Grammar important it is to have good.

I have, after much procrastination, started on a book. The writing of one, not the reading of one. With the reading I seem to be perpetually starting, working on and finishing a book. The writing...not so much. Still hoping to have the children's book published but that's a whole other story. This is an actual novel. Maybe. Could just as easily fall into the "never going to happen" category. I just want to try. No crime in that, right?

I started yesterday, and quickly discovered that spell-check and I have some serious differences of opinion. I'm happy to have spelling corrected, particularly as it works better for me if I can race through an idea without worrying about the spelling first time around.

The bone of contention has to do with correct grammar and the way people actually talk. Trying to write dialogue for characters who have perfect grammar is not working.. No one sounds believable, somehow. We just don't talk that way.

I remember reading a book once where each character did have perfect grammar. I don't even remember what the book was, I just remember something feeling off, somehow. The further into the book I got the more something bothered me. It wasn't until I got to three pages of nothing but dialogue - and an argument between characters at that! - that it hit me. There was no stuttering, no "uhms" or "ergs" or poorly constructed (or even incomplete!) sentences. No one argues that way. NO ONE.

I have tried to explain this to spell check. No agreement, but I warned him that if he didn't agree I'd just ignore his issues, so that's where it stands. Sentences everywhere with squiggly green lines under them because spell-check guy (yup, it's a guy) thinks I should fix them.

No one is good at everything, everyone is good at something.

I keep having to relearn lessons. I am not alone in this, though, am I? It’s just so irritating to realize that I could have avoided any number of things – pain, embarrassment, criminal charges – if I’d remembered a previously learned lesson.

Years ago (decades, actually) I read Markings by Dag Hammarskjold. I still have the book, but there is one bit that I never need to look up:

“’Better than other people.’ Sometimes he says: ‘That, at least, you are.’ But more often: ‘Why should you be? Either you are what you can be, or you are not – like other people.’”

That is the actual quote. I seem to have changed it to “either you are everything you can be, or you are not, just like everyone else”. Not that it matters, the point is the same.

It’s a point I seem to have forgotten. It’s a point our country has forgotten when politicians think it is acceptable to say that we’re better than Syria, or Africa or anywhere else. Better to help Syria – or Pakistan, or any number of places, including Canada - be everything it can than tell them everything it isn't.

Fair enough

A friend recently made a comment on my lack of posting here. And she is right; it's been so long it took my a while to remember the password so I could post something!

The thing is, I haven't written much lately. A few strange poems that make sense to me and would be enjoyable to no one, and that's about it. I am working on a cooking post, but I want to get a picture taken of what I will be posting about. I'll blog again, truly. Someday. This month, even!

One Woman

Some day I'll write a post about the change for good that one woman can do. But at the moment the story that I keep chewing over isn't an uplifting story. It has helped, though, in that it has me looking more carefully at how I am living my life.

I met a woman a while ago that I really didn't like. That doesn't often happen. Close to never, in fact. There are people that I really like, and then regular people. To actually dislike someone...too much energy! I don't like how I feel physically when I hold dislike inside. But this woman...boy, was she a piece of work. And then...

Then I met her mother. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh...now I get it. Yup, I'd be a horrible human being, MUCH worse than the actual daughter if my mother had been like that". So I slowly started coming around to understanding the first woman. I'm amazed, sometimes, that she is still in society, living her life. As opposed to serving time in gaol for matricide.

I had such an incredible childhood and an wonderful mother. Awesome parents, in fact. So when I see parents treating a child in a way I've never experienced I tend to watch them like they're some zoo display. Or a test on a psych exam.

Close to two years after meeting the first woman, I find out that the grandmother treated the mother the same way that mother treats her daughter. And that the great grandmother was the same! So now I want to know how far back something like this goes? Did something happen to one woman a century or more ago that twisted her so profoundly that she ended up beating her daughter's self worth into the ground? Which then continued down to the present day daughter of the house? And will this trend end, with anything other than someone not having children?

My guess - for any such situation - is that you'd have to see the trend yourself. Look at the line of women that came before you, think about how it came about and make a conscious effort to NOT BE THAT WAY.

Brain and Vision

I don't know how it is with guys, but for myself and a number of women I've talked to, my brain - and mood, and Lord knows what else - affects my vision.

I am more or less the same size I've been since I lost weight. If there is any change (and according to the weigh and measure at Curves there is) it's for the better. A pound less a week, and inches dropped left right and centre. The point I'm trying to make is that there have been no drastic changes as of late.

And yet...wearing the EXACT same outfit I can look in the mirror one week and think "Hmmm. Looking pretty sharp there girl. Well done! Keep up the proper eating habits and the exercise, it's clearly working for you" and the next week look and think "Egads. Horrible lumpy toad, what's going on? Get the lead out and get working!".

Perhaps this is why I loathe mirrors. They keep saying different things. I was very happy in moving to leave behind a dresser that had a mirror. The new one is just a dresser. Not a single mirror to be seen. In fact, if it weren't for the mirror in the bathroom we'd be completely mirror-less. Hate them. What I should be hating is whatever it is in my brain (and I have friends whose brains do the same thing) that can see the same me and have different opinions from week to week. Or day to day. Hour to hour?

Merry Christmas.

"Oh! All that steam! The pudding had just been taken out of the cauldron. Oh! That smell! The same as the one which prevailed on washing day! It is that of the cloth which wraps the pudding. Now, one would imagine oneself in a restaurant and in a confectioner's at the same time, with a laundry nest door. Thirty seconds later, Mrs. Cratchit entered, her face crimson, but smiling proudly, with the pudding resembling a cannon ball, all speckled, very firm, sprinkled with brandy in flames, and decorated with a sprig of holly stuck in the centre. Oh! The marvelous pudding!"





I’ve read about people who obsess over things. I’ve met them. I’m one of them. Now, I’m not talking obsessive compulsive disorder. I mean obsessing about getting something just right, down to the smallest detail. Even if you’re only doing it because…then you can say you did it.

People who make miniature models, for instance. Or recreate historic clothing, dying wool they spun themselves, weaving it or knitting it into something using only tools that someone would have had access to in whatever era they are imitating.

I tend to spend large amounts of time trying to get certain eatables just right. Baked beans kept me busy for years. I happen to like – but due to allergies can’t eat – tinned beans. It took me ages, but I can now make home made baked beans taste like Libby’s canned beans. Backwards, I know. It would be better to spend time (assuming I worked at Campbells or something) making tinned food taste home made. But there you have it. Three years, obsessing over beans.

I also remember a long stretch where I was trying to become queen of mashed potatoes. I didn’t quite succeed, but I think I attained princess status. That particular obsession also marked the first – and so far only – time I’ve ever given potatoes as a birthday present. Whipped and piped out onto parchment paper in swirled mounds and then frozen, to be eaten as required. And they were well received by Mademoiselle H., so keep your mocking to yourselves!

The most recent obsession has been steamed Christmas pudding. There was one recipe I really wanted to try – quite old and one might hope authentic – but the local beer place that had promised to sell me Barley wine when they made it next either never made it or just forgot to tell me. I wasn’t going to make the recipe if I couldn’t do it EXACTLY as written, so that recipe was off the list.

I made a few puddings with some success. They weren’t great, but they weren’t terrible inedible. The main problem was that they didn’t seem that different from the store bought kind I’d been tried a couple of years ago.

I think I finally have it. The proof being in the pudding – ha! – I won’t know for sure until we’ve tried it, but come on: the thing has 21 different ingredients. And that’s counting the bag of dried fruit as one ingredient, when there were actually several different types of fruit in the bag. One of the ingredients was listed as “mixed spice”. Again…obsessing…I researched to see if they was agreement on what spices went into “mixed spice”. There wasn’t. Of course there wasn’t! Some people said it was the same as pumpkin pie mix. Some used Mrs. David’s Spice blend (which again, I had to research to see just what was in that). In the end I made a list of what seemed the most common ingredients, and made my own blend. All that work and it was just one of 21 things to go into the pudding!

Once mixed, the batter needed to sit overnight. And then steam for six hours. It made enough for two, though, and I only had one pudding tin. So I steamed one, cleaned the steamer and steamed the other. 12 hours of water simmering. Fogged windows that haven’t cleared up yet, that will probably stay that way until spring!

But it’s done. I have two puddings. I only need one, and even that…don’t really need it. But I did it! I made traditional steamed Christmas pudding!

Power of Yea.

I am not willing to review all my blog entries to see if I’ve told y’all about my sister’s delightfully scene-stopping “yes”, so I’m just going to explain it again. If you already know, skip ahead.

You use this yes in a situation where someone is mad at you, or more likely wants to be mad, or wants to start an argument. They say something stupid and/or obvious, and you just say “yes”. TOTALLY dead pan. Not angry yes, not defensive yes just yes.

F’rinstance: I was shopping for scallops once. Not something I do often, as I have doubts about any scallops that have made it this far inland. Nevertheless, I was practicing cooking scallops and that meant I needed scallops. Sobeys had six left. So when it was my turn at the seafood counter I said I would like six scallops, please. The reply to which was a moderately irate “but that’s ALL of them. There are only six left altogether”.

Yes.

Totally floored the guy. Don’t know what he was expecting but the glory of the yes is that there is no arguing with it. You just agreed with the person, so there is nothing more to say.

So, today’s story. Which is really Monday’s story but things have been busy. I had to take a bunch of boxes to our downtown office. As you can imagine, the parking isn’t great. Big city, small city it’s all the same: parking downtown sucks.

There was one space, though; the loading space at the back. It’s with all the visitor spaces (all six, two of which are handicapped spaces), and is for – duh – loading and unloading. I parked there. I went and fetched a book truck. Loaded the boxes, took them to the 3rd floor and went back to the car. Only to find an irate trucker standing by my car.

I had barely unlocked the car (remotely) before he started in on me.

“Can’t you read? What’s you’re problem?* This is for unloading, or didn’t you know that????”

“Yes”.

He paused and then said “yes…what?” I was sorely tempted to say “yes SIR” but what I said was “yes, I did know it was a loading zone. And given that I was unloading and loading boxes it seemed eminently reasonable to park there”.

I drove away with him still standing there all gob-smacked. Best part of my day. Which is probably sad or possibly even mean, but I takes em where I can get em.

*Would it not be more logical to ask those in a different order? What’s your problem first, then can’t you read?