coming, a mile away. Everybody was going to be implicated in something tricky. Socially, 'they' were about to turn on the heat. It could be some primitive embarrassment wsa coming a shade nearer the surface than the grown-ups liked. This could have left me cold - had they left me out. But no, on what is known as an 'Occasion', children are useful. One was to be on tap. One would be on view. One would be required, and tensely watched. One would have to express, to register, something EXTRA. "
Ah, yes. Well, perhaps it would be good to bring back Edwardian standards for children's public behavior. One rather likes them.
The echocardiogram evidently went well. I took my mom up to the cardiology department, put her into the hands of the tech, and came back some time later to pick her up. No questions had to be answered, no further information extracted via my translation. I went out and walked in the neighborhood for a bit, stopped into a used bookstore and found a Margaret Laurence novel; she was a Canadian writer, by whom I 've read one novel about an aging woman who "runs away" and gets herself sort of lost, since she forgets why she's left and why she went to the place she gets stranded in temporarily; kind of a nightmarish scenario. Excellent writing. Found a couple of freshly baked macaroons at a local bakery, tender and coconutty beyond description.
When we got home, heard from a friend with whom I climb, and headed over to the gym for a workout. Another friend joined us, and we three women had a pleasant time; beats the hell out of cards at this point in life.
Another tidbit from Elizabeth Bowen, from an essay called, "ON NOT RISING TO THE OCCASION":
"Rising to the occasion: I do not remember that it was ever called that. No, I am sure it was not. There was no name for what one was asked to do - in a way, this made it all the more ominous. A name, the grown-ups may have thought, would have made too much of it - pandered too much to juvenile self-importance. Children, in my Edwardian childhood, were decidedly played down rather than played up. 'Just be natural,' - they used to say, before the occasion; 'nobody wants you to show off.' What a blow to ambition - what a slap in the face! 'Be natural'; really, what a demand! I could scent an occasion coming, a mile away. Everybody was going to be implicated in something tricky. Socially, 'they' were about to turn on the heat. It could be some primitive embarrassment wsa coming a shade nearer the surface than the grown-ups liked. This could have left me cold - had they left me out. But no, on what is known as an 'Occasion', children are useful. One was to be on tap. One would be on view. One would be required, and tensely watched. One would have to express, to register, something EXTRA. "
Ah, yes. Well, perhaps it would be good to bring back Edwardian standards for children's public behavior. One rather likes them.
posted by isabelita at 10:43 AM
3 Comments:
"When we got home, heard from a friend with whom I climb, and headed over to the gym for a workout. Another friend joined us, and we three women had a pleasant time; beats the hell out of cards at this point in life."
Well, in my view Isa, it beats the hell out of cards at any point in life:-)
Well, 'spike, we women getting to be of a Certain Age around here are definitely not going gently.
Yeah, I gave up on ANY kind of cards after our son had the chicken pox in second grade, and I played UNO with him ALL DAY, for a few days running, to keep him distracted from the itching. No vaccine back then. haven't touched any kind of playing card since!
Isa,
No doubt, you have the calluses to prove it.
Blog & climb on sister. You're on belay.
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