The ants go marching one by one

December 13, 2009 by 2 Comments

The other day I had to call in a pest control man and I was not happy. Admittedly ants had taken over our entire kitchen and the benchtops looked like they had a very modern, black streak pulsating along them but, I was not happy is because I felt sad about killing the ants. Yes I know I sound crazy and I have probably just lost about 7/8 of my readership but I am a very big softy and I don’t like murdering little creatures – no matter how small or irritating.

Anyway apparently Mr Pencil dislikes the ants more than I dislike killing them so the pest control man was called. I did try and soften the blow for myself by constantly calling it a bug “repair” man but no-one was fooled, especially not the Yellow Pages.

So the day of the extermination dawned and I put on my bravest face to greet the executioner. I knew him from a previous murder he had committed at our home so I was prepared for his work. Or so I thought. I led him to the scene of the crime that he was about to commit and made the terrible mistake of asking him if the ants would suffer. The mistake was NOT in caring about the ants. The mistake was in allowing this man to give me his views on life and death. Turns out that the bug “repair” man is an extremely religious man. An extremely religious, evangelical man. An extremely religious, evangelical man who can recite psalms at the drop of an ant.

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And as he left he was singing hymns and I wondered if the chemicals he uses come with a warning.  I also felt as sad for him than I felt for the ants because clearly this man was in more pain than they were (he did not paint a rosy view of the world), and well, because I worry about people as much as I worry about ants.

His attempts to change my views on religion and how I should live my life did not work but he did make me wonder. How polite do you have to be to a virtual stranger in your own home?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

I froze my ex-boyfriend

December 7, 2009 by 12 Comments

Up until last week I was feeling positively jealous of my niece.  What’s not to be jealous of?  She is tall, dark and magnificent, she has just finished school and she has the whole world in front of her.  In fact if I am honest about it, her youth alone would have been  enough to make me jealous but coupled with the whole beautiful thing – positively green making.

But now the reality of her youth has caught up with me and made me feel enormously glad that I am an old, married hag. This week marked the breaking of my niece’s heart.  Yup, her boyfriend in all his ignorant youth decided they needed a break.

All this heartache and teenage angst has floored me.  It has transported me slap bang to the mid 1980s where my heart acted like a plate at a Greek wedding for some time and I am renewed with fresh heart ache for the pimply, curly haired boy that toyed with my heart.  It brings up so many memories of my first love and the first time I felt like my world would end because the boy in question did not return my affections.

In my mind 20 odd years later, the boy in question is still 18.  He is not a man with a family, a job and a past filled with growing experiences.  He is just the 18 year old prick that broke my heart.  I have frozen him there and will not be thawing him at any stage in my future – he broke my heart so I see no reason to hit defrost.  Essentially I learned not a thing from the experience at the time.
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With him safely tucked in the freezer of my mind, it is easier to philosophise and to explain all the teenage angst away but that is only because over 20 years have passed.  And, when the hurt is not so raw and open, it even feels like it may not have been that bad.  But I know it was awful because at the time I did not have the benefit of experience and therapy, all I had was the ability to freeze people in my mind.

Seriously, I know many people say youth is wasted on the young but maybe experience is wasted on the aged…. God knows I would have benefitted from it when I was 17.

Does the crack that appeared in your heart from your first break up still throb at times?  What were the things you learned or did you just use my freezing mechanism  and learn nothing at all?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Note to self: You are very lucky

December 1, 2009 by 21 Comments

Some days things happen to me and I think “I am the luckiest human being in the universe and I hope I never forget it”. This even happens when I don’t win the lotto or even get close to it, it happens when I realise how lucky I am to have people in my life.

This morning my car went in for a service. Huge big nuisance factor but not the end of the world – hopefully the end of that hideous scraping noise I hear every time I slow down. I dropped the car at the service station and being ever mindful of the fact that summer is around the corner I decided to walk home. Again not the end of the world – hopefully the end to my widening girth.

The call to tell me about all the extra costs was followed by a call to say that the car was ready for collection so I grabbed Fluffy Pencil (he has an even wider girth than me) and we set off to collect the car. At the busiest intersection on our route I leaned down to put a leash on Fluffy Pencil (FP). I snuck in a little pat on the head and while I was leaning over and admiring his beauty I heard a huge almighty CRASH. This was followed by a couple of smaller but still mighty bangs, some skidding and lots of glass breaking. Amazingly I did not see what actually happened to cause the accident but I did see the aftermath.

Two heavily battered cars pulled up onto the side of the road to exchange details and FP and I walked over to see if we could help. Out of the car that had done the actual colliding came an old, old man dressed in black. He was shaking heavily and had his wiry, aged hand held unsteadily over his obviously pounding heart. He looked shocking and shocked all at the same time. I walked over to him and urged him to please sit down and gather his breath. He was so shaken he could hardly hear me. At this point the woman from the other car emerged and she was equally shaken, however, my quick assessment of her was that she was able to handle the situation a lot more than the old man could. I have to admit to some enormous relief when an actual witness came and went over to the woman thus allowing me to concentrate all my attentions on the shaky man.

It is very hard for me to comfort a stranger without touching them, not in a hideous kind of way but you know that hand on the arm reassuring touch. But I was too scared to touch this man in case he fell over. He was that shaken. I tried to go to a nearby house to get some sugar water for him but he looked aghast when I tried to leave. So I stayed and stroked his arm from afar and waited for him to gather his strength.
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He told me that he had just come from a funeral and the tears welled in my eyes. He told me he never saw the traffic lights through his own tears and my tears pushed at my eyes. I asked him if I could phone a family member for him so that they could come and collect him and when he told me he had no family or friends to call, the tears flooded my eyes and streamed down my face.

And then I reached out to hold him and the fear of him falling over was replaced by my need to show him that he was not alone in the world.

So this blog entry serves as my note to self about how lucky I am to have the family and friends that I have and to thank them for being there for me, during my accidents, during my happy times, during my sad times and during those times when I have needed to have my arm stroked.

PS. I could not drive the man home as I had no car – remember my story? We did however get a tow truck to take away his car and an ambulance to check that he was okay. He did not want to give me his details (perhaps he was scared of all my crying) so I cannot check up on him but I just hope that he is okay and that he knows that I care.

Filed Under: My Life

No time to talk

November 27, 2009 by 8 Comments

Mr Pencil and I had an excellent routine happening.  He would always call me in the evening on the way home from work.  I liked this – it ensured that I had the time to quickly decant the take away into my own pots and pans so that he believed he was coming home to another gloriously home cooked meal (he still does not quite get why a nice Jewish girl persists in cooking Thai every night).

We had been in this habit for quite some time now and this is how the conversation usually played out

Him:       Hi

Me:        Hi

Him:       I’m leaving now

Me:        Cool, drive safely, see you soon

Him:       k

Me:        Love you

Him:       *puts phone down*

Perfect conversation really.  All the bases are covered.  I know he is coming home and he knows to drive safely.

But recently Mr Pencil got himself a swish new car.  I am delighted that he got a fancy new car because really, his travel to and from work is the only time out he gets.  He works hard all day and as soon as he walks in the door at home Little Pencil ensures that he does not get any rest until he collapses in a heap for the night.

But, rather than enjoying the travel time and maybe even making a detour or two to extend this “alone time”,  Mr Pencil has discovered that the swish new car has a swish new phone arrangement.  Perhaps it is just an ordinary phone arrangement and it is in fact the luxury of sitting in the swish car that he is enjoying but, he has taken to using the phone from the car in a big way.

If by some pure stroke of luck he has a teleconference scheduled for drive home time, he is just delirious with pleasure.  He gets to talk on the phone and luxuriate in the car seat all the way home with no interruption.  The problem is that not many people can be bothered to be conferencing at around 7pm.

So now Mr Pencil turns to me for the drive home call.  The once 30 second routine call now goes something like this

Him:       Hi

Me:        Hi

Him:       I’m leaving now

Me:        Cool, drive safely, see you soon

Him:       k

Me:        Love you

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Me:        Um, good.  See you soon

Him:       You know I was thinking about that restaurant we went to the other night and how much I  enjoyed the starters

Me:        Yeah, it was good.  Shhh Little Pencil, I’m coming now , I’m just  talking to daddy. Finish your homework

Him:       I wonder what kind of vinegar they used

Me:        I think it was caramelised balsamic  please leave the bath water alone,  come and eat your dinner

Him:       So today at work we had this meeting with the accountants …..

Me :       Umm You HAVE to at least TRY eat dinner.  Here, I’ll feed you

Him:       Who are you feeding?

Me:        Funnily enough I am feeding our son who needs my full attention at dinner time, I really can’t talk now.  I’ll see you soon.  Drive safe

Him:       Oh – what is for dinner?

Me:        Food.  I have to go. You CANNOT do that with your knife.  Ever.  Stop.  Eat. PLEASE

Him:       What kind of food?

Me:        Thai.  No Little Pencil.  Do not try to tie the spaghetti.  Just eat it

Him:       How was Little Pencil’s day at school?

Me:        Can we talk when you get home? Come back to the table.  You cannot finish your homework with a fork

Him:       Yes.  Just been thinking about those plans.  Do you really think we should renovate?

Me:        *puts the phone down*

I like talking to my husband.  I really do.  It is just that homework/dinner/bath time with Little Pencil is a very, very bad time to do it.

And you know what the worst part is? After he gets home he does not want to talk at all.  Not even on the phone.  I am thinking of installing a car seat in the lounge because I really do need to discuss the plans to renovate the house

Filed Under: My Life

Thank you driver

November 20, 2009 by 8 Comments

Every day that I pick up my son from school, I cross the pedestrian crossing twice.  Once alone and then once with my child (and on many occasions – lots of other people’s children).  Every time I cross I am accompanied by Lloyd.  Lloyd is an old man with a white coat and the most wonderfully lived in face – replete with every memory and summer day marked into his skin.  He has the social graces of a cactus but every day he stops the traffic and helps us cross the road.

Lloyd travels to and from our school every morning and afternoon by bus.  In the morning he helps our little princes and princesses out of the car at drop off and ensures that they have taken their school bags out of the car rather than their mother’s handbags.  He also makes sure that the car door is properly closed and that the children actually walk in the right direction to the school gate – in essence he is our valet man in the morning.

In the afternoon Lloyd comes back to our school to stand at the pedestrian crossing.  He always has a charming little witticism that he kind of says at you as he stops the traffic.  He never actually looks right at you when he speaks and his remarks are always a little bit kooky and quite insane but his heart is in the right place and he positively blooms when you say something  funny back to him.  And he always, without fail, every single day claps his hands twice and says “thank you driver” after he has stopped a car.  There is absolutely no chance that the driver can hear him but still he says it every single time.  EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

This is the reason why the demand for medicines to help men deal with their inability to perform sexually has also increased generic levitra https://pdxcommercial.com/property/1705-1717-n-willamette-falls-dr/1705-n-willamette-falls-dr-brochure/ over time. Serotonin is a natural chemical that may augment time to ejaculation, purchase cheap viagra by slowing the pathways in the body that are associated with PE. Do not let other make a decision- Someone has said that you should always check the quality of the services provided at the drug store to make sure about the medicine. generic viagra prices These days the supplement have innovative ways of increasing the effect of the medicine generic cheap cialis jelly on your body. Lloyd was like the school walls.  Dependable.  Solid in places, slightly crumbling in others but always there.  And then last week I saw Lloyd with a “friend”.  Now I know Lloyd is just lovely but he is really not the kind of man that you can imagine having such a good friend that he would bring him to work in the afternoon, to stand in the road.  This friend kept turning up and standing with Lloyd in the middle of the road and I smelt something fishy (and no for all his quirkiness Lloyd has never smelt).

So this morning I approached Lloyd to ask him what gives. In his magnificently quirky way he told me that the powers that be, “the Jesus without a crown” has decided that he is too slow and he is being replaced.  I felt so sad, he felt even sadder.  He will still be our morning man but in the afternoon he will stand at the school gate and not the pedestrian crossing.  He will probably still clap to the drivers but he certainly won’t be heard there, not even by the pedestrians.

I will miss his strange little remarks and his double hand clap but, every time I cross the road I will say “thank you driver” because I really believe that at school, it is not just the teachers who teach and not just the children who learn.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

10 000 hours of nothing to do

November 17, 2009 by 6 Comments

I write this blog from the hallowed depths of my son’s tae kwondo classes.

Little Pencil loves tae kwondo with the same passion that I love chocolate.  That is a LOT.  I like to encourage him in all his pursuits especially tae kwondo because he is good at it and it is good for him.  It increases his confidence (and street cred), he is nimble and agile and can do a spinning kick better than most children his age and it also teaches him great focus and determination.  It also occupies a lot of his time. And I mean a lot of his time.

There are some weeks that Little Pencil persuades me to take him to four classes IN ONE WEEK.  Yup – there is a reason that he is so good at it.  I recently read a book by Malcolm Gladwell called The Outliers. In this book Gladwell talks about the 10 000 hour theory.  The theory states that the requisite amount of time to make you extraordinary at your chosen pursuit is 10 000 hours.  I’ll save you some maths time – 10 000 hours is 416 days of straight practice.  No meal breaks and no toilet break (unless your chosen pursuit is being really good at eating or going to the toilet)

When you are 8 years old it is pretty extreme to think that you can achieve this huge amount of hours – it is after all, over one eighth of your entire life.  Problem is Little Pencil does not get this, he just gets that he wants to go to Tae Kwondo classes and he wants to go often.

So while he is learning focus, dedication and a deadly left upper jab I am learning what I can achieve in bursts of 45 minutes (the duration of one class).

45 minutes may be enough time to teach the blue belt pattern or even an awesome turning kick but it is not enough time to achieve anything that is actually useful to me.
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I have tried to do the shopping.  This invariably ends in disaster.  Even tears.  The closest supermarket to the dojo also happens to be the slackest place on earth. The queues at the checkout rival only the queues at Medicare (which I have also tried and failed in a 45 minute block).  So while I race through the aisles (sometimes avoiding friends) I am conscious that I still have to contend with the check out queue.  What do you do when your child is waiting for you to pick him up, the trolley is full and the queue is not moving?  Well that is where the tears came in.  Little Pencil’s first (fear I would not pick him up) then mine (guilt).

I have even tried to use the time to get my nails painted.  It was actually quite relaxing being forced to spend the time pampering myself.  I chose a colour I really liked – unfortunately it was not the most subtle colour.  Unfortunately only because when you smudge a “non subtle” colour in an attempt not to elicit any more late pick up tears it is very noticeable. Put it this way – 45 minutes is plenty time to get your nails painted.  It is not enough time to let them dry properly.

Sometimes I try and read, but unfortunately I have gotten to that age where if I have a book in front of me and a quiet spot to read – I fall asleep. This is embarrassing for Little Pencil (apparently I have been known to let out a very delicate little breath – otherwise known as a snore) and bad for me because I always get woken up and I REALLY need the sleep.

I have tried to use the time to do some exercise of my own – even if it is just a walk around the block.  That doesn’t work because I am just lazy and very disorganised so I often turn up at Tae Kwondo wearing completely inappropriate exercise clothes (actually I do  that on purpose).

So now I turn to you. Short of actually joining the class myself (and apparently I am too old by 30 years or so) how can I use my 45 minute blocks effectively ? And remember I have 10 000 hours to fill.

Filed Under: My Life

Art. Maybe. Maybe it’s just a rock

November 9, 2009 by 29 Comments

So on Saturday I went to see Sculptures by the Sea.  And you know what?  I don’t get it.  Art that is.  I mean I like to look at beautiful forms as much as the next person.  It is just that the next person is often looking at things that are just, well, things that happen to be plonked in a gallery, or in this  case – by the sea.

There were some pieces that I thought were beautiful, spectacular even and then there were some things that I thought had been left behind after a rave party.  But I am open and understanding to what art is and I get the freedom of expression idea.  I also get that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all of those similar metaphors but I just do NOT get the blurb that describes  each piece in the accompanying guide.

Seriously.  No Seriously.   Call me intellectually lacking or call me a cultural ignoramus but first explain to me how I am supposed to take this description of a beautiful piece of steel seriously.  Allow me to quote

“Organic vs. geometric. Consumption vs repulsion. Order vs chaos. So many dualities and so little quality shopping time”
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Yes it was magnificent and I really appreciated the aesthetic, until I read the creative blurb and just felt like hurling.  Artistic, philosophical, deep and creative I am sure.  But to me – it just sounds pretentious.

The setting however was ideal.  Stunning really, and made me appreciate, once again, this beautiful city that I live in. And child heaven – sculptures to climb, the ocean to ogle and good old fashioned parks along the way to, well just to play in while the adults bicker over the deep, Freudian meaning of a rock exhibit.  Only to be told that it is in fact a rock and not an exhibit at all.

So tell me – do artists ever create pieces that are just beautiful ?  Do they sometimes create art for the sake of that beauty and the aesthetic alone ? And more importantly – have you ever been to a gallery and spent ages checking out the Exit sign in the mistaken belief that it is in fact the major exhibit?

Filed Under: My Views
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