Doing the Rory thing

Since the early part of this year, Kenneth has taken to doing what he calls "the Rory thing". Rory, if you didn't know, is a character from the fabulous tv series Gilmore Girls. The show centres on the relationship between the hip, sassy mother Lorelei and Rory, her smart, sensible daughter. I'm sure many mums who have watched the show have dreamed of having such a close-knit relationship with their teenage daughters. Yours truly is one of them, not least cos Lorelei is so coooooool.

One of Rory's signature traits is that she brings a book with her wherever she goes. There's this scene where she'd just returned from a school dance with her boyfriend Dean:

Dean: "You brought a book to the dance?"
Rory: "Yeah."
Dean: "You thought there'd be a lot of downtime?"
Rory: "No. I just take a book with me everywhere. It's just habit."

Anyway, this is what Kenneth and I have been doing of late (bringing a book everywhere, not going to a school dance). It started out as a measure to fill in time gaps, eg. having something to read when he's waiting for Andre to finish his badminton training. As parents, we're always ferrying kids to all kinds of classes and an incredible amount of time is spent just waiting.

Quite subtly, the practice has altered our perspective on waiting. Since we now have a book with us at all times, waiting is no longer a waste of time (and cause for blood pressures to rise). Even if we have to stand in line for something or take a long ride on the MRT, we just use the time to catch up on our reading.

For Andre, this habit has its bonuses. It's hard to get him to sit down and read at home, especially when there are so many other exciting activities he would rather do. But when he's out and waiting, such as for Lesley-Anne to finish her ballet class, reading a book beats standing around aimlessly waiting for time to pass. Ok, ok, I admit the accompanying cheese fries have something to do with it but STILL...

No need to impose the practice on Lesley-Anne, she's already a bookworm by nature. Here she is, reading even on vacation.


Looks like I may have inadvertently raised a Rory. Now I just have to raise my cool quotient to that of Lorelei's.