[Magdalen] Mike & Everett face a demon.

[Jo Craddock]

I knew nothing of housekeeping from my parents' house. "Your job is to 
go to school and earn good grades," I was told. (Once, when very young, 
I pulled that line on a dear neighbor when asked to help clean up after 
playing with her daughter...she was good enough to sternly advise that 
wouldn't fly in her house!)

I think my mother hoped that if I knew nothing about housekeeping, I'd 
have to either have a profession capable of supporting a housekeeper, or 
have a partner who could...Instead, I was a bride of three or four days 
(married during college, over Xmas vacation) crying in the Safeway 
because, in case you didn't notice it yourself, in 1981 there were NO 
instructions on canned green beans.

We'd been married about five years when I had a broken leg, cast from 
waist to toe, and hired a housekeeping team to catch up, as Rodger was 
out of town, then, three weeks out of four. I had no clue one should 
wash kitchen cabinet doors and front pieces. It was amazing what a 
difference that made! Now, if I need a quick kitchen pick-me-up, I wash 
down the fronts of the cabinets.

I can cook relatively well, with directions, but it is not intuitive to 
me. I cannot tell you what's needed, what's missing, what would improve 
it. Rodger is a much better cook than I, but doesn't follow directions 
(almost as a philosophy) so rarely bakes.

Oddly, most of my first after-school jobs were food-related, and I 
learned more about food, laundry, and cleaning, there. But, I learned to 
balance a checkbook, handle a savings account, change a tire, engine 
oil, and jump start a battery, at home.

Peace,
Jo


On 01/10/2016 5:52 PM, Jay Weigel wrote:
> I, OTOH, was fairly well trained, some of it intentionally and some because
> of circumstances. I did my own ironing by the time I was in high school;
> also a good share of my brothers' until I rebelled and told my mother they
> should learn since they were going to be bachelors anyway because who would
> want to marry them. I could do laundry and did when
> I wanted something and it was dirty. I learned to plan meals and cook for
> the family when my mom was sick when I was 14. I didn't learn to budget.
> And manage a checking account though.
> On Sunday, January 10, 2016, James Oppenheimer-Crawford <
> oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This brings back a memory of Mom. They lived in a town just north of
>> Pittsburgh, and Mom went to college at Penn, which is in Philadelphia.
>> This meant she was a very long distance from home.  Her solution for the
>> laundry problem was to put her dirty laundry in a trunk and send them home
>> to her mother. Postage was low, and she got the fresh landry back very
>> shortly.
>>
>> I did all my laundry at school. I well recall getting my white shirts back
>> (we were a coat and tie dress code institution) with little holes (and
>> sometimes big holes) where some acid had splattered on the shirt during
>> chem lab.
>>
>>
>>
>> James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
>> *“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
>> except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 4:18 PM, Lynn Ronkainen <houstonklr at gmail.com
>> <javascript:;>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> IT is interesting what we don't/didn't know or get taught "the basics",
>>> and sometimes the reason why.
>>>
>>> Either by admission or by my own deduction, I discovered some unique
>>> reasons why I never washed clothes, or knew how to do so until I landed
>> at
>>> college (my mom had to do her family of origin's laundry growing up and
>> she
>>> wanted to 'spare' her kids). I was the laughing stock of the dorm when I
>>> needed to ask what to do. In retrospect, there were a few neglectful
>> things
>>> that happened to me growing up and I think not even telling me how to do
>> my
>>> laundry when I headed to college may have fallen in that category <gdr>
>>> As adult who has discerned a number of quirks about myself as having
>> their
>>> genesis in my growing up years, I am sometimes amazed at what I failed to
>>> do for my kids because it never occurred to me, or was not done to/for
>> me,
>>> all the while my kids experienced their peers having a different
>> experience
>>> then their own in many areas, and as is sometimes just human nature,
>> never
>>> talked about it until their 'scarred for life' years, post 30.
>>>
>>> Lynn
>>>
>>> website: www.ichthysdesigns.com
>>>
>>> When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I have
>> not
>>> a single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything You gave
>> me."
>>> attributed to Erma Bombeck
>>> "Either Freedom for all or stop talking about Freedom at all" from a talk
>>> by Richard Rohr
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------
>>> From: "Roger Stokes" <roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com <javascript:;>>
>>> Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 12:20 PM
>>> To: <magdalen at herberthouse.org <javascript:;>>
>>> Subject: Re: [Magdalen] Mike & Everett face a demon.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/01/2016 16:32, Jay Weigel wrote:
>>>>> Mine did dishes on a rotating basis until we moved to a house with a
>>>>> dishwasher. Then I didn't mind it so much. I did make sure, by the time
>>>>> they were in middle school (11-12-13), that they learned how to cook
>> the
>>>>> basics (burgers, eggs, pasta, etc.) without setting the kitchen on
>> fire.
>>>> I think we owe it to our kids to ensure they have basic survival skills
>>>> before they leave home.  By that I do not mean how to survive in the
>> wild
>>>> but cooking such as you describe, how to use the washing machine without
>>>> ruining clothes, how to sow on buttons, etc.
>>>>
>>>> Sam became a fairly good basic cook and Betsy a fairly creative one.
>> Adam
>>>>> didn't do much with his knowledge until he married a woman who couldn't
>>>>> cook, and then he became, out of necessity, a pretty decent one. In the
>>>>> Guard, he and his buddies operated what they referred to as Cafe
>> Wrench.
>>>>> The food was so good guys from other units came by to eat; they charged
>>>>> them by the plate.
>>>>>
>>>> I assume that they knew how to charge, including something for knowledge
>>>> and skill as well as the cost of the ingredients.  That is another
>>>> important aspect of survival skills - not being made use of by others.
>>>>
>>>> Prayers for you tomorrow.
>>>>
>>>> Roger
>>>>
>>>