A Sun and a Beam

I was packing my son's school lunch this morning. He really likes fruit; in fact, I call him the Fruit Ninja: he comes into the kitchen, he leaves the kitchen, and mysteriously, fruit has disappeared from the fruit bowl. So, of course, I was putting fruit into his lunch, two lovely, big pieces of it, one - but wait. I'll tell you what they were in a minute. You see, those two pieces of fruit reminded me of a story a teacher of mine told us one day.

It was the end of the war, 1945, in Germany. My teacher was, he said, about three years old at the time, and living with his mother in a small Northern Bavarian town. The war was over, the area occupied by American forces. One day the little boy was standing outside their house by the garden fence, when suddenly there appeared in front of him a man - an American in uniform, a tall man, a black man! Wide-eyed, the little boy looked up at the dark face - he had never seen someone like that before in his life! And this stranger held out two objects to the boy, two things the boy had never seen before either, and, I presume, the man smiled a wide white smile in the black face. The little boy took the two things (perhaps he was too shy to say "Danke") and ran into the house. "Mama, Mama," he called, "Mama, I got a sun and a beam!"
My teacher said that to this day, the smell of an orange peel brings back the image of that black face, of the kindness of a soldier who gave a small German boy his first orange and banana.

Life, the Universe, a Sun and a Beam. I hope the Fruit Ninja enjoys his today.

Excuses

I haven't been posting much lately. As excuses, I can only offer (in no particular order): a term paper, company, a camping weekend with friends, and raspberries, blueberries, cherries, apricots and black currants (yes, all-at-bloomin'-once). Double, double, toil and trouble...

Oh, and speaking of bubbling cauldrons, let me just give you a bit of advice: when you make jelly, like black currant which is one of the best kinds there are, don't follow the instructions on the pectin box insert, but go with the jelly test. You know how when you cook jelly and you pull the spoon out of that rolling boil, when it's reached jelling point the drops run together and sheet off the edge of the spoon? (You don't? Well, never mind then. But you should try it some time, just for the thrill of having seen a rolling-boil-jelly-test. Ooh, aah, wow. We get our excitement where we can. Whaddaya mean you've got better things to do?) Anyway, the jelly test: if I had paid attention to the jelly test instead of slavishly following the instruction of "boil hard for one minute exactly", I would not have had overboiled jelly which didn't set and had to be taken back out of the jars and re-boiled with additional pectin. Blinkin' waste of eight snap jar lids- grmblgrmblgrmbl. Ah well. I saved one of the jars of the runny stuff; it should be delicious on pancakes. So, advice for the day: go with the jelly test, forget the written instructions. (And that sounds downright profound. But I can't be bothered to follow up on it right now; I'll let you do that for yourself).

And then I was sitting in the living room, the lovely hardwood floor protected by a ratty old shower curtain, pitting cherries while I was watching the Olympic opening ceremonies on TV (cherry-pitting is a messy business; by the time I was finished I and my immediate surroundings were splattered with cherry juice in a manner that looked downright gruesome). I was feeling rather emotional that day, so I sat there weeping, while I denuded cherries of their pits (or is that "pits of their cherries"?), at the sight of the little deaf children signing "God Save the Queen" and Rowan Atkinson playing the repetitive bass note of "Chariots of Fire". It was a spectacle worth seeing (the ceremonies, not my weeping).

So there you have it - after this, I bet you're glad I hadn't posted anything in a while. That's the kind of thing my life has been about in the last few weeks.

Life, the Universe, and Jelly Tests. I'll try to come up with better excuses next time.