In a Manner of Speaking

I think to be oversensitive about cliches is like being oversensitive about table manners.

Evelyn Waugh

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.

Emily Post

Window Seat

Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners.

Lord Chesterfield

Be simple in words, manners, and gestures. Amuse as well as instruct. If you can make a man laugh, you can make him think and make him like and believe you.

Alfred E. Smith

     Duane doesn't like Thai food, but that's where we ended up eating on Sunday.  We had chosen to eat at  Z's Cafe, a sandwich shop on Baseline Road, but found it closed.  Mindy had big plans for herself and needed help, so the plan was to eat a quick dinner, change into some work clothes, and get started.  We had a long way to go by evening: half of a dark African wood-look floor to finish laying, shower walls to grout, also a fireplace hearth, and a few kitchen tiles, then some base, trim and doors to re-install,  and finally clean up and move all our tools.  It all sounded possible.  When she mentioned that the sinks needed hooked up, the stove moved in, washer/dryer combo hooked up, and the closet doors needed to be hung, I knew things were getting out of hand. And she could do it, alone, she said.  We didn't need to help her.  Anyway, the plan was to get as far as we could.


       Sitting across the table from my kids, there were a couple of things that came to mind.  First of all, I had ordered soup.  Mindy had been making me aware of a couple of  habits I had; slurping my food and eating while on the phone. Cereal, soup, whatever.  We would chat away, and for some reason, I'd start munching on something.  Food for thought, maybe.  Eating alone, soup too hot, I slurped to cool it.   With cereal, the problem was less about slurping and more about eating noisily.  She reminds me NOT to chew my celery or carrots while I'm on the phone, in fact, no eating while on the phone, at all.  Very annoying, hearing someone chewing into the microphone of a telephone where the sound is magnified.  So I've been working on not slurping my soup, and check myself every so often when I'm alone.  


     One of the things we worked on with our kids was manners, not expecting that they would always use them, but would know how to behave correctly.  To make sure we weren't teaching them incorrectly, we found a book called Miss Manners Guide to Rearing Perfect Children.  I already knew that there wasn't such a thing as perfect children, because Mom and Dad had some friends that tried very hard to change me and my sisters and brother into perfect children in Mom and Dad's absence.  We resisted with all our might.  I am probably the most responsible for that episode of defiance, being the eldest of five.  Nevertheless,  Judith Martin could name the book anything she wanted, as far as I was concerned.


    And here I was relaxing at the table, ignoring the lessons I'd taught the kids.  It's surprising how you can slip into a bad habit without even noticing it.  When I was a kid, I dragged my feet.  Yesterday at the airport, a teenage girl wearing white, loafer-style, backless flat-soled shoes was ungracefully dragging her feet, a strange kind of slide-flip, slide-flop, slide-flip slide-flop.  I was relieved when she got to the end of the line and stood still.  I'm glad that Mom pointed it out in a quite irritated tone, so now when I do occasionally drag my feet,  I hear it, and step a little more lightly. 


     As we sat  across the table from our kids, Duane, in his gray Sunday sports coat, was eating properly.  One hand in his lap, or using his knife to help scoop his bites of too-sweet chicken on to his fork, then putting down the knife, returning his hand to his lap, as he continued eating.  Impressive, considering the years it's been since we focused on table manners. Meanwhile, Jerry and I both had our forearms resting on the table, leaning forward, relaxed.  Doubtless we were talking with our mouth full at times, as well, but mercifully, I wasn't slurping my soup.  Wondered for a moment how we got to a point where the correct etiquette seemed a foggy memory, and then wonder how many other rules we were breaking.  When we began teaching the kids, I was unclear on plenty of etiquette myself, and Jerry seemed to be overly correct in some, and completely confused in other areas.  The solution was to turn to a third party, in this case, our "rule book".


     One of the things I was pleasantly surprised to hear when Duane moved away from home, was that other people complimented his table manners.  Best of all, for me, we hadn't accomplished it by nagging the kids.  When the manners discussions first appeared, I could see the whole exercise bordered on descending into negativity at the table, so we devised a game which we all played. Of course, the kids loved to catch Dad forgetting to say thank you, and Mom talking with her mouth full, and I thought it was good for us, too!  It only seems fair that the adults learn and obey the same rules as the kids were expected to follow.  I had gotten some tall champagne glasses from a yard sale, and we each had one at our place. We earned multi-colored chips for our glass by someone catching someone else doing something right, and a chip, a little clear plastic disk, was quietly removed from our glass if we got caught eating with our mouth open, talking with our mouth full, had an elbow on the table, or forgot to say please, or thank you.  As we got better at it, we added to the list, trying new food without complaining, asking to be excused before leaving the table, and each removing our own plate and taking it to the sink.  Extra points if you helped Mom in the kitchen without being asked.  Douglas was an especially great assistant and I enjoyed having a good helper.


    Friday night was reward time and we called it Late-night Dinner.  I fixed elegant meals and served them on china and crystal dishes, with cloth napkins and candles.  It wasn't long before we didn't need the game anymore, but the Late-night Dinner is a favorite tradition that we have not completely forsaken.  For the record, appreciatively sniffing with comments about the smell of dinner cooking on the stove, as you walk in the door comes naturally and doesn't hurt the cook's feelings.


    Monday evening, after a long exhausting day, we ate Papa Murphy's pizza at the house with the kids and had a wonderful time relaxing around their table.  I was pleased to note Duane leaning on the table with his forearm, unselfconsciously eating pizza with his hands while we told stories and laughed loudly together at funny stories from the weekend, and years before.  No eating hamburgers with a knife and fork, either.  When I first saw a lady cutting a hamburger elegantly into bite sized pieces with a knife, I thought I was really from the sticks.  It's probably the basis for my interest in learning how to behave oneself appropriately.


   I think it's safe to say that while we make incredible effort and try to do well, we also make mistakes, unconsciously slipping up, so I am laying no claims to being perfect, far from it, or rearing perfect children, for that matter, although they are special, I think.  I love that we all need space to make mistakes, and encouragement to do well.  When my baby sister came for a visit, she quickly picked up the game.  Then my nephew came for a couple of summers, and we brought out the game again.  It was a little easier when there was more than one kid at the table, especially one who might feel pressured to do something that isn't required at home.  It took him awhile to cooperate, but we were liberal with the chips when he did something right. It was a little tricky explaining what you aren't supposed to do, and he hated the chips being removed from his glass.  After awhile, he got the hang of it, and was on board a little more willingly.  Just before he left to go home, he let me take a picture of him with his glass full of chips. Strictly speaking, it's probably best to be a good example and a very patient one, at that!  Kids are quite malleable, if handled wisely.  It does get noticed. What we do is so much more powerful than what we say.

 Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunrise

A tree covered in flowers with a pleasant scent.  Wonder what kind.

 

List for Home Depot

Amazing focus and energy.  Mindy presses on.

Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern.

R. Buckminster Fuller

Marking granite cuts.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Giving instructions on cutting the
hole for a sink.

    

“The real test of good manners is to be able to put up with bad manners pleasantly.” 
― Kahil Gibran

Window Seat again.