There is an article in The Economist* about how women may be Trump’s undoing. That would be good. I have to admit I haven’t finished it--nor have we finished him, yet. I got caught up in a train of thought about one of the candidates running for office because of Rump. A woman named Houlahan. Can’t even remember where she’s from. She had never considered running for office, being a private person, and a deliberative one, until the last presidential election. She is one of many thousands of women now running for office, which is good news. But what caught my attention was this.
While struggling to reassure her gay daughter and Holocaust-survivor father, both of whom questioned whether America was still safe for them, Mrs Houlahan sent her CV to Emily’s List, an organization that tries to get pro-choice women elected. It seemed like the best way to honour her family motto, “Highest, best use”—meaning, she explains, “Do the hardest thing you can to make best use of your abilities.
What now? As in what now? Come again? Her family motto? Her family has a motto? What is she, British aristocracy? Nope, pure-dee American. From Pennsylvania, it transpires.
Not only is it cool that she has a motto, but what a motto she has! Do the hardest thing you can to make best use of your abilities. Talk about grit.
Maybe this gal could be President.
I’m thinking about everything I’ve read about expectations and success. As in, you have to have them, and they should be high. High, but not too high. Challenging, but not so challenging you get frustrated and give up. How often do I fulfill that for myself? I’m always ready to stop. Oh, I use the excuse of stopping before things get too hard so that I won’t be discouraged to try again. And I suppose there’s merit to that approach. It has kept me exercising every since high school. But, this little paragraph in the magazine was like an elbow jab to the ribs: try harder, Hope. This week, I am! Lots of writing.
Her family motto. I asked around on Facebook and only got one person whose family has a motto. It is also a terrific one. "Seek truth. Do good. Have fun."
What would my family’s motto be?
What springs to mind is Paul Rudnick’s phrase, Shop Till You Drop. Admittedly, this doesn’t apply. We're not actually big shoppers. But it does bring up a bunch of Yiddishisms, such as Schmie and Drey, Schlep and Step, and Plotz and oh, who knows?
This is complicated. By family, do I mean the family in which I am a parent? Or the family in which I was a child? Makes a difference.
The unspoken motto of one classmate's family is, "Don't be an asshole." That's a good place to start. She didn't mention if this was her family of origin, or her current family's motto.
Family mottoes in my family of origin might have been
- Children should be seen and not heard.
- Life is not fair.
- Stop reading and use this toothpick to get out the gunk from the rim around the kitchen counter.
- or, perhaps, Murphy’s Law is real.
*
Other news. We had a birthday party for the 10th grader, who is now 16. (That’s right, you are getting old). By the by, as these things go, in the planning of the party, an escape room was settled on as one activity. We escaped one at the mall for Father’s Day, but it had was pretty boring and only took fifteen minutes. The husband knew one of his residents (that’s doctor-speak for young doctor training in a specialty) is an aficionado of these rooms, so on his recommendation, we reserved the room at Enigmatic Escapes in Troy.
It was only after we had made the reservation and sent out the invitations that the husband learned from his resident that the room was quite challenging. Upshot: the girls did not escape. Despite that outcome, they emerged buoyant. They had almost done it, they said, which seemed admirable to me. And indeed, according to the shop owners, they were only one puzzle away when their time ran out.
More admirable was the chatter I overheard while chauffeuring. These girls all have Resistbot on their phones, and they’re spending time writing their elected officials about the issues. And in fact, in the morning after the slumber party, I learned that three of them spent the wee hours drafting emails to their high school principal about joining one of the planned walk-outs to protest inaction on gun safety measures by Congress.
I have to say, I did not learn until the morning after the sleepover exactly how hard the escape room was. Let’s just mention that the husband didn’t download the full info to me, by way of verbalization. All I knew, as I drove half the group in my car, was that this (nerdy) doctor had said it was challenging.
In fact, the husband told me in the morning, as we tiptoed around the kitchen, the resident told him that when he went to the room the first time--
First time? It was worth going back again?
Yes, the first time, he and his companions made it out just under the sixty minute deadline. When he went back with a different group, they didn’t make it out at all.
So I made the husband tell the assembled at breakfast, which he did.
The escape room was designed by two Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) graduates—women, by the way—and involves some really intricate puzzles.
I don’t know if all my reading in etiquette is paying off, but I do know it’s been fun. A friend gave me a book about manners by Quentin Crisp, who in the 1980s was an entity about town. “Manners are a way of getting what you want with out appearing to be an absolute swine.” He’s British. Thus the use of “swine.’ I’m probably going to crack Amy Vanderbilt after dinner.
And today, I did get what I wanted without appearing to be an absolute swine. I was walking my dog along a wooded path. Coming towards me I saw a person with two dogs that were not on leash. Needless to say, this was not an off-leash area. Coming across off-leash dogs when I'm with my dog is always stressful for me, because my dog has many times been rushed by off-leash dogs, and much ugly lunging and barking and growling on all sides ensues. Sometimes it even involves purported grownups.
Like the time at a different place, about twenty feet away from the sign that said, “Dogs must be leashed at all times.” Dude and dudess rolled up in a car, dog violently barking with excitement and lunging at the window as we passed into the park. Half a minute later, their dog is rushing mine, who is on leash. I yell at them to get their dog under control, because I can’t get him away from Milo. And the guy yells at me that his dog IS under control. Then I say, “There’s a sign that says dogs should be on leashes.” And HE says, and I quote, “Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.” And he sticks his fingers in his ears.
I kid you not.
Anyway, today. Two dogs off leash. I call out, “Can you please put your dogs on leash?” And I make Milo sit. The owner puts the dogs on leash. The dogs pass one another without incident. The humans smile and exchange pleasantries.
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