Thursday, October 16, 2014

The Uneaten Feast

Every so often, everyone needs a good cry. Not necessarily because of any one thing, although those are good, too, but every once in a while, after a lot of little tiny things build up and build up, sometimes you just need to let the dam go and let the tears out.

Well, I hadn't had a cry in a while, and this morning, I was thinking (quite randomly, I have no idea why) of a friend of mine, Shannon, and suddenly there are all these tears on my face.

So I stood in my room for a while, in the gray of the morning (it  had to have been about seven or so) and let the tears out. I didn't really have a reason for it, other than that I missed Shannon, and all the other people that thinking of Shannon reminded me of, and it occurred to me that people are a bit like Champagne bottles. Life shakes us and shakes us and then with one shake too many the cork comes flying out. Waste of good Champagne, usually. Needs to be drunk right away, if it doesn't all get lost in fizz.

I didn't have anyone to share champagne with this morning, which might have been part of the reason I lost my cork, so to speak. How much of who we are and how many of our gifts get lost in fizz when we don't have someone to share them with?

Hence the poem. Haven't written a poem in a good long while, but here it is. It's called The Uneaten Feast. I suppose, on a second read, it could be rather innuendo-laden, but it's really meant about friendship.


Like a cask full of spirits
stoppered to keep them in
so is a human heart straining its staves.

The sky was gray and the rain was soft on my window
and as the sky was weeping so I was weeping

I am a cask that has not been tapped
I am a drum stretched too tight
I am a loaf that waits to be split
I am a candle that has not been burned.
I am a stone turned in a strange river, and no other stone knows me.
I am a feast at which no friend eats.

The wine in the cask is rich with waiting
and the heart in me is weak with wanting
Take a chair at my table and let us drink together
And the warmth of my spirits will be warmth for yours.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Seating the Table: A Melodrama in 6 E-books

Those of you who know me know that every so often, I enjoy making mountains out of mole-hills, particularly when it comes to my writing. I’m not usually an obsessive person, but once in a while, I get stuck on a problem that just won’t unstick itself.

This month’s problem is a dinner party in my forthcoming Downton Abbey fanfic. The dinner is being held on Friday night of a Friday-to-Monday (because no one smart calls it a weekend) at the family home of Charles Blake’s fabulously wealthy distant cousin, Sir Severus Blake. Since at this point in the story we’ve already met many of the principle characters for the weekend in the persons of the other houseguests, during the dinner we get to see them interact inside the intimate circle known as the formal dinner.

Enter my problem – how to seat the table. Downton Abbey’s resident historical oracle, Alistair Bruce, is frequently cited during ‘Making of’ videos referencing this point of etiquette or that and its historical context. Well, if I’m going to write a fanfic, then we’re not going to go in for short measures here, and that means I’m going to have an accurate seating plan for my sixteen dinner guests if it kills me.

Not having an historical advisors on hand, I turned to my friend, and yours, Google Books, to provide me with some guidance on how one goes about seating a formal dinner. Why Google Books? Because wouldn’t you know, there were dozens of books written on etiquette in the early twentieth century. They are now out of copyright, which means that Google has very helpfully digitized them.

I started, as is only proper, with the resident Queen of Manners, Emily Post.

“As has already been observed the most practical way to seat the table is to write the names on individual cards first and then place them as though playing solitaire: the guest of honor on the host's right the second lady in rank on his left the most distinguished or oldest gentleman on the right of the hostess and the other guests filled in between.” – Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home, Emily Post, 1922

Okay. Thanks, Emily, that’s…maddeningly unhelpful. I have sixteen people sitting at this table, and you’ve told me how to seat exactly…four of them. My faithful Etiquette Oracle has failed me. Mrs. Humphry, you’re English. Anything to add?

“The better plan is to write down the plan of the table and give it to the butler or parlourmaid. Either of these functionaries will learn it by heart and will indicate their destined seats to each couple by drawing out the chairs for them directly they enter the dining room. The order of the procession from drawing to dining room is as follows. The host with the lady of most importance followed by the lady of next importance with her escort and so on through the list, the hostess coming last with the gentleman of most importance.” Etiquette for Every Day, Mrs. Humphry, 1904
Yes, the table diagram sounds lovely, but how do you seat them? Fine, we’ll try someone else.

“When dinner is ready the fact is made known to the hostess by the butler or maid servant who comes to the door and quietly says “Dinner is served.” A bell is never rung for dinner nor for any other formal meal. The host leads the way taking out the lady who is given the place of first consideration the most distinguished woman the greatest stranger the most elderly whatever the basis of distinction. Other couples follow in the order assigned to them each gentleman seating the lady on his right. The hostess comes last with the most distinguished male guest.”  Etiquette, Agnes H. Morton, 1910

Bother. That’s not helpful at all. Perhaps the scions of the vaunted Boston Cooking School will be of assistance?

“When the number is very large each man finds in the dressing room, or is given by a servant, a small envelope containing a card with the name of the woman whom he is to take in to dinner. If he is not acquainted with her he should ask for an introduction while in the drawing room….The host leads the guest of honor to the head of the table where she will sit at his right. The hostess may arrange the procession so that the other couples follow in order or a servant may indicate their places or at a small dinner either the host or hostess will point out to the guests where they are to sit or most commonly the guests will find their places by means of the place cards at each cover.”  Breakfast, luncheons anddinners: how to plan them, how to serve them, how to behave at them : a book forschool and home, Mary Davoren Chambers, 1920

Well, damn. I now know from four different people how to get them into the dining room, but apparently once they’re there I’m on my own. Maybe etiquette books aren’t the way to go. Maybe I need to check a travel memoir or something.

“You take your partner as for the waltz and march into the dining room chatting easily and fluently with the lady to whom your hostess has offered you up as a living and nameless sacrifice. Of course if you have taken a Scranton Correspondence School course in the novels of one A. Trollope you will know that the animals go in two by two according to position; if you are a big swell you head the march if a moderate swell you gravitate toward the middle and if a plain scrub (in trade, don’t you know) you trail in like the last run of shad in May.” A Plain American in England, By Charles T. Whitefield1910

Funny you may be, Mr. Whitefield, but sass isn’t going to help here.

“With the English it is an almost invariable custom that social position should regulate the order in which people go in to dinner, the host taking in the lady of highest rank and the guests following in couples assorted according to Burke's peerage very much as children arrange a Noah's Ark procession, the hostess meekly bringing up the rear with the gentleman of highest rank.” Social Customs, Florence Howe Hall, 1911
Okay, I take back what I said about sass. I could have used a little less cheek about it, Miss Hall, but there it is. Now, back for a copy of Burke’s.





Praise the lord and pass that table diagram, Jeeves.