Where you sit at the table or Hide the vegatables under the mash potatoes

Hide the vegtables under the mash potatoes
I was the baby of the family, significantly younger than my siblings. In fact my sister Robin, who is twelve years older than I am, went off to college the same week I started first grade. This age differance obviously effected our family dinners. I was down at the end of table playing with my food, trying to hide the broccoli under the mash potatoes, because no self respecting six year old eats anything green, while the rest of my family was focused on adult interaction.

Every family has its dinner ritual. And your childhood rituals effect your adult interactions. One of the most important nonverbal patterns that tend to develop at the family dinner table is where you sat and who you talked to. Nonverbal Communication research shows this pattern effects your future conversational behavior dinners and meeting behavior as an adult.
As a child I didn’t exactly fit in. Oh! I tried. After all I loved begging the center of attention. I would interrupt the conversational flow with exploits of the number of minnows in my latest catch and how high I swung on the swing that day. I always had to fight my way into the conversation. , using an extra loud voice. I had more energy and enthusiasm than a high school cheerleader and facial expressions and chair dancing to rival Steve Martin. I would even sit on my feet so I would sit higher at the table thinking it was just a few inches of height that separated me from the fun.
My antics would work in the short term. I could always get the first part of the story out. But if I went a second to long, the adults would shush me and continue on and I would be the small silent food magician pushing potatoes around again.
Occasionally my enthusiasm would disturb them far too much and I would be “allowed” to eat in the basement family room in front of the TV. I would hear the family laughing upstairs over the sounds of The Virginian or Flintstone Cartoon and would take the opportunity given in my absence from the table to flush any food I didn’t like down the toilet. My mother always said, “You eat so much better when you’re not distracted by us talking” It was lonely downstairs. I felt left out. But I felt left out at the table as well.
Now here is the kicker. Years later I began to go to grad student meeting then faculty meeting and then corporate meeting. Sitting around any board room table I felt like the little kid at the end being ignored. I even sat on my feet! But I was silent most of the time. It took several years of speaking in front of audiences at the corporate level to get my confidence up enough to speak in a board room. The patterns created at the family dinner table are very strong.
Yesterday I went to a business meeting at a restaurant. The booth seat was low, I asked for a telephone book to sit on. I guess I am too old to sit on my feet.
Where do you sit at the table?

Talk to strangers, flirt with the world.

My mom never meets a stranger. When I was a teenager I would go into Walgreen’s soda fountain with my mom after a long day of shopping. The waitress would come over and my mom would lean in close and smile as if she had known that waitress all her life and start talking. But most of all she would start listening. She would look that waitress in the eye, nod her head and keep saying say "uh-huh," and by the end of the meal she would leave knowing the waitress’s name and the names of her children and how each child was doing in school.

My mom knows how to use her body language to make people feel comfortable, to feel important. Basically she flirts with the world. And having seen the magic she creates I can tell you everybody loves it.

Try flirting with the world today.

Wedding customs:Something old something new

My niece and new nephews wedding was beautiful. Missy had worked so hard to take care of every little detail. Something saved to do at the last minute was getting something old, new borrowed and blue. You have probably heard of the tradition of the bride carrying those things with her on her wedding day, but do you know what they mean? According to the Northhamptinshire city website in England "something old" shows the durability of marriage and the continuity of your old life into the new married one. "Something new" symbolizes the start of building your new life together as a married couple. “Something borrowed" is an important item to choose well as “it should be from a happily married woman whose virtues you most wish for, to assist in ensuring marital bliss.” “Something blue" is used to promise love, fidelity and purity.
Missy had on new jewelry, but the something old, borrowed and blue was her mother’s antiques lace handkerchief. Missy pulled it out a few times during the wedding to dry her happy tears. The last time she pulled it out to hand to the justice of the piece, who started crying and she pronounced Missy and Kevin husband a wife. We all laughed and then the couple turned and walked out quite literally into the sun setting over the bay.
I would love to hear your nonverbal wedding stories in the comments.

Wedding customs

Today is my niece Missy’s wedding day. The groomen's job in the middle ages was to help kidnap the bride from a neighboring villiage and guard till the wedding her so she would not run away and her family could not steal her back.

Missy will not be running away, she is very much in love. Her fiancé Kevin has definitely kidnapped her heart.

Right now her girlfriends and maid of Honor are fixing her long blonde hair. The bride’s maids in medieval times stayed with the bride in the days before the marriage and braided her hair with flowers and rubbed her with perfumes oils, basically trying to keep her calm. Here I hear the girls laughing and talking about Whistler’s resort where she and Kevin will spend their honeymoon. It's a nice sound

You will find more info Monday on traditional wedding customs. I love knowing the origin or nonverbal rituals.

Wedding history

I am writing this post as we are getting ready to go to my nieces wedding rehearsal.
Last night my future nephew had his bachelor party, where they were joined by the bachlorettes who had just finished their spa day. The first bachelor parties were in Sparta and were given by warriors to celebrate fellow warrior’s upcoming nuptials.
The first “weds” in Anglo Saxon times were guarantees of the groom’s family that the bride would be taken care of for the rest of her life.