Picking Up The Towel
The development of idioms is a fascinating subject to me. Sometimes sayings develop in an era where there is a product, process, or person where everyone knows the specific reference. Such as when people rode horses, telling someone to "Hold your horses" meant literally to keep your horse unmounted and unrode until others could resolve matters at hand. Now, the specific saying has taking on a general meaning "chill-out" and horses themselves, are no longer part of the equation.
One time I told a black kid at the Reform School I was working at to "Keep your cotton-picking hands off of that." He looked at me askance and was offended and he should have been. I had never thought about the cultural and historical context of that saying until then. Since then, I have tried to not use it as it is a reference to slavery-era lingo. Don't even get me started about these Bubbas who drive around their pick-up trucks with Confederate Flag license plates. Take your fine truck down to North Philly and try to articulate how it is not "racist." Out of the confines of Red Neck Hollow, you are not going to get much affirmation.
Kind of like Germans driving around the Fatherland with a swastika. You tell me it is a part of your cultural heritage...that is true. But you should hardly be proud about it. Once, I wrote a Letter to the Editor about the complete rudeness of affixing affectionate symbols of the Confederacy to one's automobile after I was at the local Turkey Hill and two of these good old boys came in to the parking lot with their pride and joy monster trucks. Since the letter printed my name and town, I got commended by some Far Left organization who thought I was one of them, assuming that if I despised signs of racism, that I must automatically be for everything else they promulgated. Little did they know. OK, need to give off this "Hobby Horse."
Last night, we had a mess of dishes, pots and pans, and utensils, after having a couple over for dinner. Frankly, the kitchen looked like Katrina (as in after the hurricane). Thai food, I am finding, is not complicated to make, but it does require a lot of attention. So it is hard to both cook and clean at the same time. Too much cleaning and the cooking will be ruined and lay waste to the culinary endeavor. Lina, was working through the Lemongrass soup process while I was making the Beef Panang. The dishes turned out great but the mess was monstrous.
Lina is a much better cleaner than I. I kind of clean on the curve, giving an A for cleanness when it is more like a B minus. So, she does the soaping and scrubbing and rinsing when we cook (I am doing most of the cooking these days as I am comfortably easing into the House Husband role...I am a kept man and am really quite enjoying it while I finish my Ph.D.). But, I am also the towel guy...drying off the pots and pans and otherwise and then putting them away. I was not always an advocate of the drying dish towel thing...in my extensive years as a bachelor, I used the dish drainer. Lina showed me how the dish drainer actually caused more work. Rather than drying something and then putting it away, I had to put a wet item in the dish drainer and then wait for it to dry, and then put it away. There were extra steps that my efficiency-minded wife abhorred.
Plus, the dish drainer detritus was always something nasty to behold. The whole dish towel drying experience reminds me to just pick-up the towel and get to work. Often, our good intentions to help others are placed into the "theoretical dish drainer" where we contemplate and ponder what we should do, how we should do it, and when. If we just picked up the towel, rather than throwing it in (a term from boxing when one of the boxer's corner says "enough"), we would all have a better society.
One time I told a black kid at the Reform School I was working at to "Keep your cotton-picking hands off of that." He looked at me askance and was offended and he should have been. I had never thought about the cultural and historical context of that saying until then. Since then, I have tried to not use it as it is a reference to slavery-era lingo. Don't even get me started about these Bubbas who drive around their pick-up trucks with Confederate Flag license plates. Take your fine truck down to North Philly and try to articulate how it is not "racist." Out of the confines of Red Neck Hollow, you are not going to get much affirmation.
Kind of like Germans driving around the Fatherland with a swastika. You tell me it is a part of your cultural heritage...that is true. But you should hardly be proud about it. Once, I wrote a Letter to the Editor about the complete rudeness of affixing affectionate symbols of the Confederacy to one's automobile after I was at the local Turkey Hill and two of these good old boys came in to the parking lot with their pride and joy monster trucks. Since the letter printed my name and town, I got commended by some Far Left organization who thought I was one of them, assuming that if I despised signs of racism, that I must automatically be for everything else they promulgated. Little did they know. OK, need to give off this "Hobby Horse."
Last night, we had a mess of dishes, pots and pans, and utensils, after having a couple over for dinner. Frankly, the kitchen looked like Katrina (as in after the hurricane). Thai food, I am finding, is not complicated to make, but it does require a lot of attention. So it is hard to both cook and clean at the same time. Too much cleaning and the cooking will be ruined and lay waste to the culinary endeavor. Lina, was working through the Lemongrass soup process while I was making the Beef Panang. The dishes turned out great but the mess was monstrous.
Lina is a much better cleaner than I. I kind of clean on the curve, giving an A for cleanness when it is more like a B minus. So, she does the soaping and scrubbing and rinsing when we cook (I am doing most of the cooking these days as I am comfortably easing into the House Husband role...I am a kept man and am really quite enjoying it while I finish my Ph.D.). But, I am also the towel guy...drying off the pots and pans and otherwise and then putting them away. I was not always an advocate of the drying dish towel thing...in my extensive years as a bachelor, I used the dish drainer. Lina showed me how the dish drainer actually caused more work. Rather than drying something and then putting it away, I had to put a wet item in the dish drainer and then wait for it to dry, and then put it away. There were extra steps that my efficiency-minded wife abhorred.
Plus, the dish drainer detritus was always something nasty to behold. The whole dish towel drying experience reminds me to just pick-up the towel and get to work. Often, our good intentions to help others are placed into the "theoretical dish drainer" where we contemplate and ponder what we should do, how we should do it, and when. If we just picked up the towel, rather than throwing it in (a term from boxing when one of the boxer's corner says "enough"), we would all have a better society.
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