The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
In Alexander McCall Smith’s newest book about Mma Ramotswe, it is a time of transition and unease. Unthinkable things happen. Mma Makutsi quits her job as Mma Ramotswe’s assistant detective, and Charlie, the apprentice, quits to start his own taxi service. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni feels a restless urge to try out his detecting skills and everything is in turmoil.
And underneath, amazing things happen. When you think differently, there is room for change, and forgiveness.
With Mma Makutsi back in her usual place, the heavy atmosphere that had prevailed that morning lifted. The emotional reunion, as demonstrative and effusive as if Mma Makutsi had been away for months, or even years, had embarrassed the men, who had exchanged glances and then looked away, as if in guilt at an intrusion into essentially female mysteries. But when the ululating from Mma Ramotswe had died down and the tea had been made, everything returned to normal.
“Why did she bother to leave if she was going to be back in five minutes?” asked the younger apprentice.
“It’s because she doesn’t think like anybody else,” said Charlie. “She thinks backwards.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who overheard this, shook his head. “It’s a sign of maturity to be able to change your mind when you realize that you’re wrong,” he explained. “It’s the same with fixing a car. If you find out that you’re going along the wrong lines then don’t hesitate to stop and correct yourself. If, for example, you’re changing the oil seal at the back of a gearbox, you might try to save time by doing this without taking the gearbox out. But it’s always quicker to take the gearbox out. If you don’t, you end up taking the floor out and anyway, you have to take the top of the gearbox off, and the prop shaft too. So it’s best to stop and admit your mistake before you go any further and damage things.”
Charlie listened to this – it was a long speech for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni – and then looked away. He wondered if this was a random example siezed upon by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, or if he knew about the seal he had tried to install in the old rear-wheel-drive Ford. Could he have found out somehow?
In another place, Charlie has just told Mma Ramotswe of his plans to start the No. 1 Ladies Taxi Service:
For a minute or two, nobody spoke. Mma Ramotswe was aware of the sound of Charlie’s breathing, which was shallow, from excitement. We must remember, she thought, what it is like to be young and enthusiastic, to have a plan, a dream. There is always a danger that as we went on in life we forget about that; caution – even fear – replaced optimism and courage. When you were young, like Charlie, you believed that you could do anything, and, in some circumstances at least, you could. . . . .
“I will tell all my friends to use your taxi,” she said. “I am sure you will be very busy.”
And oh yes, in the midst of all this, three mysteries get solved – a case of inventory gone missing, a case of a string of inexplicable hospital deaths, and a case of a husband potentialy gone astray.
GREAT summer reading, deceptively simple. You find yourself mulling over the situations, the responses and the outcomes, and trying out new ways of thinking. Give it a try – you don’t have to read the whole series to enjoy each volume.
This eighth book in the series is available from Amazon.com for a mere $12.70. It makes great summer reading.
Rules of Engagement
As you know, I am from a very close, very funny family. Earthling, my nephew, just got engaged.
We’ve all been waiting. Almost from the beginning, we knew this girl was THE ONE. We almost always know. They announced their engagement by sending a series of photos of a hike they took near Google Valley in California, including the photo of the bride-elect and her new ring. We are dancing for joy, that these two dear people have found one another and are committing their futures to one another.
And – the bride-to-be has started a blog called Rules of Engagement. She is a very funny, very clever writer, and will take you step by step through the travails of an American style wedding.
Enjoy!
Real Simple
It’s a quiet Friday morning and we have time to loll around before we have to get ready for church. I am focused on writing a tough entry for my blog and Adventure Man is on the couch, paging through a magazine, Real Simple.
He starts reading from an article called “Is he driving you crazy?” which lists the top five complaints of women, and then men:
Women:
He’s not affectionate enough.
He doesn’t listen to me.
He doesn’t help around the house.
He raises his voice when we argue.
He never talks about tough issues.
Men:
She’s trying to control me.
She objects when I need time alone.
We don’t have enough sex.
She criticizes me.
She treats me like an idiot.
The whole article, with all the expert solutions, is available HERE.
Two of them cracked us up.
Her Complaint: He’s not affectionate enough
Expert: Even though your partner loves you, he might express his feelings differently. Generally speaking, “men feel closer when there’s sex. For women to feel affectionate, there has to be talk.”
His complaint: We don’t have enough sex
Expert: The impulse to get romantic declines for most couples but “men are more likely to feel an urge for sex,” says (expert). “Once women get going, they enjoy it but often they don’t have the same initial urge they might have had as teenagers.” So if he’s rushing you to bed, let him know that you’d like to cuddle and talk a bit first . . . If your needs are truly mis-matched, talk about how many “relations” you’ll have in your relationship. Ask “What’s your ideal range of frequency per week? If he says three to five, and you say one to three, then aim for an average of about three times.”
Here is what got us rolling with laughter – my husband is a consumate negotiator. It doesn’t matter what the reality would be, he would up the figure. So like he might say “30 times a week” knowing that half that would be twice a day. It wouldn’t matter that he really doesn’t want sex twice a day, he would have sealed a deal that guaranteed him sex twice a day IF he wanted it.
But he knows my tricks, too, and moments later he is showered, shaved, he smells wonderful AND . . . he is making the bed! He totally knows how to get what he wants.
Marriage – A Great Adventure
I remember the day we looked at each other in astonishment, the day we realized we had lived with each other longer than we had lived with our own parents. We think of family cultures as the culture we grew up in, but in our years together, we have created our own family culture, haven’t we?
We chose one another, in itself, a great adventure. We chose a life full of change and risk. We stacked the obstacles against our survival as a couple, and yet we prevailed, by the grace of God.
We laugh at how young we were to have made such a lifelong commitment. We laugh at how we walked into parenthood – no, RAN into parenthood, joyfully, with no clues as to the huge responsibilities, the agonies as well as the intense delights.
Happy Anniversary, Adventure Man. I thank God for our marriage, and our partnership.
These are for you.
Morning in the bush
Picnic Stop
The thrill of the chase
The Great Migration
Zanzibar
Some Misery Unavoidable
Accepting the bad times could make for a happy marriage
From BBC Health News
The key to a happy relationship could be accepting that some miserable times are unavoidable, experts say.
Therapists from California State University, Northridge and Virginia Tech say accepting these problems is better than striving for perfection.
And they blame cultural fairytales and modern love stories for perpetuating the myth that enjoying a perfect relationship is possible.
The report was published in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy.
The authors, Dr Diane Gehart and Dr Eric McCollum say it is a “myth that, with enough effort we can achieve a state without suffering.”
And they say healthcare professionals may not be helping the situation.
“The field of mental health perpetuates this myth with the very concept of “mental health,” which implies a state without suffering,” they say.
Potentially damaging
But this belief can eventually cause people to believe that with enough effort they can eliminate suffering.
And experts say this is an unrealistic aim in relationships, and striving to achieve it can lead people to feel they have failed.
Jan Parker of the Association of Family Therapy said: “The authors are right to point out that the pursuit of relationship nirvana can be potentially damaging.”
She said it was important to explore what people mean by a happy and healthy relationship, because nobody’s life or relationship can be in a permanent state of happiness – there will always be more difficult times.
She said couples need to build strengths, such as understanding, in their relationships to help them cope in these hard times and appreciate the good times.
Mrs Nadine Field, a consultant psychologist, said it was a “fantasy” that any relationship could be perfect and that striving for such an impossible state could lead to bitter disappointment.
She said this disappointment could then cause people to focus on the negative aspects of a relationship, and lead to more disappointment and resentment.
She said: “People need to try to understand their partners through communication, rather than demanding perfection of them.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Dead Man Walking
An Irish joke:
Paddy’s wife bought a new line of expensive cosmetics guaranteed to make her look years younger.
After a lengthy sitting before the mirror applying the “miracle” products she asked, “Darling, honestly what age would you say I am?”
Looking over her carefully, Paddy replied, “Judging from your skin, twenty; your hair, eighteen; and your figure, twenty-five.”
“Oh, you flatterer!” she gushed.
“Hey, wait a minute!” Paddy interrupted. “I haven’t added them up yet.”
Rude Awakening
In the wee small hours of the morning, my husband and I had a rude awakening. While we were sound asleep, the Qatteri Cat figured out how to open the front door and walk out. Awakening and seeing light, my husband jumped out of bed, and yelled “Qatteri Cat is gone!” but as he wasn’t wearing much, he couldn’t go look for QC. Sheer panic. We know the QC would not last long on the mean streets of Kuwait.
I’m paranoid about sleeping in nothing much, like what if there is a fire or something? So I am wearing a little more, not much more, but enough that I can go look for QC, but as soon as he hears us exclaiming, he comes back in, like “hey! glad to see you up! Did you notice my food dish is empty?”
And it was empty. I have noticed if I can remember to feed him before we go to bed, we have fewer howlings in the middle of the night, fewer jumping at the door handle. Hunger makes him wakeful and energetic. And we normally lock the front door, but when we came in last night we were both carrying packages and I must have gotten distracted, I am usually the obsessive-compulsive one about making sure the door is locked.
And the Qatteri Cat? After all the commotion, he is sleeping in this morning, while I am walking around bleary and tired. But he is so sweet when he is sleeping.
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
Rember the post Lying Hurts The Liar? In The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, the whole plot revolves around a huge lie, and the toll that protecting that lie takes on the lives of everyone it touches.
in the middle of a huge snowstorm, Dr. David Henry’s wife goes into premature labor and he is forced to deliver her in his nearby clinic because he can’t get to the hospital in the snowstorm. To his surprise, he delivers twins. The boy is fine and healthy, the baby girl clearly has Down’s Syndrome. It is the 1960’s.
He hands the baby to the nurse, and tells her to take the baby to a home for Down’s syndrome children and adults. When his wife, Norah, regains consciousness, he tells her she had twins, but that the girl was born dead.
Meanwhile, Caroline, the spinster nurse, takes the baby to the home, but when she sees the lack of caring in the “care” of the patients, she makes an instant decision to walk away. She keeps the baby. She never goes back to the clinic. She drives away and creates a new life for herself and the baby, a joyful life, the life she was waiting for.
To protect his secret, Dr. Henry maintains a distance between himself and his grieving wife. Norah never gets over the loss of her daughter, and she never gets over the change in her relationship with her husband. She knows something is not right, and no matter what she does, she can’t fix it. For a while she drinks. Later she pulls herself together, gets a job, ends up taking over the business (a travel agency) because she has thrown herself into her work.
The son, the healthy baby, grows up in a family where things are not right. His mother loves him, but is distracted by her grief. His father loves him, but is distracted by the energy it takes to protect his terrible secret. It is a family, but a family whose connections to one another are damaged by the tragic secret.
The discarded daughter, meanwhile, grows up surrounded by love and a family who makes a life out of creating opportunities for Down’s Syndrome children.
Late in the book, there is both some resolution and redemption. Things work out, but I find myself thinking of all the wasted years, years of unhappiness and loss, years of happiness sacrificed, brought about by one great big lie. When you read the book, you understand his reasons, and you know how easily, given the times, you and I might have made the same decision.
I think the doctor would have been happier had he risked telling his wife. He often wanted to. He didn’t.
Available for $8.40 + shipping at amazon.com
Mother’s Day from a Child’s Eyes
More than one friend sent this to me, and thank you ALL!
GOD MADE MOMS
Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:
Why did God make mothers?
1. She’s the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.
How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my Mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.
What ingredients are mothers made of ?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men’s bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.
Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
1. We’re related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people’s moms like me.
What kind of little girl was your mom?
1. My Mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.
What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?
Why did your mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mom eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that Mom didn’t have her thinking cap on.
Who’s the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn’t want to be boss, but she has to because dad’s such a goof ball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.
What’s the difference between moms & dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller & stronger, but moms have all the real power ’cause that’s who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend’s.
4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.
What does your mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don’t do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.
What would it take to make your mom perfect?
1. On the inside she’s already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I’d diet, maybe blue.
If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I’d get rid of that.
2. I’d make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.
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