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Quote of the Day: On Whining and Deafness
Last Thursday I had the very great pleasure of driving to Armagh, PA, a tiny little town in farming country about one-hundred miles East of us, in West-Central PA, where Mr. She, my stepdaughter Jenny, our granddaughter Eve, and I had lunch at Griffith’s Tavern, a nice little diner of the “hot meatloaf sandwich with gravy out of a can” variety. Good comfort food, reasonably priced. Also, excellent beer. A great time was had by all.
Other than the chance to see and visit with each other, the purpose of the trip was the handing-over of the annual Halloween costume. I’ve been making my granddaughter’s Halloween costumes since she was two, and now she’s ten. Let’s see: Benjamin Bunny; a chicken; a butterfly; a peacock; an ‘underworld peacock, black and sparkly, probably the closest Eve will ever come to the ‘Goth’ look in her life; a mermaid; ‘Girl Darth Vader’ — I think that’s all of them. All of them unique challenges. Almost all of them made with stretchy, spangly, slippery fabrics that those among us who sew will recognize as just the worst and most difficult stuff to sew, ever. Still, it’s been great fun, and the bag of scraps I’ve accumulated over the years has come in handy from one project to the next.
So, now Eve is ten. A fifth grader. Old enough to be somewhat tuned into pop culture (or whatever it’s called these days). To be paying attention to the news. To go to the latest kid movies. And to surf the web.
What, I wondered, would she pick for this year’s costume? And would she still be excited enough to announce as she always does to her friends, that “my Granny makes the best costumes?” Or would she have suddenly grown old and jaded, would Granny’s efforts be cast aside, in favor of going shopping with her friends, and buying something to help her achieve that “Ariana Grande look,” or the skimpy Wonder Woman outfit, or the “Christine Blasey Ford.” Heaven help us.
I need not have worried. Her mother has raised her superbly and with the help of a number of original and rational adages. (I’ve already told you one of my favorites, in a previous quote of the day post: “Into each life, some rain must fall, but not into ours. Our lives are where the garbage is delivered.”) But there are more. From her earliest days, Eve was brought up to believe that “It is better to do than to watch,” (bye-bye almost all television, till she was about seven years old), and “it is better to make than to buy,” (hello creativity and, among other things, the annual Halloween costume). Bless.
So, every year, towards the end of September, Eve sends me a drawing of her vision for Halloween. And I still have them all. Stick figures to start with, then figures with faces, then with feet and hands, drawings of loveliness, beauty, and dreams. With notes and arrows pointing to specific and important materials and features: “Sparkly.” “Shiny.” “Black gloves.” “Puffy.” “Stretchy.” “Feathers.” The interpretation and rendering of the vision and the dream is all up to me, so it’s off to raid my stash, and then to fill in the gaps from the clearance tables at JoAnn Fabrics. And off I go.
This year’s drawing came to me about four weeks ago. An elegant woman, tall and thin, wearing a little black dress, a big straw hat, elbow-length gloves and black pumps with a (very modest) little heel. Oh, and a sparkly necklace.
My ten-year-old granddaughter wants to be Audrey Hepburn for Halloween. Did I mention that her mother has raised her superbly?
I will confess that I was rather hoping for the My Fair Lady Ascot outfit (something to show off my sewing chops) but the drawing was so lovely and the vision so elegant, I couldn’t but be charmed. And so I embarked on the LBD. “It’s going to look like a T-shirt,” her mother worried. “I hope she doesn’t think it looks like a T-shirt.”
Granny resolved that it would not look like a T-shirt. So it does not. Not from the velveteen bodice to the bomabzine-ish skirt, to the floofy little rosette center-front, to the white lining. Not like a T-shirt at all.
She loves it! She has the shoes. She has the gloves (her mother’s). She has the necklace (her mother’s). She has the hat (her mother’s). It’s this hat, actually, and it’s very flattering, no matter whose head it’s on:
So, we’re all set for the big day, starting with the school party next week. Another project done and dusted, another year down. (Note to self: Enjoy them more, they’re moving too darn fast.)
Am I done?
Whoops, no. Quote of the Day, almost forgot.
There we were, sitting at the little diner, eating our hot meatloaf sandwich with gravy out of a can lunch (it’s chilly, and it’s comfort food-time around here, supposed to snow tonight), and Eve started to tell a story about a little kid she knows. She got to the part of the story that went, “and he just whined and whined.” Then she stopped, assumed a knowing look, and said “I’m not allowed to whine.”
Her mother looked out the window.
“Oh,” I said, “why is that?”
“My mom has never let me whine,” she said. “And even if I do, it never does any good. My mom says ‘Whining is spray-on deafness for the rest of the universe.’“
Her mother smiled.
Because it is. And it should be.
Priceless.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
Love it. Love the tags and the dress, too.
My wife used to make some amazing costumes for our kids. Our daughter was usually into princess type stuff so hers were pretty standard, but our son was variously Bill Nye the Science Guy (before he went political), Thomas The Tank Engine, a Triceratops and some other fun ones. The Triceratops looked awesome but taking him trick or treating was a challenge because his tail kept knocking over people’s front porch decorations.
He’s now 28 and doesn’t show much interest in Halloween. Our daughter (24), on the other hand, has branched out beyond the typical princess stuff. Behold the makeup job she did on herself this weekend.
Neither of them have ever shown much inclination to whining. God blessed us with 2 fantastic ones.
Great QOTD, She, but also a very lovely sewing project! It looks like something she can wear on other occasions, as timeless as it is.
Gorgeous outfit. Audrey Hepburn would be so jealous! What a wonderful family you have (as I say that for the umpteenth time)! And your Great Pyrenees shows off the hat so well!
You probably didn’t notice but you most likely went through Clyde on route 22 on your way. That’s where my mom and 7 siblings were raised. They are hardy people up in those mountains.
Wow. Impressive!
What’s even more amazing is that she knows anything about Audrey Hepburn, who died in 1993. Yes, there are plenty of old Hepburn movies for her to watch, but they seem so ancient to modern “sensibilities.”
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Best QOTD ever! I have to write that down.
Wow!
Priceless, indeed.
Exquisite! Bubble-gum/candy cig in the holder? And, shouldn’t that be “whinge” :-)
Not unless you pronounce the “g.”
So – in addition to building fences, you sew? I’m still in awe. And you get to hang with and mentor a wonderful granddaughter? Lucky lucky happy grandma. My 3 red heads (5, 3 and 18 mos) will be trolls, I hear. I get to see it in action next week! They too are not allowed to whine. (Our boy hit it outta d park choosing his girl.) They will love the new benchmark definition for whining.
Yes. I also (although not so frequently) make bobbin lace. And knit. (Think there is an inverse relationship between IT/technology career, and the hobbies I developed which do not involve electronics much if at all.) So glad to hear that you have redheads, being one myself (although my glory has faded), and bet that they’ll be such cute trolls (or are trolls scary? Maybe scary, as in Three Billy Goats Gruff). Have a wonderful Halloween.
Yes, think we went right past Clyde, just before getting to the teeming metropolis of Armagh. They raise good, tough folks in that neck of the woods.
I fell in love right there.
It’s probably this kind of troll:
I remember them! They were all the rage, ahem, ahem, years ago.
Oh, I do, occasionally…It’s much more satisfying, in certain cases. Like describing ‘meltdowns’ of entitled kiddos in public, as parents plead ineffectually with them to cease :-)
Yes, they were quite the thing when I was in high school; in fact, we made a homecoming float out of them.
Me, too…In a culture long ago and far away. My favorite had peach-colored angora hair.
Argh. Now that this is on the main feed (thanks, everyone!) I sent the link to Jenny, and she pointed out that I missed one–
The Bumble!
Adorabominable! :-)
I think I see a family resemblance.
Oh … they’re back. Big time. Can’t stand most kid movies, but this one has outstanding music that we all dance to.
My mother was not one for halloween costumes (low point when my then tween sister wanted to go out and my mom insisted she be somehow costumed and she took an Mexican-colored runner off a dresser and draped it around her shoulders)
And sorry to say I inherited my mother’s general lack of enthusiasm. The boys were usually content to be in face paint and camo gear of some sort. (low point when my daughter put on a baseball hat, running shorts, shoes, t-shirt, windbreaker and carried around a cup of coffee all day. She was dressed as me. While I was quite the runner back in the day, it was really just an excuse for poor grooming)
Great post, as usual, She.
You and I have always been compatible. I am (I actually mean I was) a full-blooded red head. I should have known you were.
In a world of ho hum-headed people, we gingers need to stick together.
Oh, sorry. Wrong red head. Try this one:
The red hair comes from me and their father. Glory can be refreshed with a careful colorist – I attest. And it’s to be one Branch, one Princess Poppy, and one Brigid. I now know a lot about little kid special movies like Trolls. (At 5 their father’s most favorite movie was Henry V. Go figure.) And their songs. And before they had Little Girl #1, I never knew there could be soooooooooooo much pink in the world. #2 Girl doesn’t seem to have that gene. They all have the independent, ingenious, spunky gene. Too much fun.
Your forebears must come from the same part of Scotland as mine – same color red. Same freckles. And much prettier than mine but not the curls that my family calls my crazy hair in the summer at the beach. And it’s embarrassing to admit I also have a red dog: a vizsla named Annie -she’s far more photogenic than I But I’ve no idea how to include a snap of our beautiful 4 legged athlete.