Not Sweating the Small Stuff

In-Between Moments

It's Friday night - about eight-thirty. The TV is prattling - comfortingly - in the background. As dinner is bubbling contentedly on the stove - a chicken in a reduced broth. I've just filled the teapot from the kettle - the boiling water seemed to chatter volubly on a rising intonation as it made its way to the level of the spout. Inanimate things going on seem to have taken on a human character tonight.

When I was kid of 6 or 7 - no, this is not a Sophie Tucker joke and there is a connection with what I've just said - I craved a ventriloquist doll. I'd seen Ron Blaskett and his Gerry Gee on television ...

Ventriloquist Ron Blaskett and his doll Gerry Gee

I think I wanted a (captive, eternal and totally compliant) friend. 'The parents' had severely restricted our access to other kids - the intricacies of such connections would get in the way of big careers. I'd even infused my potential new doll-friend with a tailor-made-for-me character - nothing remained of the cantankerous, daffy and argumentative persona of Gerry Gee! But sadly this 'soul-mate' was never realized. And I had to make do with some of the other boys at school.

Now the connection between the two sets of ideas I mentioned is that I still obviously fail to make the necessary distinction between the animate and inanimate worlds!