Teddy Bear Tales
I was going to call this blog "Teddy Bear Tales".
Why "Teddy Bear Tales"? The answer is in three parts:
The Teddy Bear bit comes indirectly from the nickname we have for a friend of my wife's. I was at home one unseasonably (in England the weather is always unseasonable - either unseasonably warm or unseasonably cold) warm day in early Spring, alone in the house pretending to read a book, but in truth dozing, when the doorbell rang. I gathered my various loose limbs and brain fragments together and headed for the front door, where I found an attractive woman with what I think is referred to as strawberry blonde hair. She just stood there. In my experience when one opens one's front door, the onus is on the caller to start off the conversation and as I was half asleep and had no idea who she was or what she wanted, I just stood there too. This went on for what seemed some time (whole seconds probably) until I summoned up the wit to speak.
"Yes?", I said (perhaps "you rang?" would have been wittier, but I'm afraid "yes" was all I could muster).
"Jill sent me to pick up the spigots", she said. I was awake enough to remember that Jill was my wife (still is - I used "was" because the conversation happened in the past, not because I was married in the past) and that she was out running a stall for the Guides and Brownies at a local fête. Jill had obviously sent this woman to pick up something.
"She said that they're in a plastic carrier bag in the hall", she added helpfully. Now if you'd been to our house you'd realise that that wasn't in the least bit helpful. Everything in our house is in a carrier bag in the hall. But luckily I turned and tripped over the bag of spigots, which I handed to the visitor.
Now here I have a confession to make. I said she said "spigots", but to this day I have no idea what she asked for or what I gave her or whether the two matched, but she seemed happy enough and left. I went back to my snoozy book reading.
When Jill came home she said: "You made quite an impression on Ann". (Ann it transpired was the name of the visitor and was a new friend of Jill's). "She came back and said 'Isn't he gorgeous! He's like a great big teddy bear' ". Now not even my mother would ever refer to me as gorgeous, but I'm undeniably big (6 feet 7 tall and a little overweight) and always dishevelled so I guess that the soubriquet wasn't entirely inappropriate.
"Ann" also happens to be the name of our daughter and so the "new" Ann become known as "Teddy Bear Ann" or more simply "TBA", we still refer to her as TBA - I suspect that she knows that we do. No-one has ever referred to me as a "Teddy Bear" since, even though Ann still has it as part of her name, so maybe it's time to re-appropriate it.
The Tales bit is easy. It's a bit of a family trait, my late father and my late elder sister also suffered from it: an inability to relate an incident simply - a need to tell the whole story. I'm sure you've spotted that already.
And Teddy Bear Tales as a whole, well I have a love of phrases that sound like they have two different meanings (is that homophones?) and we all know that Teddy Bear Tails are very short.
So why isn't it called "Teddy Bear Tales". Well can you imagine saying "read my blog - it's called 'Teddy Bear Tales' "? Well neither can I
Why "Teddy Bear Tales"? The answer is in three parts:
The Teddy Bear bit comes indirectly from the nickname we have for a friend of my wife's. I was at home one unseasonably (in England the weather is always unseasonable - either unseasonably warm or unseasonably cold) warm day in early Spring, alone in the house pretending to read a book, but in truth dozing, when the doorbell rang. I gathered my various loose limbs and brain fragments together and headed for the front door, where I found an attractive woman with what I think is referred to as strawberry blonde hair. She just stood there. In my experience when one opens one's front door, the onus is on the caller to start off the conversation and as I was half asleep and had no idea who she was or what she wanted, I just stood there too. This went on for what seemed some time (whole seconds probably) until I summoned up the wit to speak.
"Yes?", I said (perhaps "you rang?" would have been wittier, but I'm afraid "yes" was all I could muster).
"Jill sent me to pick up the spigots", she said. I was awake enough to remember that Jill was my wife (still is - I used "was" because the conversation happened in the past, not because I was married in the past) and that she was out running a stall for the Guides and Brownies at a local fête. Jill had obviously sent this woman to pick up something.
"She said that they're in a plastic carrier bag in the hall", she added helpfully. Now if you'd been to our house you'd realise that that wasn't in the least bit helpful. Everything in our house is in a carrier bag in the hall. But luckily I turned and tripped over the bag of spigots, which I handed to the visitor.
Now here I have a confession to make. I said she said "spigots", but to this day I have no idea what she asked for or what I gave her or whether the two matched, but she seemed happy enough and left. I went back to my snoozy book reading.
When Jill came home she said: "You made quite an impression on Ann". (Ann it transpired was the name of the visitor and was a new friend of Jill's). "She came back and said 'Isn't he gorgeous! He's like a great big teddy bear' ". Now not even my mother would ever refer to me as gorgeous, but I'm undeniably big (6 feet 7 tall and a little overweight) and always dishevelled so I guess that the soubriquet wasn't entirely inappropriate.
"Ann" also happens to be the name of our daughter and so the "new" Ann become known as "Teddy Bear Ann" or more simply "TBA", we still refer to her as TBA - I suspect that she knows that we do. No-one has ever referred to me as a "Teddy Bear" since, even though Ann still has it as part of her name, so maybe it's time to re-appropriate it.
The Tales bit is easy. It's a bit of a family trait, my late father and my late elder sister also suffered from it: an inability to relate an incident simply - a need to tell the whole story. I'm sure you've spotted that already.
And Teddy Bear Tales as a whole, well I have a love of phrases that sound like they have two different meanings (is that homophones?) and we all know that Teddy Bear Tails are very short.
So why isn't it called "Teddy Bear Tales". Well can you imagine saying "read my blog - it's called 'Teddy Bear Tales' "? Well neither can I
posted by John at 6:10 pm
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