At the Junior Prom

Ms. Douglas & her prodigies

I went to a piano "recital" at my piano teacher's house yesterday with some of her other pupils; I was the newest, having started my first piano lesson a little over four months ago and the oldest, or, I should say, of the granny-age, member of her class.  Everyone performed bravely, with some hiccups here and there, received polite applause from the classmates and encouraging remarks from the teacher.  Here is an abridged, i.e., before things started to go south, clip of my piece, At the Junior Prom -

  

Deer Haven

For some inexplicable reason, the deer seem to have taken quite a fancy to our backyard lately and pay prolonged visits there daily.  Just now, there are two sitting in the garden boxes, one resting against the hedge and one in the middle of the lawn.  This morning at breakfast we counted five of them out there leisurely enjoying their breakfast as well.  I've noticed that they are always chewing something in their mouths and have since learned that the white-tailed deer, like cattle, are a ruminant animal.  They keep an idle eye on the goings-on inside the house and look back at you calmly when you look at them.  It's hard to tell which of us, Kirk and I or the deer, are the animals on zoological display.

Spring Awakening

They may not look like much, these tender shoots of the daffodil bulbs I planted last fall, but they represent for me the tell-tale signs of the gentle re-awakening of life with spring, after a three-month hiatus.  Before we know it, we will have been in Bloomington a whole year and have witnessed how nature, in a more intense fashion, endures and manifests itself a complete cycle of life, death, and rebirth. 


The temperature has crept up to low 60's in the past couple of days but Kirk does not believe that we have seen the last of snow.  After hearing about the several slip-and-fall accidents among the people from the Philosophy department alone after the last major snow storm earlier this month, I finally got wind of this "Ice Melt" thing, which is rock salt that one can sprinkle on walking surfaces to dissolve ice.  I remember driving around town in a blizzard with Kirk trying to find a store that still had ice melt in stock.  When Kirk phoned Lowe's to find out whether they had any, he got a chuckle in response.  As we were having company that evening and our front walk was especially slippery, Kirk first tried to melt the ice with Morton Iodized Salts but soon found out that that wasn't very effective.  He proceeded to melt the ice with buckets of hot water which proved more efficacious but incredibly wasteful.  After who knows how many trips to the tub to fill up the bucket with hot water, we managed to secure our guests safe arrival and departure.  I went back to the local hardware store when they were expecting to get their next shipment of salts and bought a 20-lb bag, a modest amount which probably wouldn't last very long should we encounter another snow storm, but then again it might be sitting on the garage floor until next winter.  An update about the damage we sustained during the last storm - the branch was cut up and removed, and the lamp post straightened on the following day. I'm sorry to say that Kirk did not get the chance to buy a chain saw; I called in Eddie of the Helping Hands who speedily cleaned up the mess.   

The Iceman Cometh

Frozen path

We went outside this morning to survey the effect of last night's ice storm which swept past the Midwest.  We first noticed that there is a thin layer of ice embedded with broken branches and little ice blocks all over the driveway and walks.  Forget about 'shoveling' it at present!  I went inside to get my phone to take some pictures, and of a sudden Kirk dropped the unexpected "Oh Eh, we got damage!"  Sure enough, a large branch had fallen from the tree at the end of the driveway, knocked off a light pole, squashed some bushes, slightly damaged the gutter on its fall and just barely missed hitting the glass panel of our sun room.  Unfortunately, there is nothing much we can do at the moment; Kirk will have to get a chain saw or hire someone to remove the dead limb of the tree and reset the light pole when the weather clears up a bit.  Even so, we count ourselves lucky for not having sustained any other more serious damage.  The snow storm is still raging hard outside my window while I write; the glorious colors we had last summer seem like a dream of yore. 

Here is the plaque, commemorating the summer garden walk of 1991 which passed through our backyard, dangling on the light pole which was knocked off kilter by the falling branch. It says -

"A garden 

Soothes the soul
summer garden walk 1991"

Tiger Mothers

Squatting Tiger Poster

Apropos the furor over Amy Chua's book, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother", I've noticed a curious fact that her book and most of the commentaries on her book are about the bringing up of daughters, not sons.  This may be a result of mere coincidence.  Or maybe more female writers feel obliged, as it were, to put their oars in the public debate, when they have daughters, reflecting on their own upbringing. Having been only a daughter but never a mother myself, I was wondering if it would be far-fetched to say that there is slightly more anxiety on the part of parents in raising daughters than sons; there seem to be more pitfalls to guard them against (hence more restrictions), more virtues, the likes of patience, modesty, compassion, and so on, in addition to those championed for boys, to extol and instill in their young minds, and for the competitive-minded mothers, toughness and fearlessness to boot, all meant to be in preparation for what they deem to be a happy and successful life for a woman.  As for the boys, "boys will be boys", a certain risk and laxity is tolerated; after all, they are expected to fend for themselves and, as it were, forge their own destiny out in the wild.  

Cloth Tigers

In contrast, in his lengthy discourse on the education of children, Montaigne aims his advice mainly at the upbringing of boys, sons of noble families in particular, though he himself only had a surviving daughter.  (Unfortunately, he delegated the education for his only daughter to the care of the feminine contingent of his household, who admonished her for things which he did not find objectionable.)  To him, the goal of education is to bring the child up to become a person of character and understanding, a far cry from the concerns and obsessions of all the "tiger" moms and "dragon" dads of the present day.  (I've attached a scanned copy of part of the essay, Of the education of children, for your reading pleasure.) 


To me, there seems to be a fundamental problem with general discussions on parenting, especially on the part of the mothers, and that is that it is difficult for the parents to 'disassociate' themselves from their offspring when they are old enough to develop a distinct person-hood; there is a sense of "proprietorship" that is hard to shake off, so much of the expectation and anxiety exhibited towards offspring is tied up with the desire of the parents to project or extend themselves into the lives of their children, to mold them into what they wish they had become but didn't.    

  

How to Live

I recently started reading Montaigne's essays (as translated by Donald Frame) after reading a newly published biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell titled, How to Live - or - A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (Other Press, 2010).  She has an original take on illuminating Montaigne to present day audience by gleaning choice reflections about life from his massive book of essays.  It must have been about 30 years ago since I first and last read a few of Montaigne's essays, while a college student studying English Literature.  This time around I expect my experience reading Montaigne will be very different, more congenial with age perhaps.  I was wondering if any of you would like to read the book along with me in your spare time.  I am reminded of the aborted effort by some of us in reading and writing about War and Peace; time short and interest fags.  But as Montaigne's essays are episodic, each one is only a couple of pages long, it stands a good chance that we may be able to plow through the book in due time.  As being reported by Bakewell, generations of readers take ownership of what is congenial to him or herself in these essays, I think each of us will have something to say, about one thing or another, while reading through the book. I plan to do some of that in future postings and I hope you will too. 

Sisyphean Labor

Sloggers

As my neighbor, seeing me shoveling the snow off our driveway one time, said to me, rolling down his car window in passing, "you know, it's going to continue to snow...", clearing snow off one's driveway does appear Sisyphean, a futile effort with no ending in sight.  But my experience has taught me that the timely removal of snow does make a difference, however futile it may appear.  There are at least two practical benefits in so doing - it makes the task easier next time you shovel and it enables you to back the car out of the garage in case you need to go somewhere.  

Snow soon returns

Little snowplow for hire

When I last shoveled the 100'x18' driveway by myself it took me almost 3 hours, today it took me half the time to get the job done, owing to the fact that we just got the snow cleared off the driveway a couple of days ago.  When the snow is less than six inches deep and has not been allowed to settle, it is fluffy and manageable, like scrapping icing off a cake, with the icing made from fluffy shaved ice instead of heavy cream.  I have even developed certain techniques to make the task more enjoyable and injury-free.  As each clearing takes at least two passes, I would take the shovel on my right side at the first pass and switch it over to my left at the second.  This way it ensures that I don't over-strain one side of my body.  Dressing warmly is important too, especially to protect the body extremities - head, hands, and feet.  I wear two layers of gloves to keep my fingers warm and for my feet I have on my incomparable waterproof "Sloggers" which Jeanne B. gave me when we left Gainesville.  What foresight!  And lastly, to make the task more enjoyable I listen to opera arias or symphonic music in my ear buds; it's a little bit eerie listening to the music this way for you are muffled up head to toe from hearing anything coming from outside.  Of course, one can always pay somebody else to do the job for you, like most, if not all, of my neighbors.  Alas, my driveway did not stay snow-free for very long; it has not stopped snowing, like my neighbor said.  I wonder when I should go out and start the task over again.  How many times does one have to do this in a day?