No, not the hum of the construction work being finalised next door.
Not the faint echoes of my mewling bitchiness yesterday. (Is that mixed moggification?)
Not the whir of the washing machine doing its last load for the morning.
Not the revving of engines as caravan-towing holiday-makers discover this great straight road.
Not the screech of the saws of the installantion crew fixing the drainage.
Not the chatter of the local radio station.
Not the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard.
Not even the songs and twitters of the native wildlife.
Yes - that - the silence.
No?
It is here somewhere, I swear!!! I heard it just a little while ago - just after the school bus left and the smoko van had tooted its call to the workers.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Monday, September 08, 2008
On frogs, on being fat; on being a judgemental hag mother and on the 8th of the 9th, 98
One of those mish mash posts...
Yesterday morning, I went to the back door to discover an absolutely petrified frog clinging to it.
Strange place for a frog, thought I, as we do have a cat and that would be about the perfect spot for him to taunt it - a bad habit that our cat has developed out of being a sadistic creature of his genetics. Grasshoppers, crickets, lizards and frogs' only hope once spied is if the humans of the house are on their saviour game.
I then opened the door and discovered our "indoors at night" cat outdoors and very interested in being back indoors, mainly by virtue of the fact that that is where he had chased the frog last.
But the frog was lucky. I had a plastic bucket close at hand, 'Salina had a sheet of paper and so we scooped and saved the frog to deposit in the back yard.
Eddie is cute and a creature of hunting, but he is quite dim so couldn't work out what had happened to the frog.
'Salina and I were patting ourselves on our backs when we heard the distictive sounds of a frog screaming. Now, once you know this sound you can't mistake it.
Eddie, 'Salina and I sprang to attention and ran to the back windows - to discover the frog we had saved in the beak of a kookaburra - who stopped the screaming with a few judicious taps on the branch.
I almost got philosophical about the parallels of that frog's morning and life in general when I pulled myself up for being a melodramatic drama queen (yes, even I notice that tendency).
I mean, the frog had had a crap day. Nothing to read into it.
I don't know if you realise this, but I am what is euphamistically regarded as "comfortably covered".
I am not fat as in the "oh my goodness, I need surgery" field - more in the mellower "gee, when I thought I was fat in my 20s I was really skinny compared to now" sort of fat.
V is really good at wading through the me feeling fat minefield.
I think that he has either read a secret manifesto on it OR he has had training (I don't know where from - I have met his ex and she is a "so skinny you can feel her vertebra" type of woman).
Anyhow, If I ever pull out the "I am fat" moans he gives me the reassuring "if you are unhappy I will support you in every endeavour but I love you happy" spiel. Sweet.
Then he makes going fishing moves and if it is a hormonal related fat frump I am in I can read that as him saying loudly and clearly that he feels I need more low fat alternatives in my diet (but then during hormonal related fat frumps I can get p!issed off at any move so noone can win) but if it is just a general fat frump I can understand the move and wish parts of me could go fishing with him - heck, especially the bits that would serve better as bait!
Anyhow, how does this relate?
Yesterday, we also had an unwitting playdate for 'Salina as a friend had a night out and was feeling "delicate" so rather than have her son entertain himself for a glorious Sunday we invited him over to ours.
One of the main drawcards in coming to our place for him is the fact that I cook - and I let him help. (One of the main drawcards in having him come to our place is my innate martyrdom complex, no doubt. There are parts of my inner psyche I chose not to explore).
So, anyhow, at the end of the afternoon after I had cleaned the kitchen for the 20th time (I exaggerate - but there was the "things soaking from last night" clean up, the "pikelets to keep 'Salina amused and let V have a sleep in for father's day" clean up, the "oh I might cook quiche because we need to use some garden stuff and it would be nice for lunch" clean up, the "chocolate chip cookies to fill the tin, send off with V while he works away and amuse the excess child" clean up and the "I had better put a stew on with the mystery meat we found in the freezer" clean up - so 5 times) (okay, so I am food obsessed - there are worse things)...
As I said, finally we cycled back to their place to deposit said child and his container of cookies.
My friend had her neighbour and son over for a beer. The neighbour is nice enough. However, if you were to do a spectrum of types of mothers, she would be right up at the other end from me - and she would no doubt say the same about me.
But we are nice and civil and polite to each otherthere are so many things here that I have struck out so please just understand I have an overwheling judgemental "it seems we end up with the children we deserve" diatribe going through my mind like a soundtrack when we meet - not that she would notice because, of the things she notices, how her child behaves does not appear to be one of them chatting about life and how much was drunk last night and what men were pashed, the universe and whether texting was a positive or negative aspect on making hook ups and everything my goodness I was over that lifestyle in my 20s and I lived it pretty hard then but hello we are all over 35 now.
She is very beautiful. Her son also inherited her looks.
Anyhow (miaow), as I was leaving, my friend thanked me for the biscuits and said to her neighbour how I always came bearing food gifts and how great it was and how I was always cooking great stuff.
"Yes" drawled the neighbour, looking me up and down "you can tell."
Nice to see I wasn't the only b!tch with subversive thoughts on the veranda! Still working out whether the frog and I were somehow connected!
I was putting together my "to do" list this morning, and suddenly it hit me - the date.
This day ten years ago, I fell in love.
The man I fell in love with fell in love with me also - it was a whole heap of falling and a plethora of love - my friends even complained of the quagmire of love that surrounded us, ten years ago.
His accent was rich, his words so softly spoken, his thoughts and moods deep and profound. He played guitar for me and wooed. I wrote words for him and sang our love songs to the world.
Now, as you may (or may not) know, the man I fell in love with all those years ago is not the man I am in love with today - not because he became a different man but because, really, it is a different man.
Its funny, but for all the vivid painting of minor dramas in my life I tend to do here, there are bits that are merely allusions.
P. was not my only ex - he just happened to be the one I came closest to sharing swathes of my life with. (Ah yes, it seems that there are more than 2 men who can find afat generous woman attractive).
I once counted up the boys and men with whom I have dallied emotional or other waters with - and yes, footwear did have to be removed.
Unfortunate that it was a large number and it is every woman's dream that she find her perfect match the first time around.
Fortunate it was a large number because I would SERIOUSLY question myself being attracted to a man that held all the romantic (and not so romantic) life lessons I had to learn in life.
Some of them were great lessons in life and some of them were great big lessons in life.
As is the sychronicity in life (and blogworld), a moment after I realised the date this morning, I read (through the click on a link on someones comments box random act) Mommy Needs 5 Minutes talking about the love she would never forget - oh joy, I never thought all the mistakes that I had made in my life when I was making them would end up to haunt me not only through lack of judgement at the time, but lack of preparation for my daughter!
Just so long as she never falls for the veranda b!tches pretty boy son, I like to think I would be the sort of mum she could always rely on (as I do with mine).
Yesterday morning, I went to the back door to discover an absolutely petrified frog clinging to it.
Strange place for a frog, thought I, as we do have a cat and that would be about the perfect spot for him to taunt it - a bad habit that our cat has developed out of being a sadistic creature of his genetics. Grasshoppers, crickets, lizards and frogs' only hope once spied is if the humans of the house are on their saviour game.
I then opened the door and discovered our "indoors at night" cat outdoors and very interested in being back indoors, mainly by virtue of the fact that that is where he had chased the frog last.
But the frog was lucky. I had a plastic bucket close at hand, 'Salina had a sheet of paper and so we scooped and saved the frog to deposit in the back yard.
Eddie is cute and a creature of hunting, but he is quite dim so couldn't work out what had happened to the frog.
'Salina and I were patting ourselves on our backs when we heard the distictive sounds of a frog screaming. Now, once you know this sound you can't mistake it.
Eddie, 'Salina and I sprang to attention and ran to the back windows - to discover the frog we had saved in the beak of a kookaburra - who stopped the screaming with a few judicious taps on the branch.
I almost got philosophical about the parallels of that frog's morning and life in general when I pulled myself up for being a melodramatic drama queen (yes, even I notice that tendency).
I mean, the frog had had a crap day. Nothing to read into it.
I don't know if you realise this, but I am what is euphamistically regarded as "comfortably covered".
I am not fat as in the "oh my goodness, I need surgery" field - more in the mellower "gee, when I thought I was fat in my 20s I was really skinny compared to now" sort of fat.
V is really good at wading through the me feeling fat minefield.
I think that he has either read a secret manifesto on it OR he has had training (I don't know where from - I have met his ex and she is a "so skinny you can feel her vertebra" type of woman).
Anyhow, If I ever pull out the "I am fat" moans he gives me the reassuring "if you are unhappy I will support you in every endeavour but I love you happy" spiel. Sweet.
Then he makes going fishing moves and if it is a hormonal related fat frump I am in I can read that as him saying loudly and clearly that he feels I need more low fat alternatives in my diet (but then during hormonal related fat frumps I can get p!issed off at any move so noone can win) but if it is just a general fat frump I can understand the move and wish parts of me could go fishing with him - heck, especially the bits that would serve better as bait!
Anyhow, how does this relate?
Yesterday, we also had an unwitting playdate for 'Salina as a friend had a night out and was feeling "delicate" so rather than have her son entertain himself for a glorious Sunday we invited him over to ours.
One of the main drawcards in coming to our place for him is the fact that I cook - and I let him help. (One of the main drawcards in having him come to our place is my innate martyrdom complex, no doubt. There are parts of my inner psyche I chose not to explore).
So, anyhow, at the end of the afternoon after I had cleaned the kitchen for the 20th time (I exaggerate - but there was the "things soaking from last night" clean up, the "pikelets to keep 'Salina amused and let V have a sleep in for father's day" clean up, the "oh I might cook quiche because we need to use some garden stuff and it would be nice for lunch" clean up, the "chocolate chip cookies to fill the tin, send off with V while he works away and amuse the excess child" clean up and the "I had better put a stew on with the mystery meat we found in the freezer" clean up - so 5 times) (okay, so I am food obsessed - there are worse things)...
As I said, finally we cycled back to their place to deposit said child and his container of cookies.
My friend had her neighbour and son over for a beer. The neighbour is nice enough. However, if you were to do a spectrum of types of mothers, she would be right up at the other end from me - and she would no doubt say the same about me.
But we are nice and civil and polite to each other
She is very beautiful. Her son also inherited her looks.
Anyhow (miaow), as I was leaving, my friend thanked me for the biscuits and said to her neighbour how I always came bearing food gifts and how great it was and how I was always cooking great stuff.
"Yes" drawled the neighbour, looking me up and down "you can tell."
Nice to see I wasn't the only b!tch with subversive thoughts on the veranda! Still working out whether the frog and I were somehow connected!
I was putting together my "to do" list this morning, and suddenly it hit me - the date.
This day ten years ago, I fell in love.
The man I fell in love with fell in love with me also - it was a whole heap of falling and a plethora of love - my friends even complained of the quagmire of love that surrounded us, ten years ago.
His accent was rich, his words so softly spoken, his thoughts and moods deep and profound. He played guitar for me and wooed. I wrote words for him and sang our love songs to the world.
Now, as you may (or may not) know, the man I fell in love with all those years ago is not the man I am in love with today - not because he became a different man but because, really, it is a different man.
Its funny, but for all the vivid painting of minor dramas in my life I tend to do here, there are bits that are merely allusions.
P. was not my only ex - he just happened to be the one I came closest to sharing swathes of my life with. (Ah yes, it seems that there are more than 2 men who can find a
I once counted up the boys and men with whom I have dallied emotional or other waters with - and yes, footwear did have to be removed.
Unfortunate that it was a large number and it is every woman's dream that she find her perfect match the first time around.
Fortunate it was a large number because I would SERIOUSLY question myself being attracted to a man that held all the romantic (and not so romantic) life lessons I had to learn in life.
Some of them were great lessons in life and some of them were great big lessons in life.
As is the sychronicity in life (and blogworld), a moment after I realised the date this morning, I read (through the click on a link on someones comments box random act) Mommy Needs 5 Minutes talking about the love she would never forget - oh joy, I never thought all the mistakes that I had made in my life when I was making them would end up to haunt me not only through lack of judgement at the time, but lack of preparation for my daughter!
Just so long as she never falls for the veranda b!tches pretty boy son, I like to think I would be the sort of mum she could always rely on (as I do with mine).
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Using my DQ title for good, not evil...
Geez - I am getting bored with being a drama queen (despite being so darned good at it) so will interrupt for a very important community service...
One story bubbling around the blogworld at the moment is the rally behind Tiff and her most beautiful daughter Ivy at My Three Ring Circus.
Tiff is a most beautiful mother whose child Ivy suffers from words too long for me to remember - in laymen terms she is home until her system gets another inkling of danger, she gets screwed around by the "should she, shouldn't she" debate by health officials and when she finally gets admitted (a million miles from home) horribly sick and treated with huge white man medicine (and varying bedside manners) she improves enough to go home to enjoy a little more time with siblings before the cycle continues.
Tiff has other children. She even has a child who suffered similarly in her infancy - who was treated with something called IVIG (don't quote me) and is now a pre-teen with attitude.
Ivy has been denied this treatment. We don't have the definitive big doctor terms for this, but obviously there should be either a BLOODY GOOD REASON for Tiff and Ivy and the whole family to go through this crap or the right person look at this case and give the double thumbs up.
Read the beginning at Someday We Will Sleep and consider signing the petition. Apparently over 600 have done so already. And apparently people who do have influence are taking notice.
I don't know if any one individual signature can cause change, but enough notice and the right people might get advised of the noise out here in the blog world and take another look at Ivy's file and made a decision about her future treatment that makes life more enjoyable for her and her family - or at least give a really good reason why they should keep going through such crap.
Here is the petition.
One story bubbling around the blogworld at the moment is the rally behind Tiff and her most beautiful daughter Ivy at My Three Ring Circus.
Tiff is a most beautiful mother whose child Ivy suffers from words too long for me to remember - in laymen terms she is home until her system gets another inkling of danger, she gets screwed around by the "should she, shouldn't she" debate by health officials and when she finally gets admitted (a million miles from home) horribly sick and treated with huge white man medicine (and varying bedside manners) she improves enough to go home to enjoy a little more time with siblings before the cycle continues.
Tiff has other children. She even has a child who suffered similarly in her infancy - who was treated with something called IVIG (don't quote me) and is now a pre-teen with attitude.
Ivy has been denied this treatment. We don't have the definitive big doctor terms for this, but obviously there should be either a BLOODY GOOD REASON for Tiff and Ivy and the whole family to go through this crap or the right person look at this case and give the double thumbs up.
Read the beginning at Someday We Will Sleep and consider signing the petition. Apparently over 600 have done so already. And apparently people who do have influence are taking notice.
I don't know if any one individual signature can cause change, but enough notice and the right people might get advised of the noise out here in the blog world and take another look at Ivy's file and made a decision about her future treatment that makes life more enjoyable for her and her family - or at least give a really good reason why they should keep going through such crap.
Here is the petition.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Head not above water (but not face down in the muffin mix)
Still not in a good enough mood to make light of my life at the moment.
The universe is normally quite kind to me, which is why I am quandrifying it all.
Obviously a lesson to be learned here. We have no choice but to learn, really - life lessons have a habit of ensuring they are thorough.
Of course, then you see that 200,000 are homeless and wondering where there next meal is in India due to flooding - and it all gets put into perspective.
I mean - we have a bumper parsley crop to keep us from the dogs.
And I do need to slim down a bit to move all those funky frocks from my performance days into contemplation for being wed (thus saving me from hard decisions involving either fashion or finance).
That means all the cycling in my future can possibly be filed under "pronoia".
Still working on the other issues. I am sure sometime soon I will be back blowing sunshine.
In the mean time - a whinge arising from Tuck Shop (because if you can't whinge about others there would be NO JOY in life)...
Last week, I was a heroine and stood in for the convenor while she partied with her family at the other end of the state.
One mother gave me a hand for an hour - and then it was me against the hordes - and the hordes were hungry.
I gave thanks to my three grade 7 helpers with leftover fruit salad and some oven baked nuggets I would have had to turf as I miscounted (don't ask - things were frantic).
Today I helped in tuckshop as usual and found out that one of my helpers (a rather overweight girl) had been banned from coming to tuckshop - because she had put on too much weight.
I had to ring the vice principal to advise her the truth of the situation.
The main reason I had given the girl this free fruit salad and nuggets for helping me last week was her lunch consisted of dry muffin mix! When asked about what "healthy" stuff she had, she said she had eaten an apple the previous day.
Obviously the focus should be elsewhere for that extra stone the girl had gained in the last month...
The universe is normally quite kind to me, which is why I am quandrifying it all.
Obviously a lesson to be learned here. We have no choice but to learn, really - life lessons have a habit of ensuring they are thorough.
Of course, then you see that 200,000 are homeless and wondering where there next meal is in India due to flooding - and it all gets put into perspective.
I mean - we have a bumper parsley crop to keep us from the dogs.
And I do need to slim down a bit to move all those funky frocks from my performance days into contemplation for being wed (thus saving me from hard decisions involving either fashion or finance).
That means all the cycling in my future can possibly be filed under "pronoia".
Still working on the other issues. I am sure sometime soon I will be back blowing sunshine.
In the mean time - a whinge arising from Tuck Shop (because if you can't whinge about others there would be NO JOY in life)...
Last week, I was a heroine and stood in for the convenor while she partied with her family at the other end of the state.
One mother gave me a hand for an hour - and then it was me against the hordes - and the hordes were hungry.
I gave thanks to my three grade 7 helpers with leftover fruit salad and some oven baked nuggets I would have had to turf as I miscounted (don't ask - things were frantic).
Today I helped in tuckshop as usual and found out that one of my helpers (a rather overweight girl) had been banned from coming to tuckshop - because she had put on too much weight.
I had to ring the vice principal to advise her the truth of the situation.
The main reason I had given the girl this free fruit salad and nuggets for helping me last week was her lunch consisted of dry muffin mix! When asked about what "healthy" stuff she had, she said she had eaten an apple the previous day.
Obviously the focus should be elsewhere for that extra stone the girl had gained in the last month...
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Off Air
Sorry - have not been around the traps (here or at yours) for a few days and may be for a few more.
Its about chasing the almighty dollar and attempting to limit the tidal flow.
Hopefully it will all be sweet again next week and I will see you (here and and at yours) then.
Its about chasing the almighty dollar and attempting to limit the tidal flow.
Hopefully it will all be sweet again next week and I will see you (here and and at yours) then.
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