Rain

Rain last night – all over the clothes that we’d accidentally left on the clothesline. Oh well. They might dry out today.

After being on water restrictions for so many years, it seems churlish, even downright anti-social to complain about any rain. You’re likely to be glared at if you mention any sport or activities curtailed by precipitation without putting the A.C.T disclaimer of “Of course, we really need the rain and I’m grateful for what we get.”

The nerines are all green and dressed up with no flowers.

Decluttering idea

Post from Scott Adams’ blog.

I love the idea of cubby holes at the top and bottom of the flight of stairs. I remember doing way more trips up and down the stairs in either of the two heritage houses that my family owned. Big stairs, long trip if you forgot something.

If I had to rebuild my current house, maybe I’d keep the current basic set-up but there are a few things that I’d have included in the first place.

1. Get natural gas connected and not have a wood-burning stove.
2. Have a water tank.
3. Change access from the carport to the backyard.

I did one hour of decluttering on Weds. night. I had things on my mind and going through papers was a sort of restful thing to do. I filled the recycling bin in the kitchen with leftover envelopes. One-third of the table of doom is certainly clearer. Now I need to find a place to put genealogy magazines in order.

Polar Fleece Mum bites back

Yes, things have been quiet recently. Thanks to whichever delightful sharing, caring folks brought swine flu to Australia, various quarantine measures have been put in place. As one who travelled to Melbourne (treated as if it were the plague capital), I ended up spending a week in quarantine with DD who wasn’t allowed to see any of her friends at childcare. No signs of flu, in fact, pretty rude health indeed.

Of course, I still had a computer but … I had a three year old who also likes computers and who desperately wanted to use mine. Every time I logged on. I was doing well to catch up with work emails and so on, and blogging was a poor second. ::smishes blog::

Anyway, while looking like a bedraggled mummy in my horrid polar fleece and poorly-fitting jeans (cold weather and no money or opportunity to buy new clothes), I found this summary of a gem of an article by Naomi Wolf. Now I know what I am a poor reflection of a woman. I am being contrasted with Angelina Jolie, she of the pouty lips, pneumatic bosom and tattooed skin. Wonder woman, saviour of the nations.

The reason people are obsessed with Angelina is:

• She’s a lover
• She’s a mum
• She’s an activist
• She’s a pilot

To which I could add “And she can bite my flabby, pasty ass”.

Here’s my list why I am awesome, despite my apparent failings.

• I’m a mother
• I’m a fine wife, thank you
• I have created a stable, happy home
• I am careful with expenditure
• I dress well for work and when I go out
• I am well-educated
• I am an amazing organiser

But I can still guarantee that Naomi Wolf will never write a profile about me (I should be relieved). After all:

Whatever Jolie does next, Wolf believes that she’ll continue to capture the public interest. “I for one will keep watching,” she writes, “since Jolie’s image is not just a mirror of one woman but also a looking glass for female fantasy life.”

Yeah, Naomi, because we all need more mirrors that make us inspired, annoyed, dissatisfied, bemused, irritated, and more.

What I’m listening to

Old Time Radio Free Podcast and Download Blog has a fascinating array of audio treasures from decades past. Let me give you a few examples:

• The Goon Show – The Spanish Suitcase
• Django Reinhardt
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Maxwell House Coffee Time
• Jeff Regan Investigator

I also enjoyed The Ark, which was a show on Radio National in Australia presented by the delightful Rachael Kohn. I was interested particularly in the show on the Templars. Bet you didn’t know there is a link between the Templars and the University of Sydney.

The Spirit of Things is still running and one interesting show was on who was Saint Paul.

And then there’s The Music Show from Radio National. On 9 May Annie Lennox was interviewed.

Pink Princess

Ballet class isn’t until Saturday. Today is Wednesday. I counted three “Are we going to ballet?” questions, and DD was rummaging through her ballet uniform bag before we left the house this morning.

I wonder how long this excitement about dance will last. I hope she loves dance as much or more than I have. But I’m just her mum. I can’t make her like or dislike hobbies.

Part of me secretly hopes she likes to play piano and to sing also.

Beige again

Would you believe, after Jamie Lee’s post, I got an unexpected day off work thanks to a huge office move.

And what am I doing? Oh dear. I wish I could tell you that I am shopping til I drop, picking apples at an organic orchard, getting a manicure or facial, or practising topiary in the backyard. Nope.

I’m at home. DD is a childcare. DH is at work. And I am wasting a golden opportunity. I could go to a movie but my claustrophobia has come back (sob!), I could cook a delicious evening meal, I could read a book without being interrupted, and I don’t want to do anything. In today’s case, beige is a mixture of already being boring, and being depressed again, and being frightened to try something different. Go figure.

So while I would like to paint my world fuchsia, I will settle for pale pink. Maybe I will be brave later on. Maybe tomorrow.

Mind your own business

Well, that’s what I feel like saying to people when they decide to “help” me by criticising my choices that I make for my daughter regarding food, entertainment, activities, bedtimes, sleeping patterns, clothing, and more. Sometimes it’s so-called experts (all that OMG your television will ROT your child’s BRAIN), sometimes it’s pretend-friendly acquaintances who want to guide me into the path of approved righteousness. Now comes the irritating news that childcare staff will check children’s lunchboxes for unhealthy nasties. No, I don’t mean cheese that’s going off, but rather, targetting poor choices of those awful adults who think that the occasional sweet treat is acceptable in a lunchbox.

And y’know? All this does is make me dig in my heels. Yes, I can see many sides to situations, one of those useful skills I learned at school and university. Equally, I learned how to analyse and test data and put forth my own propositions and findings.

Excuse me for taking my daughter to swimming lessons. I am not intentionally trying to ‘hothouse’ her into physical and mental excellence by providing additional activities. To be frank, I am not a brilliant instructor for swimming and though we have a fine time splashing about in the pool together, DD gets a better idea of how to move her arms and legs and how to float by some instruction from one of the lovely teachers at the swim school.

Excuse me if I don’t feel obliged to put my child in a woolly singlet because generations have done it in the past. Obviously my dereliction of duty in that area means that my child will freeze into a popsicle and I will win the prize of Fail!Mom.

Excuse me for letting my darling daughter watch Dora the Explorer on TV. Even if we spend time in the garden when we come home, exploring the plants, looking for birds and bugs, working on the compost heap, and pulling out weeds, that activity counts for naught because … DD watches TV for a while afterwards. Every minute she watches it, apparently she will get grams of fat wriggling from the screen onto her beautiful legs and arms. My care in creating meals from scratch doesn’t mean a thing – that evil LCD TV will grab hold of DD and take her over to the Obese Side.

Goodness, I could go on and on about this. I guess it’s my ornery nature.

If you want to read someone else’s rant on this subject, go to Susie O’Brien’s opinion piece in the Herald Sun. She reminded me of some points that I had forgotten.

Looking through the guidelines for kinders and childcare centres, which are being considered by the Federal Government, there’s a long list of nasties.

Besides TV, high on the black list are parents who drive their kids to kinder or child care, use food as rewards or punishments, give their kids “sometimes” foods sometimes, and give them treats in their lunchboxes.

Susie, you’re welcome to come over to me and join the ranks of Fail!Mom.

Caring for Kids

Who gets to look after the baby? It’s not always the mum, though I have to say I am still to see any couples in my neighbourhood doing the “Dad stay home and Mum go out to work” thing.

BBC program on women’s issues in the workplace sounds interesting. Hope it is shown on Australian TV.

While on the subject of the BBC, I’ve been *loving* Life on Marsh. I got both series on DVD for Christmas – a fabulous present since it had been hard for me to see every episode when it was on TV. Honestly, some TV shows are made to see again, including Life on Mars, whereas others shouldn’t be seen in the first place.

I have had other things on when the US version of Life on Mars has been shown here, and now, since the series is being cancelled soon, the channel that shows it is playing around with its screening time. Might be 9.30 or 10.30 or who even knows which night!

I watched Inspector Rex last night. Yeah, plotlines so thin you can see their knickers but what the hey. It had Gedeon Burkhardt in it (my favourite of all time). It had a gorgeous German Shepherd Dog. And Wurstsemmeln. What more could a shallow woman want? Not much. Oh well, maybe the chance to go to Vienna more often. That would be nice.

Salon of Shame

Going to the hairdresser can be a dodgy, nay, frightening event. Yes, I have had visits like the horror visit that Samantha Miller experienced and when I wonder if I should ever move from my current salon, I revisit my memories and decide to stay, conservative as it may be.

These was the visit where I got off lightly with a chemical burn on my forehead thanks to a lousy application of perming solution and an I Don’t Give a Stuff senior hairdresser who obviously wished she was treating the hair of a sexy socialite instead of a poor student in a Launceston, Tasmania salon. This was around 20 years ago and I am still cranky about it.

Then the awful hair cut from a hairdresser in a salon called Gemini in Canberra, nearly as long ago. At one point, the cutter had made a fantastic shape to my hair, I loved it, and then (oh dear Lord) she kept on cutting despite me telling her to stop! It took months and months to grow out. Yes, yes, I know that hair grows but this was excruciating.

Last December I had a haircut with a different cutter. Instead of the neat, up-to-date style that I previously had, only a little shorter, I ended up with a dire cut that had me wearing hats all summer, even out of the sun. It’s May now and my hair has started to look good for the first time in months. I know it’s hard to do a good cut on wavy hair, and I am seriously considering just growing my hair long instead.

I have only myself to blame for the horrific tiger disaster. No Bengal tigers were damaged in my home hair dyeing adventure where I honestly believed I could put exciting blonde streaks in my medium-brown hair. Ha ha! The ‘comb’ that put streaks of bleach through my glossy mane instead put huge, wide, zebra-crossing strips through my hair. I found that underneath, I am actually a ginger. (Don’t mind that but I did object to pretending to be a tiger when I was actually trying to be a goth.) I hid from my housemates all evening, not an easy thing to do, and first thing in the morning, I walked down to the local hairdresser. Kudos to her, she said very little about my unwise actions, and merely dyed my hair a deep brown.

Mother and housewife

Honestly, if you looked at the duty statement, salary, benefits and key performance indicators and then conducted a full cost benefit analysis, you wouldn’t take on the job. See how my mind works when I’m being snarky?

I read this article by Kylie Orr.

So while we debate what level of qualifications our country’s childcare workers should possess and scorn anyone who chooses “Mother and Housewife” as a career, perhaps we should analyse the masses. Put your hand up if you are a Mum and you clean your home? My bet is the numbers will be huge. Now raise your hand if this was your chosen occupation, your destiny realised? Mother: maybe. Housewife: I’d love to meet you and pick your brain. I predict there is a whole population of women floating in the sea of parenthood with little idea about how to get through. It is simply on-the-job training but the price we pay if we fluff it up is huge. And so will be the therapist’s bill.

Happy Mother’s Day!