by Charles Newbery
Posted in: Mum
Can't figure out what's for dinner? First buy a flower, then think about what you will cook.
“What shall we have for dinner?”
My wife asks me this a lot.
I am not sure why because I always tense up when she asks me the question. I think hard about what the answer should be, even after being married for 11 years. I rack my brain to try to guess what is on her mind. The meal has to be easy and quick because it’s getting late and the three kids are getting testy. And it mustn’t be pasta because that’s what I always say.
Half of the time the question is rhetorical – she answers it herself. And I sigh with relief.
The rest of the time is like now. She asks the question and then stares at me with a face that says, “Well?”
At these times my mind always draws a blank on anything but gnocchis, raviolis and spaghettis.
So I mutter my response as a meek question: “Pasta?” [click to continue reading…]
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by Charles Newbery
Posted in: Mum
Love is in the wind.
As a reporter, I am often on deadline.
And as often my wife will call as I race to get the news out.
She makes requests or insights, and I let them go in one ear and out the other, too busy to take her into account. My attention is on the story and my response into the phone is, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Inconsiderate?
Certainly.
But it happens.
And now the other way round. [click to continue reading…]
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by Charles Newbery
Posted in: Mum
"Clutter? Let me have a crack at it!"
WHEN I WAS a kid, we lived in clutter. Very happily. It had to be cluttered. We were a family of seven in a three-bedroom bungalow with all the stuff of growing up – Big Wheels, baseball bats, bikes, skateboards, surfboards and hundreds of books, games, teddy bears and toys. We didn’t notice the clutter at all. A game of basketball? The living room could turn into our court. Baseball? We tried it once in the living room and smashed a window. We declared it a homerun – and then fretted over what Dad would say.
I can’t remember the repercussions. They probably weren’t bad. My parents were pretty lax. I guess they had to be with five children.
My Dad preferred going on holiday over home improvement or even home repair for that matter. So while the house deteriorated, we darted off for holidays to Baja California, Big Sur, Colorado, Mammoth Mountain, Sequoia and Yosemite, and on weekends to Mount Badly, Table Top Mountain and Strawberry Peak near L.A., where we grew up. [click to continue reading…]
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