School Uniforms.

It's Wednesday. Let's be funny.

When I was fifteen years old, my family moved to the city of Antofagasta, in the North of Chile.  I had a new school, with a new uniform-  a white blouse, a navy-blue tie and a very short, very tight navy-blue tunic. The tunic was cut so tightly that we couldn't run up the stairs to our classroom - we had to take the steps one a time, in a ladylike fashion - and the only way to sit at our desks was with our backs straight and our legs elegantly crossed- but no matter how carefully we sat, the tight skirts rode up past our hips and the boys in the class ogled our thighs and underpants.
First thing I did was write to a friend in the US and ask her to send me two pairs of navy blue cycle pants - QUICK.            I had those cycle pants with me in Chile in less than two weeks, and every day after that I sat and slumped and leaned and lolled exactly however I wanted.

PE class, though, couldn't be hacked.  PE was a relic of the Edwardian age. The boys went outside and played basketball, volleyball, baseball and soccer. The girls stayed inside and ran relay races up and down the gym.  My arrival caused something of a stir - I was from NORTH AMERICA, where girls did more than this - the girls in my class thought that maybe I might make a wedge to push open a door, and taking me by the hand, they led me up to our gym teacher, and asked her if this North American girl might be able to show them how to play soccer - ?
            The gym teacher froze absolutely solid.  Her face turned white, and then it turned red, and for an entire minute, her mouth opened and shut and opened and shut - she couldn't speak a single word.  
When she finally could speak, her words were brief and final:
            "Nice girls do NOT play soccer! NICE girls do not HIT and KICK and PUNCH!"
We went back to running relay races.  In warm weather, for a change of pace, we'd stroll down to the town boardwalk and spend our PE hour sunning on the town beach in our bikinis, and the boys would leave their sports to follow us, and stand knee deep in the waves so that they could have a good view.

Mammograms

Several years ago, right here in Santiago de Chile, my mother had her very first mammogram. For those not familiar with the procedure, a mammogram consists of having your breast slammed forcibly between two panes of glass and photographs being taken of the resulting aesthetic abomination. It was my mother's first time, and she was under the impression that she was going in for something innocuous, something like a CAT scan or an ultrasound. Reality left her extremely surprised, highly unimpressed and extremely sore, and she told the doctor so when she saw him afterwards.
            The doctor listened and smirked.  Clearing his throat he explained exactly how mammograms worked. It wasn't quite a medical explanation. It began with the sins of Eve, and got steadily worse. 
            "And it's worth it." He finished up, looking smug. "You'll have to learn to live with the pain. When you're made a woman, you just have to accept that there are things you just have to put up with."
            Generally speaking, my mother is a deeply polite and retiring sort of medical patient, the type of patient who would rather suffer a massive asthma attack on the floor of the ER than interrupt a nurse's conversation and indicate that the nurse might need to turn some attention her way, but this doctor's breathtaking response to her concerns sent her right over her personal line.  Standing up from her chair, she leaned over his desk and spoke directly into his eyes. 
            "I'm going to make a device for men."  She said.   "Just like this one.  How would you like it if I took you in my hand and squeezed-"
            The interview finished quite abruptly. But she was furious for days.

The point of this incident is that in the intervening ten years or so, things haven't changed much. I may have mentioned, at various moments  in this blog, that I've been going through a few gastrointestinal issues.  One of more picturesque symptoms is bloating on an industrial scale, and one day, not so long ago, I was obliged to make an emergency appointment with my GP -
            "Tabubilgirl!" He cried, as I came through his office door. "Congratulations!  I had no idea!  How far along are you?  Four months? Five?"
            "I'm not pregnant, Doctor." I said. "This is one of the symptoms."
            My GP sent me to a gastroenterologist. 
            A "very nice man."  He told me.  "He'll sort this out - run some tests, find out what sorts of food sensitivities you have-"
            It didn't quite happen like that. The gastroenterologist admired my bloat and palpated my belly.  He watched me writhe in pain, made notes about 'unusual abdominal rigidity', listened through a stethoscope to all sorts of irregular noises- and then he steepled his hands, looked me earnestly in the eye and told me that it was quite common "for women- women in particular- to develop a psychosomatic conviction that they are overweight."
            I gaped. I stood up and turned to show him my profile.  I swiped my hand over my swollen stomach and demanded to know if he thought THAT looked psychosomatic. 
            It was his turn to gape. Weakly, he admitted that it didn't, and I sat down again and we got down to business.
            "You're right."  He said.  "You're absolutely right. It's about quality of life, isn't it?  If you go out for lunch and the other women look thinner than you, that is an issue that needs to be fixed. You should be able to hold your head up high. How you feel about yourself matters."
            I reminded him (with remarkable patience, I like to think) that the bloating was one symptom of a larger issue-
            "Absolutely."  He said again.  "When you can't hold your face up among other women when you're out, that's a real issue.  Don't you worry, we'll get to the bottom of this!"
            I think that he found my outrage amusing.  At least, he dimpled and patted my hand and did everything but  call me a fascinating, bewitching, mysterious little creature as he ushered me out the door. As I stomped my way down the hallway, he leaned out his office door for a parting shot. 
            "We'll sort all this out, Tabubilgirl!  The important thing is to think positive about yourself!"

A couple of weeks later, I had to see another doctor for an entirely different issue.  I was feeling a little gun-shy, and asked Mr Tabubil if he'd mind coming with me, just in case.  I'm glad that I did. This time it was Mr Tabubil who emerged pale and shaking.   
            "I know that things can be really tough for women here in Chile, but it's one thing to know it and a completely different thing to see it happening!  That man looked straight over your head and I swear he literally- literally- didn't hear you when you  talked.  Four times in that conversation I had to stand up and put my fists on the table and say 'What this  woman is trying to say to you is this!'  Four times! It was like you weren't even in the room!  But he listened to me!"
            "Sort of."
            "Okay, when he refused to do a proper physical exam, said that the hospital's physical therapy department downstairs were making things up to support your delusion, labeled you as a psychosomatic hysteric and told you that you were incapable of understanding your own body or health and tried to put you on antidepressants after 10 minutes of ignoring every word you said- well, we walked out on him, didn't we?"
            We sure did. Does that count as a win?
            On a positive note, I now have a wonderful female gastroenterologist, who has taken me for a human being and is making great strides in sorting out my insides.  I have also gained access to a circulating underground list of "doctors that women should avoid in this town."  I've made a few contributions of my own.
            I love living in Chile, but there are lines, and at this line I choose to STOP.  I could write pages - volumes -  about what it's like to be a woman in this country. A lot of them are funny, if you like a certain type of alternative black humor. The rest of them are hilarious - in that special way where laughter is the only alternative to weeping or punching walls until your fists are bloody.
            A lot has changed from when I first lived here in the mid-nineties.  Women now control their own assets after they marry, and they are no longer subject- on pain of law- to the rule of their husbands.  Divorce has been legalized, maternity leave is mandatory in public-sector jobs, hospital nurses have hung up their mini-dresses and their high heels, and policewomen no longer chase down bad guys in circle skirts and knee-high leather boots and handbags.  Men like to talk about how good things are for Chilean women these days; eyes have been opened and the world is changing, improving,right left, center and sideways.  Society's eyes might have opened, but when men begin to talk about how good their women have got it, women's eyes begin to drop, and women are silent. 
            Next Wednesday morning I will go to a courthouse and stand next to a friend while she stands across a table from a Chilean man who decided that her words and her understanding of her own body had absolutely no relevance at all, at a time when they should have counted for most. It's the last step in a very long and extremely drawn-out process.  For a very long time there was no-one at all who would listen to her.  What else could a man, faced with a beautiful woman, have been expected to do? When you're made a woman, you have to accept that you have to put up with certain things, and learn to live with pain. 

When I was in my teens, I lived in Antofagasta, a small city in Northern Chile. Life was good for the construction industry up there; an 8.0 earthquake had recently hit and most buildings in the town needed some sort of reconstruction.  Every afternoon after school I would walk down to a sports club for sports lessons.  Every afternoon I would dress twice: once in my sports clothes, and over my sports clothes, I would put on the baggiest clothes I could find in my house, covering my skinny, undeveloped, entirely unsexual body with t-shirts and tracksuit pants three sizes too large.  And then I would walk a gauntlet of construction men on construction sites - my head down, my eyes on the road, my fists clenched as they whistled and shouted and told me what they'd like to do to me - what they'd like their DOG to do to me - in explicit detail.  
            One day, walking with a friend, I turned to her and said desperately - "Why don't you stop them!  Why do you let them do this!  Why don’t people stop them?"
            I still remember her face - this little girl turned toward me, dull-eyed, said, very, very quietly, so quietly I could hardly hear her.  "What can I do?  I'm just a woman."
            We are taught which words matter and which words don't.  And whose. Today, words still happen in the street.  If you react, the men saying them press on harder with words that are worse, ramping up the pressure, grinding it in. If you don't react, you've let them win - you've let them tell you who are you are and what you are, and there is rarely any dignity in their definitions. 
            When your world is bound by words like these, it's hard to see why you should stop at talking.  Looking is part of the talking - and staring comes after that - and if they let you stare, where might the next step take you when you have been taught to not to see and not to hear?            
            Today's post isn't the littlest bit funny. But laugh, please. Think of those sad little doctors in their high offices, and those cruel men on their building sites and laugh loud and laugh hard.  Wednesday is going to be a very difficult day, and we will need the laughter.

Slapstick

Slapstick is a state of mind – like zen, you embrace it and follower wherever it runs.
            This morning I woke to the sound of howling.  I followed and found a two-year-old with no pants staring down the toilet bowl and screaming his two-year-old head off.  His mother was bent over him-

            “It’s gone!" She shouted, trying to be heard over the din. "It’s gone and there’s no point looking! It’s not coming back!” 

            I loitered in the doorway of the bathroom and cleared my throat. “Um," I said. "Shouldn't he be used to this part of the proceedings by now?

            Little Laurie turned toward the door.  His face was screwed up into an expression of truly piteous distress.  

 “It’s his dummy.”* Sarah said. She was rather red and rumpled herself. “He threw it down the toilet when I flushed, and then he got angry and pulled my hair elastic off my ponytail and sent that down too!”

          Laurie’s face crumpled even further, cabbage-like, and he turned his face up toward the ceiling and screamed. Sarah threw up her hands. 

             “Oh, don’t even try!" She yelled. "She can’t help you! It doesn't matter what she does! It’s not going to come back!”
             “No kidding.”  Miles wandered into the bathroom with a toothbrush in his hand. “We lose a lot more stuff down there than we did before he came along. You had your breakfast yet? There’s a cup of tea in the kitchen if you want it.”

            I did want it.

Right now that same toddler is melting down all over our living room because he doesn't want to put on his blue socks.  Poor little soul. 
            Sarah, Miles and Laurie fly home to Australia tonight. We are going to miss them enormously. Life contains a certain extra zest and dynamism when a two-year-old is around!**

*pacifier.

** except when you’re trying to leave the apartment. Then it goes like toffee in a deep-freezer. 

The Dynamics of Baa Baa Black Sheep

Life has been dynamic and exciting in all sorts of forceful and vigorous ways for the past couple of months. Our Australian friends Sarah and Miles have been with us for four weeks, and they have brought their two year old son along with them.  
            When we last saw little Laurie, he was all of two weeks old, and not up to much beyond squeaking occasionally, crying lots, and keeping his mother and father up at night.  All this still makes up a reasonable part of his repertoire, but he’s mostly a rambunctious font of cuddles and enthusiastically splashy bath-times.  And balloon-popping. We really like balloons in this house at the moment. The louder, the better.

            Miles just came out of Laurie’s bedroom, and said “Hey! If you’re having trouble sleeping at night, I have a tip for you. Start by rolling over and over, like a seal. Switch the head and feet end of your bed at least a dozen times, and while you're rolling, say the names of every single thing you did and saw and heard and smelled and touched over the last couple of days. Then pile all your blankets and stuffed animals underneath you, and sing Baa Baa Black Sheep fifty times in succession. Over and over and over and over and over-"

            "Is he still at it?"

            "Yep. Ninety minutes so far, and going strong." 

            "Is he ever going to fall asleep?"

            "Search me. He didn't even notice when i left.  He was too busy singing..."

Two Dreams

Last night I dreamed good things.

            I dreamed that I was given a helium balloon, and it was so buoyant that it pulled me off the ground.  I was in a university, and went bobbing through the hallways, creating mayhem among the teachers, who were dreadfully dismayed by a flying student who scattered papers and grading sheets as she went past! 

            I dreamed that I won the lottery.  Not a financial sort of lottery.  A man with a clipboard knocked on your door and told you that you had won a lifetime of happiness.  Throughout your life, you would always walk the path that would bring you the most joy.

Recipe: The Chocolate Rum and Raisin Mousse of All Good Dreams

Mr Tabubil tells me that my chocolate recipes are my dowry, and dreamily recounts the way I came to him with a notebook: a fat cardboard portfolio bursting with photocopies and handwritten recipes, all heavily smudged around the edges with egg, cream and chocolate – and rum.       
            I’m a boozy sort of cook. The recipes that Mr Tabubil counts among his favorites are a chocolate almond cake – with rum; a chocolate raisin mousse – with  lots of rum; and a boozy chocolate fondue sauce that kicks your teeth down the back of your throat and puts you to sleep at the table. If I could find a way to put rum into a cookie I'd try it, but philosophically speaking, an alcoholic cookie, doesn't feel quite right.  A cookie's a wholesome thing, and rum is hot and thick and dances on a tropical beach at midnight with its shirt off.  For cookies, dark chocolate alone (85% caffeine!) is as far as I dare go. Caffeine leave me dancing on a beach at midnight with my shirt off and bongo drums banging in both my ears, so I reckon that is sufficiently damned decadent.

             Chocolate, done properly, is a mouth full of silk and black velvet – with that lingering caffeine buzz.  Alcohol is a mouth full of fist and somebody else’s teeth.  Chocolate and alcohol, together, are a pairing that is divinely inspired, in which the alcohol ceases to be boozy, and becomes something intangible, a sensation that hovers, ghost-like, at the edge of your plate.  Try to pin it down and you won’t find it, but if you let go and return your attention to your plate and your fork, it will sneak sideways around the edges of your palate and lift the chocolate up into the realm of the sublime.

             Mr Tabubil has come over to the computer and snorted hugely and said that I wouldn’t know what to do with an elusive alcoholic essence if it came up to me on the street, wrapped its arms around my knees and begged me to take it home.  My recipes, he says, use alcohol in quantities that resemble a one-two punch, a knockout blow that leaves the eater flat on the floor with the carpet wrapped around his head.

             To which I replied that a dessert that isn’t intended as a showstopper is a waste of time and chocolate for both guest and baker, and referred him to the chocolate mousse I made for a party last Saturday night – a chocolate mousse that broke two diets, left four guests under the table (albeit smiling) and sent everyone home in taxis.

            Mr Tabubil snorted again and said it was a fault of my upbringing, and went away. 

            Mr Tabubil is not entirely wrong.  I was raised in a household both sozzly and decadent. Not to drink- my parents never drank, but they kept booze on hand for guests who did, and after the really good dinner parties there were always half-bottles by the score that needed using up - so we cooked with them. And my mother, an almost-teetotaler, tippled while she cooked, and dinners that started with beef bourguignon went down deep and twisting rabbit holes to places that were extremely interesting indeed.  

             Her magnum opus was the evening, two days after a really good party, when I came home to find that she'd used the leftover red wine in a cabbage stew, soaked the cucumber salad in chardonnay instead of vinegar (I don't recommend the substitution) and, halfway down the second half-bottle of the stuff, she'd had a brainwave and boiled the rice in champagne.
             It wasn't a meal that was precisely edible, but it got us through all of the leftover bottles, all right. The liqueurs and chocolates that we ate for dessert were almost conventional - except for the moment when someone giggled and cried 'whoops!' and sat down and missed her chair - with a carafe of hot coffee in her hand.  The next morning was all about caffeine - believe me- but the bongo drums came first.

             In her honor, and in the honor of the six sozzly guests of Saturday last, I present to you my mother’s own recipe for Chocolate Mousse.  You can work with the given amount of rum, or you can go the whole Tabubil and magnify it.  I leave the choice to you.  I will only note that dinner invitations to our house are a highly sought-after commodity, and a guest who doesn’t have a headache after the dessert course is a guest we haven’t yet satisfied. 

Chocolate Rum and Raisin Mousse

Begin Marinating raisins 2 days ahead of serving.

Make the mousse 1 day ahead of serving.  

You need at least twenty-four hours to soak the raisins (a full week is even better), and the completed dessert must rest in the fridge for another twenty-four before you serve it so that the flavors can blend and mellow.  Serve it early and you will be astonished by its insipid banality.  Wait a day and you will be hit with a bolt of pure chocolate goodness.

Ingredients:

225g semi-sweet chocolate (substitute for 112 g dark chocolate and 112 milk chocolate)

1/2 cup sour cream

3 eggs, separated

1/2 cup loosely chopped raisins (slice them open to allow entree to the alcohol)

3 tablespoons dark rum (start with 1 1/2 and add the rest as and when needed)

300ml thickened cream

2 tablespoons castor sugar

The day before you plan to make the mousse:  

 Put the rum and raisins together in a shallow bowl.  Cover and leave to soak.  Add more rum as and when necessary.  Use as much as you like!

The day of the cooking:   

Bring the sour cream and egg yolks to room temperature.  Melt the chocolate.  Add the melted chocolate to the sour cream and egg yolks and stir until smooth; add the raisins and all the unabsorbed alcohol.  Lightly whip the cream and fold it in. 

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, gradually beating in sugar.  Fold beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture. 

Spoon into serving glasses (keep portions small!) and refrigerate overnight.

Enjoy!

(Important note – you must always add melted chocolate TO the eggs and dairy – and not the reverse.  There’s a complicated chemical reason for this that I can’t precisely recall  – but I can tell you from extensive personal experience that if you do it wrong the chocolate tends to seize and solidify and ruin, and you have to start over!)

There Possibly IS No Business Like Show Business

On account of being sik, I spent my evening on the sofa, snuffling pitifully and watching old Hollywood musicals.  I started out with There's No Business Like Show Business because it has Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe AND Donald O'Conner in it, but the film didn't seem to do much with any of them.  There was a great deal of noise, but not much music.  There was a great deal of technicolor drapery and swirling, but not much dancing or choreography.  Lots of jokes, not much humor, and a great deal of Marilyn Monroe wearing not very much at ALL.   Her character sings in nightclubs, but her costume has chrome nipples on tips of its spangled pneumatic front and that's all I have to say about that.  Poor Donald O'Conner was forced to dance the highland fling to a New Orleans Blues version of Alexander's Ragtime Band - and Ethel Merman?  She had precisely two speeds - full throttle and off, and no-one seemed to be able to get near the off button.

            After ten minutes and six musical comedy numbers, Mr Tabubil looked up from his book and said "You know what?  This is just like porn.  A tottery, badly acted plot to give a thin string of connection to the noisy bits.   And the noisy bits? They're an aesthetic abomination.  And the apparent sincerity of the actors?  Yeah, they're faking it."

            So we put on Broadway Melody of 1940 with Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell instead, and Mr Tabubil forgot that he isn't supposed to approve of movies that aren't in color, and we watched happily until bedtime.