The Worrying Gene
Hiromi has it. I don't. I think the gene is located right close to the "Mother Hen" gene. I don't have that one either.
I do, of course, routinely admonish Grant to be careful when he goes out on his motorcycle. And I warn Shane to not drive tired when I know he's planning to travel during the night. Soon after he began working at building basements under existing houses I had a moment of trepidation when he described the split second timing of two Mustangs working fast in the cramped quarters under a jacked-up house. I question Victor about his lunch: "Can you keep it cold enough without an ice pack?" But I certainly don't harbor over-anxiousness. Not me.
Yesterday I heard Hiromi admonish Victor about where to place the kitchen knives when they're waiting to be washed--and after they're washed, and when they're put away. This was quite an involved speech, replete with images of sliced fingers, emergency room visits, etc. I remember hearing a similar speech right after we got married.
Any food with a smidgen of doubt about its freshness gets thrown out without further ado. Never mind that some things, because of their acid content or their sugar content, or because of something else are not a candidate for botulism. Hiromi assumes the worst and banishes it. A tomato in the garden with a spot on it? Don't even bother picking it. (Leave it there to look innocent, so that Miriam will reach into the squishy mess the next time she picks tomatoes.) Pasteurized, sealed tofu past its expiration date? Out it goes. Sandwiches on a picnic that didn't seem as cold as ideal? A spoonful of colloidal silver for everyone right after the picnic. (Sure enough, the silver did the trick. None of us got sick.)
It's probably not just a genetic thing though. If Hiromi had been second in a family of twelve as I was, instead of third in a family of three as he was, he would have learned lots of survival mechanisms he missed out on as it is. However, others in my family with the same genetic heritage and the same number of siblings I have seem to have gotten a bigger capacity for worry than I did--or is it just better attention to details?
One night when I spent time with my sisters in another state, and Hiromi was not with me, I slept on a mattress on the floor with one of my sisters. When it was time to go to bed, I simply got into night clothes and went to bed. For quite some time my sister was still busily making preparations. After she finally joined me on the floor, she got up three times to tend to something important that she had forgotten earlier. I smiled to myself the first time, stifled a giggle the second time, and laughed out loud the third time. I had almost forgotten how it used to be.
Hiromi has a patiently reproachful line he uses when we're thinking the same thing and I suggest it out loud just before he follows through on his plan for doing it: "I don't like to be told [to do] what I was going to do." I've learned to use the same line regarding the knives in the kitchen. Thanks to him I have the system down pat, and I no longer need his reminders.
James Herriot confessed that he was the worrier in his family. His children had the habit of making annoying clucking noises whenever he went off on a worrying rant. So far our family has done fairly well at resisting this impulse.
Probably thanks to Hiromi, none of us has ever needed emergency room treatment because of an injury--except for Hiromi, who now faithfully warns us all not to try to catch an open window sash that loses its grip and plunges to the bottom of the frame. He has a nasty scar on the inside of his wrist to remind him of that danger. And taking a corner too fast on a motorcycle. . . . "I still don't know what happened. I just woke up in the hospital. Someone came along and found me and took me to the hospital, but no one saw what happened. . . . "
Looking after his family's physical wellbeing is one of the ways Hiromi shows his love for all of us. I think the Lord knew that this household needed one such person. Thank God that He Himself watches over Hiromi and all of us.
I do, of course, routinely admonish Grant to be careful when he goes out on his motorcycle. And I warn Shane to not drive tired when I know he's planning to travel during the night. Soon after he began working at building basements under existing houses I had a moment of trepidation when he described the split second timing of two Mustangs working fast in the cramped quarters under a jacked-up house. I question Victor about his lunch: "Can you keep it cold enough without an ice pack?" But I certainly don't harbor over-anxiousness. Not me.
Yesterday I heard Hiromi admonish Victor about where to place the kitchen knives when they're waiting to be washed--and after they're washed, and when they're put away. This was quite an involved speech, replete with images of sliced fingers, emergency room visits, etc. I remember hearing a similar speech right after we got married.
Any food with a smidgen of doubt about its freshness gets thrown out without further ado. Never mind that some things, because of their acid content or their sugar content, or because of something else are not a candidate for botulism. Hiromi assumes the worst and banishes it. A tomato in the garden with a spot on it? Don't even bother picking it. (Leave it there to look innocent, so that Miriam will reach into the squishy mess the next time she picks tomatoes.) Pasteurized, sealed tofu past its expiration date? Out it goes. Sandwiches on a picnic that didn't seem as cold as ideal? A spoonful of colloidal silver for everyone right after the picnic. (Sure enough, the silver did the trick. None of us got sick.)
It's probably not just a genetic thing though. If Hiromi had been second in a family of twelve as I was, instead of third in a family of three as he was, he would have learned lots of survival mechanisms he missed out on as it is. However, others in my family with the same genetic heritage and the same number of siblings I have seem to have gotten a bigger capacity for worry than I did--or is it just better attention to details?
One night when I spent time with my sisters in another state, and Hiromi was not with me, I slept on a mattress on the floor with one of my sisters. When it was time to go to bed, I simply got into night clothes and went to bed. For quite some time my sister was still busily making preparations. After she finally joined me on the floor, she got up three times to tend to something important that she had forgotten earlier. I smiled to myself the first time, stifled a giggle the second time, and laughed out loud the third time. I had almost forgotten how it used to be.
Hiromi has a patiently reproachful line he uses when we're thinking the same thing and I suggest it out loud just before he follows through on his plan for doing it: "I don't like to be told [to do] what I was going to do." I've learned to use the same line regarding the knives in the kitchen. Thanks to him I have the system down pat, and I no longer need his reminders.
James Herriot confessed that he was the worrier in his family. His children had the habit of making annoying clucking noises whenever he went off on a worrying rant. So far our family has done fairly well at resisting this impulse.
Probably thanks to Hiromi, none of us has ever needed emergency room treatment because of an injury--except for Hiromi, who now faithfully warns us all not to try to catch an open window sash that loses its grip and plunges to the bottom of the frame. He has a nasty scar on the inside of his wrist to remind him of that danger. And taking a corner too fast on a motorcycle. . . . "I still don't know what happened. I just woke up in the hospital. Someone came along and found me and took me to the hospital, but no one saw what happened. . . . "
Looking after his family's physical wellbeing is one of the ways Hiromi shows his love for all of us. I think the Lord knew that this household needed one such person. Thank God that He Himself watches over Hiromi and all of us.
posted by Mrs. I at
5:39 PM
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