ever-fixed mark

Aitch’s appetite has been voracious of late. The other day, he was shoving fistfuls of leftover turkey into his mouth. I was about to admonish him, “Don’t do that, you’ll choke,” when a Thanksgiving memory suddenly popped into my head. Well, it isn’t really my memory, but one that I acquired.

It was my second year in the Peace Corps. Two other volunteers and I had been invited to the Ambassador’s residence for Thanksgiving dinner. A much larger group was invited to the DCM’s house (Deputy Chief of Mission, a kind of assistant Ambassador). Since both houses were in the suburbs of Tunis, and most volunteers lived several hours outside of the city, many of my friends traveled to Tunis on Wednesday and spent the night at my apartment.

Needless to say, whenever two or more volunteers got together we would pool our resources, buy booze and food, and have a party. This night was no exception. We drank and smoked my hookah pipe and listened to my cassette tapes until the wee hours of the morning. I fell asleep but was awakened in the middle of the night by the sounds of a conversation in the next room. Now, at the time I was engaged in a mild flirtation with one of the other boys in the group–we’ll call him X. The conversation was X dishing to one of his friends about the women in his life, including me.

I was livid. I’m not sure why — he hadn’t said anything uncomplimentary, nor had I learned anything I hadn’t already known — but that’s the kind of drama that evolves when you’re twenty-five and you have fifteen or twenty single people sharing living space. The next day, I imperiously told X off and ostentatiously avoided speaking to him until we left for our respective Thanksgiving dinners.

The Ambassador’s dinner went swimmingly. The residence was beautiful, the food was good, and I met some nice Foreign Service people. Two young gentlemen asked for my phone number — to no avail, because I didn’t have a phone, but my ego was gratified nonetheless. Who needs X, I thought?

The evening wrapped up, and we went back to my house where the other contingent had already returned from the DCM’s fete. When we walked in the door, they were bursting to tell their story. “You should have seen X!” they cried. “X was a hero!”

They had decided to take the TGM train to the DCM’s house to save money on cab fare. (TGM stood for “Tunis - Goulette - La Marsa,” but it may have been a play on “TGV,” the European “train a grand vitesse.”) They arrived at the station just as the train was pulling out and made a mad dash for the last car. The last volunteer to board the train fell just as she crossed the threshold, getting caught in the closing doors. She would have been dragged to the end of the platform, but X acted quickly, leaping out of the train, pushing her in, and then hopping back on just in time.

When they got to the DCM’s house, the other volunteers availed themselves of the open bar, toasting X repeatedly. They then tackled the buffet with gusto. The other guests were visibly taken aback at sharing their Thanksgiving board with the great unwashed volunteers.

A friend of X’s, whom we’ll call Y, was eating his turkey ravenously when he began to choke. Everyone at the table paused, waiting for him to recover. He started turning red and gasping, and everyone froze. X jumped up and gave Y a few mightly Heimlich squeezes. A large gob of half-masticated turkey went flying across the table. “Thanks!” Y said, and went back to his plate with renewed zeal. The other guests returned to theirs with slightly less enthusiasm.

For the volunteers, though, it was a story that would serve as conversational capital for the rest of their service. “X saved two lives on Thanksgiving!” I could not stay angry with X after that, and it’s a memory I treasure to this day — even though I wasn’t there to see it.

Is the stroller set’s patronage of this Port City pub the cause or effect of their fecundity?

The movie remake of Pride and Prejudice was released in the US on November 18, which was big news for those of us concerned with all things Pemberley. If you’ve been living in a cave the last ten years, I’ll catch you up: you see, Mr. Darcy has once been made flesh in the form of Colin Firth in the iconic 1995 A&E adaptation, and the faithful can hardly admit the legitimacy of a second Mr. D, even if he is embodied by the rather delectable Matthew Macfadyen of “MI-5″ fame (”Spooks” to you in the UK). We have been waiting impatiently to evaluate this pretender to the throne.

I don’t want to be one of those Austenites who criticizes any adaptation that doesn’t adhere strictly to the book, so I’ll keep those thoughts to a minimum. I did enjoy the new P&P, although I don’t think Colin Firth is in any danger of being replaced as Mr. Darcy in the hearts and minds of P&P fans any time soon. I was eager to see Mr. Macfadyen’s performance, not only because I salivate over him as Tom in MI-5, but also because he did such an outstanding job as Felix in “The Way We Live Now,” the BBC adaptation of Trollope’s work. But he was sort of a cipher as Mr. Darcy. He wasn’t terrible; he just wasn’t enough of a presence. Maybe, in the scant two hours allotted to the story, he was simply off screen too much of the time to make an impression.

I also wasn’t crazy about Keira Knightley as Elizabeth. I’m not generally keen on her mannerisms anyway, but I did try to come to this performance with an open mind. I just felt she was a bit strident as Elizabeth. Jennifer Ehle, who was so wonderful in the A&E version, showed Elizabeth as tomboyish and opinionated, but yet a fully mature young woman. Knightley’s Elizabeth just seemed bratty and smart-mouthed. And her hair, Louisa! Miss K. was sporting some kind of…I don’t know…nape bangs that distracted me every time they showed the back of her up-do. Imagine cutting the very bottom layer of your hair right at your collar line, while leaving the top layers long, and then having the fringe peek out every time you put your hair up — that’s exactly what it looked like. I’m not sure if it was the style back then, or if the actress simply had her hair cut very short to accommodate a wig, but I can assure you I spent way too many minutes of the film considering it.

I’ll stop short of critiquing, as so many others have, the director’s decision to set many scenes out-of-doors and to show the grottier side of Regency living (pigs in the house, people in dishabille, and so forth). He had to do something to avoid making an exact replica of the A&E film, and I think it was a legitimate artistic choice, even if the result was more Bronte than Austen. (It did make me crave a really good adaptation of Wuthering Heights, though. Why have so many directors got it wrong?)

I also liked the toned-down supporting characters who were still every bit as funny as the broader A&E caricatures, thanks to the retention of Austen’s sparkling dialogue. Actually, I could enjoy a Pride and Prejudice performed by a junior-high drama club and relocated to Studio 54 in the 1970’s if only the dialogue were preserved. The scene where Mr. Bennett twits his wife about her “nerves,” or Mr. Collins describes how he prepares little compliments to disperse at Rosings, or any of the proposal scenes — all worth the price of admission.

Which brings me to Good Night, and Good Luck, another theatrical release I actually got to see in a real live theater, thanks to my parents’ willingness to act as babysitters. It was so refreshingly different — the look, the subject matter, the performances — that I enjoyed it very much. (Some have taken issue with George Clooney’s view of history — here’s a pretty good article on Slate if you’re interested. It doesn’t change my mind about the film, though.) Like P&P, Good Night, and Good Luck took some of its “dialogue” from an existing text — in this case, transcripts of Edward R. Murrow’s speeches and broadcasts, as well as actual footage of Senator McCarthy’s hearings and other broadcasts. Something was bothering me throughout the film, and I finally put my finger on it: Edward R. Murrow was speaking to his audience in relatively complex language, not punchy sound bites. To follow the thread of his argument, you had to pay attention.

That makes two films in one week in which the characters spoke in complete sentences. Murrow said, “I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry’s program planners believe.” Maybe we are.

It was a grand Thanksgiving. Husband outdid himself with the turkey and, indeed, the entire meal. (His secret is to place the turkey upside down in the pan for roasting; it bastes itself that way.) Aitch was well-behaved during dinner and, incidentally, ate like a stevedore. And my father figured out why our heating bills have been so high.

In all the time we’ve owned the house, we’ve never closed the storm windows.

Now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense. We bought the house in the summer, when the previous occupants would have had the storm windows open, and we never thought to close them. Because we are, oh, how to say it in English, DROOLING MORONS. Pardon me while I wipe down my keyboard.

It’s a good job we didn’t buy the place in winter, when the former owners presumably would have vacated the house with the storm windows closed. We would have saved money during the cold weather, but summer would have found us wandering around a stifling house, remarking on the curious lack of a breeze.

Why hasn’t any social worker been out here to evaluate our fitness as homeowners?

Husband asked me the other day, “Why do children respect their parents’ authority at all? They don’t have to do what we say.” After giving it some thought, I answered that children are just like any other citizens: as long as they have it relatively good, they’re not going to try to topple the current regime unless they have something tremendous to gain or absolutely nothing to lose. Sure, they’ll challenge authority a bit, but they’ll be more reassured than otherwise when authority responds to their challenge with swift and decisive punitive action.

It’s psychological insights like these that have allowed me to perfect a technique I call the Mommy Jedi Mind Trick. (You remember: “These are not the ‘droids you’re looking for.” “These are not the ‘droids I’m looking for.”) It goes like this: whenever your child is misbehaving, or (better yet) about to misbehave, you calmly and rationally tell him what to think and do. There are two caveats: First, you must frame the behavior in a positive way; second, you must really, truly believe in your heart that the child will obey you.

For example, if your son is holding his dinner plate in the air, about to dump it on the floor, you don’t say, “Don’t dump that plate!” Your child can only process so many lexical and syntactical elements at a time. What gets through is, “Dump that plate…what a marvelous idea!” Instead, you say with sincerity and convinction, “You will put that plate on the table.” Suddenly, the dumping impulse is interrupted, and before the kid knows what is what, he’s executing your command.

In our recurring battle to get Aitch to sleep through the night, I’ve had to resort to the Mommy Jedi Mind Trick quite a bit. “You’re going to put your head down…you’re going to take a deep breath and calm down…you’re going to go back to sleep and stay asleep until morning.” The effect lasts for a few nights of uninterrupted sleep, but then he tests us again and we have to repeat the whole performance.

Last night, Aitch woke up yelling, and Husband was kind enough to volunteer as first responder. I was grateful for the opportunity to stay in bed, but a bit trepidatious, because Husband has a history of being lax with the no-Aitch-out-of-bed-unless-covered-in-hives-or-vomit rule.

“Be strong,” I said.

“I will,” he said.

“No, really. Don’t let that kid out of bed.”

“I won’t,” he said.

“BE STRONG,” I implored.

“I will be strong. I’m being strong,” he replied.

Then he thoughtfully turned off the baby monitor so I wouldn’t be bothered by the noise, which means I couldn’t hear exactly what transpired, but from the cadence and tenor of the voices, plus other sound effects, I was able to glean this much:

Aitch: DADDY UPPY DADDY UPPY DADDY UPPYYYYYY!

Husband (calm, reasonable tone): Aitch, it’s time to sleep. Put your head down and go back to sleep.

Aitch: NO DADDY UPPY DADDY JUUUUUUUICE!!!

Husband (soothing, steady tone): Aitch, you’re not a baby anymore. You had milk before you went to bed last night and you don’t need anything to drink in the middle of the night.

Aitch (sotto voce): You really believe that crap?

Husband (bewildered): What?

Aitch: That’s what she told you to say, isn’t it? What, you think I can’t occasionally get thirsty in the middle of the night? Like you never get up at 2 a.m. to get a drink? What do you think wakes me up half the time?

Husband: Well…I guess…

Aitch: You’re going to take me out of this crib, walk me downstairs, and get me some juice.

Husband: I’m going to take you out of the crib, walk you downstairs, and get you some juice.

SOUNDS OF DOOR OPENING, FOOTSTEPS, REFRIGERATOR OPENING AND CLOSING.

Later, as Husband is finally climbing into bed after getting Aitch back to sleep:

Husband (muttering): He didn’t even drink any of that juice.

Me: That’s because he didn’t want it. HE WAS MANIPULATING YOU.

Husband: What? What did I do?

I can’t believe he fell for the Baby Jedi Mind Trick.

There is a special circle in Hell for those people who not only go through the FastLane when they don’t have a transponder, but also require change from, and then ask directions of, the poor attendant who risks life and limb racing across several active tollbooths to help them out.

Repent before it is too late. Remember, “Vengeance is mine,” saith the Turnpike Authority.

This year, Husband and I put our collective foot down and declared that we were not going to travel, no, not a step, for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Consequently, we’re hosting Thanksgiving this year, and my parents are visiting. Husband has done holidays before, including wildly successful, perfectly timed Thanksgiving dinners, so I’m not worried about that. What concerns me is the inevitable Great Food Showdown between Husband, who likes to prepare interesting food, and Parents, who are interested only in food that they’ve been eating for years.

Husband has very little truck with fussy eaters. He will claim to reserve his contempt for those who refuse to try certain foods, but believe me, he’s pretty hard on people with limited palates. Husband himself dislikes only green olives and cole slaw and doesn’t understand why everyone else can’t be equally reasonable. He equates refusal to eat widely with a provincial attitude, although we have at least four friends who have traveled extensively — three of whom who have lived for years abroad — who have long lists of what they won’t eat. (Sample verboten foods: Pasta. Any vegetable but potatoes. Any fish but salmon.)

Husband is actually fine with all of these people, because although they eat very little, they are accustomed to being served meals they can’t eat, and they make do. What drives him nuts are people who panic whenever they see an unfamiliar dish in front of them. People who take the presence of an ethnic ingredient on their plates as a personal affront. People like my family.

I grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, a region not known for its ethnic variety or exotic food. Chicken pot pie, meatloaf, and fried cauliflower were the daily specials. My parents are Italian so there were good red-sauce-type dishes, but no Thai food, no Indian, no Mexican. My friend’s family took me out for Chinese once when I was twelve, an experience etched indelibly on my memory; I didn’t have it again until I was an adult.

Hence, we’ve had the Great Fois Gras incident of ‘Ninety-Nine, which they’re still talking about on the Orpheum circuit, and the Cold Curry Soup Disaster of ‘Ought Four, which was short-lived but intense. Actually, any kind of soup is problematic, because my father doesn’t eat soup, because it reminds him of the horrible leftover concoction his mother used to serve them toward the end of the week when funds were getting low, and so he just sits there through the soup course while everyone asks, “Do you want some soup? Are you sure?”

So, menu planning? A minefield. I’ve already persuaded Husband that if he serves goose instead of turkey, we’ll pretty much have to cancel the holiday. He’s still cogitating over the dessert, though. How does the “Missing Pumpkin Pie Fiasco of Ought Five” sound?

Husband reports pulling off the following Stupid Baby Trick last weekend:

Husband decided to take Aitch to the coffeeshop for a “cappuccino” and a cookie. (Aitch’s version of a cappuccino is steamed milk, just in case you’re one of the people out there who gives us dirty looks when Aitch demands loudly, “Mommy, ‘cino!” What, you think I’m going to give that kid a stimulant?)

Anyway, Husband pulled out a few ones to pay for the goodies, and Aitch, pointing at the bills, called out, “George!” The cafe ladies were suitably impressed.

“Who’s this, Aitch?” Husband asked, pulling out a fin.

“Abe!” Aitch said.

My boy knows his dead presidents.

I recently finished Tom Wolfe’s latest book, I Am Charlotte Simmons. The first time I encountered Wolfe, in the form of The Right Stuff, I was inspired to dash out and take flying lessons. (I never did earn my pilot’s license, so I guess I had the wrong stuff, but I soloed twice. Does that count?) Then I tried The Bonfire of the Vanities, but it didn’t cause me to aspire to Master of the Universe status. I recall hating every character in the book, and feeling furthermore like the narrator was contemptuous of both them and his readers, but being entertained nonetheless. I’m sorry to report that Charlotte Simmons engendered the exact same feelings in me.

To give Wolfe his due, though, I did read compulsively until the end. He is funny and sharp, and strangely enough his descriptions of modern-day university life brought back my own college days, these 20 years past. At the same time I was very conscious that the narrator was this old guy trying to sound hip. (Note to Wolfe: Reduce usage of the term “iliac crest” to once per sex scene, at maximum. “Mons pubis” is also not a term that probably runs through a teenager’s head while making out, even if she is Ivy League.)

If anyone out there read it, can you please explain the ending to me? (Warning: minor spoilers ahead.) Most of the characters’ plots were fully resolved by the end, with the “good” characters winning and the “bad” characters getting their comeuppance. When Charlotte lets her studies lapse and becomes the girlfriend of the airhead jock, are we supposed to think she won, or lost? Or is her determination to “have that conversation with herself” supposed to hold out some hope for her without tying it all up too neatly? I mean, yes, I understand that as a reader I am supposed to eschew the Fallacy of Authorial Intent and Make Up My Own Damn Mind, but when Wolfe sets up all these deus ex machina rewards and punishments for the other characters, I’m not exactly expecting subtlety elsewhere. My book ended with the last page of text (no blank page or acknowledgments or author’s bio), and I thought I may have been missing a few pages.

After I’d finished Charlotte Simmons I felt like my sensibilities could use a good scrubbing. So I turned to Louisa May Alcott’s An Old-Fashioned Girl, a book I read as a child and had the urge to read again. Alcott was my first encounter with the 19th century in novels, a century I would return to over and over again for my reading pleasure and, as Husband will tell you, a time in which I’ve practically taken up permanent residence as an adult. Even as a child I thought Alcott was awfully preachy, and I find her characters outside of Little Women too much alike, but as a child I found her pictures of domestic life incredibly charming. I wanted that vigorous home life, with creative games and outdoorsy pursuits.

An Old-Fashioned Girl seemed kind of flat to me on this reading. Even adjusting for the fact that I’ve outgrown children’s tales, the detail didn’t seem as rich as I remembered. I just realized that all these years I’ve been carrying around a vague impression of the plot of the book, along with one specific line that stuck in my head, where the heroine muses on the fashion of spelling girls’ names with an “ie” at the end instead of a “y” (Fannie, Trixie). It struck me originally because then, of course, the trend was to spell them with an “i” (Candi, Misti), and “ie” seemed quaint and, well, old-fashioned to my twelve-year-old mind. I’ve just finished the whole book, and I didn’t run across that line anywhere. The book says “complete and unabridged,” but could it have been based on a version that was abridged for children, and hence the perceived lack of detail?

Two textual mysteries. Can anyone help?

Last week, when I was in Arizona, Husband had to go to New York to present at a conference. Since leaving Dog and Aitch home together wasn’t a viable option, Husband took Aitch with him and they stayed with my sister-in-law, who watched Aitch while Husband went to work.

I know it’s de rigeur to complain about one’s in-laws, and G-d knows I’ve been rather, uh, descriptive about my mother-in-law in this space, but I am sure the heavens would strike me dead if I ever complained about my other in-laws. This isn’t the first time Sister-in-Law #4 has taken Aitch for the day while Husband or I met clients in the New York area. She has four children of her own, plus a dog, so what’s one more creature in the house? She is a domestic goddess, and I’ll be grateful until my dying day.

The whole family has been incredibly supportive throughout the adoption and Aitch’s babyhood. They got together to throw us a huge baby shower, inviting my family and friends and putting us up (along with Dog!) for the weekend. One of my SILs is a caterer; she offered up her house for the party, and the food was incredible. This particular SIL also called in a bunch of favors from fellow wedding service providers when we got married, and arranged our invitations and flowers gratis. She also made our wedding cake and hand-carried on a plane all the way from New York to Chicago. We probably have the only wedding cake in history that was x-rayed by airport security.

Anyway, I was thrilled that Aitch got to spend the day with his four cousins, and even more thrilled that my own cousin was able to visit this weekend with her three children. I only had one sibling growing up, and all the cousins on my mother’s side lived on the other side of the state, but I had a wonderful time during holidays when were were able to visit. I realize now that Husband probably had that teeming-house experience every day of his life (maybe why he enjoys peace and quiet now?), but for me it was a rare treat. I like having a full house.

After seeing all the kids running around playing together, I even had some second thoughts about having a bigger family. That was before we dirtied an entire 13-place-settings worth of flatware in a single meal, though. I don’t know how these big families do it. They must share forks.