I have been writing this blog since February of 2009. How crazy is that?
So much has changed since then. But the desire to write down my thoughts has not. Even though my written entries are infrequent my thoughts about “entrieability” take up way too much space in my gray matter. Like making up words such as “entrieability.”
My youngest daughter recently asked me about my father. She had questions for him and wished he was still around to ask. Now, the things she was asking were a mixed bag. History, loyalties, feelings, etc.
I answered what I could.
But I, myself, still have questions. Like where certain family words or phrases originated.
Yesterday, my husband said the word, “woo-woo.” I asked him if he knew why we (generations of my family) called the baby’s pacifier a woo-woo. He didn’t remember.
Well, family lore has that my maternal grandfather’s aunt Lizzie Laverty asked, while looking for the crying baby’s pacifier, “Ah, where’s the wee baba’s woo-woo?”
I understood this small piece of familial history to mean she just threw out a made-up word and it stuck. It’s what everyone in my family calls a pacifier. At least I know where this word originated.
When I sat at the dining room table my father would say, “Eat up. You’re at your Auntie’s.” He was the food pusher-not my Mom. But I never questioned the phrase while he was alive. I just ate and didn’t think about it.
Since he died, I’ve asked his cousins, sisters, etc. where it could have originated. I was on a quest. Who was Auntie?? No answers. My brothers seemed to think it was made up in my head. They don’t remember him even saying it. I don’t even know why I need to know.
But I say it all the time. My husband says it. “Eat up. You’re at your Auntie’s.”
Some months ago, we were going to have take-out pizza for dinner. I told my husband I’d place the order for an “Old priest and a young priest.” He said that sounded fine to him and when would I be home?
What did I mean by this (I am explaining for my kids so they don’t have questions after I am gone) phrase?
I meant a large and a small pizza. The “priest” reference comes from the book, “The Exorcist.” It has no relation to pizza whatsoever. Or toppings. Just for the record.
More than thirty years ago my husband was filming in his Uncle’s backyard. He was taking in the sights of the garden and his Uncle cleaning the pool. This was back when the video camera, sitting on your shoulder, weighed more than a cinder block. And everyone wonders why they’re now getting their shoulders replaced?
On tape, he has his Uncle’s elderly mother-in-law leaning over the raised deck, asking in her Kathryn Hepburn voice, “Is the pool going okay?”
We have been using that phrase ever since. I’ll bring up the window sash (no matter what he’s doing) and yell, “Is the pool going okay?”
For us, it just means, “Is everything okay?”
So, as I write this, still with some unanswered questions, I ask of you, “Is the pool going okay?”
I do hope it is. That’s not questionable.
Just Being Mary 