I recently read both E.M. Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady and George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody and was inspired to keep a journal. It reminded me of how entertaining ordinary happenings can be. I also began to feel that as I continue to live with my aging (and sometimes hilarious) parents, I should record some of these events for the sake of my brothers and for my niece and nephews. If I can manage to keep up the habit, I should have plenty of blogging fodder. Below is an excerpt.
August 31, 2017
In
the evening, I heard Mom in the kitchen frantically calling out for
help. I got myself unloaded from underneath my laptop and came down
to her. She was making a chicken and biscuits recipe for the Instant
Pot and needed me to whisk the sauce in the pot while she was cutting
chicken. She was nervous about neglecting her sauce while she did
that task. I got to work on that. Later, she called for Dad too and
got really frustrated that she couldn't make him hear her, announcing
he was “deafer than a doorbell,” probably imagining him upstairs
at his computer with his headphones on. At that expression, I burst
into laughter and made Mom laugh just as vigorously, and soon, we
were both laughing so hard we could barely function.
I
thought of the famous opening paragraphs from Dickens' A Christmas
Carol.
“Marley
was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The
register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the
undertaker and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooges'
name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.
Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.
Mind!
I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is
particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined,
myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery
in the trade.”
I
don't know what makes a doorbell particularly deaf either. Does that
mean it can not hear its own sound? If a doorbell rings, and it can
not hear itself, does it still make a sound?
At
some point, we both left the kitchen. I left to go to my bedroom and
Mom to her bathroom. The phone rang. I answered it. It was Dad …
calling from his cell phone … from the parking lot at the T-Mobile
store. I remembered then that he had told us he was going to the
store before he left the house. Both Mom and I had completely
forgotten he had even gone. I had to repeat to him Mom's mixed up
expression. Dad answered, “I guess I should have rolled the car
windows down so I could hear her from the highway.”
I
found Mom later at her bathroom sink and informed her how Dad had
called from T-Mobile. “I guess that's why he was deafer than a
doorbell.”
“That
would explain it,” she said and burst into laughter again.
© Susan Joy Clark 2017
I think a journal is a great idea, and this post is all the proof I need.
ReplyDeleteWe are headed to Lake Hope in southern Ohio for a long weekend, have you ever been there?
How was the chicken?
Hi Tim. Thank you. :) No, I haven't been to Lake Hope. I did live in Ohio for college, at Cedarville University, but I haven't been to Lake Hope. I hope you enjoy your time there. :) The chicken turned out well. We have been having fun with the new Instant Pot. We might tweak the recipe a little if we do it again, to get a thicker sauce. It was still pretty good. :)
DeleteIt seems we have so many places in common I wasn't sure. And you seem to get around quite a bit. Lake Hope is supposed to be a dream place for campers and nature lovers. I will let you know.
DeleteI might have to look into an Instant Pot, I am a little impatient.
It sounds very nice actually. My family has always liked lake vacations. When I was a kid, we could vacation at Schroon Lake or Lake George in the Adirondacks, and when my brother Dan was living in Maine, we would go up in the summer and vacation at one of the lakes or ponds near him.
Delete"would" not could.
DeleteLol. Sounds like Mom. So funny! Nice article Sis :)
ReplyDeleteDan
Thanks Danno.
Delete