Sisters Are doing It For Themselves

Sometimes genetic material in common is not enough to support an adult relationship between siblings.  Luckily for me, I feel that if my sister and brother were not related to me I would still want to be their friend because of the sort of people they are; warm, caring, decent and each possessed of a fine sense of humour.

Hopefully they feel the same.Though they may not because we all have a shared history.  My brother is six years younger than I am. My earliest memory of him is being asked to watch him as he lay on his back on the change table. My mother had no sooner turned her back when he peed in my face with unerring accuracy. I disregarded him from then on. I don't think my sister paid him much attention either because,  when he was in Grade 1,we arrived home on the bus and our mother was disappointed to learn that he had not got on it and that we hadn't even noticed.  Luckily she found him back at the school and all was well.

He grew up and seemed nice enough. He was at Primary School, I was at High School.  I left for Uni, he was at High School by day. By night he stayed in his room watching the 3 in 1 tv/ radio/tape thingo that mum had bought him in a fit of generosity and which she later came to regret.  He only emerged to feed, not on the blood of virgins, but on Corn Jacks, which we were revolted by and called Snot Jacks.

My sister I recollect more clearly. We had baths together and she would dutifully reply when I asked, "Who is your favourite singer?", with my own name because I had trained her like a seal. I quite fancied myself, the acoustics of bathrooms being advantageous. My particular favourite song at the time was Billie Don't Be A Hero, by Paperlace. I do actions too! I could be on the stage as I keep telling people.

Later in life she wreaked her revenge for this torment by cutting off the long hair on my prized Barbie dolls, hacking off the legs of my favourite jeans and telling all the kids on the bus that I had pubic hair when I was 11 and she was 9.  No doubt the reaction would be just as incredulous if she made the announcement today (pubic hair seems to be so yesterday). Those other kids' jaws were hanging, they were so gobsmacked by her news. I was mortified.

Let it be said we were not close or like minded.  She was popular, sporty, and funny, albeit usually in trouble which she deserved.  I was reserved, always had my nose in a book and quite the girly swat.  She took advantage of my distraction by offering me a Cool Mint and then feeding me a Moth Ball. 

I survived and so did she and we are now great friends.  Our brother too, although he lives on a different continent.  I am sure it's not because he doesn't like us though. Right?

It is with some concern now that I am hearing of conflict between my own children as they are working through the dynamics of living together as adults in a shared unit.  A pre-primary teacher's advice about children's interactions that I remember from when my kids were young was "never interfere unless there is blood".

I am hoping it won't come to that but a wet dish cloth has been flung and harsh words have been spoken.



"Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott is a fondly remembered novel from my childhood. I have a copy which was awarded to my Grandma in 1922 as a prize at Sunday School.  Maybe it has
coloured my view of what sisterly relationships can be.  The March sisters were very different but they all got on with it.  I am hoping my daughters will do the same and be as lucky as I am to have the enduring support of siblings who know and get you in ways that others do not, and still care.

Of course these relationships do not happen without effort ( I have been tested over the years).  This is true of any relationship. Good communication, time shared, respect, tolerance and a sense of humour certainly help things along.  Fingers crossed things will work out well. I am not interfering but trying to do what I can to minimize the conflict.

The Acorn Does Not Fall Far From The Oak

Recently a friend (male) sent me the following email:

Subject: What A Beautiful Story...

 This story brought tears to my eyes, and what a beautiful ending

Once upon a time, a guy asked a beautiful girl 'Will you marry me?' The girl said, 'NO!' And the guy lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles and went fishing and hunting and played golf and drank beer and scotch and had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up and farted whenever he wanted.  The End

I was compelled to reply as follows:

What a load of w%#k. He was lonely, did not know how to style himself. He consistently wore clothing which clashed. The more fashion conscious folk learned to avoid him at the bar, not only because he was a fashion mistake but because he often forgot to take the clothes from the machine where they languished, acquiring  that sour smell which afterwards wafted in his immediate vicinity. He lived on a diet of tinned tuna and baked beans which exacerbated his halitosis and caused him to fart rather a lot, further isolating him from his peers at the golf club who grew sick and tired of his repetitive ramblings about his solitary fishing expeditions.  He died prematurely, alone and unlamented by all.

I was mildly amused by myself until I realised my response had merely confirmed the sexual stereotype of women as cooks, cleaners and guardians of all things domestic .

But then I got over myself and regained my sense of humour.

 Most recently our Book Club has read Dear Life by Alice Munro.

  This fabulous collection includes stories about ordinary people, the poignant consequences of their choices and the random life events which confront them. Towards the end the stories are acknowledged by the author to be the closest to autobiographical that she has ever written.  She describes her relationship with her mother, a woman who aspired to lead a different sort of life than the one she ended up with, as difficult.  Her mother's desire to move in higher social circles and whose manner of speech isolated her from her own family were difficult for her daughter to understand.  The mother's illness and subsequent death meant that their relationship was never really resolved.  Nevertheless the mother was her earliest role model and example and one wonders whether Munro would have pursued the education which led to her becoming such a well known writer if her mother had not been a teacher who valued education.


Other stories in the collection shed light on how women's roles have changed in the years since the
Second World War and the social mores by which they are judged.  In Gravel, for example,  the
mother leaves her husband for another man which causes a degree of scandal.

How lucky we are to live in this day and age and have the freedoms and access to opportunities women born in previous generations could only dream about.  There are still frontiers and prejudice to be overcome.  In her wonderful Tedx talk Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie implores us to all be feminists.  Beyoncé heard the call to arms and used part of the talk in  a song from her most recent album

Mostly though I think it is a battle being fought in the ordinary lives and homes of ordinary people.  Consider the wise words of Amy Tan.

“A girl is like a young tree, she said. You must stand tall and listen to your mother standing next to you. That is the only way to grow strong and straight. But if you bend to listen to other people, you will grow crooked and weak. You will fall to the ground with the first strong wind. And then you will be like a weed, growing wild in any direction, running along the ground until someone pulls you out and throws you away. ”
― Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

Panic Stations!

Increasingly I find that I am worrying unnecessarily.  The low level anxiety that I have always had when confronted with new situations has intensified somewhat and, more than occasionally, causes a glitch in my thinking.  Something I seem to struggle with is OMG!!  Where will I park?  What if I can't find or fit into a car park??  It is unnecessary and weird and what I really hate is that sometimes I think that maybe I won't go to wherever it is that I'm going.

Hypocritical creature that I am!  For years I have been niggling at my mother because she refuses to drive in the city.  She never has because she says she doesn't know where she is going.  So read the signs, look at a map, I say in that tone I hear more and more from my own children.  That sort of pitying, are you for real tone.  My ranting has never made enough impact on her to change her stance.  Now I fear I am experiencing this same lack of confidence (albeit about parking not driving).

Driving can lend itself to introspection and often problems have been mentally resolved by the end of a journey. I drive a lot on my own and I feel really comfortable doing so.  It is sometimes quite relaxing with the music playing and the dog for company.  She likes all the songs that I do! Possibly this state of mental disengagement/auto pilot contributed to the most recent episode where my brain sort of faded.

What happened was this.  I decided to refuel at one of those automated/self serve fuel stations you find in small country towns.  It pains me to reveal that it was not the first time i had done this.  Yet like a goldfish I seem unable to retain the memory of anything that has gone before.  I put my credit card in, selected the amount of fuel I needed, put the card back in my wallet and then completely forgot that I had done this.  I stared at the machine with a rising panic thinking it had swallowed my card.

Just then another vehicle pulled up and a couple got out.  They saw me standing, gaping at the machine, sporadically pressing the HELP button (not really helpful at all).

He said, "Have you got your fuel?"

I said,"No I haven't and I don't know what to do!"  I pressed HELP again.  Nothing doing.  She came over, seemed nice and she pressed HELP in case she had some sort of special connection to the machine that I lacked.  Then she sort of peered intently into the slot trying to will it out.

He said, "Well Babe, I don't think you had better put your card in there if it's swallowed hers".  Good advice.  My hero!

I said, "Well I'll get my fuel anyway at least," and proceeded to do so.  Then it occurred to me that I had better check in my wallet which I did extremely surreptitiously because I had begun to have a sneaking suspicion that I had indeed got my card back.  Upon seeing it nestled safely in its slot I turned to these good Samaritans and tried to look woebegone.

I said,"Well, good luck!" I drove off hoping never to see them again because I was too embarrassed to let them know how vague I am.

Recently I saw this apology on Buzzfeed with the heading 33 Pictures That Will Make You Proud To Be A Human Again.

Deep in shame I realised that my picture will never be among this collection because my moral fibre is too frayed around the edges.  Those people probably ran out of fuel on some lonely stretch of highway and I am really sorry about that.

  Maybe if he hadn't called her Babe??

No, probably not even then.  

Frittering

I always enjoy going to see my hairdresser, not just for the pleasure of her company and her ability to transform my dull, greying  and lifeless locks but because she has all the latest magazines. I can rarely bring myself to fork out for them and rely on the dentist, hairdresser and waiting in line at Coles to keep myself abreast of all the latest among the celebrity set and whether or not grey or navy is the new black.  On this occasion I bypassed the fashion and went for the recipes. Our discussion centred on the multitude of ingredients available these days that just weren't available when we were growing up.  Coriander was unheard of and dishes garnished with parsley and mint were considered gourmet but they were grown in your own garden.  Mostly I recall the dried container of Mixed Herbs being a staple seasoning in our house.

I pointed out the recipe above which appealed to me.  I have very fond memories of my Scottish grandmother and my mother making potato fritters which were absolutely delicious.  Golden, crispy at the edges, lots of pepper and salt and cooked all the way through.  I think there must have been buckets of oil used because those were the days before non stick fry pans.  Sadly I have never been able to emulate their results my fritters fall to bits and are raw in the middle.  It is demoralising but I was prepared to give it one more go.

My hairdresser laughed and remembered her own mother making fritters out of anything leftover, polony fritters, bubble and squeak fritters, you name it and it could be turned into a fritter.  Such skill and no waste!

Sadly my attempt was not well received at last night's dinner table. Having just eaten a few for lunch in an effort to reduce the mound of remaining fritters it appears that they have not improved after a night in the fridge.  My one remaining chook may view them more favourably but I doubt it.

Nope, not that hungry.


(In my defence the recipe is pretty vague about quantities and two zucchini seemed a lot as they were quite big.  It said the mixture would make eight medium sized fritters.  I had more like eighty.  Eight fritters the size of Frisbees maybe.  I thought about my hairdresser's mum making fitters with leftovers but it is too dismal to contemplate making fritters out of fritters so I am going to ditch them and move forward.)