March Monthly Letters
Jeremy – not a mention. However, as aprilp_katje pointed out, given his running joke of being taken for test drives every time John Patterson mentions a new car, he is due for a test drive. This time, a station wagon with all wheel drive and good for hauling things.
Howard – not a mention. Howard is practically a made up April’s Real Blog character now.
Constable Paul Wright. The mother lode this time. Let’s go through starting with Liz’s letter.
The girls like to quiz me about Paul - he's got relatives in Mtigwaki, as I've mentioned before, and of course some of my students are connected to his family.
“Connected.” The word makes me feel very Godfather-ly. I guess it means that they work the lumber business in Spruce Narrows like everyone else in Mtigwaki, but they are not actually related. I suppose that is a more comfortable feeling for Liz. Jesse Mukwa doesn’t come to Liz and say, “Miss Patterson. When are you going to marry my cousin?” I am going to take it as Paul Wright as, “My relatives know your parents, but I am not related to you, Jesse Mukwa.”
They want to know if we're getting married, which seems to be the typical little-girl question when they find out that you have a boyfriend.
Maybe in Mtigwaki. My girl is 8, and she doesn’t ask that question. But, maybe girls in Mtigwaki are different from my daughter.
I've kept my lips sealed; I like to encourage my students to see marriage as something you do at the right time with the right person - many of the women here get married very young, because the town is so small, and I want my students to know they have lots of opportunities to travel and work and see more of the world when they're finished school.
This is as close as I have seen Lynn address the enormous problem the First Nations people have with unmarried mothers between the ages of 16-21. I remember trying to look up school attendance statistics in order to snark the truancy thing, and finding whole statistical categories devoted to this group. Lynn isn’t brave enough to address the unmarried part, but I will give her points for even mentioning the issue obliquely. I expect Liz would keep her lips sealed regardless, but it is interesting she is trying to justify it by claiming it will help her little-girl students keep from getting married too young.
I'd be doing them a disservice if I let them think that they need to be married while they're still my age.
This is a confusing sentence. The little-girl students are not still Liz’s age and at 24 years old, Liz is not really too young to be considering marriage.
Still, Paul and I are happy and I think they can sense that.
We represent.
It should be obvious - they follow us around town, giggling and singing barely-audible songs when they think we're out of earshot.
When Liz and Paul go out on the town, they are following by a pack of giggling and singing little girls, just out of earshot, but apparently not out of eyesight. The kids in Mtigwaki really have nothing to do, do they? This does tell me that Paul and Liz do leave the apartment to walk around.
Paul comes up here every weekend; it's a long drive and I wish I had a car so I could reciprocate once in a while by going to visit him, but he doesn't seem to mind.
This is baloney. Sorry, Lynnions. It is too much fun to write about weekday visits. You should have taken your cue from us on this one.
We chat on the phone every night, and we've gotten to know each other very well.
I need to add nightly phone calls into my snark.
He's open and honest, which is a profoundly attractive quality for me, having been cheated on and lied to by Eric for so long.
I can see Liz testing him on this point.
He's a great person, and I see this relationship becoming serious.
Still not serious yet. Liz keeps holding back. We have already been doing this.
If he gets transferred to Spruce Narrows, we'll be that much closer together. I'm looking forward to it!
Liz is trying to convince herself that Paul moving to Spruce Narrows is a good thing.
Shiimsa likes him, too.
We have done this a lot lately.
As soon as he comes into the house, she's up on his shoulders looking for some attention.
I dated a girl like that. Her cat would jump on me, when I visited her. It scratched the crap out of me every time it did it, and when I complained to the girl, she was of the opinion that since I was a man, I could take it. I still have a scar on my arm from that cat. This seems very much in character. I need to add in some Paul climbing.
Animals are pretty good judges of character, and I think she'd let me know in a non-verbal manner if she didn't approve.
Yes. Or she could ignore the non-verbal manner, for the sake of the relationship. I think that is the way to go.
Elly's Letter, March 2006
Liz tells me next to nothing about her relationship with her new boyfriend, but I've seen some of the snapshots that she emails April, so I know they enjoy snowshoeing and hiking by the lake.
This is kind of sad, actually. Liz is intentionally ignoring her mother. Snowshoeing, grrr! No, it is cross country skiing from last month. OK. I will add snowshoeing to the list. Hiking by the lake! Whoo-hoo! I felt honoured by that one.
He's a handsome young man, and she seems to be quite happy in the photos. I try not to pry, but I'm glad that Liz has someone looking out for her up North - even if he does live a few hours' drive away from Mtigwaki.
Elly is so desperate for information, she is reading expressions off of Liz’s face in pictures. “a few hours' drive” Hell’s bells, woman. If you keep moving Otter County closer to Mtigwaki, there soon won’t be any reason for him to transfer. I will have to include this somehow.
April's Letter, March 2006
I talk to Liz most nights, too...she's really crazy for this Paul guy. She sent me some photos - he's pretty cute! Personally I thought Warren was a little better looking, but then I like his whole pilot thing. Cops kind of scare me. Well, guns scare me, and cops carry guns. Liz says Paul's a real sweetie though, and I'll take her word for it. I hope I get to meet him. I want to visit Liz one of these days. I miss Shiimsa. And her, of course.
Big note here. Liz confesses her feelings for Paul to April. Not to Paul of course. What I can take from this is that Liz has sent April pictures. Probably 8x10 glossies. I also need to toss in a little gun stuff to get a reaction.
Tomorrow’s strip: Lynn makes it really obvious Liz’s students like Susan better than her. Plus she is a noble native, so Liz, get ready to kiss your job goodbye, but not before you show how wonderful you are in giving away your valuable teaching knowledge to Susan,
Howard – not a mention. Howard is practically a made up April’s Real Blog character now.
Constable Paul Wright. The mother lode this time. Let’s go through starting with Liz’s letter.
The girls like to quiz me about Paul - he's got relatives in Mtigwaki, as I've mentioned before, and of course some of my students are connected to his family.
“Connected.” The word makes me feel very Godfather-ly. I guess it means that they work the lumber business in Spruce Narrows like everyone else in Mtigwaki, but they are not actually related. I suppose that is a more comfortable feeling for Liz. Jesse Mukwa doesn’t come to Liz and say, “Miss Patterson. When are you going to marry my cousin?” I am going to take it as Paul Wright as, “My relatives know your parents, but I am not related to you, Jesse Mukwa.”
They want to know if we're getting married, which seems to be the typical little-girl question when they find out that you have a boyfriend.
Maybe in Mtigwaki. My girl is 8, and she doesn’t ask that question. But, maybe girls in Mtigwaki are different from my daughter.
I've kept my lips sealed; I like to encourage my students to see marriage as something you do at the right time with the right person - many of the women here get married very young, because the town is so small, and I want my students to know they have lots of opportunities to travel and work and see more of the world when they're finished school.
This is as close as I have seen Lynn address the enormous problem the First Nations people have with unmarried mothers between the ages of 16-21. I remember trying to look up school attendance statistics in order to snark the truancy thing, and finding whole statistical categories devoted to this group. Lynn isn’t brave enough to address the unmarried part, but I will give her points for even mentioning the issue obliquely. I expect Liz would keep her lips sealed regardless, but it is interesting she is trying to justify it by claiming it will help her little-girl students keep from getting married too young.
I'd be doing them a disservice if I let them think that they need to be married while they're still my age.
This is a confusing sentence. The little-girl students are not still Liz’s age and at 24 years old, Liz is not really too young to be considering marriage.
Still, Paul and I are happy and I think they can sense that.
We represent.
It should be obvious - they follow us around town, giggling and singing barely-audible songs when they think we're out of earshot.
When Liz and Paul go out on the town, they are following by a pack of giggling and singing little girls, just out of earshot, but apparently not out of eyesight. The kids in Mtigwaki really have nothing to do, do they? This does tell me that Paul and Liz do leave the apartment to walk around.
Paul comes up here every weekend; it's a long drive and I wish I had a car so I could reciprocate once in a while by going to visit him, but he doesn't seem to mind.
This is baloney. Sorry, Lynnions. It is too much fun to write about weekday visits. You should have taken your cue from us on this one.
We chat on the phone every night, and we've gotten to know each other very well.
I need to add nightly phone calls into my snark.
He's open and honest, which is a profoundly attractive quality for me, having been cheated on and lied to by Eric for so long.
I can see Liz testing him on this point.
He's a great person, and I see this relationship becoming serious.
Still not serious yet. Liz keeps holding back. We have already been doing this.
If he gets transferred to Spruce Narrows, we'll be that much closer together. I'm looking forward to it!
Liz is trying to convince herself that Paul moving to Spruce Narrows is a good thing.
Shiimsa likes him, too.
We have done this a lot lately.
As soon as he comes into the house, she's up on his shoulders looking for some attention.
I dated a girl like that. Her cat would jump on me, when I visited her. It scratched the crap out of me every time it did it, and when I complained to the girl, she was of the opinion that since I was a man, I could take it. I still have a scar on my arm from that cat. This seems very much in character. I need to add in some Paul climbing.
Animals are pretty good judges of character, and I think she'd let me know in a non-verbal manner if she didn't approve.
Yes. Or she could ignore the non-verbal manner, for the sake of the relationship. I think that is the way to go.
Elly's Letter, March 2006
Liz tells me next to nothing about her relationship with her new boyfriend, but I've seen some of the snapshots that she emails April, so I know they enjoy snowshoeing and hiking by the lake.
This is kind of sad, actually. Liz is intentionally ignoring her mother. Snowshoeing, grrr! No, it is cross country skiing from last month. OK. I will add snowshoeing to the list. Hiking by the lake! Whoo-hoo! I felt honoured by that one.
He's a handsome young man, and she seems to be quite happy in the photos. I try not to pry, but I'm glad that Liz has someone looking out for her up North - even if he does live a few hours' drive away from Mtigwaki.
Elly is so desperate for information, she is reading expressions off of Liz’s face in pictures. “a few hours' drive” Hell’s bells, woman. If you keep moving Otter County closer to Mtigwaki, there soon won’t be any reason for him to transfer. I will have to include this somehow.
April's Letter, March 2006
I talk to Liz most nights, too...she's really crazy for this Paul guy. She sent me some photos - he's pretty cute! Personally I thought Warren was a little better looking, but then I like his whole pilot thing. Cops kind of scare me. Well, guns scare me, and cops carry guns. Liz says Paul's a real sweetie though, and I'll take her word for it. I hope I get to meet him. I want to visit Liz one of these days. I miss Shiimsa. And her, of course.
Big note here. Liz confesses her feelings for Paul to April. Not to Paul of course. What I can take from this is that Liz has sent April pictures. Probably 8x10 glossies. I also need to toss in a little gun stuff to get a reaction.
Tomorrow’s strip: Lynn makes it really obvious Liz’s students like Susan better than her. Plus she is a noble native, so Liz, get ready to kiss your job goodbye, but not before you show how wonderful you are in giving away your valuable teaching knowledge to Susan,
posted by howard at 11:29 PM
2 Comments:
Shades of the Katie/Lynn relationship, maybe?
I am sorry about your sister Libby. I have similar problems with my sisters, where I have to find out what's going on in their lives through my parents. I am not sure if they do it intentionally, or if they have just gotten into the habit of communicating what's going on in their lives that way. For example, when my sister decided to get divorced recently, the way I found out was my mother leaving me a cryptic e-mail message saying that I really needed to talk to my sister.
As for FBoFW, it creates an interesting situation. The perspective that Liz doesn't talk to Elly comes only from Elly. She is the one complaining to Connie about it. You never hear the same response from April or from John. John seems oblivious to the fact that Liz is even dating. The last time John mentioned Liz in a monthly letter was to lord it over her about drinking too much. So, the perspective may simply be Elly's own opinion and nobody else's.
For example, in today's strip, Liz is writing to mom, dad, and April; not to April directly. Liz's motivation for sending pictures to April may not have anything to do with not sharing with Elly. April may have asked for pictures of Paul, which Elly would not have asked for, since she has already met Paul.
For the sake of argument, let's suppose that Elly's opinion is correct. There is an overarching theme in the strip of daughters escaping from their mothers, which has definite underpinnings in Lynn's awful relationship with her own mother. Deanna's sister left Burlington for no other stated reason than to get away from her mother. One of the reasons Liz listed specifically in the strip for going to the Northwest was to get away from parents. It is interesting that Lynn is writing her daughter's character as having the career she wanted for her, but is not writing that Elly and Liz have the relationship she wants to have with her daughter.
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