Category Archives: Families

A Thomas Crapper Original

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I’m not sure if the power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely, as Louisa May Alcott once opined, but I know some of the simplest things make me happy. Like the hand painted picture of three little pink piggys trying to nose their way out the barn door that I have hanging in my kitchen. Matching towels and pretty commodes. It may just be my way of making up for the chamber pots and outdoor privies suffered in my youth in the unplumbed south. This was originally posted exactly 10 years ago. I still like it. Hope you do too.

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Over the years while traveling, I taught my daughters the cardinal traveler’s rule, “you go” when you have the chance.” I was reminded of that rule often during our recent road trip. In fact, that rule led me to a discovery of sorts that now makes me almost want to re-do my bathroom at home.

We were in Seattle and had decided to walk from our hotel to the waterfront and downtown, taking public transportation as and when needed. They have a great public transport system and even offer free bus rides to everyone within a designated area of old downtown, and a transfer pass can get you in and out within a certain period for $1.50 or $1.75, depending on whether it’s “peak rush hour” or not. Our onfoot foray was to turn into a daylong adventure, and I was often reminded of my traveler’s rule.

Since we’d read drastically conflicting reviews on the underground tour of Seattle, we were resting our tootsies sitting on a bench in Pioneer Square and trying to decide if the underground tour of Seattle was worth the ticket price of $12 for seniors. Anyone who knows me also knows my seriously weird, some might say “warped,” sense of history. The more ridiculous or seedier it is the better I like it, and my head is full of useless facts about various things. I was very curious to learn more about the seedier side of the old underground city destroyed by the fire in 1889 that gave Pioneer Square the reputation that eventually gave rise to the expression “skid row.”

We more or less had decided to give it a go and learned that there would be no sitting down for this tour. Turns out we’d be on our feet for a full hour and a half or more–depending on the verbosity of our actor guide–so we decided we weren’t quite up to it after walking all those blocks already. Since we were already inside and nobody seemed to be kicking us out, we opted to have a look around first in the attached Rogue’s Museum and antique shop instead.

Soon I noticed the sign that pointed to “Women’s” and automatically turned to go in since all I’d seen so far were signs in every storefront saying “wash rooms are for customers only.”

The “facilities” were so pretty that I just had to take a picture to remember. Even the wash basin and the matching backsplash were pretty.

Back outside in the museum, one of the first exhibits I saw was either “the” or “an” original toilet designed by Thomas Crapper. While propriety or a certain sense of decorum prevented me from photographing the interior of the toilet above, this one was fair game.

Aren’t they pretty? I found you can order one for your own bathroom from the U.K. at a ballpoint figure of $1,000 American dollars. Guess I’ll be keeping our old crapper toilet instead. By the way, in doing all the research about Thomas Crapper, I found out that he really wasn’t the “inventor” of the modern flush toilet after all. I just may flush out this story more fully in a future post, but for now I hope you like the pretty toilets.

making wise choices . . .

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Every once in awhile, Hubby does or says something that confirms the validity of the life altering decision I made all those years ago when I decided to cast my lot with him “from this day forward, ’til death do we part.” I saw an email he’d written, and was so proud I told him I was going to steal it and post it as “my” blog. He gave full permission:

What the hell is wrong with India? I just finished reading a book called Pink Sari Revolution: A tale of women and power in India and I was beginning to think that some changes may be possible. And then I read this article in today’s news on the internet. I hate to think that this case makes India as bad as [terrorist organization] regime or worse. It seems that the police or the politicians don’t care.  Why aren’t the general public outraged by this?

He was referring of course to two prominent and recent headlines from around the world:  Indian Woman Gang-Raped By 13 Men On Orders Of Village Court In West Bengal: Police  and Danish Tourist Gang-Raped, Robbed And Beaten Near Connaught Place, Indian Police Say . . . . It was enough that he was concerned enough and cared enough to defend these women, but when challenged that it wasn’t  India but the fact that women were afraid to report these incidents (until recently of course), thereby implying that the fault lies with the victims (now where have I heard that before?!), and that in reality–and especially when or if you considered the population numbers, percentage wise India was doing much better than the U.S. in such matters–his reply was:

I am sorry, I don’t agree with your statement “there is nothing wrong with India”. Even if there is one incident of gang rape of a woman or a young girl, it is one too many. When you read that the local panchayat ordered the gang rape because she was seen with someone from another tribe, this borders on barbarian practices. The Taliban routinely kill the women in these cases. I am surprised that the elders did not order stoning to go with it.

Population sizes, the reporting frequencies, and we are no worse  than other places etc are totally irrelevant.  In fact, I believe that the number of cases reported to police are miniscule as the police usually blame the victims. For a country that brags about being an ancient civilization and more civilized than the Islamic fundamentalists, assault and gang rapes on women should not be acceptable at any level. Add to this the so called “honor killing of women”, it gets worse.

When women are treated as less than equals and this is socially and culturally accepted, there is something wrong with the country.  See the following headline from the Hindu:
Hundreds of Indian election candidates accused of sexual violence – Figures released by the Association for Democratic Reforms show that hundreds of election candidates had allegations against them – as had scores of those in power.

When politicians get elected in spite of their sexual crimes against women, it says that there will be no laws created to address the problems.

Yes we know that rape happens in all places, but no where else [do] the village elders order it.

By the way, a “panchayat” is an elective village council in India, usually made up of five “wise and respected” elders chosen and accepted by the community who traditionally settle disputes between individuals and villages. The response from one of our daughters to her dad said simply “that was awesome. you’re the best.” The other followed with, “Ditto!” So as not to be outdone, or left out of the conversation, I responded to both daughters with this simple truth: “You may thank me for choosing your papa wisely! Mom” Young single women should take heed and remember the man they’re thinking of choosing to marry will (likely) be the father of their future children.

what does a woman want?

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What a great question. What would women answer?  They’d be as varied as the woman you talk to at any given moment.

Since 2007 I’ve been nursing my little Wintersong along, trying to figure out what–if anything–I want to accomplish with it. It’s no secret that I’ve been posting less and less these days. Lord knows I’ve probably broken every rule in the blogasphere, beginning with “post often” and “write well.”

Earlier today as I was doing my fat burning workout at the gym, I was hooked into my trusty old I-pod and heard a “little story” under just this title on a Modern Stories podcast and it led to a completely different post than the one that I’d planned. For several days I’ve been half planning to write a completely different piece–in effect “hanging up the keyboard.” What I was having trouble with was deciding whether for good or just for the summer. After I’d thought on it for awhile I decided that I may still not know what this woman wants other than balance in my life, but I sure know what I don’t want. That is to feel trapped in a routine I can’t keep up with. To have figured out what I DON’T want is half the battle I figure.

We’ll be leaving soon for a little rest and recreation in Florida, my old home state. I’m looking forward to showing my “southern estate–all 25 acres of it–to my grandchildren. We’ll also be taking them through Disney world, and I can’t honestly say I’m looking forward to the lines, but it’ll be a great experience for them to remember. We’re lucky to have the opportunity while we can still get around well. Younger daughter (#2) and her significant other will be joining us from NYC to spend a day with the kids at Universal Studios in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. (Their parents will be having a high old time at a Conference while it’ll take all four of the other of us–grownups–to keep the kids from killing eac safe. It’ll be fun even though I’m sure it will not be a tear- nor line-free day. In the evenings we’ll all be together and I look forward to some of my old haunts–or as many as we can fit in–and lots of seafood and southern cooking–lots of sweetened iced tea and grits cooked like only a southerner knows how to do it–in the evenings.

After we come back, we may do a dash-over to see a new vacation property in Oregon that daughter #1 and her SO recently purchased–just to check it out. Then as fall approaches we’ll be heading off to Italy. The last three days we’ll be concentrating on a vespa tour of Rome featuring a hands-on cooking class experience at a private home. We’re looking forward to eating what we cook.

The summer is barely beginning and I’m already seeing it disappear before me. So little time. All those words just to say what my readers already know. I’ve decided I’m not quite ready to hang up the old keyboard after all, but for the rest of the summer posting will be sporadic as and when I decide there’s something I want to remember. This is a good place to file those memories. I hope I’ll still have a few readers left when I have more time. I hope by then I’ll have a good answer to the question posed. In the meantime, I invite you to share your wants, either here or on your own blogs if you crazy enough to still be doing it.