Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Mummy Money Monet
Starting the New Year with an anti-Scientology rant, always understandable but the timing was in questionable taste. Here’s the ‘what I did on my holiday’ essay.
Mummy – missing one and being one
This Christmas Eve was the 9th anniversary of our mother’s death and it was the first year that I haven’t felt weighed down with memories and painfully conscious of her absence. In early December I was able to go through my stock of Christmas cards and see the ‘With love to Grandma at Christmas’ one I’d bought optimistically in ’99 without completely stopping in my tracks and feeling a thud in my heart (although I am feeling one as I write this). When planning the decorations and menu I didn’t feel I was an impostor in her role any more. I satisfied myself that there was a completeness about the group that gathered together and enough love and sense of family not to constantly lament my kids’ lack of grandparents. Importantly too I felt grown up enough, at 52, to cope. The mantle of family matriarch I’ve inherited doesn’t chafe so much any more! So perhaps time does heal or at least lead to a sense that one will manage what comes.
We had the immediate family over for Christmas Eve dinner and for Christmas Day lunch. I rode the wave of the first coping with making the house and yard look presentable, cooking the roast turkey dinner and collecting my grown up niece and her driving licence-less partner and an enormous TV they were giving my sister from their place in Glebe and getting the car back just in time for my husband to collect the Tasmanian contingent from the airport. The second saw me starting to fray a little as the day was a great deal hotter and I was a great deal tireder but I rallied and everything went well thanks to the contributions and help of my sisters and a good friend from our dog walking/book group. While the event was not a chocolate biscuit commercial nor an afternoon at the Algonquin it was PLEASANT and as Elwood P Dowd [Harvey (1950)] says ‘I recommend pleasant’.
Testament to my good mood was the fact that I joined my teen daughter and her cousin, my husband and our ancient staffies on the sofa on Christmas night to watch ‘Mama Mia’ on DVD. Never an ABBA fan in their heyday and finding Rachel Griffiths & Toni Collette’s tribute in ‘Muriel's Wedding’ [YouTube - Muriel's Wedding - Trailer] the grotesque spectacle I have the generosity to think it was meant to be, I was ready to be underwhelmed. I really enjoyed it, didn’t give a damn about the Streep/Firth generation gap, thought the choreography was exuberant and inspired and adored the authentic ‘Greek chorus’. It is true that you can’t get the lyrics out of your head for the next few days but Julie Walters’ nudge nudge wink wink spoken delivery of ‘If you change your mind, I’m the first in line’ was cute enough for me not to care.
Money – it’s not easy, or cheap, being green
The $60 Wollemi Pine I bought two years ago has been indefinitely suspended from Christmas tree duty until it can learn to grow and support more than 3 tiny baubles. We invested $70 in a ‘real’ tree (i.e. a severed plantation pine tree branch) this year that I could smother with nostalgic decorations and tinsel and that smelled ‘like Christmas’! Miraculously (how appropriate) it has stayed looking spruce (although it isn’t) and hasn’t toppled over or dropped many needles at all. I am extremely pleased with it and will ask it to give Australia’s botanic ‘dinosaur’ a good talking to.
It cost us $230 for the free range turkey and the free range ham. It was worth it. They were totally delicious and at a time of year when 800 kittens have been surrendered to the RSPCA I didn’t have to dwell on still more incidents of animal neglect and cruelty. The rest of Christmas was blessedly (how appropriate again) inexpensive. For better or worse the circle of gift exchangers amongst our family and friends has shrunk and the kids focus on one or two big ticket items rather than the endless Bratz dolls and their accessories or multiple computer games they used to want. It is also true that you can do stuff that is free or inexpensive in Sydney. One of our nicest outings was to the Dawn Fraser Baths in Balmain which I think was under $20 admission for the 4 of us, and, being on holiday, we watched a bit of telly and some DVDs and I also actually had the energy to take advantage of half price Tuesday at the movies. We were visited by and visitors of people too, something that barely seems to happen the rest of the year.
Monet - New Year’s Day with the numbre une Impressionist
Very few places open their doors on New Year’s Day. It is hard to buy milk let alone do anything more adventurous. While my sister was up from Tassie we had planned to see the Monet and the Impressionists and the Tails of the City: Sydney's Passion for Pets exhibitions. In the event we were all too whacked to make it but I did check with the Gallery to see if they were open on NYD and lo and behold (to keep the irreverent faux biblical tone up) they were. So off we (14 yr old daughter, me and spouse) trolled and took refuge from the scorching heat amongst artificially cooled water lily ponds. The exhibition was balm for any traces of hangover or fatigue, uplifting and sensuous and not at all intellectually taxing even when considering the influence of photography and Japanese prints on the work of the Impressionists. We still haven’t made it to Tails of the City but our own two mutts and moggies provide us with around the clock performance art on the same theme so we are by no means deprived.
Mummy – missing one and being one
This Christmas Eve was the 9th anniversary of our mother’s death and it was the first year that I haven’t felt weighed down with memories and painfully conscious of her absence. In early December I was able to go through my stock of Christmas cards and see the ‘With love to Grandma at Christmas’ one I’d bought optimistically in ’99 without completely stopping in my tracks and feeling a thud in my heart (although I am feeling one as I write this). When planning the decorations and menu I didn’t feel I was an impostor in her role any more. I satisfied myself that there was a completeness about the group that gathered together and enough love and sense of family not to constantly lament my kids’ lack of grandparents. Importantly too I felt grown up enough, at 52, to cope. The mantle of family matriarch I’ve inherited doesn’t chafe so much any more! So perhaps time does heal or at least lead to a sense that one will manage what comes.
We had the immediate family over for Christmas Eve dinner and for Christmas Day lunch. I rode the wave of the first coping with making the house and yard look presentable, cooking the roast turkey dinner and collecting my grown up niece and her driving licence-less partner and an enormous TV they were giving my sister from their place in Glebe and getting the car back just in time for my husband to collect the Tasmanian contingent from the airport. The second saw me starting to fray a little as the day was a great deal hotter and I was a great deal tireder but I rallied and everything went well thanks to the contributions and help of my sisters and a good friend from our dog walking/book group. While the event was not a chocolate biscuit commercial nor an afternoon at the Algonquin it was PLEASANT and as Elwood P Dowd [Harvey (1950)] says ‘I recommend pleasant’.
Testament to my good mood was the fact that I joined my teen daughter and her cousin, my husband and our ancient staffies on the sofa on Christmas night to watch ‘Mama Mia’ on DVD. Never an ABBA fan in their heyday and finding Rachel Griffiths & Toni Collette’s tribute in ‘Muriel's Wedding’ [YouTube - Muriel's Wedding - Trailer] the grotesque spectacle I have the generosity to think it was meant to be, I was ready to be underwhelmed. I really enjoyed it, didn’t give a damn about the Streep/Firth generation gap, thought the choreography was exuberant and inspired and adored the authentic ‘Greek chorus’. It is true that you can’t get the lyrics out of your head for the next few days but Julie Walters’ nudge nudge wink wink spoken delivery of ‘If you change your mind, I’m the first in line’ was cute enough for me not to care.
Money – it’s not easy, or cheap, being green
The $60 Wollemi Pine I bought two years ago has been indefinitely suspended from Christmas tree duty until it can learn to grow and support more than 3 tiny baubles. We invested $70 in a ‘real’ tree (i.e. a severed plantation pine tree branch) this year that I could smother with nostalgic decorations and tinsel and that smelled ‘like Christmas’! Miraculously (how appropriate) it has stayed looking spruce (although it isn’t) and hasn’t toppled over or dropped many needles at all. I am extremely pleased with it and will ask it to give Australia’s botanic ‘dinosaur’ a good talking to.
It cost us $230 for the free range turkey and the free range ham. It was worth it. They were totally delicious and at a time of year when 800 kittens have been surrendered to the RSPCA I didn’t have to dwell on still more incidents of animal neglect and cruelty. The rest of Christmas was blessedly (how appropriate again) inexpensive. For better or worse the circle of gift exchangers amongst our family and friends has shrunk and the kids focus on one or two big ticket items rather than the endless Bratz dolls and their accessories or multiple computer games they used to want. It is also true that you can do stuff that is free or inexpensive in Sydney. One of our nicest outings was to the Dawn Fraser Baths in Balmain which I think was under $20 admission for the 4 of us, and, being on holiday, we watched a bit of telly and some DVDs and I also actually had the energy to take advantage of half price Tuesday at the movies. We were visited by and visitors of people too, something that barely seems to happen the rest of the year.
Monet - New Year’s Day with the numbre une Impressionist
Very few places open their doors on New Year’s Day. It is hard to buy milk let alone do anything more adventurous. While my sister was up from Tassie we had planned to see the Monet and the Impressionists and the Tails of the City: Sydney's Passion for Pets exhibitions. In the event we were all too whacked to make it but I did check with the Gallery to see if they were open on NYD and lo and behold (to keep the irreverent faux biblical tone up) they were. So off we (14 yr old daughter, me and spouse) trolled and took refuge from the scorching heat amongst artificially cooled water lily ponds. The exhibition was balm for any traces of hangover or fatigue, uplifting and sensuous and not at all intellectually taxing even when considering the influence of photography and Japanese prints on the work of the Impressionists. We still haven’t made it to Tails of the City but our own two mutts and moggies provide us with around the clock performance art on the same theme so we are by no means deprived.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Getting the Scientology story straight
“Tom Cruise says Scientology helped him overcome dyslexia” – so read one of the headlines in yesterday’s (5.1.09) Sydney Morning Herald. Dyslexia therefore must be a condition that Scientology recognises and can cure! However elsewhere in the same newspaper an article about John Travolta’s and Kelly Preston’s grief at the death of their only son states that while US media have claimed the Travolta’s son may have been autistic, Scientology does not recognise the condition and the couple has been moved to deny through their lawyer that their son was autistic.
Funny old celebrity world, innit? Where Hollywood’s two most famous Scientology adherents can with equal vehemence rule out the existence of autism and claim that using Ron L Hubbard’s reading ‘technique’ cures dyslexia!
Oh, well I suppose they’re entitled to their opinions - it’s not as if they’re parents or role models or anything!
Funny old celebrity world, innit? Where Hollywood’s two most famous Scientology adherents can with equal vehemence rule out the existence of autism and claim that using Ron L Hubbard’s reading ‘technique’ cures dyslexia!
Oh, well I suppose they’re entitled to their opinions - it’s not as if they’re parents or role models or anything!
Monday, December 15, 2008
I should have blogged all night
I defy any mother of two teenagers who’s hosting Christmas, has dogs to walk and a full-time job to blog regularly during this season. About 3 weeks ago I did in fact write a whole post on the suave Richard E. Grant as Henry Higgins and the delightful Taryn Fiebig as Liza Doolittle then promptly ‘lost’ it. Now that I realise my blog creation software doesn’t have an ‘undo’ function when you inadvertently highlight and delete 3 paragraphs I am writing this in Word first!
The urge to blog, and the ideas for postings, remain as strong as ever, it is getting the time to sit at the keyboard. As usual I am writing this piece at the office where I can persuade myself that writing for an e-medium is good practice for our imminent electronic learning system!
I bought a little note book intending to jot down ideas but so far it only contains 3 days’ worth of expenditure records - the entire fruit of my partner's and my decision that we need to itemise what we spend and analyse it to be able to budget properly. Those 3 days alone included $150 on theatre tickets and $30 on wine. When I started the Christmas shopping the amount coming out of the ATMs and going into the cash registers of shops became so large I was embarrassed to record it. I convinced myself that December is atypical so I should start AFTER Christmas! I think I see a trend emerging...
It is a truism that Christmas is a stressful time and I find more than usual to feel panicked and guilty about at this time of year. I should have an immaculate house with a scintillatingly decorated tree already in situ. We should have coloured lights up like our neighbours do. I should have bought someone in the developing world a goat. I should have written and posted all my Christmas cards by now. I should be saying ‘Holidays’ more often and ‘Christmas’ less often etc! All these feelings of underachievement and inadequacy are no doubt fuel for the New Year Resolutions to come!
Any way I believe I could/should have posted more to my blog than I have done recently. All the above only took me 15 minutes and I am thinking it wouldn’t be the hugest leap to turn it into an article on procrastinating about learning and development for the blog here at work!
The urge to blog, and the ideas for postings, remain as strong as ever, it is getting the time to sit at the keyboard. As usual I am writing this piece at the office where I can persuade myself that writing for an e-medium is good practice for our imminent electronic learning system!
I bought a little note book intending to jot down ideas but so far it only contains 3 days’ worth of expenditure records - the entire fruit of my partner's and my decision that we need to itemise what we spend and analyse it to be able to budget properly. Those 3 days alone included $150 on theatre tickets and $30 on wine. When I started the Christmas shopping the amount coming out of the ATMs and going into the cash registers of shops became so large I was embarrassed to record it. I convinced myself that December is atypical so I should start AFTER Christmas! I think I see a trend emerging...
It is a truism that Christmas is a stressful time and I find more than usual to feel panicked and guilty about at this time of year. I should have an immaculate house with a scintillatingly decorated tree already in situ. We should have coloured lights up like our neighbours do. I should have bought someone in the developing world a goat. I should have written and posted all my Christmas cards by now. I should be saying ‘Holidays’ more often and ‘Christmas’ less often etc! All these feelings of underachievement and inadequacy are no doubt fuel for the New Year Resolutions to come!
Any way I believe I could/should have posted more to my blog than I have done recently. All the above only took me 15 minutes and I am thinking it wouldn’t be the hugest leap to turn it into an article on procrastinating about learning and development for the blog here at work!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Bird of Limbo
I've just worked out how to add images. Check out this and Joan Didon and the dusty Mirrorball below! I wonder how I managed to add Alice herself? Curiouser & curiouser!
Any way this is the Bird of Paradise or Strelitzia flower. They're amongst my favourites. I planted a strelitzia (or what I thought was one) in my garden about 11 years ago and while it has grown to a towering height, it didn't flower at all until quite recently when some greyish spikes started to push their way through the 7 foot tall foliage! The variety I bought seems to be an albino giant! Not a skerrick of the conventional gorgeous colours and 4 times taller than any strelitzia I've ever seen anywhere else!
I'll post a picture and see if I've bred a freak of nature or if it is just some seldom cultivated variety. It certainly wouldn't be grown for its looks!
'
STOP PRESS; It's a stelitzia nicola and it may reach 25 feet!
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Book Group
My sister and I and our dog walking friends have started a book group. We had our first meeting last Sunday and all agree it was a raging success. This is despite choosing a book that 3 out of the 6 of us hated and only 2 really felt pleased they'd read. It was Joan Didion's (left) The Year of Magical Thinking which is not the jolliest text you will ever encounter, dwelling as it does on the aftermath of her husband's sudden death from a massive heart attack right on Christmas and when their adopted daughter lay critically ill in hospital. You can't fault the authenticity of the way Didion renders her experience. You FEEL each tremor of pain, doubt and delusion. So powerful a writer is she that she replicates grief and its accompanying disorientation. It does your head in. It was a brave first choice especially as our group includes women who have suffered sudden and catastrophic bereavement. Turned out to be a book we could admire though maybe not like. It does succeed as a great monument to John Gregory Dunne (her partner of 40 years) as her portrait of him and her quotes from his work have inspired me to seek out his books! Our next choice is safer, fiction by David Malouf, the novella Child's Play I am already romping through it and enjoying every phrase and image. If the others feel like I do it should be a joyous December meeting.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Mirrorball Epiphany
Dust is, according to Marjory Dawes, a good low cal snack! It is also an apparently endlessly renewable resource! It certainly replenishes itself very promptly chez moi. Scudding over surfaces with a piece of fluffy acrylic stuff on a stick and flourishing my poor battered vacuum cleaner once a week diminishes it only fleetingly. I should have heeded Quentin Crisp, who said it doesn't get any worse after the first 12 years, and never started the sisyphean labour at all. Any way, thankfully actually noticing it's there is only sporadic - like when you're obliged to sit in a dentist's waiting room or outside the principal's office and you fixate on details like a bit the painters missed or a crooked picture frame!
So it is that I only recently noticed dusty surfaces at work. The area behind my computer, the parts of the floor at the furthest reaches under the desk etc. Most significantly though, there is dust on the mirrorball! No, I don't work in a disco. I'm in HR and the lime green faceted bauble hangs over the Recruitment section. At first I thought it was a Christmas decoration but I've been here 3 years and it's been hanging there all that time and presumably longer!
It is - appropriately, considering this is a public service department - attached to the ceiling with red tape! I noticed neither the mirrorball nor its ironic tether until some weeks after I started here, when, as I said, the season led me to think it was a festive adornment.
Those were my salad days (well I certainly ate more salad and fewer cakes than I do now) and all was rosy, or in this case shiny and chartreuse! Now familiarity has led to dust-noticing and I am tempted to create hugely mixed metaphors to express how my early enthusiasm for my job and the organisation has given way to my current disaffection and fatigue.
A mirror ball is meant to spin. It needs vibration and light and dark to distribute its glitter. It borders on cruel to keep it static and dust accruing. It can not be true to it's dance floor enhancing function. I think there's a message there!
So it is that I only recently noticed dusty surfaces at work. The area behind my computer, the parts of the floor at the furthest reaches under the desk etc. Most significantly though, there is dust on the mirrorball! No, I don't work in a disco. I'm in HR and the lime green faceted bauble hangs over the Recruitment section. At first I thought it was a Christmas decoration but I've been here 3 years and it's been hanging there all that time and presumably longer!
It is - appropriately, considering this is a public service department - attached to the ceiling with red tape! I noticed neither the mirrorball nor its ironic tether until some weeks after I started here, when, as I said, the season led me to think it was a festive adornment.
Those were my salad days (well I certainly ate more salad and fewer cakes than I do now) and all was rosy, or in this case shiny and chartreuse! Now familiarity has led to dust-noticing and I am tempted to create hugely mixed metaphors to express how my early enthusiasm for my job and the organisation has given way to my current disaffection and fatigue.
A mirror ball is meant to spin. It needs vibration and light and dark to distribute its glitter. It borders on cruel to keep it static and dust accruing. It can not be true to it's dance floor enhancing function. I think there's a message there!
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