BOOK ONE (Part 4) booze,volunteering,social pages

11.To my mentor Stella P. (17 when I was 16),

http://www.sharyboyle.com/

I owe the realization that miraculously getting away with watering down Mum's booze (to disguise the stuff we'd siphoned off), sneaking back into Marty's jazz bar after being kindly ejected, and successfully begging for money in order to fund adventures--faking we'd lost our bus fare--were the first signs that our déclassé cowboy surroundings tended for the most part to not be lacking in sympathy for ordinary people.

12. The Uptowns cautioned me against frequent use of the words 'I am too busy' in grocery isle chats or solicitous emails, except in cases of real necessity (terminal cancer); saying that no one ought to squirm out of volunteering on the excuse of putting one's private life before the community.

Send "Who Loves Ya Baby?" Ringtone to your Cell

13. Mrs. Anderson counselled me never to make light of the tennis pro's criticism of my game, even if he is a sexist bastard, but to do my best to keep him happy at the club and take his advice in stride; to speak up readily to praise the organizers of the Friday night BBQs, as we read in the social pages of our local paper, and to cultivate a little distance from my children's lessons.

BOOK ONE (Part 3) canoeing, Beirut, razzberries

9.My debts to Annie [2] include unconditional love, how to rule a hippie cabin with maternal good humour, an example of "stay-at-home" mother, the willingness to belt out Big Spender mixed in with camp songs while walking down dusty country roads or go canoeing in the middle of the “work” day, an intuitive interest in probing for gossip to generate laughter, and amazing patience with an exacting husband and all the chipmunks that damaged laundry on the clothesline. Her openness towards the kooky people who lived on the same lake as she did drew them to her, and meant she often had to set extra plates at the table, or help look for lost false teeth in the bottoms of swimming pools. Her manner, of determining and systematizing the essential rules of life was inscrutable and unmethodical. Only displaying signs of anger at her sons when they were beating on one another, she was at once an able volunteer to play piano at the town's church and yet full of questions to discuss and sometimes shock me. Her approval was always ecstatically expressed, yet she didn’t like to show off her knowledge, unless it was about plants, wild animals, insects, children or cooking.

M is for Mud by Quentin Blake

10. It was my teacher, Mrs. Lafayette, who made me aware of the possibility of my being a little nit-picker in elementary school. Other kids (especially those from the “Coloured Apartments”[3]) should not be sharply corrected for saying that they “opened” the lights. Some were from Beirut and were said to have seen dead bodies in the streets.

Photo:AP/KevorkDjansezian http://www.wired.com

It is better people to say “turned on” the lights by tactfully using the expression oneself, in say, a reply to a question in class. She sometimes sharply corrected us for saying razz-berries instead of "rasP-berries," or Wenz-day instead of "WED-NEZ-day," though I've rarely heard her pronunciation used elsewhere.

[2] (1955-) Really a second mother... not duty-corroded, who set an example of deliberately sticking to house-wifery in spite of having been through women's lib.

[3]) Publicly-funded apartment complex called "coloured" because each stuccoed building was painted yellow, green, blue or burgundy. No-man’s land as a child. [interesting sidenote: a notorious rapist lived in these apartments in the 1970s/80s, therefore my mother's intuition was sound. Go mum!

BOOK ONE (Part 2) Metamorphosis, macramé

7. From Davis I derived the notion that my character needed training and care, and that I must not continue to speak before considering what I was saying, nor be led astray by enthusiasm for imagining life after death, speaking like my mother, or writing sucky poetry. He also taught me how to drink tea all day; to play chess with loud classical music on; encouraged the way I avoided the “softer side of Sears” type clothing, and to imitate the Irish accent he absorbed from his father. If anyone, after falling out with me in a moment of temper showed signs that they were sorry, I was ready at once to hear their apology. Also, I was to be ambitious in my reading, not content with shortened versions of classic novels; and not to let myself be too convinced by chatty drunks at the University Pub. Through him also I came to know Kafka’s Metamorphosis, of which he gave me a copy pinched from his brother’s library.

Not this version, but this is good.

8. My mother’s cooking impressed on me the need to buy cookbooks and actually follow recipes instead of depending on the hazards of broccoli stems and tofu, and never leave sprouted beans under the sink. She also schooled me to take a half valium to ease monthly cramps, sleep with curlers on my head, pulled me under her blanket to cry over a lost friend when I was 16, and modeled how to deal with the tedium of living in a chronically uncool city with the same unaltered composure. She herself was living proof that the most frustrated energy is not incompatible with the ability to relax making macramé owls or a few drinks. Her instructions on how to properly use a floor polisher for linoleum were always a model of clarity; yet she was evidently one who rated cleaning abilities and an aptitude for sorted linen among the least of her achievements.

see what I mean?

picture and how to: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Growing_Edible_Sprouts/Jars

BOOK ONE Formative Influences 1. (rusks, Stampede Wrestling)

1. Aprons and eating bread rusks soaked in milk I first learned to know from my grandmother, Greta [1].

After you're tired of them fresh, dry them in a low oven until they're golden.

2. Womanliness without high heels I learnt from what I have known and remember from my aunt.

http://persephonevintage.com/

3. My mother set me an example of resourcefulness and intensity, avoidance of all judgment,--not in action only, but in thought as well—and a simplicity of life quite befitting my paycheque.

4. To my grandfather I owed the advice to not sit on my great-grandfather’s lap as he was over 90 then and all yellow chicken-y skin and bones.

5. It was one of our boarders who first read me Dickens’ Great Expectations although I was 13, encouraged me to set the table properly; learn to run, and buy "arty" greeting cards.

6. Thanks to TV I learned models of femininity via Ginger and Mary Ann,

yet to be skeptical of home gadgets sold on Sunday afternoons, or late at night, as well as the sweaty antics of Stampede Wrestling—and other such distractions. Not to resent pastel colours worn by preppy US girls, to familiarize myself with books—beginning with The Hotel New Hampshire and going on to The Catcher in the Rye. To keep journals and write elaborate letters to traveling friends, and to be ardent for the ironic typewritten page with funny pictures attached by double-backed scotch tape depicting the various rigours of living on the prairies.

[1]Greta R. (1919-) Grandmother on my mother’s side. Poultry farmer’s wife; frustrated writer, she would sandwich poems for her 5 children into their lunch boxes. She made almost everything from scratch, including her bread rusks.