I awoke today to Kenne’s cluck-clucking “tisk-tisk.”  There she was, on the bedpost, observing us in our sleep.  If you don’t know who Kenne is, she will be shocked, as she is the self-imposed “Queen” of Manners, Etiquette and the Maintenance of Ladylike Behavior and Honor (click here for more info on her madness)

“You both,” she noted with a shrill feathered-swoop, “have too-big tummies for your middle-aged status.  You, m’lady, as the lady of the house, must start feeding your M. more pomegranate juice – not to mention consume some yourself!  You are going to get F-A-T.”

An opened up pomegranate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sighing and turning over, I tried to tune out Kenne and her constant observations about my weight – I find that in people of a certain generation and class – appearances are everything.  Although, I must admit, my students often comment on these things as well.

Can you imagine a classroom of students commenting on your weight? Well, that’s my fate in the classroom.  Last week, two of them asked me if I was pregnant!  M. tells me that there is NO WAY that I look pregnant, even though I am overweight.  It’s enough to re-awaken the whole beach obesity debates in Bodrum that almost led me to don a burquini for the shock factor! Now that I have tenure, I am going to have to come up with some sort of snarky response to stop that train before it leaves the station.  “How would it be,” I could say to them, “if I commented on YOUR weight in front of the classroom?”

As we got up, I found pomegranate-related notes and images across the apartment.  She had clearly been up all night.  Indeed, her trusty-dusty handmaiden, Zenne, the nervous Nellie puppet, known to quiver like a bowl of quince jelly on most occasions, was still asleep after a night’s labor.  I guess it was bad enough to take some heed of the somewhat-snotty, in-our-business puppet’s words – I suppose there is a grain of truth in everything.

Let’s get to peeling pomegranates!

A worker preparing fresh pomegranate juice from these pomegranate fruits. Photo taken at a market in Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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