Fresh Words Daily

There are many terms which have become cliche in recent times but the one that irritates me at the moment is ‘moving on’.  Politicians who are not renown for their originality use it a lot – we have suffered from the floods, fire, locusts, frogs and now we have to move on.  In the devastating floods in Queensland over and over I would hear those words ‘we have to  move on’.  But I want to know is where to?

A friend grieving for her lost son who has now been gone for 4 years was told she should ‘move on’.  I have never had the misfortune to lose my son so I cannot quantify the grief that it brings but I would think the last thing that you can imagine is moving somewhere. What is wrong with staying right where we are?  I realise that the term has come about because we are supposed to be able to pick ourselves up out of adversity and continue living our lives and to say that is not a ‘sound bite’.  But my plea is that we don’t start expecting people to move when they are surveying a wreckage of their life brought on by whatever mischievous gods there are in the universe.

It seems to me that when I am about to entertain or leave the country equipment in my home either ceases to operate or malfunctions usually in the form of puddling water.

A few years ago when we were about to leave for two months overseas travel the day before we left, a Sunday, the washing machine which had been functioning perfectly did not go.  It would have been perfectly alright to leave the machine and deal with it on our return except – we were have a houseminder to stay in the house while we were away and I was pretty sure she would want to use the laundry.  I was in Farmers store in the time it takes to say ‘rinse’ .  The salesman keen to expound the beauties of the various machines was cut in full throat when I said “I will have that one” pointing and can you deliver it before 11 a.m. tomorrow.  He gulped back his spiel and then set about making the arrangements.  It would be the swiftest sale he had ever made.

Now come forward to a night when we were about to have 6 people to dinner.  I came downstairs to find the whole of the hall flooded – the hot water cylinder had decided to show it needed more petting.  A plumber arrived and we had the carpets up and large gas dryers burning away before the guests arrived.  At least the floor was dry.

Today a Thursday we are arranging to have 14 people to dinner on Saturday night.  Drinks and nibbles will be served outside under cover with steps down into the garden and then the idea is that we will all go back upstairs for dinner.  The garden is weeded the paths are swept, but seeping out from under the cupboard at the end of the patio where we plan to have drinks is an ominous puddle.  I opened the cupboard on a stack of old canvas chairs and a pile of leaves and a very sodden looking trap which comes from the kitchen.

A plumber is called and it is fixed $184.00 later.  Now the irony of this is that for a few weeks now we have eschewed the dishwasher.  There are only two of us here most of the time lets just do the dishes by hand – so says my significant other it will save on our water rates .  Part of the problem with the kitchen trap has been that it hasn’t been getting enough rush of water through – which is what happened with the dishwasher action.

This afternoon I loaded the lunch dishes into the dishwasher – we haven’t saved any money and I’m sick of drying dishes.

The i-pad has arrived and there is some excitement although I don’t think it has reached the pitch that the manufacturers had hoped.  The name is a disaster and for many women it has an entirely different conotation, but I won’t explore that here.  The Kindle has a better name – to kindle is to ignite or arouse or inspire and reading should do that.  These gizmos are all the thing at the moment.  You can download hundreds of books and cart the little screen with you to read constantly as you circle the globe.  It does have a place perhaps.  What amuses me the most though is when I see keen owners showing how with just a touch of a finger it will turn a page.  Now I have known all my life of reading that with just a touch of a finger I can turn a page.  The other advantage of course is that it saves paper and fewer trees will be chopped down to serve our thirst for literature.  That has to be a good thing.  But something it cannot do which I always like as a surprise factor is that there can never be any ‘marginalia’ or as we call it ‘the phantom scribbler’.  In a recent New Yorker magazine there was an article about an exhibition at the wonderful New York Public Library where there were examples of famous people’s marginalia.  In a book I had about bombing in England during World War 2 a phantom scribbler had disagreed in several places with the times of the bombing and with the places the author had mentioned.  Or in one book written across the bottom of the page was “This is rubbish!”  I  notice that usually there is a proliferation of exclamation marks with these comments. I have a mental picture of these people always reading with a pen in hand – where is the fun for them with an i-pad. Where is the fun for me thinking about what it is that pressures people to scribble comments in books. Perhaps it is just that we all believe we are writers. We believe that we can all do better than the last person who wrote something.  And that we have a book in our head right now and just haven’t had the time to get it down.  But boy if we did wouldn’t it be a best seller?  So Kindle and i-pad can never take the place of a book for me when I have the chance of coming across the works of stunted writers scribbled over my latest library book.