So we have a franking machine in the office.

As a company that sends out mostly large parcels of complicated equipment, the machine is used for the fairly limited amount of paper correspondence that goes out. In the instances that it works, it’s kind of groovy, but in far MORE instances, it sits there and chuckles at us while we vainly try to find the right Street Fighter type button combo to keep it from performing maintenance on itself.

A small example:

Frank: PLEASE PRINT TEST FORM.

Me: Oh ffs. *prints test form*

Frank: INSPECTION DUE- REFILL REQUIRED.

Me: But…you just had plenty of ink to print the test form.

Frank: OH YEAH.

Me: But you can’t print the actual POSTAGE.

Frank: YOU GOT IT.

Me: No, seriously, I really need to send this thing. You obviously have plenty of ink.

Frank: TRY PRINTING ANOTHER TEST FORM.

Me: Erm….okay. *prints another successful test form*

Frank: INSPECTION DUE- REFILL REQUIRED.

Me: What the HELL, Frank?

Frank: I LIVE BY OFFERING FALSE HOPE. A HA HA HA! HA HA HA!

Me: You do realize that Royal Mail does on-line postage, right?

Frank: A HA HA HA EXSQUEEZE ME?

Frank’s days are sincerely numbered.

I admit that in my literary tastes, I am vaguely stuck in my ways. I should admit right now that I am just not a non-fiction gal, especially when it comes to autobiographies. It’s not that I’m uninterested in other people’s lives. As a matter of fact most of the autobiographies that have been pressed on me over the years have been very good. However, I always find it vaguely depressing to  find myself staring at rows upon rows of them in a bookshop, knowing that 90% were ghost written due to the fact that the subject was lacking in a) the talent to tell their story themselves or b) anything of value to say. What I’m saying is that a 20 year old pop star should not feel that they should be afforded the same respect involved in the “telling of their story” as say, Nelson Mandella.

Blogs are more to my autobiographical taste; small, honest accounts from day to day living. Blogs have somewhat spoiled me for other forms of memoir writing due to the ocean of writing talent out there in cyberspace. I read at least 6 blogs who’s authors are more qualified to be published that those of some of the bland, forgettable literature that’s graced my reading palette recently.

Before I left the States, my mother gifted me her copy of “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress” by Rhonda Janzen. I’d seen the write up of the book on the NPR website some time back, but was waiting for the paperback before purchasing. Having often described myself as a “Mennonite by Association”, (even since my slide into agnosticism) I was interested to hear what Janzen had to say about the religious sub-culture that played such a large role in my young adult life.

I have trouble writing coherent book reviews when I have mixed feelings about a piece of work; Partly, I suppose, of my longing not to be needlessly critical of something that, on some levels, I kind of enjoyed,  but at the same time feeling the need to express the wrongness that I felt pervaded the text.

I suppose my largest beef with Janzen’s memoir was that it didn’t really offer up any surprise insight into Mennonite or Anabaptist culture, making the title vaguely misleading. (Certainly, she is not the first to have grown up in a conservative religious culture who made her break from them into the world of “reason” and academia only to return with a personal life in ruins.) After a year in the life of Job during which she suffered complications as a result of a botched hysterectomy, a devastating car accident and the breakdown of her already extremely broken marriage when her un-medicated, unstable, bipolar, bisexual husband leaves her for a man he met on the internet, Janzen promises a heartwarming story of a return to her roots.

Only, this story never seemed to materialize. What followed seemed to be a teasing and often sarky indictment of her conservative roots as well as seemingly good natured (but not quite) portraits of her family.

Janzen’s writing style is compared over and over in reviews to the late Norah Ephron’s, which I didn’t find to be the case. Ephron, although a mistress of satire, was gentle to her subjects, showing a deep undercurrent of abiding affections. Janzen is often biting. To soften some of the often sharp humour with which she brings to light her family’s traditions and foibles, I think I would have like to have seen Janzen more fully acknowledge the debt of care that she owed to her parents and the Mennonite community in general during her healing process, as she spends a lot of the memoir coming across as an ungrateful and bemused observer to the whole situation. My experiences both during college and after with Mennonites left me profoundly grateful for their welcome and hospitality. It is to these experiences I turn again and again when confronted with yet another assault upon my faith in the goodness of other people. I was surprised that Janzen excluded much of this oft remarked upon Mennonite trait in her observations.

Upon moving to Minneapolis soon after college, my roommate, the Reverend Doctor and I quickly became acquainted with the local Mennonite congregation. (Of course, this was only after an obligatory visit by the local Lutherans 3 days after we moved in. It was like, “How did you guys know we were HERE?”) It was only a matter of 2 visits before we were asked by a friendly couple what our plans were for Thanksgiving. (Food poisoning, if we were honest about the chances of either the Reverend Doctor or myself at the time preparing anything that REALLY REALLY had to be heated to a certain temperature.) When we said we weren’t sure, there was no question that we had to spend it with their family. So, on Thanksgiving Day, two post-college young adults who both missed their families back home spent the day with hugely welcoming strangers. Although the name of the family escapes me now, it still serves as a tremendous object lesson into the nature of goodness.

In the same vein, I feel that I owe a great debt of care to the family of The Reverend Doctor, during my time at college for the many meals I consumed under their roof, the assistance that they offered in many matters of my own making and also, especially for a cat that was unceremoniously dumped on them due to the fact that the Reverend Doctor and I were slightly deluded about our chances of finding somewhere to live that we could house said creature. So, to them, my humble apologies and my grateful thanks. Sorry about all of the hair.

My own Mennonite experience differed wildly from Janzen’s. Her constant references to the dourness of the tradition were puzzling, as I never got that impression from either my PA Dutch Mennonite relatives or those that I met at Goshen College. The Mennonites I know are all about a good time. A bountifully laid table. Singing. Playing games with such vigor that bones get broken. Getting naked. (Well, that was probably just Mennonite college students. Or maybe just because it was the midwest and everyone’s gotta make their own fun.) Although I skipped enough of my weekly chapel requirements to necessitate taking an extra class at the end of my college career to make up for it, (during which I wrote a 20 page paper in defense of pornography. So, no chapel PLUS I got to look at porn for a month straight. WIN.) you’d better believe that my butt would always be firmly attached to a pew on days when there was a hymn sing, lead by the college’s rather eminent choir master. Attendance in chapel on those days was at an all time high, often with students standing in the back, sharing 3 to a hymnal. A tradition who’s youth take so much joy in 4 part harmony, acapella singing is anything but dour. One of my favorite musical memories is singing the much beloved Hymn 606 with fellow theatre folk on a hotel balcony in Green Bay, Wisconsin and receiving an appreciative round of applause from the bar and the lobby 7 floors below.

I acknowledge that the conservatism that Janzen harks back to at numerous points in her narrative might be more recognizable to those who grew up in a strong Mennonite tradition, which I did not. Although my mother attended a Brethren Church (another close Anabaptist relation to the Mennonites) I personally spent most of my youth in a large, mostly liberal urban Methodist congregation where I participated heavily in the youth group. Among the board games in the basement where we met there was a Ouija board, who’s presence was never remarked upon as being ironic in the slightest.

It often amazes me that I could once summon it in myself to be offended by the some of the conservatism of the college which I willingly attended. What was it that I expected, exactly? While Janzen had no desire to maintain ties with a faith tradition that she repeatedly bumped her head up against, I WANTED to maintain ties to this community that at one time nourished me in many ways. But I wanted it on MY TERMS. This, of course is the arrogance that can only be maintained by the idealism of youth. I remember attending a wedding at the rather conservative Mennonite church of one of the branches of the Reverend Doctor’s family during which the pastor inexplicably threw in an earnest condemnation of homosexuality. At the time, I remember that my youthful “justice” hackles were well and truly raised, but with more time and experience under my belt, I feel it MORE begs the question “Do you really need to condemn the practice of homosexuality so strongly during a wedding ceremony? Of, you know, two straight people?” (Perhaps just to get across the point that, “No matter how bad the marriage goes, guys, THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR GOING TEH GHEY, OKAY?”)

Janzen spends a little time in the dying chapters of the book giving the reader a rather confusing, bare bones account of the Mennonite’s experiences in Russia during the time of Catherine the Great. While this is all well and good, it might have behooved her readers if this chapter had been closer to the beginning and had been more of an “Anabaptists for Dummies” primer which would helped in the understanding of Mennonite origins. It would have suited her writing style perfectly, so left me wondering why she didn’t do it and rather spent more time on telling her readers what Mennonites are NOT rather than what they ARE.

I feel like there are a million more observations I could make regarding “Mennonite in a Little Black Dress” and my own experiences with Mennonite culture, but it seems to me that a book review should not have more to say than the book itself, so I shall have to content myself to conclude that it was spiky when it should have been sentimental, bitter when it should have been kind and repetitive when it should have been surprising. The warmth of the tradition that undertakes service in both their communities and the world at large not to prostheletise, but from a deep commitment to social justice and the exhortation of Christ that “whatsoever you do to the least of these my brethren, you do also unto me.” is worth more than the one liners that Janzen often confines it to

Yeah, you read that right. My last entry was on the 20th of November. I had fully intended to write a “Christmas Card Apology” post at some point, but this was just the kind of Christmas that didn’t allow for little indulgences like, oh, sitting on my ass for longer than 15 minutes, so I must apologize for the delay.

Things started to go slightly pear shaped in Potamus land round about Thanksgiving when my father had what he likes to call “the first of my ischaemic episodes”. (Translated into English, this is a small stroke.) Of course, my immediate reaction was to book the first flight out,  but was told in no uncertain terms by both parental units that this was vastly unnecessary and that they would prefer that I and my burgeoning bump remained just where we were, thank you very much. However, two weeks later, when  he had what he likes to call “the second of my ischaemic episodes” (which was expected, but nonetheless, traumatic) there was little hesitation on my part to book a flight for the earliest possible opportunity that would not cost a small fortune. Of course, I didn’t inform my parents of this decision, deciding that the old addage, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission” would have to do in this case.

Christmas itself was enlivened by a visit from my childhood friend Virginia, who spent Christmas week with us, having a gander around London and amusing the Prawn to no end. It was lovely having her here and even lovelier to have an extra pair of hands for large Christmas related tasks like the inevitable day-before-Christmas shopping trip which is ALWAYS nightmarish, but this year was made worse by pre-Christmas snowfall which trapped people in their homes for some time leading up to the holidays. The crowd in the local Waitrose, which is usually characterized by their relative civility in contrast to the average crowd at Tesco, was VAST and manners pretty much were NOT the motto of the day. One would think that being hugely pregnant would keep people from deliberate ramming you with shopping trollies, but one would be very much mistaken.

Christmas, although somewhat stressful for the rest of us, was utterly joyful for the Prawn, who spent the day being showered by wave after wave of presents. Since we didn’t want to add a whole lot to our “Stuff Footprint” due to the impending move Westward over the ocean, her gifts were numerous, but small and easily transportable. Remember the time in your life when you’d open a pack of SOCKS on Christmas morning and still be excited about it? (Me neither. But my point is, little kids don’t need big, expensive stuff to get excited about.) We managed to stretch out the gift giving until well after Christmas dinner was finished, which, for us, was a serious parent-forethought coup. (This from people who have, on occasion, gone out for a whole day, not realizing that we’ve forgotten diapers. Or juice. Or Mr. Moo.) The biggest Christmas hits were probably her stuffed Tigger (a fabulous sale find at the Disney Store who has now joined the ranked of anointed “friends” who take up 80% of her bed) and her new Brio trainset from PPD, Uncle Duff and Auntie Trumpet. (which she would probably also take to bed if we let her.)

I was lucky enough to have booked a flight to the US on New Year’s Eve that left Heathrow and arrived at Dulles within half an hour of Virginia’s, so after saying goodbye to her in the morning, we met up again 8 hours later on the other end of the planet in order for me to bum a ride back to the homestead. Air travel is weird, weird, weird.

Also, due to the douchecanoe in Detroit with exploding underwear, I was subjected to probably the most stringent security measures I have encountered in my years of flying so far, even post 9/11. Not only was the normal security line fairly painful, but once at the gate, every passenger was patted down and all carry-ons were completely unpacked and searched as well. (did I mention that I only traveled with one rather full carry on? And that while TSA agents are happy to unpack your luggage for you, packing it again is TOTALLY up to you?) Not only this, but once inside the gate area, we were unable to leave to use the toilet without having to go through the whole process all over again. (Imagine the joy of being 6.5 months pregnant and being told that you may not pee for 2 whole hours after having had a large, decaf skinny latte for breakfast.) The flight itself was entirely uneventful; a fact that made it EXTREMELY eventful as I’ve not experienced an uneventful flight for the last 2 and a half  years. There was no one to worry over for kicking the seat in front of her, getting crumbs everywhere and repeatedly asking for juice, so I cherished what is certainly to be the last flight before traveling becomes even MORE complicated with the arrival of someone who might scream for the entire 8 hours for no good reason.

I was, as you might imagine, reluctant to leave The Rock Star and the Prawn for a whole week but knew that I’d certainly be happier to see my Dad for myself and reassure myself that everything was indeed okay. My arrival was unexpected, which was slightly unnerving. Not because I thought my parents were going to be out carousing to ring in the New Year, but simply knowing that THEY didn’t know I was coming made me slightly nervous. I chose to withhold this information until I was about a quarter of a mile from the house when I phoned and asked my mother to put the kettle on. This of course made no sense to her at all, but she heard Virginia laughing in the background and immediately assumed that we were BOTH still in England and HOW IN GOD’S NAME DID SHE MANAGE TO MISS HER FLIGHT? I then had to gently explain that Virginia was NOT in England and that /I/ was in fact in America and basically at the front door, so how about a cup of tea?
So, it turned out the only thing I needed to ask forgiveness for was making my mother cry.

I had a tremendously relaxed week with my parents. I was indeed glad for the opportunity to see my father for myself. He’s doing well, all things considering. The most hated of all of his post “ischaemic episode” symptoms; a hideous case of the hiccups, had just abated when I arrived, (Yes, brain swelling can cause hiccups. A new one on me too.) so he was happily enjoying life post persistent diaphragmic spasms. Even his word recovery was much, much better than I would have expected  and will continue to improve, no doubt. In the meantime, he can competently talk “around” words that escape him until those new little connections start forming again.

As for myself, I rather enjoyed the novelty of sitting on my rapidly expanding posterior on a new and tremendously comfy couch IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY reading books and covered in cats. I also got to indulge in some shopping at Target, lunch with Virginia at the orgasmically nom-tacular California Tortilla Kitchen (words cannot describe how happy a giant burrito and yummy chips and salsa made me) and spending time in my parent’s lovely home. The weather during my visit couldn’t have been a whole lot colder, so remaining indoors at all times was high on the list of all of our priorities. I managed to speak twice a day with The Rock Star and the Prawn, who, of course put on her best puppy eyes and pleaded with me to come home and reiterated many times over that she’d “lost” me. Parental guilt overload.

All too soon, it was time for me to get BACK on a plane for the return journey. Strangely enough, during the week of my absence, I discovered that I had become slightly more uncomfortably pregnant, so dragging two suitcases around Dulles at 6.30am became  more of a chore than it was when I came over only 6 days earlier. (Well, the second suitcase was my own fault. The siren song of Target overcame me.) My only moment of levity during the morning was noticing that the TSA rep who gave me a pat-down in security was called “Agent Wang” and trying not to let him know that I was sophomoric enough to find his name patently hilarious. The actual flight was not quite as restful as the one before it; an hour of prolonged turbulence, worry over whether or not the plane would have a place to LAND due to snow in the UK and a mentally ill seatmate put paid to any restfulness that was to be had.

So I am once again home and have realized that now that the holidays and my traveling are past me, the next big thing on my personal schedule  is having a baby, which is harshing my calm a bit. The baby was always that thing that I’d deal with after the holidays; that thing I didn’t really need to think about just yet. However, it is now starting to dawn on me that there might be some things I need to take care of between now and mid to late March. Like finding that elusive black sack full of 0-3 month old clothes and washing them. And buying a new Moses basket. And PBA Free bottles. And trying to get the Prawn used to the idea of someone else coming to live with us forever and ever who might be kind of disruptive for a while before she gets cute and play-with-able.  I hope that she will accept the arrival with good grace, although, at the moment, virtually NOTHING she does, (being a two and a half years old) is with good grace, so I’m not holding my breath. Perhaps more calm will descend the closer to 3 she gets. Or perhaps not. At any rate, I’ll keep reading “Big Sister Dora” to her and see if it does any good.

This little missive has now rambled on sufficiently to classify as self-indulgent so I will simply end by saying that I hope I can get a few more entries in before the world as I know it goes completely haywire.