The HB got me to laughing yesterday. We were walking up the stairs and he mentioned Liz Taylor’s nose. Why would that make me laugh? Well, it’s another Mummy story.

When I was growing up, Mummy would often say, “Your nose is just like Elizabeth Taylor’s. As a matter of fact if your eyes hadn’t turned colour, you’d be taken for her.” Her attitude about my eye colour was that it was an act of defiance for me to let them change colour. Yes, Mummy was delusional. But my nose is my only feature that I am pleased with. I never believed her, quite about Liz Taylor’s nose. But, in the back of my mind I had always wondered. Then, one day I had the chance to see if anyone else believed it. (more…)

Yesterday’s little jaunt down memory lane jogged my brain cells. I remembered another Uncle story. This one happened during World War II.

Uncle had joined the Army Air Corps at the start of the war. He was mustered out rather quickly. The story that he told was that they found that he had flat feet. Never quite believed that one myself, that was his story and he stuck to it. (more…)

My Uncle was a seriously serious person. I never really had a conversation with him until I was an adult. We just didn’t have too much in common. He did call me princess, but I always had the feeling that it was because he couldn’t remember my name.

But he still is the source of a few gut busting stories. I think that a lot of it has to do with his absent-mindedness. There was the time, for instance, when he bought a new car. It was a convertible and it was also the first time that he had a car with a radio and a cigarette lighter. He was thrilled. He headed out on the highway.

He had the top down. It was a sunny warm day. He turned on the radio. Then, he decided to have a smoke. He pushed in the lighter, it clicked right on time. He lifted it up and lit the ciggie. Ah, come on, you know what happened next. Don’t make me tell you. (more…)

I had a not great day Sunday. Little under the weather was Anon. You might remember how I extolled on the aspect of technology that gave us caller ID. I love caller ID. On Sunday, caller ID was a godsend.

First of all, it’s the season of political calls. I’m not against answering real poll questions, but I hate ‘push’ polls. Those are fake polls that don’t want a real measure of public opinion the people behind these “polls” just want to “push” you to vote for their candidate, against the opponent, or to not vote at all. These so-called polls are anathema to a representative form of governing.

Fortunately, because I have a degree in Political Science, I can tell the difference and I’m not shy about pointing that fact out to the boiler room denizens who have the misfortune of being at the other end of the line from me. I usually ream them a new one.

The other thing I can’t stand are legitimate polls that haven’t trained their people properly. There is a way to run a poll professionally and it makes me nuts to hear it get screwed up. (more…)

One late autmn afternoon, when I was a child, a letter arrived from one of my great aunts in Chicago. She said that Cousin Harry, whom we never knew, was coming for a visit. He was the son of a long dead aunt and he couldn’t take the Chicago winters.

At the time, my Mum, my Uncle, one of my Aunts, and I shared a flat. My Mum and I had one bedroom. My Aunt had another bedroom. My Uncle slept on the sofa bed in the lounge. It was crowded.

Cousin Harry whom-we-never-knew showed up with a beat up suitcase. He was a small tired-looking man. His hair was thin on top. He had a haunted look. His eyes were sunken deep in their sockets. His cheeks were hollow. It was hard to tell how tall he was because his shoulders sagged so. He rarely laughed and reminded me of a character in the comic pages of the time, the Sad Sack. He was older than I had imagined. But then, my Gran had 7 sisters and he was the son of the oldest.

Harry had evidently never made a habit of work. As a matter of fact, Cousin Harry whom-we-never-knew assiduously avoided anything that reeked of labour. He shared the sofa bed in the lounge with my uncle. Uncle had to get up very early every day, and he liked to have the sofa bed made up. Cousin Harry whom-we-never-knew liked to sleep in late. My mother and auntie worked and I had school. We all had to tip toe around Cousin Harry-whom-we-never-knew. (more…)

There’s a thing about being a ‘cradle’ Catholic: a cradle Catholic will be one ‘til the day he/she dies. It defines your every move. You can fall out with the Church Universal, but it never lets go of you. If someone asks you while you’re in this unforgiven state what your religion is, you’ll say, “I’m a non-practicing Catholic.” Notice it’s not, “I’m a Christian,” or “I’m Protestant,” or I’m an atheist.” No, Catholicism defines you – and all you can ever be is either practicing or non-practicing.

My Mum, the non-practicing Jew, once asked my non-practicing Catholic Dad if, in the event of his being on his death bed would he want her to call a priest and he said, “Damn straight!” She knew that, as she was “born a Jew, die a Jew,” his Catholicism would grab him by the jugular as his spirit departed this earthly toil.

Since I went to Catholic schools, I am living proof of the Jesuit’s maxim,”Give me the child, and I’ll give you the man.” No matter what my frustration with the church might be at any given time (there is always something to be frustrated with the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church about) I could never consider myself anything but Roman Catholic. Thus is the curse of the cradle Catholic. (more…)

Okay, here’s a heads up: don’t believe everything you read in the New York Times. There’s an article in the 9 October edition of the Times, that proselytises the concept of potty training babies. They have a picture of a mother with her infant on the loo. Mum is looking away from camera; child has an expression that can best be described as, “My Mummy’s crackers, save me!”

You might ask why I had such an immediate and visceral reaction to this story. Well, you see, my Mum tried to potty train me at 3 months. Again you might ask why. Yes, there’s a story. (more…)

The other morning one of the ‘agony aunt’ columns had a letter that made me laugh. Seems the letter writer has a relative who fancies herself well-educated. As such, this relative thought that it was her duty to correct pronunciation of everyone in the family. “What to do?” asked the writer.

I can’t remember what Abby/Ann/Carolyn said, I was laughing too hard. It was the image of this person going around correcting people and they weren’t knocking her lights out. Then, the memories came rushing back: I had an aunt who did that all the time. She had a couple of years of community college, a Penguin Classics of Plato’s ‘Republic,’ and thought that gave her superior knowledge about everything.

One word I remember that she’d always correct me on was, ‘surprise.’ I would say ‘suh-prise’, dropping the ‘r.’ that particular transgression stuck in her craw. She would always correct me. Since I was only a child, it never stuck. So, she was continually correcting me on my mispronunciations and spoonerisms. The most lasting thing she ever did was to threaten to turn me into the police for picking my nose. (more…)

Long ago, I was driving with my Mum. We were driving south from Los Angeles toward San Diego in California. At some point, we passed by Signal Hill. Signal Hill had been the sight of one of the biggest oil discoveries in California history. The oil has long since been pumped out, but at that time as I was looking out the car window, the oil derricks were still there and pumping. As I gazed at the wells pumping away, my Mum suddenly said, “I could’ve picked up that piece of property in 1932 for a song!”

Double take by me. I looked at my Mum and back at Signal Hill and back at my Mum again. “Mummie, that’s Signal Hill! It’s been owned by Standard Oil since the turn of the century!” (more…)

It’s true, I am shameless. Don’t think you can ever make me feel guilty. I spent too many years wracked with guilt. I was genetically pre-disposed to fell guilty: Mum a Jew, Father a Catholic. Gimme a break, I had to end the cycle sometime. You know what I mean?

So, I am now officially without shame. Actually, I didn’t realize it immediately, only after I had programmed the ring tones in my mobile (cell phone). Very early on, I was fascinated by the funny ring tones. I was also repulsed by the unimaginative choices that people made when programming their ring tones. Not only were they unimaginative, they were LOUD! Geez, I do not want to hear the 1812 Overture at 10 decibels above the threshold of pain. In Europe, where mobiles were de rigueur long before they were in the U.S., the 1812 Overture was big. Have you ever been on a looooong train trip through the Italian Alps were someone has that going off every 10 minutes? Thank Gawd for tunnels and earplugs. (more…)