Friday, May 27, 2005
The Bowl of Provocative Thoughts
Today, in a spark of inspired thinking, I came up with this device which my mother loves and to which she took like a duck to water.
The brand of detox tea she drinks fashions the bags at the end of a string with a paper tag on which are printed little sayings which are anywhere from inspirational to "gag-me" quality. Because the print is tiny I read that morning's saying to her and if she find it interesting we talk about its meaning while she drinks her tea. On my own I've been saving them because I had a hunch that she would, at some time, ask if I'd been doing this, which she did today.
When I gathered them up from the coffee-and-tea-and-cocoa-making part of the counter where I'd simply been leaving them scattered among the boxes and jars and machines, it occurred to me that we should put them in a container so that, when appropriate, either of us or visitors could reach into the jar and pull out a surprise provocative thought.
We riffed, a bit, on the possibilities. When my sisters and I were kids and we'd become annoyingly giddy, my mother would say, "I think someone needs to go to the bathroom." She was always right about this. We conjectured that when one or the other of us or a familiar visitor displayed a morbid or otherwise difficult trend we'd be able to say, "I think someone needs to visit The Bowl of Provocative Thoughts." I mentioned that this phrase is also an excellent euphemism for "toilet" and we were off and running.
We also decided that during MCS's next visit with her daughter, which will probably occur in a month or so, thinking up and writing down provocative thoughts to place in the bowl would be a great around-the-table-in-the-evening project. We usually do evening projects at the table when they visit.
The brand of detox tea she drinks fashions the bags at the end of a string with a paper tag on which are printed little sayings which are anywhere from inspirational to "gag-me" quality. Because the print is tiny I read that morning's saying to her and if she find it interesting we talk about its meaning while she drinks her tea. On my own I've been saving them because I had a hunch that she would, at some time, ask if I'd been doing this, which she did today.
When I gathered them up from the coffee-and-tea-and-cocoa-making part of the counter where I'd simply been leaving them scattered among the boxes and jars and machines, it occurred to me that we should put them in a container so that, when appropriate, either of us or visitors could reach into the jar and pull out a surprise provocative thought.
We riffed, a bit, on the possibilities. When my sisters and I were kids and we'd become annoyingly giddy, my mother would say, "I think someone needs to go to the bathroom." She was always right about this. We conjectured that when one or the other of us or a familiar visitor displayed a morbid or otherwise difficult trend we'd be able to say, "I think someone needs to visit The Bowl of Provocative Thoughts." I mentioned that this phrase is also an excellent euphemism for "toilet" and we were off and running.
We also decided that during MCS's next visit with her daughter, which will probably occur in a month or so, thinking up and writing down provocative thoughts to place in the bowl would be a great around-the-table-in-the-evening project. We usually do evening projects at the table when they visit.
