Post 3.9.0.0 My Sister Threatens a Caterpillar

[Blogger refuses to let me set the font, today, or the font size (this is supposed to be small).  No matter how many times I change it, it sets different paragraphs in different fonts.  If it were an object, I'd have thrown it across the room by now.]  [7/4/14 - looks like it's taking font edits today.  We'll see when I check the actual blog page.]

My sister, S2, once threatened to bite a caterpillar in half.  This may not seem terribly important, without context, but it was a significant family event.  Let me add the context.  It may seem like I'm going back a tad far, but trust me, the background is necessary.

I'm the oldest daughter and the oldest child in my family.  That includes being the first grandchild on both sides of the family.  My sister, S1, was born two years after I was, so there wasn't that much alone time for me to resent her taking away and there wasn't that much developmental difference between us after a few years.  We mostly learned playing-related things together. 

Our younger sister, S-2, on the other hand, was five years younger than me and three years younger than S-1.  S-1 and I had developed our playing processes and friends by the time S-2 was old enough to be sent outside to play.  S-2 was always playing catch up. 

Now my parents, my father especially, were hermits.  Dad watched the news and read the newspaper and obsessed about how dangerous the world was.  While other children roamed the neighborhood to play, he put up a chain link fence and required us to stay inside it.  Other children could come in but we couldn't come out.  As a result, we got to know our back yard really well.

In our back yard, up against the garage, were several acacia bushes surrounded by a curving line of bricks to keep the grass out of their bed.  The bricks weren't mortared in place, they just sat on the soil and slowly sank in a little.  If you lifted one up, you'd find bugs under it.  All of us were interested in the bugs.  That includes our friends. 

Pill bugs (what my Mom called, we thought, Sell Bugs) were a favorite.  Ants aren't very interesting and earwigs are scary, but the pill bugs roll up like little armadillos and you never know how long you'll have to hold your hand still before they'll open up again and tiptoe, tickling across your palm and fingers.

Better than pill bugs were the fuzzy, black caterpillars that nibbled at the acacias.  S-1 was more interested in bugs than any of us, and especially lover the caterpillars.  She was more patient with them and would hold still or would move in slow motion while they crawled on her.  She was rapt at their undulating velvet movements.  The rest of us could catch them and play with them a little, but we'd eventually get impatient with their slowness and put them in an old peanut butter jar with holes in the lid. 

S-1 would also keep caterpillars in jars.  Sometimes multiple jars.  She was better at keeping the jars clean and the caterpillars fed.  I don't know about our friends, but I would usually let the caterpillars go after a week or so.  I would have lost interest in cleaning and feeding by then and either Mother would issue warnings about them dying or I would get nervous about it, myself, after hearing previous proclamations of doom.

S-1, on the other hand, quite often got caterpillars to make cocoons and sometimes they even hatched out.  I think they were moths, rather than butterflies. 

So S-1 was established as loving caterpillars.  S-2 was often passively left out of our play, just because she was younger and smaller and couldn't keep up.  This came together one day.  One day we were playing in the back yard.  No surprise there.  We had collected many caterpillars, where we were keeping in a red wagon.  There may have been as many as a dozen.  I think there was some vegetation in the wagon to occupy them.  But they still tended to wander off.  Together with whatever else we were doing, we would gently pick up the ones that reached the lip of the wagon.  With the wagon, we could relocate the caterpillars to wherever we wanted to play.  Well, wherever we wanted within the back and side yards.

At some point, S-2 had enough of being ignored.  She demanded that we play with her.  Unfortunately for her, that was easy to ignore.  I mean, we weren't deliberately snubbing her or anything, so it didn't seem like we were doing anything wrong.  So she picked up a caterpillar, put it halfway into her mouth, and threatened to bite it in half if we didn't play with her.

Talk about shrieks.  S-1 went  ballistic.  She couldn't grab the caterpillar or swat at S-2 without risking its goo-filled life.  After yelling more than a bit and after all of us telling S-2 to spit it out, either S-1 ran to get Mom or Mom heard the ruckus and came out.

There were enraged and tearful complaints.  S-2 didn't resist when Mom took the caterpillar away from her.  Mom told her not to do that again because it wasn't fair to the caterpillar.  She also told us to play with our sister.  Since she went right back into the house, that worked about the way you'd expect.

We spend a good amount of time sternly and/or aggrievedly telling S-2 how horrible she had been.  Since that made her the center of attention of four older kids, I don't remember that she minded that.  We eventually came to just naturally include her.  I'm assuming that it was mostly that she had just become old enough to include, with her protest being a sign that she was ready.  The threat might have had something to do with it.  Not so much because of fear of retaliation (Mom had forbidden her to do it again, after all), but due to a grudging respect for her being willing to go that far and clever enough to hit us in a weak spot. 

Bad girl, S-2.  Well done

Post 2.7.0.0 The Chicken and the Egg [philosophy]

I have long known that the supposed joke of the chicken or the egg was a shibboleth spread by Creationists.* But I didn't know that the Chicken and the Road question was so philosophical.

Add that to the chicken joke from Long Dark Teatime of the Soul*, and you have to wonder if every chicken joke is profound.**

*It was S2, my youngest sister, who brought this to my attention.  I think she was in junior high at the time.  She shared with me the actual answer to the joke, which was that the bible said that the birds of the air were created all on one day, so that meant that the chicken had come first.  I don't think she meant it as a point of personal dogma, she was just pleased to have found an authority to quote on the matter.

I thought it over and decided that, if considered from an evolutionary perspective, there would have been a theoretical moment when a non-chicken produced an egg with the final mutation that resulted in a chicken.  Or maybe it would have been too gradual to determine the divide between non-chicken and chicken.

While I was pondering that, I remembered that, again from an evolutionary perspective, eggs had been laid by creatures for millions of years before chickens evolved.  I know that's kind of a cheap shot answer, since I'm pretty sure that the joke is referring to chicken eggs, not fish or amphibian or reptile ones, but I liked the reference to authority and I liked it's symmetry with my sister's answer.

Conceivably, if everyone realized that there was a creationist answer and an evolutionary answer, one could ask the riddle and use the answer to see if the questionee was one of us or one of them.

 

**First Person: "We're terribly worried about Uncle Henry. He thinks he's a chicken."

Second Person: "Well, why don't you send him to the doctor?"

First Person: "Well, we would only we need the eggs."

Post 4.8.1.0 Dad's Good Memories Were of Our Childhoods

I've mentioned before that my Dad tended to gunnysack.  That's a pop psychology term for carrying around a bag full of old resentments, for use in the present time.  

So it was unusual for him to share memories that were pleasant ones.  Most of his pleasant memories were of us when we were younger.  He really enjoyed watching us grow up.  It's nice to be able to make someone happy just by being there and being yourself.  

One story he had about my sister, S-2, illustrated what he thought of as her superior attunement to nature.  When she was about 3, she walked up to a fly that was sitting on the wall.  Now flies are skittish.  It's just their nature to flee if they see movement.  So he was surprised when she slowly and calmly held out her finger near it and it crawled off of the wall and onto her finger.  It didn't stay there long, but while it was there, she just calmly observed it.

He had another story that illustrated what he thought of as her emotional intensity.  At probably about the same age, something made her sad or angry and she stood and dried.  The standard response of adults to crying children, in our house, was to politely ignore the trespass until the child regained control.  

Dad was therefore standing nearby while S-2 cried.  I picture him standing with a cup of coffee and a cookie, but he probably didn't describe the scene that thoroughly.  That's just the way I picture him, when I think of him standing around.

Dad watched as she cried.  It hadn't been a big thing that set her off but, being emotionally intense, she was desolated.  The house we lived in at the time was the house that he and Mom had built themselves, with the help of other relatives.  The floors were hardwood, throughout.  As he watched, her tears hit the hardwood floor.

He wasn't paying particular attention.  He was just relaxed and in the area.  (Which is why I think there was a cup of coffee and a cookie involved.)  Slowly he noticed that the tears weren't falling at her feet.  They were jumping out nearly a foot in front of her.  This was mildly amazing to him.

I can picture him sliding quietly to the side for a better view as they arced from the top of her cheeks to the floor ahead.  I'm sure he never said a word to her at the time, but he remembered it and talked about it later.  More than once.  He always told it with fondness.

That was another sign that he enjoyed and loved us.  Because a person can't help being born with emotional intensity, but they need to learn to control it.  Yet I never heard any trace of disapproval in his voice when he told the story.

Post 3.4.0.0 One Effect of Being Left Behind from Summer Camp

Once upon a time, my younger sister and I went to Girl Scout Summer Camp.  I'm not going to write about camp experiences or about when it happened or even tell you the name of the camp.  I'm going to write about a small thing that my youngest sister said during the first family dinner after our return and my younger sister's comment on it.

It's mildly amusing.

It may help you to know that we were a frugal family, by reason of necessity.  Of course, since it was necessary, it was valued as a virtue and talked up a good deal, so if a Martian had visited and listened to what was said, they might be forgiven for thinking that we were frugal as a matter of philosophy.

We rented a meat locker so that we could buy a quarter of a cow at once, that being the least costly way to buy beef.  The quarters were quality good rather than quality choice because the only difference between the two was the amount of fat marbling in the meat, and there was no use paying extra for extra fat.

We also ate beans as a semi-regular thing.  Don't ask me how often.  Just know that it was often enough to feel like a regular thing.

It was always white beans cooked with ham hocks, which were cheap at the time.  It would cook down to a creamy and tasty one bowl meal, although usually we served it onto plates with salad* on the side.

Beans was what we were having the night after we got back from camp.  There was a big bowl of them.  In addition to salad, I think we had a vegetable** that night. 

There was plenty of everything for seconds. That wasn't surprising, especially with the beans.  Beans could be cooked up in a big batch and then used as leftovers for a few days.

My youngest sister, who was old enough to be in school, but probably not more than second grade, cleared her plate and then wanted more beans. They weren't next to her, so she asked Dad to pass them, saying, "Please pass the bee-oops.***"

My younger sister leaned toward me and muttered, dryly, "We left her alone with him**** too long."
--------------
* salad was always chopped iceberg lettuce with chopped tomato, if tomatoes were in season.  Mayonnaise was available to spread over the top. 
** vegetables were usually heated from frozen.  We bought frozen peas, corn, and green beans in big plastic bags.  Usually if we had fresh vegetables, they were from the garden.
*** bee-oop was a family term, meaning fart.  Think onomatopoeia.

**** My dad thought farts were hilarious and would work them into family conversations in odd ways.

Post 6.1.1.0 Family Story eMail

email to my Sister

Topic: the last birthday card that Uncle Chris sent Grandma Lil

Question: do you remember the wording of the card?

I remember that it was a joke card with a crack inside about how old she was getting. I remember that she enjoyed complaining bitterly about it for weeks. I remember that she was plotting to get him a really insulting card for his next birthday and that he died before his next birthday, viciously depriving her of the opportunity to get her own back.

Sadly, I no longer remember the wording of the card. It's sad when family legends deteriorate.

If you don't remember, I'll have to start reading birthday cards, looking for one that would fit.