ESPN, You’ve done it again!

Busy doing my usual never-ending housework, I almost missed a great event on the Foxtel ESPN channel today. Not that I ever have time to sit and watch television, the show just happened to be on while I was cleaning the microwave shelf in the sink, which overlooks the lounge room, which happens to have a television in it,....on.

Being a man, I don’t wear gloves while washing the dishes, I jump in au natural just as the good Lord intended. I was picking up the bits of broken glass when the.. wait for it... UCA National All-Star Cheerleading Championship Worlds came on. It came on after that great old movie “Earth Girls Are Easy” with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, only caught the end of that while the sink was filling up, that’s how I broke the glass, flicking through channels with the left hand while the right was stacking stuff. Househusbands are ambidextrous, or so I thought.

Cheerleading has always been one of the world’s greatest motivating and inspirational sporting movements, surpassing even golf in its ability to reach every human emotion at all levels. Drama, romance, action, conflict and even sex have been part of this ever unfolding tapestry of human endeavour. Young girls, and guys, striving to reach the ultimate goal, the dizzying heights of schooldays youth,... popularity and fame. There, I’ve offended all those young athletes who spend hundreds of hours perfecting every move, miles of jogging and tons of weight training to maintain a level of fitness surpassed only by those who specialise in say, jogging or, weight lifting.

These dedicated high school and college students must realise that their predecessors didn’t always have their motives in mind. Helping your team to win by shouting encouragement bears little resemblance to the mass entertainment and visual delights we see today.

Way back then, I mean the late 1800s’ when colleges in the American north had few female students, cheers, or yells as they were known, were led by male students, I think Princeton was the first. Horrible thought isn’t it? Today of course, the male members of the cheer squads know to hide behind the young ladies we all love to watch. During the competition shown on the programme I was almost watching, they did have some trouble hiding, those girls uniforms are great, small but great.

While watching the show I begin to think, if you could call it that, about cheerleading even earlier than the 1800s’. Jousting came to mind, having recently watched some of “A Knight’s Tale” with the late Heath Ledger, didn’t have time to watch all of it course. Although this movie used a little “creative license” in its portrayal of those days, surely there were cheerleaders, and crowds giving their team, or man, encouragement. Even back in the Roman days there were gladiatorial “groupies” as it were. I’ve seen documentaries where the evidence is clear, graffiti on walls obviously proclaiming “Go Attilus” or along the lines of “ Flash rules” no.. that’s a modern gladiator name.

The point I’m trying to make is, back in those days, the cheerleaders were not trying to get themselves noticed, gain an audition for a commercial, or just get to flash those huge white teeth at the camera in hope of... getting a part in a cheerleader movie. They were there to help, help their team succeeded, help their town to win, they were there for the group effort.

Having said that, the cheerleaders on TV this day did help me, those dishes almost washed themselves. Now, hide the broken glass.


JAWhite                                              Return to main page
April 2011

Generosity, Vanity and Dishes

I can’t lay claim to being generous all the time, I have a certain amount of self-interest running through the bones as most people do. But there was one time, a long time ago....

Vanity is no stranger, thinking of myself as the “Boss”, the king cheese, the leader, I’ve always been at the top of my popularity poll. I once managed a company for the owners who lived overseas. They visited about twice a year and left me to my own devises as long as my plans were achieved and no crocodiles started snapping at their collective butts. I was well paid but was expected to do a great deal of overseas travel on business. This was why, when my unused frequent flyer points reached the high side of half a million, I began thinking that my wife could do with a holiday.

Two young boys and a busy husband must have produced some stress and strain for her. It had been about four years since her parents had visited from Scotland, and at least ten since she and I had gone to Edinburgh to visit them. From this distance in time it doesn’t really matter if alcohol induced me to offer or not, the fact is I told her she could go back to visit her homeland using my points to pay for the trip. Generosity? It was my idea so there must have been something in it for me.

My vanity was massaged by being able to do this, the wife telling her friends about it would surely raise my status. Of course I would use the fact I made the offer, to increase my stature among the staff and customers... come on! I’m not that bad, after all I’m a man. My self interest could only have been related to the remote chance of the odd time during her holiday presenting a possibility of me putting my feet up and just relaxing.

Now this was all happening back in the early 90’s and memory does grow dim, but I’m pretty sure I was rewarded for the gesture, of course this could be that old man dreaming thing. We decided that two weeks away from home would be about all the fun she could stand, and plans went forward quickly. I don’t think she was hurrying in case I changed my mind, she just wanted to get going. Within five days she waved goodbye, leaving me with two kids and a list as long as my imagined intellect was formidable.

Our house was big, not fancy and a little old, but comfortable, perhaps huge would be a better word, even enormous I thought, as I stood in the street looking up at it when the kids and I arrived back from the Airport. My thoughts drifted to the possibility of a cleaning issue, all those rooms. The boys were 6 and 8 back then, those are years when any photo you took inspired “oh”, “ah” and “aren’t they darling” from relatives and the wife’s girl friends. Unfortunately those are also the years when “clean your room” seems to mean do whatever you like. As the boys wanted eggs and bacon I started up the hill. We hadn’t done the dishes in the rush to leave earlier that day, they could wait. The list my wife had left me took the better part of a hour to read through during the commercial breaks next day, I wasn’t worried, I had two weeks and no one to nag me.

Being the boss, I was able to take time off work to do the things that needed doing on a daily basis. I took the kids to meet the school bus, aired the clothes when they needed clean ones, shopped when absolutely necessary, or when the fast food grew boring, five outlets within five miles isn’t bad. We had a pool so baths weren’t a necessity, good thing it was warm as the towels quickly dried when thrown over the lawn chairs. The garbage was picked up on Mondays so the long walk up and down the hill from the street was only scheduled twice. I was organised, so really the list she’d left wasn’t necessary. Things were going well. Must add garbage bags and fly spray to the shopping list, those bins were beginning to whiff.

Only two weekends fell in the period she would be away, I could manage the kids outings with no problem. The younger would be taken to music lessons, something he enjoyed, while the older would miss sport and Scouts due to illness. A new Play Station was acceptable compensation. Over all, the kids had a good time, they had plenty to keep busy with around the house, computer games, TV, the pool, basketball in the backyard. I let them have friends over whenever they wanted, there was no homework sent from school, don’t know why the wife says they have too much. As for me, I was busy but happy, got a lot of reading done and the girl at the video store started calling me by my first name.

I had been careful to make sure we ate out as much as possible, but still, there seemed to be a lot of dishes used. We each had a glass for milk and another for water and soft drink, I made sure they knew which was which, you don’t mix milk and coke. As the dish cupboard became increasingly bare, the countertop became somewhat overcrowded with dirty dishes. The dining room table was just inside the next room so we placed everything but glasses there. The wife has this thing about rings on tables.

As the second week grew to a close I bought some paper plates and plastic utensils which would ease the dish shortage, the recycle bin was to go out that Sunday night so that was fine, I still hadn’t bought those garbage bags. Arriving back on Monday morning the wife would be exhausted so we decided that on Sunday we would spend a couple of hours tidying up and perhaps even have baths. We, meaning I, planned to do the tidy up just after dinner at McDonalds that night.

The kids insisted they take a day off school, we would leave home at 6:00am to be at the airport a couple of hours before the arrival, so an early night for all. It was only after putting them to bed Sunday night I realised I hadn’t changed the sheets. And then there was dusting and vacuuming, all those rooms! I sat thinking about that, and those dishes, they had started off collecting in the sink, then overran the countertop and now the dining room table and floor, I had put down towels.

The situation reminded me of a story I’d read as a kid, the man of the house was left to himself as the wife went off for a trip. As I thought about that book, the similarities to my situation struck me as an inspiration. To cut a long story short, at the last minute he decided the only way to overcome his dish problem by the time the wife arrived home, was to place the dishes on the back lawn and hose them down. Well, it was getting late but still daylight.

JAWhite
January 2010

"Oh and I think I hear some dishes calling out to you...wash me, dry me, put me away! You’d better tend to them or they might grow legs and run away!”, LAveryBrown.

This comment, sent to me by a writer, prompted the telling of the story. To this day I have an aversion to dish water which you might notice should you read my writings, there seems to be a common thread through some of them.  Thanks for reminding me LAB.

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House Husbandry

A Guide for the Efficient Man

Having recently retired from Business life, I’ve become one of those men who see the little woman off each morning. She goes to work; I prepare for the days duties as house husband. I’m not in the least embarrassed by my circumstance; on the contrary, I look upon my current “job” as just that, work which I’m fully equipped to excel at. Having been told of the volume and difficulty of house work for years, I was fully prepared to face each day’s tasks as I would any challenge.

Photo: Courtesy Matthew J. Parsons

I’ve previously explained my position on time management, and approached my new responsibilities with that mindset. A good manager will always develop efficient procedures and implementation processes in the work place. The procedure is the key. In this case it was simple, identify the need, and develop a process for fulfilment, implementation and follow-up.

Having gained experience in building businesses from the ground up, I was fully aware that many times, well intentioned managers try to re-invent the wheel as it were. Housework has been around long enough for some efficiency to have been established. I knew of course that I could bring new ways of looking at the job which would improve those efficiencies. The first step is to establish the needs which took no time at all. The kitchen was in need of some attention, the bedrooms and baths seemed to have somewhat different problems, halls, windows, floors. Having learned early in life that a list is imperative for efficiency, I wrote them all down. Mastering those things on my list would need to be achieved one step at a time.

Research was required to confirm existing methods of accomplishing the objectives. I was able to locate a volume of procedures, from a usually reliable source, which had been written to instruct young people in exactly the tasks I was investigating. Although I would certainly know more about it than an inexperienced young person, reading basic information would be a starting point. “Little Lessons for Little Housekeepers” written by one Emily Huntington of New York. The information supplied by the editor in the preface indicated that Miss Huntington was an expert in these matters; in fact he alludes to further writing by Miss Huntington relating to sewing, politeness and something called “Little Nursery Maids”. I could not see a need for the additional skills so restricted myself the housekeeping research.

On turning pages to locate the contents I noticed how inexpensive books were in the 1870s, several mentioned by the editor were under $2.00. I was pleased to see that the Little Housekeeper sold for $5.00, an expensive author is usually a good one, at least until the post Christmas clearances start. My copy originated from the United States Library of Congress. Whom was it that said, “neither a borrower nor a lender be...”?

Miss Huntington uses a system in her teaching; her lessons are in question and answer form. My system of teaching might differ to hers; nevertheless any system is better than none, example. It was only yesterday I watched a BBC documentary about Windsor Castle. As part of the proceedings leading to the State Visit by the President of France, the castle staffs were reminded in detail of the procedures they were to follow in ensuring all went as the Queen expected. I must send a note to the Queens Housekeeper; I noticed one step in the packing of the Queens luggage which could do with some examination.

Miss Huntington’s Rules for Housekeeping; she first addresses the washing of dishes. What is the first thing little children should learn about housekeeping?

Answer: To wash dishes.

What three things are necessary in order to wash dishes properly? Answer: Well-scraped dishes, hot suds, and proper towels.
 
Don’t forget she is addressing “little children” should you be taking notes you might use bullet form notation.
 
How do you collect dishes?

Answer: Collect the silver in a pitcher of hot water, throw the cold water from the glasses, rinse the cups, and scrape each plate separately, and place in a pile.

How do you make hot suds?

Answer: Put a piece of soap on a fork, and stir it briskly in the water.          Photo Courtesy: Petria Follett    


What are proper towels?

Answer: Clean, dry towels. We must use the fine towels for the glasses and silver; the course towels for the plates and other dishes.

In what order do you wash dishes?

Answer: First the glasses, then the silver, the pitchers, cups, saucers, plates, and other dishes.

How should we rinse dishes?

Answer: In clear, hot water.

Miss Huntington is an expert and apparently it’s been done this way for over a hundred years.

She now addresses the Dining Room, Care of the Dining-Room: When is a dining-room in perfect order?
Answer: When it is well swept and dusted, the furniture in its place, and the blinds closed.

I didn’t even think about the blinds. Miss Huntington seems to be thorough, procedures should be exact leaving no room for error.  Oh my God, the next page has diagrams. I might go have a nap now; this job could be a little more complicated than I thought.

 

JAWhite

November 2009                     Read another Househusband story?

Source:

Little Lessons for little Housekeepers, Huntington, Emily. Publisher: A.D.F. Randolph and company, New York 1879.  This and other books may be viewed at The Internet Archive. Terms and Copyright applicable may be read at: http://www.archive.org/about/terms.php

For More on Emily Huntington

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