Musings of Nobody Important

One of the interest groups of the Faculty Women’s Club is the Heritage Group. Now I am sure that in this very relatively newly settled part of the globe you could say that the word heritage is a bit of an oxymoron. But the group has been going for five years or more and somehow the conveners have managed to find something of interest for the seven outings held during each year for all that time.

Outings take place monthly, always on a Friday which is not a convenient day for me, but after missing all of last year’s meetings I decided I would try to make the effort to attend more often this year.

This past Friday the historic town of Fort Langley, where British Columbia settlement began in 1827 with a Hudson’s Bay Company post, was our destination, an hour’s drive from Vancouver, to visit the BC Farm Machinery and Agricultural Museum, one of the largest Agricultural Museums in Western Canada.

Originally it was planned to be onsite at the University but ultimately an offsite location was chosen and the Museum was officially opened at Fort Langley in 1966 by the then Lord Mayor of London, Sir Robert Billinger. It is run by an Association, all volunteers and the majority of those involved in this enterprise are for the most part retired mechanics, machinists, millwrights, etc. who use their skills to restore the museum’s artifacts, all donated, for there is no budget for acquisition.

PhotoHunt

VIEW

Yes the old scientist has returned from his journey to Australia to see his three siblings so my freedom is over. Just kidding of course, since I freely “follow my muse” whenever I like whether he is here or not, as does he. But I don’t believe he would think much of dinner appearing on the table at 9.30 pm as was my wont when he was away. He always starts to mutter a bit if it does not appear by 8pm so I shall have to change my solo dining habits.

His journey out was horrible, fifteen hours in a totally packed aeroplane, in a middle seat. It was no fun at all, but the return journey was great as the plane was only half full and he had three seats to himself. He landed here just after 7am so I did not think much of being at the airport at that unearthly hour. Anyway, it seems his sister who was in very poor health is feeling a bit better and they had very good visits over several days. However her long-term prognosis is not good but she takes each day as it comes. She is a woman of strong faith and she was an Anglican minister’s wife and no doubt this stands her in good stead. However he felt his older brother was not in very good health which he had not expected so it was lucky he got to spend some time with him too.

His brother has always been a brilliant pianist although he was a Mathematics teacher and he owned a 1914 Steinway full sized concert grand piano which his, and of course the old scientist’s, father, a professional musician, had purchased during the thirties and refurbished then. Over the years it had moved with him whenever he did and he would buy a house depending on whether this treasure would fit in. Sadly when he and his wife moved into a retirement community several years ago, there was no room for the piano so he gave it away to someone who no doubt appreciated it and bought a Yamaha baby grand. Unfortunately he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease not long afterwards and it seems he does not play very much now as the illness has affected his playing.

The old scientist very much enjoyed driving around the state of NSW and north to Brisbane where his brother lives, although it was a little difficult to stay on the “right” side of the road which is the left side in Australia and he said he gave the odd person a scare on occasion. He continually had to remind himself, keep to the left, keep to the left.

He seems to have enjoyed his sudden unexpected to trip to Australia, although not the journey and we will be making it in early March as we fly there, firstly to take a 17 day cruise from Sydney south to Tasmania then around New Zealand and back to Sydney. This will be followed by a visit to see some friends and the relatives in Australia.

Do you think they will have developed teleporting by then? Well perhaps we will win the lottery and travel first class instead of economy, even business class. Can anyone tell me why it costs $12,600 to fly business class from Vancouver to Sydney while it costs $1700 economy? Double I would definitely pay but 6 times the price? I don’t think I can justify that.

Today was the annual meeting of the Faculty Women’s Club Book Circulation group of which I am a longtime member. I written about this several times before and it is such a brilliant idea I don’t understand why there are not more groups like it but it is the only one I know. From this post last year:

It’s run by two convenors who, in the month or so before the meeting, choose and buy 2 copies of 17 books. Often Canadian bestsellers, often not. Some fiction, some not. We each pay $25 to cover the cost of the books and at the end of the year we have a draw and get to keep one. We get a list of the 17 people in our subgroup and the dates to exchange each book and every three weeks or so we pass the book on. Each time you pick up your book from the same person and another person picks up from you and it is arranged so that we live close to each other. So you get to read 17 books for the price of one and get to keep a book as well.

Today we returned the last book we read for this past year, for me this was What the Psychic told the Pilgrim by Jane Christmas. This book opened with the very intriguing sentence: Impulse is intuition on crack.

What followed was the story of her journey, in celebration of her 50th birthday, following the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, a centuries-old pilgrimage route stretching 800 kilometers (500 miles) from southwestern France across the Pyrenees almost to the northwestern shore of Spain.

While by no means the best book I have ever read I found it a highly entertaining and informative read, especially since I have never been to Spain. Now why is that I wonder? But all those little interesting facts she included made her a woman after my own heart. Did I tell you she was travelling with a group of other women? However this did not go well and she completed the journey without them.

The exciting part of the meeting is the lottery draw for the book each member gets to keep. Names are drawn from a container and it depends on how early your name is drawn how likely you are to get your first choice or even your second or third choice. Today my name came up very early so I was able to get my first choice, a book I did not read during the year since I was out of town when it was my turn to read it.

I am definitely looking forward to reading Infidel, the autobiography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born former member of the Dutch parliament who faced death threats after collaborating on a film about domestic violence against Muslim women with director Theo van Gogh, who was himself assassinated. A very controversial lady so it should be an interesting read.

Last of all the books for this post is the one I received as the first book of this year’s choices, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, by Kate Summerscale. In it the author recreates the story of the 1860 murder of three year old Saville Kent in the English countryside and the subsequent investigation by Scotland Yard detective Jonathan Whicher. It was an investigation which lead to his undoing as a detective but he became the model for Sgt Cuff in Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, considered the first mystery novel. I don’t know how easy this will be to read given the age of the victim but the reviews of this fictionalized true crime story all seem to be five stars.

So three books for one post today. We shall see, we shall see and I’ll let you know what I think later.

Yes, the image is from one of the posts below
most of which did not have an image to use

After the very comprehensive roundups of recent weeks, this time you will find a more relaxed compilation of the random picks of my butterfly mind, as I cruised through the Blogpower folder on my Bloglines feed during this past week. So in no particular order, with no rhyme nor reason whatsoever, may I present this and that from some of our members.

Deejay of Age is all in the Mind is gearing up for a Charity Run of 10km in October. Well it is actually a serious athletic club run but he’s decided to raise some money for the British Heart Foundation in the process. You can donate via a widget in his sidebar if so inclined.

Ellee Seymour, as her elder son stands at the beginning of his university studies in Economics, wonders How useful is a degree today? Well there is no doubt in my mind that it is much more than useful. It’s not too late to add your thoughts to the comment section.

PhotoHunt

ROAD

Oh, oh. I’m falling down on the job of reporting on lunch with Liz from Wales and Leslie from Ladner, two days ago already. But I haven’t really been home much in the past two days as I catch up with some friends whom I don’t see so often. Leslie put up her report on lunch right away so puts me to shame, but here is mine, better late than never!

Leslie on the left, Liz on the right

This is the cake which I will take for dessert to the meeting of my Short Book Club tomorrow. Yes it does look a little plain but it is delicious and dobs of whipped cream dress up any cake you know.

For me this is a very special cake, Sunken Grape Cake, a cake with a story, which I would like to share with you. The recipe* was given to me by a dear friend, C, who sadly passed away a several years ago from cancer. Below are parts of the eulogy I gave at her memorial service, which was a story in itself as I had viral laryngitis but could not persuade anyone to read the eulogy for me. So I croaked into the microphone and what with my accent and my defective voice I am sure no one understood a word.

We spent hours talking on the phone and often went together on the various outings of the club. The more I got to know her, the more I realized what a wonderful, kind, generous person she was. She was the first person to extend a helping hand, to give someone a lift, to lend something she had to anyone who needed it and to welcome all the new people who joined the Club, either for short periods or for longer ones. But it was really hard to reciprocate because she wouldn’t let you do things for her.

She also generously shared these recipes with her friends. In fact one of the recipes, known as C’s Sunken Grape Cake, has a life of its own. We all seemed to make it often and bring it to various events. We had to check with each other, is C bringing it, or someone else perhaps, to whatever occasion for which we were asked to provide cakes or squares. We even shared it with other friends so there are people who never knew C making it.

In fact, someone brought it to the the reception after her memorial service and there were people at the reception who asked me for the recipe which I dutifully emailed to them since I knew she would have graciously offered it if asked or even if you only said I really like that cake.

I admired C greatly for her goodness, her kindness, her generosity of spirit and her genuineness. But most of all I admired her for the way in which she handled the last few months of her life, with such grace, courage and dignity.

So, as C underwent various tests to discover the reason for her ill health, we all worried along with her. When she phoned to tell me the definitive diagnosis she said, “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I don’t want people to treat me differently and I don’t want to talk about it.” I hope we didn’t treat her differently but of course we talked often about it. How could we not? It took over her life and she herself brought it up all the time. But she never gave up hope, even when the medical profession could do nothing more for her. She was always cheerful when we spoke, in person or on the phone.

On December 8^th, 2005, the walking group met for a Christmas pot luck lunch at a member’s house. C was determined to be there and her husband did indeed bring her. She was frail but beautifully groomed and dressed, as always, with her lovely smiling face and her spirit shining through. We were all delighted to see her. It was a very joyous occasion and 14 of us sat at the table and celebrated the season and the fact that she was able to be there with us. Someone took some wonderful pictures with her digital camera, to memorialize the occasion and she sent them to C. Most of us did not see her again (she died ten days later), although we all phoned regularly and if she was not well enough to talk to us, we talked to her answering machine. And we wrote cards and sent flowers, anything to show her how much we cared.

We all miss our dear friend C and talk about her often. Yes, she belonged to the Short Book Club too, so it is fitting that we eat her Sunken Grape Cake at one of our meetings, don’t you think?

* Recipe for this Sunken Grape Cake can be found here, although it is actually the creation of Monique Sui, co-owner of Zefiro in Portland.

I’m a grass widow for the next twelve days and I’m contemplating what mischief I shall get up to. You know while the cat’s away the mouse will play.

The old scientist has jetted off to Australia and should be arriving momentarily. Sadly it is not a happy trip, since his sister who has Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia is not doing well and we fear she may not be around when we visit there next March.

Despite that fact, I think he was rather excited when he left. He was going home, for we expat Australians always think of Australia as home, no matter how long we have been gone, although he did leave a very long time ago, in 1957 in fact.

There’s now a direct flight between Vancouver and Sydney but it is a pretty brutal fifteen hours and at the end of it he has to pick up a rental car and drive on the “wrong” side of the road, through the mad traffic of Sydney and north for four hours to reach his other sister’s house. So he has instructions to telephone me as soon as he arrives. He said I’ll send you an email but I said no way, you phone.

So where does the expression, grass widow come from, you might ask? Well I did anyway and naturally I had to google it and I just have to share what I found. By the way, the image above is Sisyrinchium inflatum or “Grass Widow”, a charming North American native wildflower.

Definiton of a grass widow:

NOUN: 1. A woman who is divorced or separated from her husband. 2. A woman whose husband is temporarily absent. 3. An abandoned mistress. 4. The mother of a child born out of wedlock.

So already I’ve learned something new since I only knew of meaning 2. It seems the British and consequently the Australians use that meaning, while in North America meaning 1 is the one more commonly understood. Thus this explanation:

Grass probably refers to a bed of grass or hay as opposed to a real bed. This association would help explain the earliest recorded sense of the word (1528), “an unmarried woman who has lived with one or more men,” as well as the related senses “an abandoned mistress” and “the mother of an illegitimate child.” Later on, after the sense of grass had been obscured, people may have interpreted grass as equivalent to the figurative use of pasture, as in out to pasture. Hence grass widow could have developed the senses “a divorced or separated wife” or “a wife whose husband is temporarily absent.”

Convinced? Perhaps not. It seems to have first been used by Sir Thomas More in a dialogue in 1528. From here:

But then it meant something rather different: either an abandoned mistress or an unmarried woman who had cohabited with several men. It might have expressed the idea that the abandoned lover had been “put out to grass”. But it could conceivably have come from the same type of origin as bastard; this is from the Latin bastum for a pack saddle, suggesting a child born after a brief encounter on an improvised bed, such as a packsaddle pillow, whose owner had gone by morning. Could the grass in grass widow refer to surreptitious love-making in the fields rather than indoors, or the straw in a barn used for an illicit tryst?

How about this rather interesting explanation?

Another theory is that it’s slang from the British Raj for wives sent away during the hot summer to the cooler (and greener) hill stations while their husbands remained on duty in the plains. We can trace this theory back to the famous Anglo-Indian dictionary Hobson-Jobson of 1886. It says that the term is applied “with a shade of malignancy”, a tantalisingly opaque comment…….It seems possible that the term was applied derisively to Anglo-Indian wives sent away for the summer (were there perhaps well-known opportunities for hanky-panky in the hill stations?) and that it only gradually took on the modern sense through a reinterpretation of grass to mean the green landscape of the hills.

Mmm. So there, you know as much about the origin of the expression as I do and probably more than you ever wanted to know.

Well I did receive a phone call just now and he did arrive safely, after first of all getting lost in Sydney while trying to get onto the Sydney Harbour bridge which he said he could see but not access. The streets seemed to “have changed” since he was there five years ago. Luckily it was Sunday and the traffic was not too bad but I think he needs a GPS system, don’t you?

Now back to my plans. Well I am going for lunch on Monday with Liz who is currently on her way from the UK, and Leslie, a local blogger and then there’s book club. Good heavens, I’ll have to do better than that!

PhotoHunt

WILD