Tag: traditional family

Thanksgiving 2025

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner, Reclaiming the Family , , , ,

Tomorrow is Camera Girl’s D-Day.  The family comes over for a twenty-six-pound turkey and all the trimmings.  I counted up the individual food courses and it came close to thirty.  So, this is ridiculous and I asked her if she wants to start cutting back on all this preparation or get the daughters to help and she shook off the suggestion as heresy.  Apparently, she lives for this.  And I’m glad.  I think we all would miss something if she didn’t put this particular menu together in the traditional way that everyone in the family now looks at as the only way to have dinner on Thanksgiving.  The grandkids have never known a different menu at Thanksgiving and that’s going back over twenty years for some of them.  All in all, that’s an amazing track record.

Of course, one day things will change.  One day the grandkids will start families of their own.  And they won’t be able to come to our house every year.  Or maybe we’ll just get too old to run Thanksgiving.  But for now, we live in that golden era where all the grandkids think this regime is eternal.  And I’ll let that be the party line.

Tomorrow we’ll gather for the feast and sit down at 2pm.  I’ll have the honor (!?!) of carving the turkey and sitting at the head of the table as pater familias but all the power is vested in Camera Girl as boss of the kitchen.  She will be scurrying around making sure that the various dishes are available to people at all sections of the table (or tables, the crowd spills over onto a couple of smaller tables added onto the main table) and truth be told I don’t think she even eats a mouthful of food for the first forty minutes of the campaign.  But once the table is completely stocked and everyone has filled their plates for the first time she will settle into her seat and stay there until dessert is needed.  And this will be an assortment of home-made pies and other desserts.  The only thing I always insist on is the availability of several gallons of good quality vanilla ice cream.  Inevitably there will be several other flavors represented; chocolate chip, strawberry, even heretical flavors like cookies and cream.  But for me the gold standard is vanilla.  It is a pure element, possibly the quintessence of the Thanksgiving dessert.  And my grandchildren agree with me vehemently.  There was an open revolt one year when vanilla ice cream wasn’t clearly visible on the dessert table.  I joined in their cries of protest and Camera Girl was forced to head into the basement to the back of the freezer where the vanilla was hiding.  Since then, there’s been no more nonsense about it.

And after we’ve stuffed ourselves with turkey and fixings and dessert, the grandsons and I will head into the living room to watch our holiday movies.  Typically, we’ll bust out the Laurel and Hardy version of “March of the Wooden Soldiers.”  Afterwards I’ll try to put on one of the versions of “A Christmas Carol.”  I think they feel that the Alistair Sim version is definitive.  But we’ll see.

So, the site may be kind of quiet tomorrow but it’s for a good cause.  Happy Thanksgiving to all you folks out there.  Enjoy the day.

Bridging the Generations (Part 3)

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Sorry I was missing from the site most of the day but today was a grandson visiting day here at the Compound.  Tertius (the third) is currently twelve years old.  And that works out because I can still keep up with him in a baseball catch and shooting pool without looking too feeble.  Against all odds (the recent weather forecast) the sun was out and it was about fifty degrees.  And after two half-hour catches, I can proudly say my right shoulder and elbow are both reasonably intact.

Camera Girl provided the requested bill of fare (spaghetti and meatballs, cookies and cream ice cream, lemonade) and I provided the requested cinematic presentation (extended version of “The Two Towers).  The conversation was limited to an in depth discussion of how Elrond and Aragorn could be related, his current progress in school band (baritone horn) and the trade-off between a lot of snow (which he likes) and not getting out of school until late June (which he is against).  I tried introducing the question of dark matter but I didn’t seem to spark his imagination with it.  Probably needs some background in physics first.  I guess seventh grade science isn’t that advanced.

I’m happy to find that we have maintained good relations and I recognize several of my traits in him (the poor kid) and am highly pleased that we both enjoy a baseball catch as a good way to pass time and get a little exercise.  Now, if he were sixteen, I’d probably be too old.  And come to think of it sixteen-year-olds have other interests than playing sports with old fogeys.   But currently I can throw it far enough and fast enough to keep him interested in the game.  And it’s actually good exercise for me too.

And at 6:30 pm I drove him home to his parents and told Camera Girl that all is right with the world and we must have done something right to have such nice grandkids.  To be honest, she probably did something right.  I’m just born lucky and hang around with the right people.

So, I checked the news to see what I missed today and so far, I don’t see anything new.  Trump, blah, blah, blah.  Musk, blah, blah, blah.  Resist, resist, resist.  Rinse, repeat.

I was glad to see there was a fair amount of interest in the Heinlein post.  I figure a lot of folks from our generation were fans back in the day of RAH.  I’ll say that reading his stories gave me an interest in space and when the time came to think of engineering as a profession, his stories made it seem more interesting than it might have without his influence.  Of course, he didn’t warn me enough about how stupid everyone in the executive suite would be.  But maybe it was a different time.

So now we have to prepare for our visit from Quartus (the fourth) in the next couple of weeks.  We have to nail down the menu.  I already know his choice in movies.  He’s going to demand at least a triple feature of Godzilla movies (Lord help me).  As far as sports it may be something esoteric.  Sometimes the kids have toys like tops or yo-yos or other less recognizable geegaws.  But now is the time to go through the research stage so that the actual event goes smoothly.  Who knows?  Maybe bowling or laser tag will be on the agenda.  Well, I better rest up.

The Human Element

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Einstein is said to have made the imaginative leap when he based his Theory of General Relativity on the notion that time (t) is just another dimension to go along with the three spatial dimensions (x, y, z).  Space-time.  When we talk about the where of a particle (or a person) we must also specify the when.

So yesterday when I travelled back to the place where I was born, I would have to travel back in time to reach my place of origin (x, y, z, t = 0, 0, 0, 0).  But Einstein also said that for matter time can only travel forward.  But maybe the mind (or the soul) isn’t composed of protons and electrons; leptons and hadrons.  Because I had an uncanny feeling I had stepped back into an earlier era.

After battling New York City traffic that defied belief, to attend a family funeral, I walked into the little Roman Catholic Church that I attended as a child and was transported into my past.  Sure, a few little things had changed.  They had freshened up the paint on the ceiling over the altar and on the bas relief stations of the cross but the stained-glass windows, the icons around the altar and the pews we sat in triggered memories that perfectly mirrored my surroundings.  And then there were my cousins and their children and their children’s children surrounding me with proof that the world I left behind decades ago still existed in a very human, very tenacious way.  God said be fruitful and multiply.  And we have.  From a tiny family that set foot on this continent less than 150 years ago there are now a whole town’s worth of descendants.

And some of the latest additions were unknown to me by name.  But just looking at their faces I could see the kinship.  And in the middle of the Mass one of the youngest made such a noisy nuisance of himself that he forced his mother to retreat to the annex to return the ceremony to dignified order.  But this outburst was of the very nature of the family.  We are noisy, somewhat spoiled, sometimes rude but genuinely good natured and extremely funny people.  And we do enjoy each other’s company.  Being surrounded by this small army of family felt so right.

One of my cousins remarked that it was a pity that only such occasions rounded us all up together again.  He spoke nostalgically about when we were all living within blocks of each other within the Italian ghetto that we all were now flocking to for this solemn occasion.  He reminisced about the parties and get togethers we used to have on a regular basis; holidays, birthdays, weddings, graduations, births.  But I reminded him that no one’s grandchildren could hope to afford the multi-million-dollar price tags that now attached to the buildings in this once humble neighborhood.  What young people could afford to buy houses here now?   I kidded that we would have to buy a whole town somewhere in the middle of nowhere if we wanted to live together in this modern and expensive age.  He ruefully nodded his head in agreement.

Quickly the ceremony ended and we said our goodbyes.  I wasn’t headed out east to the Long Island cemetery.  I was headed north toward New England through the grid-lock of the outer boroughs and onto the highways beyond.  But we made one stop before we headed home.  There was an old time Italian Bakery that specialized in Italian pastries.  They had sfogliatella riccia (seashell), coda d’aragosta (lobster tail) and various other pastries stuffed with cream that we would eat on Sunday nights when we were kids.  The only problem with this wonderful store was the old woman who had run the counter.  She was a sharp-tongued shrew who carped at everyone who entered the store.

I entered the store today and found the shelves still lined with all those Italian delicacies.  But now the store was run by a Chinese family that had bought the recipes for the pastries when they purchased the business.  And thankfully the pastries were just the same!  And even better, the young lady running the counter was entirely friendly and polite.  A miracle!

After too many hours I returned home with my small cache of desserts and told Camera Girl of my epic journey.  We’ll eat the cakes with our coffee this week.  And that will remind me of what I learned.  Einstein was wrong about not being able to go back in time.  You can.  What you can’t do is go back to the same place.  It’s always different.  But it can be worth the trip.

Bring Back the American Mom

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Today was the last family party of the Christmas holiday season.  The kids go back to school on Monday and everybody else starts their diets to scrape away all the fat we’ve absorbed since Thanksgiving.  And it has been a fun season.  What with the Trump election win and the gob-smacked silence of the leftist crazies there has been a veritable aura of peace and calm.  Well, relatively speaking anyway.  After all you can’t eliminate terrorist attacks and brutal war news completely.  But all in all, the last month and a half has been pretty nice.

So, two weeks from Tuesday Donald Trump will be sworn in.  As is his way, his every word and deed will stir up a hornet’s nest of outrage in the establishment media and political communities.  He will be fought tooth and nail every step of the way in courts, in Congress and in the agencies, he is attempting to reform or destroy.

Well, that will be a long story.  The coming months will tell us if he can make any headway in ending illegal immigration through deportations and border security.  And his other reform goals will take just as long to implement.

But tonight, I was just trying to put into perspective where our society is and where it has to go if we’re to last as a nation.  And I would say the most unsettling problem is the current baby drought.  Specifically native-born American women are not having children at replacement rates.  Now, why is that?  Currently the blame game ping pongs back and forth between blaming young men and young women.  But I would say the true culprit is the culture that has enabled a world view by young people that includes the following “facts”:

  • Women are better off in careers than as mothers.
  • Employers should prefer hiring women rather than men, especially white men.
  • There are too many people on planet Earth.
  • Bringing children into this world is a crime.
  • A middle-class lifestyle that allows for the raising of children is no longer within the reach of young adults.

Looking at all these statements I see a dystopian version of the world.  The only statement there that has any basis in fact is the last one and that situation needs to be rectified by our government if they hope to prevent this country from disintegrating into a sad, hollowed-out vestige of the dynamic, prosperous place it was a century ago.

To do this, each of those “facts” needs to be refuted and policies enacted to reverse the opinions and their effects that are currently laying waste to our society at all levels.

The first change needed is to convince young women that getting married and staying home to raise a large family is the most valuable and meaningful “career” they can have.  This is the key change that makes restoration of our society possible.  And the only way these young women can be convinced is for the government to put in place policies that subsidize couples forming and sustaining families.  Specifically, the policies should specify that men must remain employed and women must remain at home during the childhood years of their children.  Ideally these mothers should stay home until their children move out at eighteen years of age.  After that, mothers moving into the workforce shouldn’t be too detrimental to family life.  Although I wouldn’t force them to go.

Now this idea is anathema to modern feminist views.  That isn’t surprising since feminism is anathema to family life.  But it is absolutely vital to maintaining the health of the nation that women be convinced to resume their place in the home; not as part-time mothers of latch-key children but as moms.

A Pretty Good Deal

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The holidays are upon us and today we got a taste of them.  A gathering of my children and their families at the Compound was deeply enjoyable.  The youngest grandchildren were triumphantly underfoot.  They had a game where they spaced out some pillows on the living room floor and hopped haphazardly between them to avoid the “lava” that surrounded these tiny islands of safety.  They were a menace to navigation and a real danger to themselves from collision with doors and walls and other solid objects.  So, they kept me busy refereeing their wilder excesses.

And Camera Girl outdid herself in the kitchen.  The food flowed impressively onto the table and then into the mouths of the delighted diners.  I give her all credit except for one decision that I was responsible for.  She had baked a huge Italian cheese cake and a chocolate cake and a chocolate pudding dessert.  Along with whipped cream she declared that no other dessert should be offered.  I insisted that vanilla ice cream must always be available as a component of dessert.  When the dessert was being served, I quizzed the kids about this and the reaction was electric.  They shouted agreement with my position.  Well, Camera Girl must have known in advance that I was right.  Not only did she have a half gallon of   vanilla.  She had chocolate chip and cookies and cream.  I was magnanimous in victory.  I openly applauded her willingness to accept advice and avoid disappointing the future of the family.

We talked about this and that.  Local politics and town affairs like the volunteer fire departments and their trials and tribulations.  And I talked to the kids about the upcoming Thanksgiving celebration here.  I mentioned that they would have the option of joining me in watching my traditional viewing of the 1930s versions of “The March of the Wooden Soldiers” and the Max Fleischer cartoon “Gulliver’s Travels.”  I also mentioned that there would be viewing of some of W.C. Fields’ classic movies, “It’s a Gift” and “The Man on the Flying Trapeze.”  I emphasized that they should take special note of the similarity in behavior of the wife in these movies toward her husband (Fields) to the way that Camera Girl abuses and disrespects me.  I think it’s never too early to use the classics to teach valuable lessons to children about how the world works.  I’m sure Camera Girl heard me making these statements because I detected a growling sound coming from the kitchen at this point.

Well, before we knew it the night was getting along and everyone had to get home to their own things.  After they left, I noted to Camera Girl that it isn’t such a bad world where such nice people can surround us with life and energy with only the cost of some peasant Southern Italian food and desserts needed as fuel.  Sure, the world is falling apart at the seams and Joe Biden is still causing damage everywhere you look.  But things could be much, much worse.  And at least we’ll get to do Thanksgiving and Christmas at least one more time before the world comes to an end.  That’s a pretty good deal.  I’ll take it.

A Sense of Wonder

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My recent foray into Dunwichian power politics may have struck some of my readers as morose and unnecessarily pessimistic.  Possibly so, but I was trying to capture the essence of our current reality where an honest and transparent analysis of how our society works reveals enormous hypocrisy.  And the nature of our “democracy” reveals itself to be a process manipulated by the powerful who have no regard for the people.  But just to show you I haven’t despaired of life I was reminded today of what good can be achieved by getting involved with the young.

I remembered as a youngster being intrigued by astronomy.  Maybe it was because of the space program that was getting off the ground about the time I became aware of current events.  Maybe it was because my parents gave me access to books and other resources concerning science.  But however it happened, I was fascinated by the details of the solar system.  I was always reading statistics about the size, location and physical attributes of Saturn and Jupiter, Mercury and Mars.  And once I began reading science fiction, I became all the more absorbed by this extension of my world into the solar system.  And I suppose that my early interest in science is responsible for much of my orientation in school and afterwards.  Engineering was the logical conclusion for someone interested in the practical application of science to life.  I suppose that if NASA’s space program hadn’t petered out after the moon landings, I would have tried to get involved in an engineering program that had the potential of involving space travel but that was just a childhood fantasy.

But remembering how exciting and interesting it was to discover the larger universe, I decided to give Princess Sack of Potatoes her first astronomy lesson.  We looked at photos of the planets and I tried to explain some of the physical characteristics of the various worlds that circle our sun.  Mercury and Venus are too close to the Sun and therefore too hot.  Mars is too small and too far from the Sun and therefore lacking a useful atmosphere and too cold.  And I tried to explain why the gas giant worlds weren’t places where terrestrial life could exist because of their nightmarish temperatures and pressures and poisonous atmospheres.

So was my lesson successful.  I don’t really know.  She seemed interested enough and she enjoyed the colorful photos and pictures of the planets.  But will it inspire a deep curiosity about the universe.  Well, it’s much too soon to tell.  Maybe after we begin to discuss interstellar and intergalactic space I’ll see if she becomes bored with the subject.  But there was definitely one moment of planetary solidarity.  When we had finished with Neptune, she wanted to know what had happened to Pluto.  Full disclosure, I was very angry when the international astronomical societies stripped Pluto of its status as a planet.  I felt it to be an arbitrary and probably anti-American gesture.  So, this sympathy for Pluto by my granddaughter was a very welcome occurrence.  When I found out that this emotion was fostered because the planet has the same name as Mickey Mouse’s dog, I was a little less enthusiastic.  But still, when dealing with small children you take your victories where they come.

So, teaching children and inspiring curiosity about the wonders of science is something that we can do even in the world of Joe Biden and the American Security State.  One small step for a grandfather, one giant leap for mankind.

So Many Cookies

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Christmas Cooking, Sony A7 III, Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro lens

Camera Girl is like a food terrorist. She festoons treats around her kitchen like so many high-caloric land mines. And there I am blasted to bits over and over by all of these irresistible gastronomic pyrotechnics. I know how awful will be the penalties I’ll suffer when the holidays are over and how many hours of exercise will be needed to work off the hundreds of thousands of calories of delicious, delectable evil that she has surrounded me with. But eat I must. Over the course of almost five decades, she knows which foods I cannot resist. The cookies; grandma (or white), chocolate chip, oatmeal and the chocolate dipped coconut macaroons. The pies; apple, coconut custard, pumpkin, cherry and more. And that’s not even counting the ice creams and cheese cakes. And all of this will be after the sheer tonnage of lasagna, meatballs, sausage and filet mignon. Oh, the pain, the pain.
I rate my chance of surviving this onslaught as minimal. I reckon that if the EMTs arrive while I’m still breathing, they will advise her that as a purely practical triage decision they should leave me and move on to the next 911 call. At most they may spend a few moments berating me for allowing myself to come to this pathetic end.
But in all honesty, I acknowledge, that all things considered, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Gathering around the holiday tables groaning under the weight of Camera Girl’s bounteous feast is the highlight of every year. Enjoying delicious foods with family and spending time with the people closest to me in the whole world is well worth any bout of indigestion that might occur. Each of the rituals and ceremonies is a touchstone to the past. These same words and actions bring me back to the time when I was a child and eating these same foods and gathering together with family was the highlight of our holidays.
And to ensure that this tradition will continue, Camera Girl has her daughters and now her granddaughter over each year to knead the dough and shape the cookies that they bake for Christmas. And my son and sons-in-law and grandsons share in the expectation that these cookies will be there in the years to come. And I hope they do. Family traditions and gatherings may be the most important social functions in our human existence. They don’t fall under any government program and they aren’t mediated by any of the organs of modern life. TikTok and Meta don’t decide what’s the correct way to break bread with family and I doubt that the Kardashians or Taylor Swift even know what a grandma cookie tastes like, never mind know how to bake one.
So, whatever your traditions and whoever you gather with for Christmas, enjoy the time off away from the soul-deadening dictates of our woke institutions and brain-dead social media influencers. Use the time wisely to spend time with the people who actually mean something to you and enjoy that time together.
God bless us all, everyone.

Thanksgiving 2023

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So, we’re hosting most of the family this year.  Camera Girl has outdone herself with five different pies and a twenty-five-pound turkey.  I predict that by the end of the feast I’ll be almost immobile.  But I’ll try to keep the grandkids amused with various holiday traditions.  At some point I will break out the “March of the Wooden Soldiers” and maybe “Gulliver’s Travels.”  Of course, both of these are 1930s vintage versions.

Hopefully we’ll head down to the first floor to play some pool and later on will come the pie and ice cream and coffee and some penny ante poker.  And I’ll ask my grandsons what’s going on at school and what’s happening around town.  I’m sure I’ll be brought up to date on whatever Pokémon acquisitions the youngest one has negotiated.  I’ve never really figured out what Pokémon actually is.  I assume it’s similar in intent to how we collected baseball cards as kids.  All I know is that there are thousands of different cards and some are “worth” thousands of dollars.  But to whom?

We’ve had our first dusting of snow.  It changed into rain in the morning and I went out with the shovel and cleared the slop off of the driveway.  And that’s necessary.  It freezes at night now and that slushy mess would have turned my driveways into skating rinks by tomorrow morning and that is something I don’t need on Thanksgiving.  So, we’ve broken the ice, so to speak, and have now transitioned into winter.  Of course, I’m way behind on my yard work.  And this makes it worse.  But it’s Thanksgiving so I’ve absolved myself of all blame and won’t think about it until Monday (or Tuesday).

It’s interesting.  Two recent international elections seem to be indicating a deep dissatisfaction with the Left’s incompetent economic and social programs.  Maybe 2024 will be more than just an American protest year.  Maybe the genie is out of the bottle and a whole lot of people are fed up with dysfunctional, incompetent, delusional Leftist ideas in general.  If it is we’ll see much more in the way of signs in the coming months.

Biden’s minions keep popping up in the Times and the Post announcing how the economy is turning a corner and how wonderful everything is becoming.  The latest hype is that inflation is reversing and now they have to be careful not to cause deflation.  The delusional nature of this nonsense is absurd.  It flies in the face of everyone’s knowledge of the cost of commodities in the recent past.  Everyone who has to run a household knows that everything is now vastly more expensive.  Things like cold-cuts have now become prohibitively expensive for many families.  Even staples like bread and vegetables have to be purchased with an eye out for sales.  But the Biden evangelists keep up the happy talk hoping that the stupid will buy into the lie.  As jaded as I’ve become with fraudulent elections, I’m still curious to see if a point might be reached where even the people faking the elections might think it was in their interest to get the Democrats out of power, if only out of fear that the economy might completely collapse under the weight of complete incompetence.

Well, for one day we won’t worry about the cost of food.  There are going to be pumpkin, apple, coconut custard, sweet potato and chocolate pudding pies with whipped cream and ice cream and who knows what other desserts.  There’s going to be turkey and sausage stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy.  And another whole list of side dishes that I can’t even remember, but I know there will be candied yams and two kinds of buttered rolls.  So, I have a lot to be thankful for.  I hope your holiday goes well and I will check in from time to time.

Trad-Wife, Schmad-Wife, Get Out of My Kitchen!

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It is at this most festive time of the rolling year that I find portion control at the dining room table most challenging.  This morning Camera Girl is making apple, pumpkin and coconut custard pies for the Thanksgiving Day feast.  And so, I find myself standing over her shoulder watching the process with the sense of ownership and the pride that entails.  I asked her if she’d ever heard the term trad-wife and she responded with a scowl that I could almost feel in my own face.  She shook her head and told me to get the hell out of the kitchen until the pies were out of the oven.  I think she feared that my comments would have an unhealthy effect on the flavor of her desserts.  Not wishing to cause her undue stress at this very delicate point in the holiday preparations I forbore to grant her somewhat rude request and left with incredible dignity and obvious grace.  Noblesse oblige you know.

It’s interesting to note that the rapid degeneration of female culture now forces the invention of a new label for what used to be the normal skill set of an adult married woman.  Well, maybe rapid is just my perspective as an old guy.  What I think of as normal has been under attack since the 1960’s.  And now their granddaughters wouldn’t know a rolling pin from a road flare.  And so, we’ve reached a stage where a “trad-wife” has become a commodity so valuable that to quote the Bible:

“Proverbs 31:10-31

King James Version

10 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

11 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.

12 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

13 She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.

14 She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar.

15 She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.

16 She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.

17 She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.

18 She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.

19 She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.

20 She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.

21 She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.

22 She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.

23 Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.

24 She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.

25 Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.

26 She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.

27 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.

28 Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.

29 Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.

30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.

31 Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.”

 

To be fair, I’ve never seen her producing any tapestries or linen.  And I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even know what a distaff is.  But she did sew the seam on the change pocket in my jeans last week so maybe that’s close to rubies or at least emeralds, I think.  And she does get up really early to walk the dogs.  As far as sitting with the elders, I was hanging out with the duffers at the Grange during the election meeting and some of them recognized me so I’ll give her that.  But I definitely don’t think that part about, “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness” is way off.  I think the law of sarcasm is closer to the actual situation.

But she has transferred some of these skills like cooking and household economy to her daughters so that’s very praiseworthy but honestly, I don’t think either I or my daughters have used the term “blessed” for Camera Girl.  Annoying is the term that trips off my tongue because she accompanies all her accomplishments with a decidedly critical eye for comparison with my own efforts.

And in this she is obviously very unfair.  I may not cook the feast but I often carry the grocery bags from the car to the kitchen.  Surely the Bible has something good to say for the husband who does stuff.  So, what am I wood?  Maybe rubies aren’t the correct and gender specific analogy of my value.  How about austenitic stainless steel or even Hastelloy 276 or some other corrosion resistant metal.  Maybe even platinum!  That’s even better than boring rubies.  You’d think God being a man would have given us a few choice proverbs of our own to put these women in their place.  Am I wrong?  But I digress.

So, despite the annoyingness of the traditional wife, it is undeniable that she is the foundation of the family and of all functional human existence.  Without a doubt the destruction of our society has been programmed with the elimination of good women and their replacement by career women defined by their barrenness, lack of domestic instincts and their proclivity for collecting cats.  Without a doubt the males of this generation also bear a heavy responsibility for the current degeneracy of our culture.  But I’ll save that for a different rant.

Today I’ll just end with praise for Camera Girl.  Well done Camera Girl.  And save that little extra portion of coconut custard pie for the two o’clock coffee bread today.  I feel I need it.