Summertime Snippets
Most of my day is carried out indoors, where the air-conditioning creates a well-appreciated buffer between myself and the sweltering humidity outside. Sometimes I will get an urge to escape the house’s artificial climate and expose my skin to real, rugged nature—but it seldom lasts very long! I have a renewed admiration for those who settled Florida in the days before air conditioning. “Those were hearty souls,” Papa observes. I confess that I am already looking forward to the cool sparkle of autumn!
Last month my siblings and I braved the heat and rain to hold a bake and yard sale to raise funds for our Society of the Arts. Over the course of eight hours we earned more than a hundred dollars for literature, music, art, and supplies for the use of the Society.
This year the Society will be performing A. A. Milne’s comedic play The Ugly Duckling. When the King and Queen learn that the dashing Prince Simon is coming to woo their daughter, they plan to ensure the match by temporarily switching the Princess Camilla with her more attractive if less intelligent maidservant Dulcibella. What they do not realize is that the less-than-dashing Prince Simon has exchanged places with his more handsome manservant. The play humorously addresses the importance of beauty of character over physical beauty. We’ll be performing it, Lord willing, at the end of October.
Although I auditioned for the parts of both the Chancellor and the Queen, I will appear on the programme as “The Voice.” That sounds dark and enigmatic. I like it.
I get two lines, but one is the opening line. (preparatory cough)
VOICE (announcing). His Excellency the Chancellor!
And, later:—
VOICE (announcing). The woman Dulcibella!
And if, perchance, I get a terrible fit of stage fight and forget my lines, I can always look at the script, since I am behind the curtain the entire time. ;-)
I had been previously elected to the wardrobe and makeup department. I am also the prompter, the curtains controller, and the button-pusher for music (English Renaissance) and side effects (groaning drawbridge). I am also responsible for welcoming our audience (our parents and younger siblings), and for hosting the celebration afterwards. So, it seems I have my plate full after all.
Yesterday afternoon, while cleaning my grandfather’s house we discovered a stash of old clothes, fabric, and trimmings that inspired my plans for the Ugly Duckling wardrobe.
The woman Dulcibella
The Princess Camilla
Last week I received in the mail my Essentials of Anatomy and Physiology [Scanlon and Sanders] textbook and workbook. I am nearly through with the first chapter and enjoying it. After years of looking forward to the end of schoolbooks, I find that I better appreciate their linear structure after pursuing web-like independent study. I enjoy both kinds of learning, but a textbook feels like a return to “normal.” Of course, I am continuing my independent study, which includes subjects as various as herbal medicine, women’s health, gastroenterology, brain development, autoimmune disorders, monosodium glutamate, time sickness, autism, childbirth, ethnopediatrics, baby-wearing, and Natural Infant Hygiene. Somehow they are all connected.
Littlest Sister, who usually picks up the library books for the family, is embarrassed to pick up any of mine. “What’s it going to be now?” she asks. Gut and Psychology Syndrome. Children with Starving Brains. Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills. Taking Charge of Your Fertility. The Devil in the Milk. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Everything I Want to Do is Illegal. She makes sure that the librarians know that she is picking up these books for her crazy sister, “the one who studies health.”
The garden still exists. That is the best that can be said for it. The only thing it is offering currently is a bounty of Annaheim peppers (which my aunt claims are divino, and they certainly make fine huevos rancheros), and the promise of cucumbers and green beans. My Homestead tomatoes, developed especially for our state, are seven feet tall if you hold up the drooping ends (the cages are too short), but they have been mostly sacrificed to the larger good of local critters. Last week, in the dripping rain, I picked off what must have been nearly fifty tomato hornworms.
I normally avoid playing Monopoly, “the game that never ends,” but the summer afternoons are long, and a sibling’s continued requests (“Can you play with me, Samy, please? [plaintive sigh]”) will wear one down. I sat down at the board with Next Sister and Littlest Brother. Allow me to pass briefly over the next few hours, and say, simply, that the five-year old boy tanned both his sisters’ hides. Below is a sampling of his final capital. There isn’t anything left of mine to show. That will be, I vowed, the last time I help that boy manage his business affairs against my own.
Friday, July 23, 2010