:: The Wendy House ::

My fembot footwear provides aesthetical and sizical proportion to the tarmac cracks outside the wendy house. The current fall-overness-potential alert level is orange with a hint of cerise. 

Apparantly British people took to using a fork as flatware in the 18th century, later than the southern European mainland.  Wikipedia describes the British as viewing the fork as an “unmanly Italian affectation” and quotes a Roman Catholic position “God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks — his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating“

thirty-eighth in a series of posts about the elixia properTTTTTT’s of  tea.

Thursday Tiffin #38: drink yourself slimmer

Web MD cites research reported in the American journal of clinical nutrition (2005) of 35 Japanese males with similar weights drinking tea with controlled (to be equivalent) diets.  They suggest this research as demonstrates that drinking Oolong tea with extract of green tea,  rather than just drinking Oolong tea,  resulted in faster burning of calories and lower LDL cholesterol.  The participants drank themselves slimmer! 

The researchers theorise that in green tea the higher level “catechins may trigger weight loss by stimulating the body to burn calories and decreasing body fat”.  It is unclear whether there was a significant difference in the participants diets before the study or if this research on males’ can be generalised to females. 

Green tea cannot account for my relative lack of eating disorderliness or bulk because I’ve only ever had 2 cups of green tea.  I better avoid it lest I waiste away…..

Forty-eighth post in a Wednesday series where Wendy fails to meet someone that drives singleness out of the House

Reason #48: uninvolved

 When I saw the title of this book,  I suspected that I needed a book on how to ‘get things done when people are involved’ because:

Firstly,  I have noticed that people can stop me from getting things done.  For example,  the bus driver stopped me from driving my car,  the lady in the Diner stopped me from cooking my breakfast,  and other more shocking things

Secondly, being single is being uninvolved so this book might help me to get involved.   

Meetings are much more complicated than I realised.

colleague:  I dreamt about you last night

wendy: yes?

colleauge: you were angry because I hadn’t finished this work

wendy: really?

colleague: you had metal braces on your teeth

wendy: grrrrrr…    …gnash…    ...sounds like a nightmare  

colleague: not really

NPR weekend edition Saturday listed the US soldiers reported killed in Iraq ending with this statistic: “one soldier died in a non-combat related incident“.  Non-combat related incident?  is this a euphemism for one or more of the following:

• old age
• cancer
• accident 
• friendly fire
• murder

It’s the first time I’ve heard this lengthy phrase to describe a death.  When civilian deaths are reported the news normally includes some comment that indicates the circumstances by describing where body was found,  in a wrecked car on the Interstate,  a burn’t house,  on the Green river bank.

The sunrise thrust an orange glow through the undressed window onto the freshly painted brilliant white bedroom walls.  A small, sparsely decorated, warm, dry first new home.  The bedroom empty,  save a matress upon which is scattered a duvet, pillows, sleepy him and I.  After unpublishable morning exercise two large mugs of tea joined us in the bedroom.

wendy:  this could be the most exquisite, happiest, moment of our whole lives.   it’s all downhill from here

him:  it’s not far down from a matress on the floor

wendy:  lets remember this morning for the rest of our lives…  

 him:  a little more exercise and another cuppa will help secure the memory

wendy: …mmmmmm….. (unpublishable)

a sight for sore eyes = a sight to sooth sore eyes = something good

According to phrase-finder of the phrase predates a recording of its origins and defines it specifically as referring to seeing a person,  a person is a sight for sore eyes,  it is good to see them.  Phrase finder attributes the first recording of the phrase to Jonathan Swift in 1738 then proceeds to identify new uses similar to those I found through a quick web-search:

1. as a soundbite,  title,  on journalistic articles that refer to web pages, sites:  the Gaurdian refering to unviersity web-pages,  the American Bar association Web2.0., a website summarising websites. 

2. play on word sound (homophone) replacing sight with site and for with 4.  For example as the name of this freeware website.

3. to advertise optical products such as eye balm.

This post was inspired by curiousity after having encountered the opposite meaning used conversationally: 

site a sight for sore eyes = a sight to produce sore eyes = something bad

This opposite meaning is much less prolific.  I have not found it through web searches.  A literal interpretation of the idiom legitimately produces this meaning because the goodness,  or badness, of the sight for the sore eyes is not explicit in the phrase, you have to infer it from the use context.  

I confess to be in search of an image that somehow captures my archetype,  stereotype, of the US.  The unexported America,  not the internationally spread coffee houses,  fast food chains,  cans and bottles of soft drinks.  The image must capture something of what is and something of aspirational.  I doubt my photographic skills will adequately capture and convey this image, if it exists.  Here is a placeholder that caught part of the my archetype.

It captures the styling of the classic red pick-up truck and the white picket fence.  I rarely saw them in the UK where box hedges appear to be the territory border marker of choice. 

The overhead lines, on tilted poles, are seemingly ubiquious.   What’s missing from this picture? 

• boys in baseball caps and khaki cargo pants 
• manicured,  pedicured, pony-tailed girls chewing gum and announcing ‘like, a whole bunch of,  like,  is all’. 
• much loved tractor 
• healthy perky dog

What would your photograph include?

thirty-seven in a series of posts about the prolific world wide practice of taking tea.

Thursday Tiffin #37:  most prolific form of flavouring water

According the the United States Department of Agriculture research: ”Tea is the most-consumed beverage worldwide next to water“.  This is not news in the wendy house.  Here all water is diluted with a liberal dose of tea and no ice.

forty-seventh post in a Wednesday series highlighting some of the pollutants that promote Wendy’s singleness.

Reason # 47: emissions tested

Wendys can produce unfiltered, untested balderdash. In Washington State gas emissions are subject to production constraints and testing, but alas, not Wendy’s balderbash. Boys ill-equipt with their own balderdash filtering mechnaism are unlikely to survive pre-dating balderbash emissions.

even the extremely long list of fonts in my Microsoft Office Word 2003 doesn’t include this one on Nicholoson’s corneer shop in Sumner.  Small towns provide exquisite orginality and be-jeaned red car drivers

City

Derby is the county seat of Derbyshire on the edge of the Peak district national park.  The park is a place of outstanding natural beauty with some wonderful rock-climbing locations.  Wikipedia describes the origins of the city’s name thus:

‘Derby’ is a corruption of the Danish and Gaelic Djúra-bý (recorded in Anglo-Saxon as Deoraby) (Village of the Deer); however some assert that it is a corruption of the original Roman name ‘Derventio’. The town was also named ‘Darby’ or ‘Darbye’ on some of the oldest maps, eg. Speed’s 1610 map. The city is one of the few cities that has retained a name with a Viking origin

Contest

According to many websites the orginal Derby race in 1779 was a horse race at Epsom Downs in Surrey named after Edward Smith-Stanley the 12th Earl of Derby.  This original horse race has grown into an internationally prestigious event as an annual meet since that year.  The Merriam Webster dictionary cites the use Derby as being generalised to cover the ethos of the orginial race meet:

1. any of several horse races held annually and usually restricted to three-year-olds
2. a race or contest open to all comers or to a specified category of contestants (bicycle derby)

Many people in the US and in Australia pronounce this  der-bee as, indeed, the lettering implies.

Hat

The Bowler hat was originally designed with a hard bowl and narrow brim to serve as stylish yet protective headgear for horse riders.  Named the Bowler hat in England after its original manufacturers.   In the United States they call the bowler hat a Derby hat after the 12th Earl of Derby.  Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel all wore bowler hats.  

Wikipedia also describes a restaurant in Los Angeles that called the Brown Derby Hat,  built in the shape of a Bowler.  

on the western high plains of eastern Washington in the tiny city of Outlook stands a small white church.  Where e-mail meets knee-mail:

Lookey Likey is an English colloquial phrase that means look like or resemble.  I believe it gained popular use through appearing in a French and Saunders sketch (I couldn’t find online) subsequently used as the title of a TV show.  This post is the first in an unpredictable, excitingly sporadic, series of posts describing where and how people have compared me to famous characters or celebritries

colleague:  I’m watching the Prime Suspect series.  It’s excellent.  Jane Tennison REALLY reminds me of you (describes how Jane’s people management skills style aligns with mine)

wendy: yes.  I…

colleague: …has anyone else ever pointed out the similarity?

wendy: yes.

My Jane Tennison-esque lack of conformity to the patriarchially prescribed presentation of the feminine didn’t quite make it into this charicature produced by another colleague.   Using this picture as evidence you might suspect that I’m a twinset and pearls sort of a gal.  

You, I, and my colleague know this is not the case…  …unlike the charicature artiste….

According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary the word fabulous is a Middle English* word from the Latin word fabulosus, that means:  resembling or suggesting a fable: of an incredible, astonishing, or exaggerated nature.

What is a fable?  Wikepdia describes a fable:

“a brief, succinct story, in prose or verse, that features animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities), and that illustrates a moral lesson (a “moral”), which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim“

Aesop’s collection of fables mainly follows wikipedia’s defintion.  Some of Aesop’s fables lack anthropomorphised animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature.  The explicit Maxim’s often have a lyrical expression that may have helped their uptake in everyday conversation.  I recognised many of the maxims without ever having read the orginal fable, for example

“one sparrow does not make a summer”

“Necessity is the mother of invention”

“Honesty is the best policy”

Already knowing these maxims helps me to remember the fable.

* Middle English is described by Wikipedia as between 1066 (Norman Invasion of England) and the 15th Century 

thirty-six in a series of posts explaining the taxing complexities of taking tea.

Thursday Tiffin #36:  tea taxonomy revisited

According to the USDA there are “three major classes of teas known as green, black, and oolong“.   This classification matches manufacturers labeling and is easier to follow than one based on colour.  The USDA classification system is based on the relative time that harvested leaves are fermented in the air rather than being attributable to plant genus, brew colour,  geography, or the maturity of the leaves when picked. 

“manufacturers carefully control whether, and for how long, tea leaves are exposed to air, a process called fermentation. When fermentation is completely arrested, the tea stays “green” or yellowish brown. When fermentation time is long, the leaves darken and become “black” tea. Somewhere in between these two extremes, “oolong” tea is created“

forty-sixth post in a Wednesday series highlighting some of the messages that direct Wendy’s singleness.

Reason # 46:  wrong way moose

I have never been inside one of these big Moose buildings.  I’m curious about the happenings within.  But, just as curiosity bites, a serendipitously placed road sign tells me this is the wrong way.  

using a single grave for more than one body is not a new phenomenon. 

By contrast, national, retrospective decisions to re-use graves and moving bodies lower down probably has some novelty.   The UK government has estimated that they will run-out of grave space within 30 years.  Many graveyards are already full.  Closed to new bodies.  Compulsory re-use of graves is one step they are taking to tackle the problem:

remains will be exhumed and re-interred at a deeper level in a smaller container or casket. A new coffin could then be lowered into the original space and the names of the newly buried added to the existing tombstone or to new plaques.

A new word.

It doesnt mean:

• an entrapreneur on intranets.
• an introverted entrapreneur.
• the space between more multiple entrepreneurs.

It is actually a contraction of ‘internal entrapreneur’ attributed to a 1983 UK PhD thesis.  It’s possible I’ll explore the subtle distinction in meaning and its French origins later.  Or possibly not.

beautiful and dangerous as the wind

drowned in its cuming

Mumsie packed older brother (9yrs) and I (5yrs) on a public bus for a 40min bus ride to the Marlborough St. City centre bus terminal. 

Exciting.  Adventure.  Upstairs on a double-decker bus without any adults.  Going to the big city.  Bother held my hand as we left the bus.  We walked up the hill towards the  Bristol Royal Infirmary.  I knew the way because I came on the Bus with Mumsie every Thursday when she came to the city to shop. 

Crossing the road,  very scary.  Mumzie always held my hand, checked for traffic.  I didn’t know how to cross the road.  I still find it particularly tricky.  I held my brothers hand tightly, walked fast and close to him as we crossed the road.  Once in the hospital I had no idea where to go.  My brother read the signs and found my other brother (6yrs) in the childrens ward,  who promptly started crying. 

What a wuss.  Here in this interesting big hospital with lots of fabulous toys and other children to play with and all he does is sit in bed crying!  I wandered off to play with the other children and big toys.   One of the children was bald.  Some wacky children in here.  Then dad turned up and we left crying brother in the hospital,  crying even more now.  We rode home in Dads pale blue Ford Corsair car.  I was allowed to sit in the front seat because Mumzie wasn’t there. 

All in all  a fabulous adventure. 

Do not underestimate a North American’s need for ice cubes.

If you haven’t been raised with the ever-present ice-cubes of North America their necessity is not obvious.  Practically edible makes the following points:

“In Europe, however, Ice Cubes are not so omnipresent…    ….In North America, though, serving drinks at the right, chilled temperature does seem to be a matter of life or death for its inhabitants. Ice Cubes have therefore become a very complex topic“ 

Practically edible suggests that the difference evolved due to space constraints with Europeans not having sufficient superluous space to house large freezers or use their limited freezer space for ice when it could be used for to ensure more nourishing food items last longer.  My experience suggests that the existance of ice in the drink is more critical than the temperature to the North American experience.  

 You can even buy pre-packaged,  unfrozen, ice-cubes from “Ice Rocks“!  Now that’s just a bit too silly for me.  In the NW USA you can buy bags of ice-cubes in the supermarkets.  

Iced drinks provide one way to stay cool in hot southern States and desert areas .  When crossing the USA last summer taking breaks at soda shops to cool ourselves with an iced drink was a pleasure in a way the UK climate would not induce.  During this drive,  encouraged by my native companion, I tried a drink made with ground-ice and flavouring,  a ‘Slushy’. 

Wikipedia summarises the North American ice cube addiction using cultural comparisons:

“Traditionally, drinks in the United States are served with ice; in Europe they are served with or without ice. In India and other parts of the world, it has traditionally been viewed as unhealthy to drink something with ice in it; today, many older Indians still refuse to use it”

Can you imagine a North American trying to feed an elderly Indian an ice cube and the Indian STILL tries to refuse it?  Outrageous!  How ignorant can you get?  Nevermind,  the younger Indians are more susceptible to the propaganda of ice cube necessity so resistance will eventually die out. 

I wonder what impact ice has on your taste-buds or your ability to digest efficiently?  I couldn’t find anything enlightening on these topics online.  North Americans can get very testy over lack of understanding of their ice addiction.  Examples of North American’s flaming Europeans for not indulging the ice addiction on Answer.com. 

The Wikipedia ice cube entry closes with this caring warning for people not familiar with the complexities and dangers of handing ice cubes:

WARNING: For your own safety, do not attempt to freeze any part of your body.

thirty-five in a series of posts about taking tiffin with tea on a sunny day in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #35: Sun Tea

An English girl,  in England,  raised before global warming,  has not normally heard of sun tea.  Friends from sunnier-climes bought this cunningly economic practice to my attention.  The Wendy House is currently suffering from a surfeit of sunshine making sun tea a distinct possibility.

forty-fifth post in a Wednesday series highlighting some of the trivial reasons that all add up to explaining Wendy’s singleness.

Reason # 45:  not scared of garden spiders

They’re cute,  they are fluffy,  they entertain the fluffballs,  they catch buzzy irritating flies and weave beautiful webs.  What is not to like about them?  All this ’scream’ & be pathetic over tiny little garden spiders is a construction of the feminine that somehow didn’t work its way passed my sensible judgement but may have done a confident spider-remover out of a boyfriend job.

I heard “what do you prefer,  the incest or the songs” (NPR weekend edition)

Phonological similarity: 

insects sounds like incest

yesterday several people dropped by :: the Wendy House ::  for tea on the way to, or from, cycle rides,  wedding anniversaries, de-salinated dudes, and other more unmentionable doings. 

People bought things as conversation pieces and talked about them and talked about sailing,  fables. cuckoo clocks and the French. Urgghhhh, I realised 30 seconds before people other than  LaCroix arrived,  maybe the Bonzo Dog Doodah band wasn’t right musical accompanyment for an afternoon of tea and conversation with North Americans.   LaCroix saved the afternoon…  

Tea was consumed by the pot-load,  green, white and a red (Rooibos, not really tea).  Subtle (white) through to strong (Assam),  with and without biscuits,  dunkakable.   I had a fabulous time.  I must remember to ensure that my guest have a fabulous time too.  Ooops.  When the tea flows I’m accustomed to leaving enjoyment to fate…  

Thankyou guestipoos,  you know who you are, you were wonderful and frighteningly well turned-out too 

the popularity of Bay 1 cannot be underestimated.  The bus was completely full.  A caucasian gentleman with silver hair was standing in the isle next to me.  Respectfully, I offered him my seat

silver haired gent:  “I hope I don’t look that incapable“

Apparantly you insult an senior gent when you offer him a seat.  Or rather I did.  I looked at the women on the other side of the isle from me,  an elderly lady,  then created a plausible fiction:

wendy: “you look very healthy,  I thought you were with this lady and would want to sit where you could talk to her“  

The gent didn’t acknowledge my creative fiction. 

silver haired gent:  “I must be looking pale today“

I looked at him,  his skin was transluscent by ethnicity more than by age,  he was truely pale-skinned.  I smiled embarrressedly and regretted having offered my seat,  I seemed to have offended him.  

Should I make a capability assessment before offering my seat in the US?

cabbie:  there are more cranes in Bellevue than anywhere else on the east coast

Last year experts predicted 60 cranes in the Puget Sound summer. 

“tower crane activity now is similar to the technology building boom of 1999-2000 when we were very busy in the Northwest … but the difference is that today the activity level is pretty intense all across North America, including a lot of high-rise condo construction.”

This summer there is ‘record’ downtown Bellevue city construction.  Inbetween,  in November, tragically, one crane fell over. 

Cranes have seasonal behaviours,  either hibernating in the winter or going south to sunnier climes.   

my father once mentioned that he has second sight.  Apparently it runs in our family 

“How do you know?” …he did not reply with…

‘how do you not know?’  …or question his role as my biological father…

He told me a story of how, as a teenager, he shook hands with a girl and foresaw her death.  This had disturbed him so much that he avoided using his second sight,  except, of course, in his job for divining. 

Before retirement my father was responsible for the overhead and underground lines of a regional Electricity group before Thatcher sold them all off.  Dad used his divining skills to pinpoint the location of underground electricity lines or other obstacles such as sewers when directing digging for repairs etc.   Dad kept his divining rods in the house.  As a child (5yrs, 1968) I would test him at the weekends.  A fun game.   The test involved him using his rods to find a single tuppeny bit hidden under reams of  used computer paper I had liberally strewn across the living room floor.  Dad used his divining rods to find the coin.  I watched him intently to make sure he wasn’t feeling the coin with his feet through the paper or using some other cunning strategy. 

Dad normally found the coin 

then giggled