Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Category Archives: Life in General

Scissor fit

Don’t have one.

A “scissor fit” is part of the jargon of my family.  (Jargon:  Special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand.)  Although I’m not sure how difficult it is for others to understand.  There’s a good chance your mother used to have scissor fits, too.  Or their equivalent.

In my house, they went something like this—and usually around the holidays when present wrapping was a thing my mom was trying to do.

~~~

Scene:  A suburban living room.  Children peacefully going about their business—doing homework, setting the table.  Okay, let’s be realistic.  Children running around and raising hell—dismantling the vacuum cleaner, mopping up the spilled soda with the cat.

(There is the sound of drawers opening and closing, with increasing ferocity—and, possibly, of the cat yowling.)

The Mother:  Where are the scissors?

The First Kid:  I don’t know.

The Second Kid:  Dunno

The Third Kid:  (turning the cat upside down into the puddle of soda) I didn’t take ’em.

The Mother: (loudly)  Who took the scissors?!

The Second Kid:  Not me.

The First Kid:  Not me.

The Third Kid: Owwww!  Yowww!  Yoww!  Mom!  The cat bit me!!!

The Mother:  Somebody took the scissors.  I’m so sick of this.  I buy forty-eleven pairs of scissors, and stick one in each drawer, so I can have a pair of scissors WHEN I WANT ONE and what happens?!  There is never a pair of scissors WHEN I WANT ONE!  You all better stop taking the scissors!  And if you take the scissors, you better PUT THEM BACK!!!!!

~~~

Now, at this point, a smart kid will run and hide.  Only the especially brave or the especially stupid will point out that “forty-eleven” is not a real number.  Either way, the day does not end well.

At my house, as we got older, this whole thing became known as a “scissor fit.”  As in, one kid would come into the house with the uproar already in progress, ask “What’s going on?”  The answer would come, “Mom’s having a scissor fit.”  “Got it,” would say the first kid and duck back out the door.

I thought of this yesterday.

Guess why?

Because the scissors were not where I had put them.

And I don’t even have forty-eleven kids to move them around.

So, alls I’m sayin’ is—the scissors are going to go missing.  It’s one of the things that happens.

Just chill.

 

Nothing in the world

Can take the place of persistence.

I’ve mentioned part of this quote from Calvin Coolidge previously.  Here, as a matter of fact.

The whole quote—one of my favorites is:

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.  Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

The reason I bring it up today is that I am thankful for persistence.

Today is the 180th straight day of blog posts here.  Six months.  Six months of figuring out something to post, of preparing it, of setting up the appropriate links, adding the appropriate tags, scheduling the post and hitting the Publish button.

If you think that’s easy, you’ve never tried it.

But, I made a commitment to myself that I was going to do it, and I have persisted.  Some posts have been better than others.  Some days, I have had to drag my feet out of the muck and mud of I-don’t-feel-like=it, and push through the boy-this-post-stinks, and overcome the is-anybody-there-nobody’s-reading-it-anyway bugaboo.  (“Bugaboo” — ‘now there’s a word to lift your hat to.’*)

So, I’m thankful for persistence, today.

Every time you face a challenge you get better at it.  Not only do you get better at achieving that particular goal, you get better at achieving all goals.  Once you prove that you can, it’s very hard to fall back on ‘I can’t.’

I was reminded of this recently, not only by my 180 day anniversary, but also by one of those not-so-rare bursts of synchronicity in a post on this same topic over at Dumb Little Man.  (Good blog, Dumb Little Man.  Just FYI.)

Of course, later today, persistence in dieting (another of my current goals, albeit a bit half-hearted) will likely fall by the wayside.  I’m thinking fresh baked chocolate cookies and vanilla ice cream—a treat I first had at Joe Allen’s in the heart of the Theatre District in NYC.  (I think Joe Allen’s may be the first restaurant I ever went to in NY after I moved there—although I didn’t have the cookies and ice cream that time.)

You have to have a balance, after all.  Dieting can pause for a moment for a little celebration.

180 days!

 

* Luce, William (and Emily Dickinson), The Belle of Amherst

How can I know what I think

until I see what I say?
~ E. M. Forster

That’s what I’m wondering today—it is Wondering Wednesday, after all—as I’m casting about for a specific topic.  Basically, I’m wondering what I’m going to write.  (This is a regular phenomenon since I took up blogging.)

It’s not that there is not a lot about which to wonder.  Surely, there is something I think and about which I would want to communicate amongst all the mysteries at hand.  Look at the state of our politics here in the United States, for example.  Now, there’s something—a lot of somethings—to provoke wonder.  But we don’t have a day of the week whose name begins with the letter ‘R,’ so you are all spared a regular Rant Day.  I have promised myself the blog will be positive—mostly—so, you know, politics. . .off limits.

I wonder about the future.  Do I need to figure out what’s next in my life, or will the Mayans solve that problem for me?

I wonder if I’m ever going to write another play, or have I inadvertently retired?  (Or, is it a moot point—see Mayans.)

I wonder what I should do next in renovating my house.  Is it time for a kitchen makeover?  Wouldn’t we like to have a bathtub?  And does that mean the entire bathroom needs a makeover?  What comes first in the rest of the house—the carpet or the windows?  Will I ever have furniture?

I wonder who bought the house next door and if they will be good neighbors.

I wonder why the coots haven’t yet returned from Capistrano—or wherever they go in the summer.

I wonder if anything, anything at all, will persuade the squirrels not to hang like bats, head downward, clinging to the coquina and if I will ever get used to an upside-down furry tree rat hanging head high over my front door.

Lastly, I wonder which of these and many other questions will be addressed in next week’s Wondering Wednesday post.

‘Cause this one’s done.

 

The best cure for insomnia. . .

. . .is to get a lot of sleep.
~ W. C. Fields

Okay, so that’s a bit snarky—in true W. C. Fields style—but there’s a valid point there.

How do you get a lot of sleep when you can’t sleep?

In my experience, all that stuff about hot milk and eschewing caffeine and counting sheep doesn’t really work that well.  Everybody’s different.  Your mileage may vary, but I haven’t found those things to be effective.

There is one thing that does work almost every time, though.

I wish I could remember where I found this little tip, because I like to give credit where it’s due.  The problem is, when I found it, I was thinking more about whether it would work than about who provided it.  This was long before I’d started a blog—long before anybody’d ever heard of a blog, in fact—so who knew I was going to want to write about it?

Since I can’t remember the source, however, we’ll have to go with me just assuring you that it doesn’t belong to me, I didn’t think it up, and whoever did deserves all the credit.

Here’s what you do when you are having trouble getting to sleep.

It involves counting—but no sheep.  (No alligators, no raccoons, no animals, vegetables or minerals.)

First, you lie on your back.  Breathe deeply in and out.  Count on the exhale.  1, 2, 3, 4.

Turn on your left side, breathe in and out—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Turn onto your back.  Same breathing drill.  Count to sixteen.

Turn onto your right side.  Breathe.  Count to thirty-two.

You keep doing this, doubling the count each time you change positions.  To be honest, I have never managed to get to my right side and the thirty-two count.  I usually fall asleep somewhere in the middle of the sixteen count.

I think it works because the breathing is relaxing and the counting focuses your mind on something other than whatever obsessive-compulsive thing it would otherwise be gnawing over.

So, if you ever have trouble sleeping, give this a try.

Sweet dreams!

The Pied Piper of Ponies

That’s me!

Had a bit of fun yesterday over at the Old House.  (That’s what we call the house my grandfather built on the farm where my mom grew up.)

We were there so the MotH could put up a new light fixture outside the back door.  (If you know anything about farms, you probably know that the back door is the door.  Almost nobody uses the front door.)

While the grown-ups were making trips back and forth to my mom’s house (only across the road and around the corner) to find the right socket wrench, I wandered over into Rocky’s field.

Rocky’s field is the field where Rocky hung out when I was a kid.  Rocky was the stallion for the herd of Shetland ponies my grandparents raised.  Kind of a white stallion, he was, and he used to hang out there with Swift, the mule.  For a time, after Rocky was no more, the field was home to the emus, but they have passed on as well.

Now, once again, Rocky’s field is grazing ground for ponies.

The field looks different than it did when I was a kid—and yet, somewhat the same.  The barn is gone, the saddle shed is gone, the ring where we used to ride around in circles between a wooden fence and a center circle of old tires is gone.

The watering trough is still there, and the chickens roaming.  The big live oak tree is still there—although the carousel to which the ponies were tethered for the youngest riders to go round and round the tree is gone, and the tree limbs on one side have grown to touch the ground.  No babies can be seat-belted into saddles out there anymore.

But there are still a few ponies.

I’m astonished every time I see them now at how tiny they are.  They were so big when I used to ride them, and now they seem so small.

I was never a good rider, and I haven’t ridden in years, but it was nice to visit the ponies.  It was nice to have them follow me around the field—even if my Pied Piper-ness was due to their hope of a handful of feed rather than any equestrian enchantments on my part.

They lost interest pretty soon, but that snuffling breath on the palm of my hand brought a strong sense of déjà vu—enhanced by the cackling hens and the scent of the horses and the grass —and the blue sky and the gray sand —and who says you can’t go home again?

Clutter, clutter everywhere

Unless. . .

If you’re on Facebook, have I got a find for you.

You know how Martha Stewart has all these great organizing and decorating tips…for the folks who won that $500 million dollars and can afford to spend six or seven hours a day weaving their own placemats?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time for all that.  And the materials!

Half the time you have to make your own radish roses to attach to yew branches harvested from your own hedges to make a tasteful holiday wreath which will, in turn, be gilded by a paint recipe based on egg yolks gathered from your hand-incubated Buff Orpington chickens nesting in your home-made chicken coop modeled on Westminster Abbey.

It’s not like these are things real people actually do.

But over in New Orleans, there’s a little company called Clutter Clearer.

Each day on their Facebook page, they post two things:  An inspiration photo and a tip.

The tips are realistic, useful and require inexpensive items to implement.  More often than not, I think, “Whoa!  Why didn’t I think of that?”

The inspiration photos are just that–photos of rooms that are both attractive and well-organized.  Not every one will be to everyone’s taste, but there are good ideas in the pictures, too.

The tips on the Clutter Clearer Facebook page are the most consistently realistic ideas I’ve ever seen on a site like this.

Get on over there, search for “Clutter Clearer” in that little box at the top, and Like their page.

If you’re not on Facebook, you can find their website here.  I don’t see any tips there, however, so Facebook is better!

You know, you can read about how to knit sweaters out of wool from your herd of alpacas—or you can take some actual small steps toward organizing your environment.

Totally up to you!

Deck the halls!

I’m done!

I have finished my Christmas shopping!  And it’s not even December.

This is the absolute earliest I have ever been finished.

Clearly, there is some child that has been left off the list.  An inadvertently missed niece or nephew lurking in the background.  It is hard to believe that I don’t have to go to the mall again.

However, I’m going to try to believe that my lists are accurate and that everything that needs delivering will arrive in time to be wrapped, appropriately-sized boxes will appear, rolls of wrapping paper will hold out until all items are attractively covered and the re-shipping will proceed apace.

I have plans to sail through this year with time to enjoy holiday movies and my own Boat Parade party and maybe baking some cookies (and maybe not, because I have a tendency to eat them if I bake them).

I don’t know why it seemed somewhat easier this year, but I am devoutly thankful.

17 Trees

I’ve just decorated 17 trees!

Well, actually, it turned out to be 14 trees, and I only really worked on six of them, but still. . .

And I haven’t even put up my own Christmas tree yet.

To tell you the truth, just at the moment, I don’t really ever want to see another tree.

It’s all due to the Parade of Trees in the little town in which my mother lives.  The city puts up well over a hundred trees in the park and strings lights on them.  After that, the trees are up for adoption by individuals, organizations, and businesses.   Some people “adopt” a tree and decorate it themselves, some people “adopt” a tree, specifying a theme, and pay for the city to do the decorating, and some people “adopt” and leave the whole thing up to the city.

It’s those last two groups I have to thank for my day of decorating.

See, my mother belongs to a garden club.  The garden club basically hires itself out to decorate the trees in the city park that have been adopted by those unable or unwilling to do their own decorating.  It’s kind of a fundraiser for the club.

But 17—okay, 14— trees!

And it’s a small club.

Ergo. . .I was asked to assist—i.e., I got arm-twisted.

Anyway, I spent the day in the park stringing garland, tying bows, hanging ornaments, etc.  There’s also an angel on top of one of the taller trees that owes her particular tipsy air to me.

It’s quite a display.

One of our trees is all red, white and blue.  Two of them have nautical themes.  One is a symphony in red and green.  One is all over poinsettias.  And the sixth. . . well, I can’t hardly remember the sixth.  Oh!  It was simply a multi-colored theme.

I didn’t look at the other eight the rest of the garden club decorated. Four hours into it, I’d about had it with trees.  Just for the moment.  I’ll thoroughly enjoy going back to the park during the official Parade of Trees opening day and wandering the paths among the forest of fun.

And, I’ll thoroughly enjoy putting up my own tree.  Just. . .maybe not for a day or two.


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