Major Household Appliances

The big bucks ones! As a woman, who has been for long stretches of her life, a housewife, I don’t take appliances for granted. In fact, not too long ago, “housewife” was shorthand for drudge, and we pampered modern ladies forget this at our peril. Living in an area where I can still see Old Order Amish women slaving from morning till night—in between dropping babies and attending church—and as a writer of historical novels—I’m keenly aware of the comfortable life we modern women lead.

I’m not ashamed to love my appliances. I name them, too, because they are my “serving girls.” I feel lucky, rather like a Jane Austen heroine, to have married well enough to afford them. ;)

The washer came first, while we were still in college. As I had been lugging baby + clothes + diapers to the laundromat for over a year, this was a real luxury. I earned it, too, this trendy looking brown Sears appliance, while working as a waitress, picking up the quarter tips which were standard in the early 60’s diner, while my husband minded our son, Miles, and did his college homework. We’ve got pictures of me bringing in frozen diapers from the line during a harsh Massachusetts winter, though, and it was a good while before we managed to get the space and the dollars for a dryer.

I’ve just graduated to a front loader, a Bosch. Her name is “Ursula” because she has a bearish, blockish look. She is German by design, though the salesman carefully explained she was manufactured at a plant in Ohio. I love her dearly, because she is already saving us money on water and electricity. More than that, she does a ton of laundry at a time, and has a way with deep cleaning the ground in dirt that men are champions at producing in a way the top loader never did.

A dish washer only arrived at my home a few years ago, so the thrill of loading it up and then unloading clean dishes has not yet gone away. Her name, (christened by my husband) is “Heidi,” and she is also a Bosch, thrifty and extremely quiet. I was the dishwasher for years, and vividly remember many Thanksgivings and Christmases at which I spent literally hours at the kitchen sink, washing endless coffee cups, plates and silverware for our houseguests—my husband’s brothers and sisters. I dearly loved being the “Mom” and their lively company, but sometimes it got to be a bit much, and I’d have to go into the living room, turn down the rock’n’roll, and drum up some relief.

One beneficial side effect of not having a dishwasher for all those years was that both my sons were trained early to do dishes, dry them, and put them away. They were sent on to wives quite domesticated—at least, for boys!

You notice I haven’t said much about dryers. The fact is they aren’t very interesting. They are simple creatures and don’t develop personalities the way the other appliances do. However, I thank my stars to be a woman here in the 21st Century during winter or during weeks of rain like we had last summer, as I dump Ursula’s prodigious output into the gaping mouth of faithful, careful Molly the Maytag.

Thanksgiving

The Iroquois have an inspiring “Salutation to the Natural World” which I’d like to paraphrase and share as my contribution to this year's Thanksgiving
celebration.

Their prayer begins: “We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings thanks…”

First, they send “greetings and thanks” to the Earth Mother, for “she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time.” Second, they thank the waters of the world, for “water is life.”

Third, they turn their minds to the Fish in the water, who, they believed purified the water, and who gave themselves to the Iroquois as food.

Fourth, they thanked the plants, which “work wonders,” sustaining all life. They especially thanked the food plants, the grains, vegetables, beans, berries and roots which “help the People survive.” They thanked the Medicine Herbs, who are “waiting and ready to heal us.” They thanked the trees, who gave food, shade and shelter to men and to animals alike.

They thanked the animals, who were their teachers, and who gave their bodies as food. They thanked the birds. With their “beautiful songs…each day they remind us to enjoy and appreciate our life.”

Then they thanked elemental Nature. They thanked the Four Winds, which “bring messages and strength,” and the “Thunder Beings,” ancestors, who brought water and kept demons” in hiding. They praised the Sun as “Elder Brother,” “the source of all fires of life.” They thanked Grandmother Moon, “the leader of all women,” and the stars who guide hunters and warriors who travel at night.

Finally, they thanked the “enlightened teachers” who have come to earth throughout all ages. “If we forget how to live in harmony, they remind us of the way we were instructed to live…”

Last of all, they thanked The Great Spirit, sending “greetings and thanks for all these gifts of creation.”

The Iroquois believed that all we need to live a good life is here on Earth. Sometimes in our modern, frazzled lives of getting and spending, of racing here and there, of competition and “keeping up with the Jones,” it’s therapeutic simply to pause, to look around us and remember to give thanks as they did, for the natural wonder of the world which sustains and surrounds us.

Afternoon at the Opera

Just attended one of those wonderful HD transmissions in my local Regal theater. These originate at the Saturday matinee of the Metropolitan Opera’s "Aida."

“Met at the Movies” is a godsend to lots of us: elderly fans and to those who’d like to introduce kids to this peculiar Western art form, and folks like me who don’t have a zillion dollars for Trip to NYC + A Good Seat. I hope it raises some money for the Met, too, during this economic fall over the cliff we’ve just passed through.

It’s not only a real treat to see/hear the opera through the privileged eyes of cameras, but to get the commentary from the elegant Diva Renee Fleming. This week, she took us backstage to see fascinating things we’d never get a look at otherwise, like the formidable machinery that moves huge sets and multi-level stages in a few minutes, while stage hands, focused as any pit crew, swarm everywhere.

As the performance is broadcast live, all the glitches are there, too, like this week’s incident where the Prima Donna had to leap across a rapidly opening gap between two stages. Verdi Prima Donnas are not generally made for jumping, so her stumble when she landed elicited a gasp of real fear from the audience who really wanted her to survive to sing the last two acts.

When I was a kid, my mother spent her winter Saturday afternoons stretched on her bed with a cocker spaniel and a murder mystery. She chain-smoked and listened to the Metropolitan Opera’s radio broadcast. We managed to pick it up in the Finger Lakes, although the nearest station that carried it was in Toronto.

Grand Opera became the sonic background to many a snowy, freezing afternoon of childhood. I know this makes me a little strange, but the emotional depth and absolute beauty of operatic music became imprinted on my brain.

Yesterday, I sat in the theater, listening to the familiar score of "Aida" and remembered all sorts of things, like me and my best friend, Gay, dressing up and dancing to this music. A melancholy rush through time into a dark, cold Skaneateles afternoon...

Snow piled up outside, and the two of us, all of ten or eleven, played at ballet and make-believe, putting the needle back on the "Aida Highlights" record again and again. We danced in tights and undershirts, wearing junk jewelry we imagined was exotic, long polyester scarves and odds and ends from the costume box her clever seamstress mother maintained. For a few hours, we were Temple Priestesses or the Princess Amneris' dancing girls, not just kids in a small upstate town.

Out All Night With the Grand Marquis

This has become a catch phrase in our house, applied to people who have been out all night partying—perhaps in scandalous ways. We got it from an advertisement, which I don’t think was ever shown on this side of the Atlantic. It featured a long skit, a divorce trial with a dishy, elegant brunette on the stand. The prosecution lawyer declaims: "She was out all night with the Grand Marquis,” eliciting a gasp from a packed courtroom. The camera pans in on the front row of spectators, and we see a debauched 18th Century aristocrat, silken legs, heels, make-up, wig and all. Next, there is a fast cut to the latest Grand Marquis—a smooth, sleek, ultimately made-in-Detriot automobile—with the brunette at the wheel, driving fast. A voice over passionately tells us all about the car's many new, luxury features.

We thought it was a very clever ad. Me particularly, with my 18th Century hang-up.

Oddly, this is my preamble to another cat story. As you may know, we’ve acquired another. (Actually, he acquired us.) He decided to live here during the winter about two years ago, after searching the neighborhood for an amenable house with an attentive kitty feeder/doorperson. My husband and I proved to fit his requirements to a T. One or the other of us, we’re up and down all night, turning on lights and wandering around at 1 a.m., at 3 a.m., at 4, and maybe 5 o’clock, too. As we are already awake, we can certainly open doors if his Lordship wants to come in during the night for a munchie, a pat, or just to crash on the carpet behind the speaker for a few hours. When he stays out all night, and comes in late mornings, he looks as if he’s really been out with the original Grand Marquis—the old, depraved 18th one—at some drunken hell-fire club.

His kitty eyes are blurry and rheumy, and a long ago injury shows up in a limp which he doesn’t display when he’s fresh out of the sack. He gives us a perfunctory leg rub, then makes a few face-first slams into the crunchie bowl to bolt a few down. Then he’s off to the nearest couch, bed, or warm chair to sleep on his back and drool for the next six hours.

Bookcases I've Loved

My mother had a charismatic English friend named Rosemary, whose home we visited during several school holidays. She lived in an rambling old stone house in the evocatively named small and ancient village of Shipton-Under-Wychwood.

In memory, my image of Rosemary has merged with Julia Child’s. Mother’s friend was a tall, fair, big-boned Englishwoman, forever engaged in day long sessions with French recipe books, standing in an enormous dim kitchen filled with arcane culinary devices and dangling copper pans. Her children were much younger than I, so they weren’t very interesting to me, a solitary teen. She also kept 6 or 7 (they milled in a group, so it was tough to count how many there actually were) long-haired Dachshunds, a breed of dog I’d never met before. They were charming dogs who liked to lie in heaps on the couch, like a fluffy, smiling pile of black and tan pillows.

Rosemary had terrific bookcases, which I was turned loose upon while she and Mom sipped sherry in the kitchen. They were full of historical novels from the 30’s and 40’s—some earlier. Here were Norah Lofts and Elizabeth Goudge with their mystical and yet oh-so-grisly- vision of the romantic past. Between those covers I discovered a burning love for the genre, and learned what a mesmerizing time travel experience a good writer can deliver. The most exotic of all the books Rosemary owned were the ones by Joan Grant: “Winged Pharoah,” and “Lord of the Horizon.” Mrs. Grant always said her “novels” were, in fact, recalled past lives. So brilliantly realized are these books that they infected me. I had dreams about them for years. They also kindled a keen interest in topics which were considered totally wacko in the ‘50’s, but are now Cable TV staples: past lives, auras, astral projection, Egyptian gods and Pharoahs, Atlantis, and so on.

Rosemary was also an expert in all these new and fascinating topics, and seemed to like to talk to me. After a few hours, I found I could enter the kitchen and talk with her about these astonishing things I’d read. The ladies, having imbibed several glasses of sherry and had their grown-up chat, were quite welcoming, even Mom, who was proud of my geekiness. I remember sitting on a stool in that imperfectly lighted kitchen, watching Rosemary turn a perfectly delicious bird into a pate, which to my kid taste buds didn’t taste half as good as plain turkey. Meanwhile, ever more dishes piled into the big sink. Spoons and glittering knives of many sizes and shapes littered the counter. The dachshunds were everywhere underfoot, begging for thrown treats and getting them, their long ears dragging across a slate floor with an authentically medieval patina of grease.

Last night my husband and I were watching a unique, charming romantic movie called "Getting Married in Buffalo Jump," It had two very handsome thirty year old protagonists, and was set in the starkly beautiful outback of Alberta ranch country. At the first dark moment, my husband turned and said "This is just the usual woman's bull****!"

It was not the romance he was objecting to, as he uses his handkerchief regularly during sad or romantic movies. When asked for clarification, he said, "This is all about whether he's good enough for her, and/or what his motives are, but what about her? What do we know about her, about HER skeletons?" He felt the heroine was (a) jumping to conclusions (b) not revealing anything about herself. He thought she was just as culpable--at least in messing up their budding relationship--as the hero was.

I replied that learning about each other, building trust and understanding, and the ups and downs thereof, is a big part of the genre. He said he understood that after years of me on about whatever I was writing, but he was ticked off nonetheless. He said it was out of character for such a strong and independent woman to have shown the guy the door without any further discussion. Moreover, if there was something in her past which made her jump to the worst possible conclusion, he thought we ought to already know this.

I keep thinking about this. Is this an intrinsic difference in how men and women see romance? Or is this just a plotting or characterization problem? Do you think heroines are more easily seen as "virtuous" than their heroes? And/or does this seem instead to be a characterization problem, or, perhaps, a plotting problem? BTW, up to his complaint, I had been thoroughly drawn into the story, and had been entirely willing to believe the heroine's outburst of anger and uncertainty.

Cicada Time

Bob was sitting on the picnic table the other morning, smiling and pleased with himself. He’d been out dancing in the moonlight, even though it was unusually chilly over night. I was sitting on the bench, patting him. He seemed entirely happy, kneading air with his paws and showing me his spotted belly, playing at being a Domesticated Animal.

The first cicadas are starting in our area, the genetic misfits who awaken on the far edge of their particular Bell Curve. They don’t sing much and flame out early. When one fell from a nearby maple, buzzing like a clockwork toy unwinding, Bob leapt from the table with a bound which would have done a cougar credit and made short work of it.

(It’s humbling, the way he can tune me out. Snap! Gone on cat business!)

I suppose he ate the poor confused thing, like he does everything else. Cicadas, with heads that are pure fat, are one of Mother Nature’s most sought-after crunchy snacks. Birds adore them. I’ve even seen squirrels eat them, these winged, green-armored Doritos of the insect world. I would think the wings and feet would make for an over-ridingly icky mouth feel, but not coming from an insect-eating culture, I’m not the one to judge.

I love cicadas. When I was small, some imaginative family member told me that their wings--see-through, gossamer, etched in green--were fairy wings. I guess what I really love is their deafening song, which can be as loud as 120 decibels up close. They are one of the few noisy things in which I take pleasure. It’s Nature, after all, like waves crashing on shore. The males on my trees start; the neighbor’s cicadas shout out an answer. With the trees arching green overhead, it’s my favorite sort of chorale.