(no subject)

Some notes on the New Year:

1. Will have to eat more chocolate (I've been given more - Trudi, that doesn't mean you get to keep the backpack's contents.)

2. Got told by someone (entirely truthfully) that she used to play fairies in the bottom of the garden with Fay Weldon.

3. Created a complete silence at the family dinner by saying (quietly) that once there was a Jewish pirate who refused to kill on shabbat. It sounds like I was reading from a children's book, but he actually existed. I do wish I could remember his name.

4. My uncle says he'll give me my other grandmother's recipe collection.

5. My sister brought me a Basque chilli tea towel from France.

6. I have an appointment to see my brother.

7. I didn't eat a single piece of honey cake tonight.

8. We dipped our apples in honey from Pialligo.

9. I entered into bad Stargate jokes with the staff of a $2 shop earlier today. She turned out to be an anthropologist and my mother stood at the door, waiting to go, and trying to decipher the strnage tongue we were speaking.

10. My mother's study currently holds the next exhibition for the Jewish Museum. I sit here amidst wedding photos and scraps of other people's pasts.

11. Trudi has sent me some wonderful photos which shall adorn my food blog in the near future. In these photos there is clear proof that dried white mulberries lok like caterpillars. I intend to make my next food history class sample them, if they last that long. (They may not, the class doesn't start till late February. If they don't, at least there will be the photographs.)

12. I intend to encourage my mother to dismember a samovar so I can get instructional photographs on how to operate one. I want to compare this with my favourite Medieval French rabbi's description of how to keep water hot and see if I can work out just how much hot water Rashi envisaged a hosehold needing. This may take about 20 years, because for the life of me I can't remember the source of his description of the hot water, though I know where I found his description of Medieval paperclips. Anyhow, it's my grandfather's samovar and the only remnant of that grandfather's Bialystock childhood. Naturally, it's broken.

If this is a sample of my year-to-come then whatever happens, I shall not be bored or lonely. My universe may spin gently and slightly erratically, but this is not necessarily a problem.

(no subject)

Mum played the first two episodes of her Phantom DVD tonight.

I can't remember if I told you about that DVD, since my memory strayed somewhere betewen Canberra and Melbourne. Let me tell it again - if you know the story, skip the next paragraph.

When I was investigating the entertainments women in their mid-seventies had when they were teens and pre-teens (for possible misuse in fiction, of course) Mum told me about her Saturday afternoons. She and her brothers would be given some money and sent to the pictures. They watched the serial, got snacks and then saw the movie. The Phantom was the serial she remembered, because one week he was trapped under a descending portcullis and the screen instructed her in big letters to come back next week to find out what happened. She raced home and said "Mum, we have to go next week. We have to find out what happens!" "You can't go next week," her mother said, "It's a High Holy Day.'

For her High Holy Day present this year, my sister and I gave her a DVD of what we hope is the same serial. Sixty five years is a long time to wait to see how something ends.

Tonight the Phantom escaped a crocodile and swamp and is being menaced by a lion. No portcullis yet.

We're having a lovely time watching, though. We love it that the trees grow ropes and that the ropes have knots. We love it that some Africans speak with Indian accents, some with invented accents and that all of them look very European. We love the dramatic deaths - when a man is hit by a bullet there is a clutching of the heart and a rolling of the eyes and a slight scream before anything so mundane as death can ensue. The head-dresses are delightfully something, but we're not sure what the something is yet.

What we love most is the Phantom's dog. This is serious love. This animal exudes charm and has superior acting abilities.

The best part about watching the Phantom is the discussion with Mum. When she saw it originally, she trusted it wholeheartedly. Now she and I are having just as much pleasure in its flaws as she took in wholeheartedly entering a realm of magical adventure, over a half century ago. Watching it with her and seeing her smile of pure happiness and hearing her thoughts has taught me more about my planned character and how things change over time for people than any amount of book research could.

What's cool is - despite all the snarky remarks - we both really want to see more, and soon. In fact, we're both agreed we need to see more tomorrow. If we don't, however will we find out what happens with the lion?