STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Special Treat ??“ From Me

Feb 12, 2006

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Fun With Food

Carol Roach, M.Ed, B.A

Yesterday I wrote about a teabag. I wrote about the aroma, the flavour, texture, and how the simple teabag brought such wonderful feelings of strength into my life.?  I mentioned how Eleanor Roosevelt felt that women are like teabags, you only get to know how strong they are when they are immersed in hot water. She used the concept of boiling water and tea as a metaphor for life.?  We use boiling water all the time in this fashion.?  How many times have you heard ???getting into hot water??? to mean somebody is facing a difficult situation of some sort.

An expression as a child, that I found confusing or amusing as the case may be, was ???fishing for compliments,??? again fish was something we ate, how could you fish for a compliment? Was there an invisible net that you gathered all these compliments into?

What about the expression lazy as or dirty as a pig.?  We eat pork all the time.?  And of course, lest we forget, there was always the chubby person known as porky, or the very hateful words, ???fat as a pig.????  I was wounded by those words so much as a child.

When I was young, I used to find the word poaching extremely confusing.?  I understood poachers were people who hunted for animals in the off season, or just plain illegally hunted, but poaching? ???You poached an egg,??? I thought. ???How do you poach an animal????

Now that I brought it up, let??™s talk about poultry.?  A not very bright person has oftentimes been known as a ???turkey,??? while a fearful person has been called a ???chicken.????  I love to eat these foods but I certainly wouldn??™t want to be one of them.? 

After thinking about poultry another expression that comes to mind for me, is ???walking on eggshells.????  I know first hand what it feels like to be afraid to ???rattle somebody??™s feathers???; hmm, I wonder what animal that could have been??  I know what it is like to be so afraid to say or do the wrong thing that I didn??™t want to break the harmony, or break the egg shell relationship.

? Eggs, wonderful fluffy eggs, what pancake could be complete without them.?  We love to eat pancakes but do we love to wear them??  Remember that wonderful hairdo that cost you so much money.?  Your hair was fluffed up just right until you went to bed.?  The next morning it was as ???flat as a pancake.???

But life has those disappointing moments.?  It never really is as ???easy as pie.??? If you think it is then you must be as ???crazy as a fruitcake,??? my beloved grandmother used to say. She had no problem picking out people who were totally ???crackers.??? She actually told some to their face that they were just plain ???bananas??? especially the men who were nuts about her.?  My grandmother lived in an era were sexism ran rampant.?  She had no time for ???flaky??? women and men who were ???dough heads.????  These ???beefcakes??? were charming but did not have much between the ears. Ah, but the ones that were ???ripe for the picking??? were the ones she wanted her girls to marry.

It was hard to bring her plans to ???fruit??“ion.??? Most of the men that she saw hanging around the house wanting to court her girls were not what you would call the ???salt of the earth.????  She wanted them to be ???sweet as candy,??? but many sported a ???sour puss??? and bad table manners.?  Her girls were as ???pretty as a peach,??? why should they settle for less?

We girls rebelled. We wanted to pick our own future husbands.?  We spewed forth all the ???raw emotions,??? contained within us.?  Time would stand still for no one.?  We didn??™t want to become old maids.?  Even though women ???aged like fine wine,??? the men we had seen grow older ended up bald with big ???Jelly bellies.??? We were young and foolish, but our brains had not ???fried.??? We chose our own husbands and soon there ???was a bun in the oven??? and then cute and cuddly ???butterballs???, were ???de-liver-d??? one by one. It was hard to keep as ???cool as a cucumber??? when they kept us up, crying half the night.? 

Alas, my little butterball grew up.?  He is tall and slim ???like a string bean??? and he is hungry.?  He is in the kitchen right now, rattling pots and pans.?  He just informed me that he ???feels like a hamburger.??? Does anyone know what a hamburger feels like?

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Carol Roach

winterose@videotron.ca

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A Native of Montreal, Quebec, Carol is a graduate of Concordia, and McGill University.?  She holds a bachelor in psychology and a Masters in counselling psychology.?  Carol Roach is a published writer and newsletter editor.?  You can purchase her book: Picking up the Pieces: A Woman's Journey at www.publishamerica.com, or www.amazon.com.?  You can also go to your local bookstore and order it there as well.?  Carol??™s second book: Angels Watching Over is currently looking for a home. Stay tuned for details.? 

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If you are interested in other stories feel free to join her newsletter: Storytime Tapestry at: http://subs.zinester.com/98907 , or email her directly at winterose@videotron.ca and she will be glad to accommodate you.?  Carol enjoys email and responds to every inquiry.

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