Monthly Archives: December 2024

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have always loved shopping for Christmas presents. Even with all my complaints about having to shop online, I still love accumulating that little pile of loot, ready to distribute to family and friends.

Except the longer I look at it and the more the pile grows, the more I begin to dread it. Not the gifts, just the next step: wrapping all those things. Because as much as I love shopping for the perfect gifts or making things I know they will love, I hate wrapping them!

I usually end up playing the “ignore” game. First, I pass by the small stack of things on the table. After a time, I move the growing heap to a spot on the floor. When Roy kicks the bigger things across the room, he usually inquires, “Time to wrap the presents, is it?”

The message is not subtle: he wants the gifts wrapped under the tree, but unfortunately, he is actually worse at wrapping them than I am. I once caught him leaving the house with a gift for his father, tied up in a ratty looking grocery bag.

“What is that?” I said, thinking that I already knew.

“It’s Dad’s gift; it was hard to wrap, and I didn’t find any of those gift bag things, so this will work,” was his answer.

“Couldn’t you at least have put on a name tag and a bow or something?” I wondered how to get it away from him to properly wrap.

“I couldn’t make a bow stick,” he said, holding it well out of my reach. “And it doesn’t need a name tag. He’ll know it’s from me.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I murmured as we left for the Christmas celebration.

As much as I don’t admire the way he wraps things, he is equally unflattering in his observations on my work. My wrapped gifts generally look like they have been viciously attacked by a drunken Christmas monster and they lost!

“Where are the scissors?” I exclaim, pulling out my hair as I search out the location of the scissors. “I swear, they walk away. Roy, can you go get me another pair of scissors?”

“Okay,” he says helpfully, “but that was the fourth and final pair out of the sewing stand. You’re going to have to make do with the kitchen shears.”

“That’s fine,” I agree eagerly, “if they can cut up a chicken, they should be able to cut this thin Christmas wrap.”

Roy brought me the shears and stood and watched me estimating where to cut and then shoving those oversized scissors into the very thin paper.

“Why are you cutting it?” he finally asked. “You could do as neatly as that if you chewed it.”

“I’m not going to chew the paper apart!” I was indignant. “How could you think that?”

“Because that’s what everyone else is going to think when they see the drunken edges on their gifts,” Having delivered his opinion, he left me in peace to ruin my gifts as I wished.

I lost the tape about 15 times, cut every piece of paper either too small, so I had to piece in extra to at least cover what was in it; or I cut it too large, and having no wish to try and chew off the excess paper, I simply wadded it up and tacked it down with extra tape—when I could find it.

In my family, my younger daughter Tracie is the one who got the neat wrapping gene. She is able to eye and cut (with reasonable scissors) a piece of paper that fits the gift exactly. She neatly folds the ends (also the right size) and uses the exact amount of tape needed to hold it in place. Watching her do this always makes me wonder if they somehow switched her with my actual daughter at the hospital and as she is untwisting, untaping and unwrapping the paper which goes three times around the gift, I know she wonders the same thing.

Well, another year is winding down and so I have taken the plunge and managed to wrap all the gifts and only one of them ended up in a garbage bag—but I put a bow on it. I’ll spend the next year rounding up all the scissors I lost and the tape dispensers that disappeared, and I will breathe a sigh of relief: for better or worse, “that’s a wrap.”

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Given the snow this week, I bet it’s no shock to anyone that I decided to write about shoveling snow! Anyone who tells you that they enjoy shoveling snow should be watched carefully and probably placed under medical treatment!

I have always loved that piece written about the woman from the South who was looking so forward to enjoying snow for the first time. With each entry, she graduates from childlike excitement to some frustration to realizing that the city snowplows hate her. She finally descends to cursing as yet another snow falls and at this point, I can relate to this woman.

Snow removal has always kind of been Roy’s thing. Especially when a few years ago I developed legitimate health issues. Before that, I did try to help, but usually, he got tired of my whining about my legs, my back, my cold face, etc., and would tell me to leave and he would figure it out.

I still do what I can. It’s easy to shovel steps and the back deck because I can just set the shovel on the snowy surface and push, until it falls off the edge. It makes for some funny snow trails, however, and I admit I don’t always clean those up as well as I could.

It’s a terrible shame, then, that I married a snow shoveling perfectionist. When he is done shoveling the driveway, it is pristine. You don’t find snow lines and every inch of the concrete drive is cleaned of snow. Even so, he will grab the big push broom each time he is out there and do some more sweeping, carving the edges so no snow dribbles back in the path.

You can imagine, then, his reaction when I am done casually pushing the majority of the snow off the steps or the deck. I am somewhat cranky about any criticism of my work, and he has learned over the years to be subtle in his comments. Still, I can feel the  desperation in his attitude when he looks out at the deck and sees all the snow trails. I am so proud that I have done the work, so he does not dare say anything negative.

“I took care of the back steps and the deck;” I announce proudly when he walks in the door. “No need for you to do anything there,” and as he heads for the back deck, “No, really, don’t you dare do anything more.”

“I assume that it must have snowed again after you were done?” he asks, continuing to inspect at a safe distance.

“No! Why would you think that?”

“Well, the middle of the deck isn’t too bad, but it must have snowed under the porch swing and the grill,” he is a little more cautious now.

“It’s all right. I consulted with the porch swing and the grill and they agreed that I could leave the snow under there because we weren’t planning any picnics in the next few months,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Okay, well, I appreciate your help. Those snow trails down the middle of the deck will melt in the sun and make great ice trails. I always think walking on the deck should be an adventure.”

“I double-dog dare you to go out there and straighten that out,” I threatened, “cause I still have a snow shovel and I know how to use it.”

“All evidence to the contrary,” he answered dryly as he walked away.

No more was said about the snow shoveling for the rest of the day. I watched him carefully, but he is pretty crafty. Late in the afternoon, when I looked out the kitchen window, the snow trails were gone.

“Nice shoveling clean-up,” I said rather bitterly.

“What, me? I would never go out and clean up after the fine shoveling job you did. I can’t imagine who could have done that. Darn neighbors. What’s for supper?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe you should check with the neighbors.”

Jackie Wells-Fauth

When I started school back in the Stone Age, we studied everything in inches, pounds, and miles and we received all of our temperatures in Fahrenheit. Except for the fact that I took forever to learn how to spell Fahrenheit (and I still don’t do so well), I was satisfied with that system.

Not so, the rest of the world. All of these countries, completely ignoring my pain, went ahead and put up kilometer signs instead of miles, measured weight in kilograms instead of pounds and worst of all, measured temperature in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. And the United States looked on at that, and thought, “What a great idea.”

During the presidency of Jimmy Carter, I think, I began to hear about going to the metric system. We were to join the rest of the world and learn the metric system. Except teaching me the metric system after I had already painstakingly learned another measuring system, was about like trying to teach me French, when my mind was welded to English! It was just too hard for me.

Eventually, I think the powers that be looked at us all, drowning in kilograms and meters and centimeters, and decided the struggle was too difficult. Plus, we would have had to change all those roads signs and make all new rulers and that was just too difficult. Once the school stopped haranguing me to come up with the distance between my house and the school in kilometers (I said that I could not answer that question because I didn’t know French—that got me a zero) I pretty much let go of that system.

Then, I went to Canada and then Europe and guess what? In addition to the fact that they don’t measure in miles or tell temperature in Fahrenheit, they have different money as well! So, while I was estimating how much time (measured the same, thank goodness) it would take to get anywhere in kilometers, and just how warmly I should dress in Celsius, I was also trying to figure out money, the value of which was (forgive the term)  “foreign” to me!

“Where is the train station from here?” I could ask in English, because the Germans have done a much better job learning English than I have German. That’s where the similarity might end.

“It’s just about two kilometers right down that way,” comes the very polite answer from a fine German gentleman.

“And how much is that in miles?” is my next question.

After a rather funny look, he answered, “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that.” Imagine, he knew English, but not miles!

I finally got to the train station and the first thing I needed desperately was a bathroom. “Oh, they have them on the trains,” offered a friendly woman, “although they are a little small, not more than a few centimeters.”

I had no idea what that would look like, so I went in search of a public bathroom in the station, hoping it would be big enough. I found the bathroom, guarded by the attendant who is put there to collect the fee charged in most bathrooms.

“I don’t know how much I have,” I said, holding out a bunch of coins like a blind person. “Just take what you need and let me through!”

Changes in measure have followed us back to the United States. While I can still get a thermometer measuring in Fahrenheit, it almost always offers in Celsius as well. So, sure enough, the first thing I did was somehow change it to Celsius. And, given my skills with technological devices, I have not been able to change it back.

 Now, when I need to take my temperature, I must drag my fevered body to my computer, with the thermometer in my mouth and type in: Google, how much is 37.5 Celsius in Fahrenheit?  Someday, I know Google is going to answer, “Perhaps you should learn Celsius or just die!”

When I go to the medical offices, they weigh you with the metric system and I actually kind of like that. If I look at the scale and it’s in kilograms, I have no real idea what I really weigh. In pounds, I’d have to take it seriously and do something about it. I think it might be even better if we measured it in the British fashion. How much do you weigh if you are “12 stone” anyway?

I realize that I have devoted this column to my ignorance of the metric system, but honestly, I don’t think I’m unique in this. Ever since Mr. Carter got the idea to teach us all the metric system, I have been struggling, but I’m fairly certain I’m not alone in that struggle.

So, somebody help me out: I think I have a fever and I just took my temperature. How much is 38.1 Celsius in Fahrenheit?

Little Sure Shot Sure Shocked ‘em

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have read, for many years and with great interest, the expression, “the weaker sex,” when talking about women. As a member of the weaker sex, I frequently laugh myself sick while I drag around heavy, wet baskets of laundry or giant mounds of garbage or wheelbarrows full of dirt. Being the weaker sex means I shouldn’t have to do that kind of thing, right?

Oh wait, I forgot, all those types of jobs are also considered “women’s work.” There is another phrase that really eludes me. What exactly is women’s work and how did women, who go through the rigors of childbirth and hold entire households together, become known as the weaker sex? Hold the door for me? How about you lug heavy rugs to the deck to be cleaned or juggle three children, the evening meal after working outside the home all day and a couple of hours of homework wrangling.  Then, I will be glad to open the door myself, thank you!

I was having all of these bitter, gender-war thoughts when I came across a picture of Annie Oakley this week. Maybe you remember Annie Oakley, the young woman who was an expert shot with a gun and who traveled for many years with Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show. “Little Sure Shot,” they called her and I’m convinced that half of her appeal was that she was a woman—and since the weaker sex are not expected to be good at shooting, her ability to drill a dime in mid-air with a bullet made her an aberration worth watching.

Of course, women participating in the Wild West Show would be expected to ride out with the rest of the performers on a horse. The rest of the group, men in cowboy attire, would be astride their horses, one foot in each stirrup on either side of the horse. Not so for the “weaker sex.” Annie Oakley, as befitted the delicate gender, rode on a contraption called a “side-saddle”. Historians can explain all the many reasons for assigning women to ride the side-saddle, but if you’ve ever seen one or ridden on one, you know that there is nothing “weaker” about anyone who can hang on, draped as they would be in long skirts and clinging to one side of the horse!

I got to try out one of these things (not on a horse, of course) which was set up in a museum and the signs invited you to try and mount and sit on the saddle. It also mentioned that you should attempt to imagine sitting on that saddle on a moving horse. I was wearing jeans and I was a few years younger than I am now, and I could not mount and stay upright even with that saddle immobile on a sawhorse. I can’t imagine trying to sit on the side-saddle strapped to a horse.

That brings me to the picture of Little Sure Shot. Annie Oakley wasn’t just riding a horse with long, draping skirts and a side-saddle, the picture captured her as she reared the horse up on two legs. Now, maybe, after the photo was taken, she slid off the saddle and ended in the mud, but that picture made me so proud of her—proving that even with all of a woman’s restrictions, she could live in a man’s world. I didn’t see any of the men in the Wild West Show doing that!

In the same group of pictures was a photo of Belle Starr, also seated on a horse, riding side-saddle. That one just made me laugh. Belle Starr, if you remember, was known in the Old West as “the Bandit Queen.” She was an outlaw with the best of them. In the picture, she is both wearing guns and carrying them, but still, there she was, on a side saddle. I can understand; if she had ridden astride, people might have thought she wasn’t a lady!

Annie Oakley apparently lamented the fact that she was considered a “trick shot” because, as a woman, she wasn’t expected to be a good marksman. I see her point and I see that she was far ahead of her time in her outlook and abilities. So thank you, for setting the pace for all the girls coming after you and proving that the “weaker sex” isn’t so weak, after all!