Friday, February 16, 2018

The sound of flowing water

Good news: the Hungarian invasion is over, and I have three new faucets and a shower head. Massive relief all around.

The major issue was the kitchen faucet, which (as you’ll recall) required the two Magyars uninstalling and reinstalling the dishwasher. Good thing, too, as the drain hose that was there was looping all over the place (in addition to being too small), causing the motor to work extra hard.


But it’s so nice not having the sink top all cluttered up with an extra hose (my new faucet is all-in-one) and the dishwasher drain thing. Also nice that two lav faucets don’t leak, and the shower is more 21st Century rather than 20th.

Overall, it took Mr. Hungary three trips to Home Depot, and me holding my tongue as he assured me that Ashburn is so much better than other areas in Fairfax and Loudoun counties because "no ghettos". That would be Magyar code for "whites only". 

Glad to have it over.



Thursday, February 15, 2018

A prince of a guy

This NPR story came across my Twitter feed, about the death of Prince Henrik of Denmark. Henrik, husband-consort of Queen Margrethe, was 83 and had apparently been in poor health. He and Margrethe were married for more than 50 years, so I’m guessing she (and their family) are having a rough Valentine’s Day, even if the end was expected.

But here’s what I find interesting: a good chunk of this story (admittedly from a US media outlet) gives the impression that—whatever his other stellar qualities—Henrik apparently had a 50-year case of the sulks over his title and status. He wanted to be styled King Consort, instead of Prince Consort, which would have given him a place in the succession to the throne. (Although I do not know what that place would have been—ahead/behind of Margrethe’s siblings, their children, or her cousins and her aunts. And, tbh, I don’t care enough to look it up. I’m an American.)

I'm wracking my brain trying to hawk up an instance more recent than Maria Theresia of Austria where the consort of an anointed queen (or in MT’s case, empress) got the title of King, but I’m coming up dry. (And Franz I came into the marriage as Holy Roman Emperor, so it was more an instance of him keeping it. Franz also pretty much kept shtum and let Maria Theresia run the family business, which was smart of him.)

In soon-to-be-not-part-of-Europe Britain, Victoria and Albert got miffed when Parliament wouldn’t grant him the title King Consort, but he, at least, got over it. Anne’s consort was a Danish Prince, George; he was not made King. Not sure that the prospect of king-hood ever cropped up in the case of Elizabeth II’s Prince Philip. If it did, it long since disappeared.

(Okay, up the pike a bit, when Lord Charles Darnley married Mary, Queen of Scots, he did get the title King Consort. But it was short-lived, and didn’t do him much good. Also, for about 27 minutes, Philip II of Spain was married to Mary I of England, and during that period, he did have the title of King of England, and he co-reigned with her as Catholic monarchs. However, at her death, he had no succession rights, and Elizabeth I took over and returned the country to Protestantism.)

In Spain we had los Reyes Católicos—Ferdinand and Isabella. But they were independently co-equal monarchs, bringing into the marriage the provinces of Aragón (him) and Castilla (her). It was equal parts marriage and merger. It’s always good for a woman to have sovereign possession of valuable property; it concentrates the male brain somewhat. (Thinking Éléanore, Duchess of Aquitaine, who inherited a vast swath of what we now think of as France. She first took it to Louis VII of France, but when they divorced, it went with her to Henry II of England. She was queen-consort to both kings, and wielded considerable power as Queen dowager after Henry’s death, while Richard I was off at the Crusades. Éléanore was a dame.)

The husbands of the most recent reigning queens of the Netherlands, Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix, all sucked up the titles of Prince Consort (although, tbf, I think most of them came into the family business as princes, so it was more or less of a muchness).

Juliana’s husband, Prince Bernhard, actually had A Past: a German prince, he met Juliana (while she was still a princess) at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. He’d been a (Nazi) Party member, and served in the Reiter-SS (an SS cavalry brigade). However, when push came to shove and then turned to invasion, Bernhard earned respect and admiration amongst the Dutch by organizing armed defenses against the Germans while still in the Netherlands, and then by serving Queen Wilhelmina’s government-in-exile in London. When he accepted the surrender of German forces in 1945, he spoke only Dutch to them. That’s class.

And I don’t know about Sweden or Norway, but I’m guessing that if there are reigning queens, their husbands don’t get to use the K-word.

So it’s kind of interesting that Henrik just couldn’t get over it. My Danish friend, the Viking Maiden, says, “The Danes had a hard time getting used to him, but because our Princess/Queen loved him they gave him the benefit of doubt. The queen is very much loved.” He was a Frenchman by birth, so I dunno if that has anything to do with it. The French are big on airs and graces.

Okay, but here’s the thing. Why does this issue of title and succession for the spouse only ever arise when the consort has the XY chromosome configuration? Not that I’m a student of monarchies (aside from how they fit into history in general), but there has never ever been a question of a woman marrying a reigning monarch (or the crown prince) having any succession rights. She almost always gets the title of queen, but everyone knows that she’s there to do two things: look nice at court functions and produce heirs. Male heirs.

Men marrying into the family business, on the other hand, get ideas above their station, and seem to assume that of course they’ll be given equal status with their wives, even though they may have only a glancing acquaintance with the business and are frequently brought in from other countries. They don’t seem to grasp that their role, in this admittedly anachronistic line of work, is exactly the same as the queen-consort’s: to look good standing next to the queen, and produce heirs. Male or female heirs.

(Franz I gave Maria Theresia 16 children, which was really a stellar effort, I’d say. Way above the customary heir and a spare. They were none of them 18th Century equivalents of rocket scientists, but that’s not part of the job description. Royal heirs just have to have a pulse and not drool a whole awful lot. Extra points if they’re good looking, but as long as they look enough like their parents to not draw questions, they’ve fulfilled their obligations.)

That’s it, folks; that’s the whole purpose of the consort: complement the monarch during photo ops, don’t eat with your mouth open (in fact—in general be very careful when you open your mouth; a duty Prince Philip ought to have reread every once in a while) and ensure the line of succession.

Henrik might have been a happier guy if he’d taken this on board. He did fulfill the responsibilities of Prince Consort of Denmark—he’s survived by two adult sons, in addition to the Queen, and photos show him to have been quite the good looker. Also, he made wine at his French estates. Seems like a pretty good life to me.




Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Pancakes and ashes

Man, how time flies, eh? Last year on Shrove Tuesday, I was sat in a meeting with representatives of an organization that gives out awards that are nearly ten times the monetary value of Nobel Prizes ($3MM, as opposed to approximately $350,000) in physics, life sciences and mathematics; wearing business clothes and trying not to crunch my potato chips too loudly. (Where were you in my time of need, Pepsico?)

It was an odd get-together, but the part that’s stuck with me was when our colleague in Switzerland, who was calling into the meeting starting at 1800 CET mentioned that he was missing Pancake Day with his little boy for it. And my manager did not know what Pancake Day is.

I didn’t want to wax theological for someone who doesn’t care about it, but I’ve been thinking about it over the past week—the last hurrah before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Pancake Day is when you use up the last of the fats (including eggs; ergo the perfection of pancakes) in your kitchen, preparing for the lean days of Lent. Mardi Gras (literally, “Fat Tuesday”) and Carnival are different—some might say excessive—expressions of this idea; drink yourself stupid and go crazy so you hit Ash Wednesday with a monumental hangover and a properly penitential demeanor.

At the moment, I’m less interested in Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Pancake Day than I am with what I view as the opportunity that Lent presents to cleanse my spirit, reflect, discern and distil my current place in life, what I have to contribute, and how I might pull it all together. I feel like I’ve got myself into a muddle, so it’s going to take an effort to find my way out of it.

I’m hoping 40 days and 40 nights will be enough.



Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Lemon crush

Even if we’re not experiencing typical February temps hovering around freezing (it’s supposed to be 71 bleeding degrees tomorrow, for crying out loud), I’m keeping my potted garden inside.

My two surviving herbs—rosemary and parsley—are producing nicely for various meals, and I have hopes for the gardenia. That one gave me a few flowers last summer when it was out on the patio, and I fancy I see the start of more that will come out this year.

However, the one I’m really, really praying for is the dwarf Meyer lemon. I grew up with a lemon tree (and an avocado, and a plum and a persimmon, although that one I loathed) in our back yard, and it’s burnt my bacon ever since I moved out and had to pay for lemons at the supermarket. We used to harvest the lemons (which I recall were a year-round crop) and squeeze the juice into ice cube trays. Even when we didn’t have lemons, we had juice by the bagful.

Even in the Valley They Call Silicon, it was possible to scrump lemons off front-yard trees as you walked past, so coming back to the District They Call Columbia brought me back into citrus sticker shock. So I bought a dwarf lemon. I’d have preferred Eureka, but by the time a mail-order nursery had totally screwed up, I had to take what I could get from Merrifield Gardens.

So I nursed it through one cycle of blossoms last summer, but no fruit. Then a second in late autumn, apparently ditto. So imagine my excitement when, a few weeks ago, I noticed little green nobs that might be proto-lemons.

At this point, there are three, recognizable lemons, and I am reveling in anticipatory joy.




I’m not seeing full ice cube trays of lemon juice in my immediate future. But I am so looking forward to the idea of having the makings of homemade lemonade, lemon-roasted chicken, limoncello, lemon curd, Pavlovas…

And I’m going to check out dwarf limes and orange trees, too.



Monday, February 12, 2018

Gratitude Monday: the insight of rain

A rather nice change from the bone-rattling cold we’ve been experiencing here in the District They Call Columbia—we’ve had several days of rain. Rain means the temperature is above freezing; I like above freezing. It’s especially nice because it hasn’t hit at a time when I had to remember to carry an umbrella with me to work. (In all the years I’ve lived outside of California, I’ve still never got into the habit of walking out of the house armed with rain gear.)

Yesterday morning, I was listening to a piece by Pleyel on WETA, when I looked up and saw something rather more than “rain”, however. More like “downpour”. Viz.:

At one point you can hear some of the nature drowning out Pleyel.

As I watched it chucking it down I was struck by a sense of gratitude that I was safely inside my own home, dry and with the thermostat set to 73°, on a day off work where all I had to do was tidy up a week’s worth of paper accumulation and plan for the workweek ahead. Laundry done, dishwasher running, food in the fridge, a job for the moment and bills paid. And from that place of security I could watch the deluge with the kind of fascination that only a native Californian can feel.

I am not comparatively grateful for this, only grateful in comparing the blessings I enjoy against those who are homeless, hungry, jobless, struggling. I do not say, “Well, at least I’m not…” Because that’s not real gratitude to my mind, only considering your condition of comfort in relationship to others less well off. That’s a form of schadenfreude, and I see way too much of it in the world around me.

No, I am just grateful that my little place of security allows me to take pleasure in things like my birds at the feeders and the wonder of a rainstorm.