Bits'n'Pieces
Cut for those with no time for drivel
So I've been on the run this week, and thus have found myself writing posts on this or that in my brain, but no time to actually type them. But today I got such a laugh at school--though I had to slip into the computer room to have out my cackle.
It being May, it's been the week for The Film. You know, the horrible "facts of life" film that everybody in fifth and sixth grades has to sit through. It hasn't gotten any better, though it's a lot more honest than the disaster I was shown way back when--all pink and yellow daisies drifting across a sky painted a toxic shade of aqua as a glutinous female voice extolled the virtues of "Becoming a Woman, but being a Lady." Without ever saying any you now, actual Words. I remember coming out of that classroom with my armpits prickling in embarrassment at the way some of the other girls were snickering, knowing something was going on, but I hadn't the foggiest idea what, except that it had to do with private parts, which meant if I even hinted at asking for an explanation at home I'd get the belt for being unladylike. So I forgot about it until, ah, taken by surprise some years later.
But I digress. The girls are more savvy now, though as always, knowledge is still imperfect. After the film one of the sixth grade girls came into the room I was correcting papers in, her backpack swung round front, and she announced in a dying voice, "I'm pregnant!" "Wow, with triplets, I see," I said cheerily, and the other kids supplied like comments to general laughter, then one of the boys (whose film was yesterday) said in a meaning voice, "Who's the boy?"
"How do you know it's a boy?" retorted the sixth grader.
"I mean who's the father?"
Now, before I go on, there's an older kid who is matter-of-fact about having no dad because the kid's mother had opted for artificial insemination. So that subject had floated around the school a bit subsequent to The Films.
Anyway, my sixth grade girl says loftily, "There is no father. I ordered a bottle of germ."
On other fronts, I've wanted to type in some more Agnes Potter, Governess at the time of Jane Austen. There are some good bits. But it takes me a lot of time, which is in scant supply right now, so I want to offer one entry that I find highly puzzling.
It's dated 24 August 1808, and the governess is as usual writing to her charges' mother, giving little reports on each of the children.
. . . the other darlings are all at play in my room, and I believe before the post goes there is but time to tell you how very well and very good they all are. Miss Talbot, after reading her English and French, had her choice of writing from the Roman History, or of writing to mamma or her sisters. She chose to write to Miss Jane because she had written to you last. She looks charmingly to-day. Yesterday she had a little head-ach, and to-day her nose bled, since which she is perfectly well. Mis Ellinor* continues, as I think, to gain strength; Miss Isabella is as stout as the Welsh kids, and as active too . . .
Welsh kids? Are there such things as Welsh goats? Because I am pretty sure that 'kid' was at best slang for young men-about-town (and that's debatable), and a governess wouldn't talk slang, especially to her noble employer.
* poor little Ellinor didn't make it to teen-hood; whatever was wrong with her wasn't clear, but one of the treatments the anxious parents were told to do for her was to have all her teeth yanked out, and she didn't make it a year past that.
So I've been on the run this week, and thus have found myself writing posts on this or that in my brain, but no time to actually type them. But today I got such a laugh at school--though I had to slip into the computer room to have out my cackle.
It being May, it's been the week for The Film. You know, the horrible "facts of life" film that everybody in fifth and sixth grades has to sit through. It hasn't gotten any better, though it's a lot more honest than the disaster I was shown way back when--all pink and yellow daisies drifting across a sky painted a toxic shade of aqua as a glutinous female voice extolled the virtues of "Becoming a Woman, but being a Lady." Without ever saying any you now, actual Words. I remember coming out of that classroom with my armpits prickling in embarrassment at the way some of the other girls were snickering, knowing something was going on, but I hadn't the foggiest idea what, except that it had to do with private parts, which meant if I even hinted at asking for an explanation at home I'd get the belt for being unladylike. So I forgot about it until, ah, taken by surprise some years later.
But I digress. The girls are more savvy now, though as always, knowledge is still imperfect. After the film one of the sixth grade girls came into the room I was correcting papers in, her backpack swung round front, and she announced in a dying voice, "I'm pregnant!" "Wow, with triplets, I see," I said cheerily, and the other kids supplied like comments to general laughter, then one of the boys (whose film was yesterday) said in a meaning voice, "Who's the boy?"
"How do you know it's a boy?" retorted the sixth grader.
"I mean who's the father?"
Now, before I go on, there's an older kid who is matter-of-fact about having no dad because the kid's mother had opted for artificial insemination. So that subject had floated around the school a bit subsequent to The Films.
Anyway, my sixth grade girl says loftily, "There is no father. I ordered a bottle of germ."
On other fronts, I've wanted to type in some more Agnes Potter, Governess at the time of Jane Austen. There are some good bits. But it takes me a lot of time, which is in scant supply right now, so I want to offer one entry that I find highly puzzling.
It's dated 24 August 1808, and the governess is as usual writing to her charges' mother, giving little reports on each of the children.
. . . the other darlings are all at play in my room, and I believe before the post goes there is but time to tell you how very well and very good they all are. Miss Talbot, after reading her English and French, had her choice of writing from the Roman History, or of writing to mamma or her sisters. She chose to write to Miss Jane because she had written to you last. She looks charmingly to-day. Yesterday she had a little head-ach, and to-day her nose bled, since which she is perfectly well. Mis Ellinor* continues, as I think, to gain strength; Miss Isabella is as stout as the Welsh kids, and as active too . . .
Welsh kids? Are there such things as Welsh goats? Because I am pretty sure that 'kid' was at best slang for young men-about-town (and that's debatable), and a governess wouldn't talk slang, especially to her noble employer.
* poor little Ellinor didn't make it to teen-hood; whatever was wrong with her wasn't clear, but one of the treatments the anxious parents were told to do for her was to have all her teeth yanked out, and she didn't make it a year past that.