Eccentric – Page 39 – Deborah Makarios

September 8, 2017

Seven Literary Aunts of Orphans

Have you ever noticed how often literary orphans are equipped with aunts? These aunts generally fall into two of four categories: Good, Bad, Controlling and Crazy.
[Note: since most of these aunts have been known to the world for decades if not centuries, I make no apology for spoilers. You have been warned…]

Jane Austen starts us off with Mansfield Park (1814), containing a pair of aunts – sort of. Fanny Price has two maternal aunts, but her Aunt Bertram is laid back almost to the point of nonexistence (she operates more as a plot device than a practical person). This lack is more than made up for by the virulence of Fanny’s Aunt Norris, who most definitely falls under the heading of Controlling. And as even her virtues (thrift, for example) seem to be founded on poor motivations, I personally have no qualms in classifying her as a Bad Aunt.

Charlotte Brontë had no difficulty, in 1847, in outdoing Austen’s creation with her own aunt of Gothic awfulness: Jane Eyre‘s Aunt Reed. She treats her niece as a semi-servant, allows her spoilt children to maltreat their cousin, and eventually packs her off to a typhoid-ridden school she is lucky to survive. (“Eight years! you must be tenacious of life,” as Mr Rochester subsequently remarks.) And then, still blaming Jane for the animosity she feels, she deliberately lies to separate Jane from the only relative who cares for her. Clearly, a Bad Aunt, and Controlling too.

Three years later, Charles Dickens produced Miss Betsey Trotwood, a great-aunt whose exceeding eccentricity causes her to storm out of the house on discovering her niece has produced a male of the species. On the other hand, she takes her great-nephew David Copperfield in when he becomes an unwanted orphan (feeding him “aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing” to comfort his tears). She also gets him off to a good start in life. A Good Aunt, all things considered, but definitely heading toward the Crazy section.

1876 (the nineteenth century was well-provided with both aunts and orphans) saw an American aunt arise, from the pen of Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer‘s Aunt Polly. A stern woman, perhaps, but her heart is in the right place. One thinks of the incident of the cat and the patent medicine (see Chapter XII). Overall, a Good Aunt, albeit somewhat Controlling.

Jumping into the twentieth century, we meet two of the craziest aunts of all time in Joseph Kesselring‘s Arsenic and Old Lace (1939). Mortimer Brewster’s Aunt Martha and Aunt Abby are the sweetest, kindliest, gentlest homicidal maniacs imaginable. Leading lights in the Crazy category, but possibly still candidates for the Good section, depending on how you define goodness. On the one hand, very caring and hospitable. On the other hand, serial killers. I leave it to you to decide.

1961 brought us two of the nastiest aunts, from the imagination of Roald Dahl; viz James‘ Aunts Spiker and Sponge. They take Aunt Reed’s worst ideas and run with them, perpetrating what can only be classified as child abuse. Definitely Controlling, definitely Bad, and definitely high on the list of People Who Deserve to Be Fatally Flattened by Fruit.

Last on the list is Princess Lily’s Aunt Hortensia (ETA 2018) who illustrates the principle that meaning well is not always the same as doing well. She is undeniably Controlling (Young Ladies Do Not Argue is one of her favourite maxims) but on the other hand, she has her reasons. Over the years, I have come to feel rather sorry for Aunt Hortensia. I’m sure she’s a lovely lady deep down, but years of fear and denying herself for Duty have had their effect on her. I shall be bold, however, and claim for her a place among the Good Aunts.

Who are your favourite – or most-loathed – aunts of orphans? Share in the comments!

September 6, 2017

The Dreaded Lorgnette

“Don’t blame me, Pongo,” said Lord Ickenham, “if Lady Constance takes her lorgnette to you. God bless my soul, though, you can’t compare the lorgnettes of to-day with the ones I used to know as a boy. I remember walking one day in Grosvenor Square with my aunt Brenda and her pug dog Jabberwocky, and a policeman came up and said the latter ought to be wearing a muzzle.

“My aunt made no verbal reply. She merely whipped her lorgnette from its holster and looked at the man, who gave one choking gasp and fell back against the railings, without a mark on him but with an awful look of horror in his staring eyes, as if he had seen some dreadful sight. A doctor was sent for, and they managed to bring him round, but he was never the same again. He had to leave the Force, and eventually drifted into the grocery business. And that is how Sir Thomas Lipton got his start.”
from Uncle Fred in the Springtime by P. G. Wodehouse

September 1, 2017

Getting Control of Your UFOs

Spreadsheets have a reputation for being cold and factual. Less often are they seen as a form of inspiration and a repository of dreams.

Let me explain. Some time ago, I was going down for what felt like the third time under a morass of unfinished things and dreams deferred. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, as the writer of Proverbs sagely observes, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. (You know you have too many UFOs when even the creator and sustainer of the universe tells you to get your act together and start finishing things.)

But where was I going to start? There were too many of them, and some had to be done before others, and they all had different conditions attached, and….

Enter the spreadsheet. The first thing to do is to list all the projects you have underway, followed by all the projects still at planning stage (Column A). To my shock, my list came to nearly 20 items.

The next step is to assign them deadlines (Column B). These socks need to be finished by the intended recipient’s birthday; those curtains need to be lined before summer; this project needs to be completed before that one can be started, and so on. Some things don’t have a deadline; that’s fine. Just put down NA.

Then reorder them accordingly. Column B gives you your deadlines (where applicable) but it’s Columns C and D which really tell you what to work on next.

Column C tells you whether each project is portable or not. Can you take it out and about (to the theatre, on the bus, to a friend’s place), or is it a strictly stay-at-home kind of project? Obviously, if you only do one or the other sort of project, skip Column C.

Column D rates the concentration necessary for each project. A rating of 1 means you can do it while focussing on something else – TV, someone reading aloud, a conversation… Plain knitting, sewing hems or seams, and projects you’ve done a zillion times all fall into this category. A rating of 3 means that the project requires your full attention: complicated projects, cataloguing materials, or trying something you’ve never done before.

A column for notes can also be handy – take photos throughout for this one; break this one down into smaller tasks; check you have all the materials before starting. Do not attempt when tired. Here be dragons. Whatever.

The results? While I still have plenty of UFOs, there are fewer of them. Fourteen at last count, of which only six are actually UFOs – the others are still in the planning stages. When I add something new to the spreadsheet – for a gift, for example – it moves toward completion more quickly.
And then it disappears. You may wish to keep a record of your Finished Objects, so you know where all your time went, but don’t clutter up your UFO spreadsheet with them – you want to see at a glance what you still have on your plate, and what you have, so to speak, eaten. (Let us leave this metaphor before it becomes any more ooky.)

After so long spinning my wheels, I finally have traction, and I am enjoying it. Enjoying making progress, enjoying knowing the UFOs are under control, enjoying seeing my dreams come closer, and enjoying the productivity of my hands. Because good time management isn’t about being harried by a to-do list, it’s about enriching your life. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.”