One minute, I’m enjoying a leisurely latte with The First Husband, before heading out to meet Wisewebwoman for lunch. The next, I’m doing a face plank in the bathroom washbasin, spewing blood from my nose all over the porcelain and onto the cabinet.
As a child, I was prone to frequent, sudden nose bleeds. I’ve read that epileptics know when a seizure is about to happen, because they get a sudden strong feeling of deja vu. I’m not sure how or why, but I always knew when a nose bleed was about to happen. I would creep into the dining room and hide under the table, where I would sit and watch the drops of blood fall into my lap. The dining room was reserved for special occasions, with its ponderous mahogany furniture protected by dust sheets, under which I could bleed in peace.
The She Devil loved it when my nose bled in public. She knew that, if she danced around and made a fuss, the blood would flow faster and stronger, as fear made my blood pressure rise. As a teenager, she would bring her friends into the house and let them watch while she made my nose bleed. All she had to do was advance on me, pretending she would tear my blouse open, while chanting “Any hair on your chest yet, Chasaveen?” and, sure as eggs is eggs, my nose would begin to spurt. Her cronies thought it screamingly funny and came back again and again for a replay.
As the years went by and especially after The She Devil left home, the frequency of my nosebleeds decreased, and they had ceased entirely by the time I reached my mid-teens. This episode came out of the blue, with no warning whatsoever. And, unlike my childhood seizures, the blood was not a slow, crimson ooze. This was a fountain of bright scarlet, worthy of a candidate for the tender ministrations of Gregory House MD.
The First Husband was a Trojan. Despite his morbid fear of blood – he can’t even watch a gory scene on television, though he knows it’s just ketchup! – he brought ice and wet cloths and even cleaned up all the blood. He also tried to persuade me I should go to Emergency, but I couldn’t see the point. Like Jan, I don’t have a lot of confidence in doctors.
The really big issue, which no doctor could address, is that I missed my chance to meet Wisewebwoman. And I’m really pissed about that. We talked on the phone (me mumbling around a washcloth stuffed with ice) and agreed we will meet when she comes back to Ontario in April. I can’t wait.
Unless you’ve been hibernating in a cave somewhere, you’ll know that the Winter Olympics have begun in Vancouver. Canada, of course, has been saturated with the stuff for months now, wall-to-wall coverage of torch runs through tiny towns from one end of the country to the other, relentless merchandising by HBC (nee Hudson’s Bay Company, incorporated in 1670 by King Charles II) of their deadly dull Olympic apparel, etc. etc. etc.
Not to put a tooth in it, the whole thing is driving me insane. Gazillions of dollars being poured out so that countries can parade their doped to the eyeballs athletes before the world and claim bragging rights as great nations because their ice dancers can out-pirouette some other country’s ice dancers, while a bunch of toothless geriatrics (aka the International Olympic Committee) lay down ridiculous procedural rules designed to protect their lucrative trade marks, at the same time ignoring blatant cheating? Give me a break.
Like I say, it drives me bonkers. But what makes me want to reach for the nearest weapon of mass destruction is the bloody so-called Olympic “anthem,” “I Believe.” With all due respect to the singer, who seems like a nice lass, not a bit of side to her, unlike her fellow-Quebecer, Celine Dion, who has completely lost the run of herself, that song makes my ears bleed. And the refrain, repeated endlessly as refrains are wont to be, “I believe that together we will fly / I believe in the power of you and I,” is like a thousand nails on a thousand blackboards. Hanging by his or her dangly bits is too good for whoever came up with that one.
The First Husband and I watched An Education on DVD last night. I had to act as interpreter on occasion, as the accents were a bit much for him, but I think it is fair to say that he quite enjoyed it. As for me, I was in seventh heaven, and not just because it’s a fantastic film. I was, of course, reliving the past again, especially the bit where I had an illicit fling with a much older guy when I was only 15.
Like the Peter Sarsgaard character in the movie, he flirted with the wrong side of the law, which may have been why I found him so fascinating. What he saw in me, I have no idea. From today’s perspective, I think he might have been a bit of a pervert – why else would a man in his 20s be interested in a callow schoolgirl – but our relationship never progressed beyond some steamy snogging in his VW Beetle. (What? I did say he flirted with the wrong side of the law, didn’t I? I doubt if he ever made it as far as a sports car, since he was really only a wannabe thug.)
But he introduced me to Black Sobranie cigarettes, which I thought the height of decadent sophistication, and took me to bars and cafes. I wore mini-dresses I’d made for myself (I was quite the seamstress back then!) and kept at my best friend’s house, where I’d change before meeting my Bad Boy. She, of course, was my co-conspirator and just thrilled by it all, quite happy to be the decoy if she could live vicariously through my experience.
It all petered out after a few weeks – believe it or not, because I got bored. Even at that age, it didn’t take me too long to realize that there had to be more to life than sitting around listening to Bad Boy and his mates bragging about fights they’d started and/or finished, or their girlfriends yakking about makeup and nail polish. None of them had ever read anything beyond Mechanic’s Weekly or Photoplay and they didn’t seem to be interested in anything outside their own small circle. It was like dating The Fonz, except Bad Boy wasn’t remotely funny. Just as well, really; I’ve always been a sucker for funny guys.
The first was to maintain the weight loss I had accomplished last year. Losing weight and getting fit were my only resolutions for 2009 and I managed to shed a quarter of my body weight and have my doctor tell me “whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!” (Hooray) But now I have to take New Year resolutions seriously. (Boo)
My second resolution was to make a real effort to keep in touch with friends, old and new, real and virtual. For the latter, of course, I have to keep this blog current. (Hooray) But here I am, last day of January, making my first post of the year. (Boo)
My third resolution will very probably be the death of me. I was drunk daft enough to resolve in front of witnesses that I will not buy one single book until I have cleared my shelves, tables, desks and floor of all the books waiting to be read. At last count, there were 231 books in that category. (Hooray) Since January 1, I have managed to read only nine of them, which means I can’t buy any more books until the end of 2011. (BIG FAT BOO)
For me, not buying books is like an alcoholic taking the Pledge or a crack addict becoming a nun. My friendly online bookstore, (cough) Indigo (cough), which has just declared its first ever operating profit, might even go bankrupt, while the Canadian consumer spending index will dive.
Family legend has it that I have been reading since before I could speak. The story goes that my father came home from work one day and found me, a mute three year old to that point, sitting on the floor in the middle of the Irish Times. Why I was mute is a story for another time. Suffice to say that, when he enquired of my mother what I was doing with his newspaper, both parents were dumbfounded to hear me reply “I’m reading it.” I’d love to be able to say I remember the occasion, but I cannot tell a lie: I don’t. However, I do remember, at an even earlier age, sitting on my Dad’s lap every evening while he read Kipling’s Mowgli stories to me and my older brother and sister. He moved his finger along the words as he read, presumably for my benefit, which is probably how I learned to read. (It may also be the reason I fell in love with my first serious boyfriend when he took me to see Disney’s Jungle Book. Big mistake, but that, too, is a story for another time!)
In defiance of the accepted wisdom that reading to your kids every night will turn them into readers, none of my siblings developed an interest in reading and there were very few children’s books in our house. But we lived next door to a family of book lovers, who gave me free run of their house and the books they had outgrown and stored in their attic. Every day, after school, I would let myself into their house, empty while they were all out at work, and settle down in the attic until somebody arrived home, or I was called to supper by my mother. This routine continued until I was about nine, and had the added benefit of keeping me out of reach of my older sister, AKA The She-Devil. At that time, the man of the house, who had been in a long term care hospital for years, died and the family decided to sell up and move away. But before they left, they presented me with the contents of the attic, including the book cases to hold them.
As you can imagine, I was in seventh heaven. But this turn of events did put me back within reach of The She-Devil. Despite the fact that she was actually a very stupid girl, she never seemed to have any problem coming up with fiendish ways to torment me and, this time around, she found a beaut. We had a black lead range in our kitchen, which my mother kept fired up all day, every day. My sister would sit and watch me reading by the heat of the range and, just before I reached the end of a book, she would grab it from me and hurl it into the coals, using the poker to make sure it caught alight. To this day, I have to make a real effort not to read the last pages of a book first.
I’m partway through Amy Tan’s Saving Fish from Drowning. I think I will try to finish it this evening, so that I can say I have made inroads on ten books so far this year. But I will be back. After all, there is that second New Year resolution to keep.
I would like to think that people come to my parties and invite me to theirs because they love my warm personality and sparkling repartee. But in my heart I know it is because they love my Shrimp Tandoori, for which I receive many invitations requests every year. It has become my signature dish, and it came about by accident.
My sister, The Skinny Cow, is a fabulous cook who lives on a farm in County Wexford, Ireland and loves to entertain. At the drop of a hat, she will throw together a meal for hundreds of guests, then serve them breakfast and lunch the following day because she can’t get rid of them. Just this week, I telephoned her on Sunday afternoon, as she was getting dinner for fourteen people. Thirty guests had been invited to the farm for a buffet lunch on Saturday, which evolved into dinner for twenty on Saturday night, breakfast for seven on Sunday morning, followed by lunch for ten and the dinner she was preparing when I called. She suggested I call back the following Tuesday or, better yet, Wednesday, when she was pretty sure she might finally have the house to herself.
For “large” parties, she sometimes makes Tandoori-flavoured cocktail sausages as an hors d’oeuvre. I love them, but can’t find cocktail sausages, which are bite-sized pork sausages, here in Canada. I was used to serving shrimp sauteed in butter, garlic and dill-weed, but just about every one of my friends and neighbours had cadged the recipe for their own parties, and we were all getting just a teensy bit tired of them. Which is when the proverbial bulb lit above my head and I thought to myself “Self! What about trying shrimp with Tandoori seasoning?” To which myself replied “Not a bad idea, You. Let’s try it.” And the rest, as they say is history.
I have happily passed the recipe around to friends and neighbours, but they just can’t seem to replicate it. That may be because I don’t really understand the recipe myself; it’s a handful of this and a couple of spoonfuls or so of that. But, if you would like to try it for yourself, here are the ingredients and method. You’ll have to decide the measures yourself, according to taste. Let me know how you get on. If you’re a friggin’ genius in the kitchen, like Jan, which I most certainly am not, you might like to try using raw shrimp. If the recipe works, you could become as popular as me.
Shrimp Tandoori
Frozen cooked shrimp, thawed (I use Jumbo Tiger Shrimp. If I were making this in Ireland, I would use prawns)
Sharwood’s Tandoori BBQ Marinade Spice Mix
Juice of one or two limes
Butter
Olive oil
In a large pan or wok, heat the butter and olive oil over moderate heat. When the foam subsides, add Tandoori spice mix and cook for a minute or two. Add the lime juice and stir in well. Throw in the shrimp, toss until covered in the spice/oil mixture and warm through. Pile into a dish and serve with lime wedges. (I often make them on the morning before a party, store in the fridge for an hour or two and serve cold.)
That’s all it takes. I have absolutely no idea how they taste, because I’m allergic to shellfish and will die if I try any. But everybody else seems to like them.
I’m currently reading this wonderful novel by A. S. Byatt, a writer whose reputation has, for many years, been unfairly overshadowed by the popularity of her sister, Margaret Drabble.
I was a devout fan of Drabble’s early fiction, especially A Summer Birdcage, The Garrick Year and The Millstone, but I went off her a bit when she went all heavy, ‘doon t’mine’ Yorkshire in some of her later works. I found The Peppered Moth, her semi-fictional account of her mother’s life, unreadable and never finished it. Then last summer, I picked up a copy of her recent novel The Red Queen, set in 18th-century Korea, and was absolutely enchanted. So I’m thinking I should get back into Drabble again, although I’m not quite sure when I can squeeze in the time. During that mythical shangri-la of retirement, when I will spend every waking hour catching up on my reading? Unlikely, if The First Husband has his way. He’ll be dragging me around the world, insisting I keep moving, lest I perish like the shark!
However, getting back to Byatt: (See what I mean? Overshadowed by her bloody sister again!) She has been gradually moving away from the somewhat showy erudition of her earlier works and, ever since her Booker-winning Possession, has been writing novels I’ve found utterly engrossing.
This one is no exception. In fact, I’m reading it rather more slowly than is my wont (I usually tear through books at a canter, then forget everything I’ve read within a few days, alas) so that I might savour it. This paragraph, at the beginning of Chapter 3, really resonated with me because, although it describes a time near the end of the Victorian era, it reminded me so much of my own childhood.
…the children in this world had their own separate, largely independent lives, as children. They roamed the woods and fields, built hiding-places and climbed trees, hunted, fished, rode ponies and bicycles, with no other company than that of other children. And there were many other children. There were large families, in which relations shifted subtly as new people were born … and in which a child also had a group identity, as ‘one of the older ones’ or ‘one of the younger ones’. The younger ones were often enslaved or ignored by the older ones, and were perennially indignant. The older ones resented being told to take the younger ones along, when they were planning dangerous escapades.
In this age of helicopter parenting, it’s sweet to look back to such innocent times: the warm summer days when our mothers shooed us out the door immediately after breakfast, warning us not to come back until lunchtime. And, since I grew up in 1950s Ireland, there were indeed many other children out there, with the same order ringing in their ears. As a middle child, with two older and two younger than me, I experienced both identities, although not as part of a group. I was first dragged reluctantly along by my brother and sister—seven and five years older respectively—and then I hauled my two younger sisters—five and three years younger—along in my turn.
Being the dragger-along was much easier, on me and on my younger sisters. As the dragee, I was terrorised by my older sister, aka The She-devil. As I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned elsewhere in these pages, it was her mission to at least scar me for life, if I couldn’t be drowned, stabbed or pushed under a bus. When my turn in the role of Big Sis came along, I was more likely to be looking for a quiet spot where I could read the books I smuggled out with me, than planning any dangerous escapades, and we soon came to an understanding. So long as they did their level best not to get themselves killed, I would happily leave them to their own devices and we would meet up in time to return home as a single unit. It never occurred to me, of course (and I was supposed to be the one with the brains) that my mother might occasionally have wondered why my sisters always came home in flitters from their adventures, while I was in the same pristine condition as when I left the house.
I’m currently reading this wonderful