A bit of a skirt

Unfortunately my camera's batteries went flat just as I was in the middle of taking pictures of the finished skirt, and of course then something went wrong with the camera on my mobile phone so that none of those photos were saved.

So all I have to show is is this picture that I took of the skirt before I unpicked the waistband, sewed and topstitched a big dart in the front that went all the way down to the horizontal line of topstitching, and put the waistband back on.

But I did draw a picture to show you the before and after too. Only I placed 'em in the wrong order whilst scanning, so what you'll see are the after and before drawings. Oh yeah, and those are back views. The horizontal topstitching on the front view is straight.

Basically, I took a long skirt that was too tight at the waist and cut it in half. I took in the sides so they'd fit my hips, re-installed the invisible zipper (not very well), put in a narrow waistband/facing in a contrast-y fabric, added a little button and buttonhole tab to hide the uneven widths of the ends of the waistband, topstitched the hem because it was so badly sewn by the factory that it kept turning inside up, and then sewed the humungous big dart in the front to fix the large gape at the waist. Perhaps next time I'll use a pattern or another skirt to get the right hip and waist fit.

Anyway, another skirt to add to my collection.

Another thing they don't make like they used to

The photo-storing thingy on my mobile phone seems to have packed it in. I only discovered this after I finally finished my denim skirt reconstruction (from ill-fitting, frumpy skirt to well-fitting, flirty skirt - yay!) and took some pictures of it. Then I noticed that the phone's wallpaper had changed, from a lovely picture of TLM struggling to free herself from the boy's loving but vice-like grip, to an animation of floating dots.

So I checked my file of camera photos and...there were none.

This is somewhat annoying, because there used to be lots of photos in there. And I've only had the bloody phone since last August. And it cost me almost 400 smackeroos.

Now, in the old days...my first mobile phone, a work one, was about the size of one of those gold ingots they have at the gold museum in Johannesburg, where visitors are told they can have one for free if they can lift it up with one hand. It (the phone, not the ingot) didn't play music and it didn't take pictures, but it sure as hell didn't start to break down after 6 measly months.

They sure don't make buskers like they used to.

Busking just ain't the way it used to be, if the last busker I walked out on is at all representative.

This guy from Noo York spent about 20 minutes building up the audience - asking us to make loud, appreciative noises to attract passers-by, describing in mildly comedic terms what he was going to do ( he was an escape artist apparently), selecting volunteers to be the butts of his so-so jokes. Then I got bored and tired of standing around waiting, and moved on. I bet this guy only had one trick in his whole act. Okay, he did do one magic trick, but it was so unremarkable I nearly forgot about it.

Now, in my day, as a veteran busker might say, a busker would put his hat on the pavement and perform one trick after another, whether it be pulling scarves out of a lady's bra or pulling a balloon over his head. They didn't try to pull in an audience by asking a couple of bystanders to pretend they were having a good time; they did it by giving the bystanders a good time. Now that's the kind of busker I'd throw my coins at.

But what I saw in the weekend reminded me of that scene in Bedknobs and Broomsticks where Mr Brown the street conjuror sings "It really doesn't matter what I do, what I do, as long as I do it...with a flair" at his stoney-faced audience. Yeah, style over substance - it's really over-rated.

No thanks I'm sweet enough

I feel like I've spent the last decade or so dodging the diabetes monster, and it must be sneaking up on me occasionally to bite me on the shoulder (that's a werewolf reference). Although I've had myself tested a couple of times and came out negative, I can't help feeling that if I'm not pre-diabetic, then I must be pre-pre-diabetic.

This is because if I go without food for 3 or 4 hours I suddenly feel physically weak and am consumed with thoughts of loaves of fresh buttered bread (wholegrain). And after a large meal, I'm always fatigued. It's also because I have a frighteningly sweet tooth and cannot turn down cake or biscuits (unless they are made with carrots or an unusually large number of eggs).

Three days ago I decided that I had to do something about this oppressive tiredness that comes upon me soon after dinner each evening, because this is valuable time for doing stuff and shouldn't be wasted blobbing out in front of the TV, bleary-eyed and listless. I decided to give up sweets - even if this doesn't fix the tiredness, it certainly wouldn't hurt.

On day one, the only sugar I consumed was in the form of fresh fruit and well-diluted fruit juice. On days two and three, I allowed myself some Nutella on one of my slices of toast. I've bypassed the sweet muffins, the birthday cake left over from a daycare party, and the slices left over from a work meeting. I gave the boy strict instructions not to bring home cake for me.

Not even a Dutch Ring (nope, still sounds like an exotic sex toy).

Do I feel better?
Physically, no. Psychologically, there's a hint of moral superiority in my demeanor but not enough for other people to notice.

Let's see how long I can do this for.

The perils of ordering ethnic food over the phone

Sometimes I have to repeat our address over and over again until I'm almost ready to just get in the car and point to the menu in person.
Sometimes I get rung back because the poor guy sitting in the delivery vehicle with a bag of hot curries on his lap (well I hope it's not on his lap but I bet they don't drive very large cars) is outside the wrong house.

This time, I said we only wanted one of the complementary boxes of rice, because the boy prefers roti with his butt chick.

Which is why they gave us three...

All the fun of the fair

Ah, I love summer because that's when the city council puts on so much free family entertainment. Today I took TLM down to the beach, where a week-long suburban festival was underway.

Not that we actually went onto the sand (beautiful as it was, framed by deep blue seas and clear, ozone-free skies). We peeked into stalls selling trippy beachwear, animal-shaped balloons, handmade photo albums and driftwood sculptures, and headed straight for one of the bouncy castles. It was a hit.

Five minutes later, we crossed the road to the park and encountered - to our great delight - a petting zoo. This was TLM's first chance to touch a baby alpaca, pony, lamb or goat (the latter had such a silky coat that it was impossible not to joke out loud about winter jackets). There were also rabbits, chickens and guinea pigs, and a mile-deep queue to have one of the furries on your lap.

Then TLM got hungry, and of course she didn't want to eat the snacks I'd brought with me. But before trawling through the aisle of food stalls, I had to make a toilet stop. There is one public toilet cubicle at the park. It has two toilets in it, side by side. I can only guess that this is to make it easier for a mum with a kid in tow, as they can both do their respective business at the same time. Because I really, really, can't think of another reason for two toilets to share a single cubicle.

I don't know if you guys get these where you live, but one of the food staples of the local fair is the hot dog on a stick. Put simply, it's a cooked sausage which has been impaled lengthwise, dipped in batter and deep-fried, and finally dipped in tomato sauce for serving. It's quite yummy in an artery-clogging kind of way. I hadn't had one since I was a kid, and eating it took me back a few decades. But TLM wasn't interested in trying this culinary version of white-trash; she stuck to the other food staple of the local fair - hot chips.

Our long morning out was nearly capped by a ride on the merry-go-round, but TLM changed her mind when she realised I couldn't ride with her. Not that there was a sign forbidding adults, but it was a teensy little thing and I'm sure I would have tipped the whole thing over.

When TLM fell asleep in the car, I seized my opportunity to eat a soft serve from the McD's drive-in without her protests (where's MY ice cream!") ringing in my ears.

Partially helpful

It's not often I have to answer the phone at the office, but there was a tiny window of around 5 minutes when all of my work colleagues were either in a meeting or power-walking around the block (I'm assuming it would have been brisk because it was pretty chilly today).

I answered the phone and stuttered through the greeting, which included the 17-syllable name of the place I am working for. Then I had to repeat myself 3 more times, because the caller was an old lady from Idaho, of all places. So she was probably a bit deaf and completely unused to the Kiwi accent and our unique way of runningourwordstogether (that's "running our words together", if you're blind and relying on voice thingy).

Well, I have no idea how she got our number, but she was definitely looking for someone in New Zealand to tell her about how to emigrate to New Zealand. We had a nice old chatter about how her son is fed up with life in the US, the fact that his dogs wouldn't be allowed into the country without several months in quarantine even though they are so nice and house-trained, and - that old nugget - what time is was over here.

And then I told her to go have a look at www.immigration.govt.nz, and she thanked me hung up.

Baby dragons rule!

"There'll be dragons" I told TLM, hoping to excite her.
"I don't like dragons!" she answered, "they're scary!"
"Okay, there won't be any dragons" I replied, "but there might be free popsicles."
So TLM came willingly with me to watch the Chinese New Year parade.

It was hot (actually, only 25 degrees Celsius, but for this town it counts as a heatwave) and sunny. It was just the kind of weather that entices you to the outdoors, only to send you scurrying for the SPF 30 sunblock and a hat with a brim wide enough to support a pond-full of large frogs.

It was just the kind of burn-y hotness that made me anxious about the amount of time TLM and I were spending on the uncovered footpath, waiting for it to start.

Finally, we heard the distant crackling of what sounded like exploding Double Happies, and saw the glimmer of a long, sinuous dragan winding its way towards us in a cloud of firecracker smoke. TLM's face was alight with anticipation.

Then it got closer, louder and smokier. I tried to cover TLM's ears with my free hand (the other was holding her), but it had to divide its time between one of her ears and one of mine. Totally fruitless. TLM turned her face away from the spectacle and whimpered something about going back to the car. She'd forgotten that we'd taken the bus to get there.

The men under the dragon raised it up and down and wove in and out of legs, prompting me to wish I'd shaved my legs that morning.

But then TLM's mood changed. It was when some children from the Chinese language school passed by with more petite versions of the smoking dragon. I told her they were baby dragons and she chuckled delightedly.

There was more - Chinese opera performers with their faces made up in pink and white, drummers, men and women posing in beautiful traditional silk robes, a team of kung-fu exponents demonstrating whatever you call the kung fu equivalent of a kata, little girls in pretty red dresses (not sure of the relevance but they seemed a welcome part of the parade) and even Michael Tuffery's ox made entirely out of corned beef tins (click here and scroll down for a picture - actually the article is bloody hilarious!). The latter was present because it's the Year of the Ox, but what made it even more special for us was that we still have the children's library book of New Zealand art which features this very sculpture. But there were no free popsicles.

As I was saying, there was more, but as far as TLM was concerned, the baby dragons were it.

Learning through destruction

Um...some time yesterday, before I posted the previous blog post, I thought of posting the above title.

Because I've gained a lot of sewing knowledge in the short time I've spent pulling old clothes apart in order to re-make them into something I wouldn't be afraid to wear in public. Like, the fact that I really have to use an invisible zipper foot if I want my invisible zippers to be invisible. Or that even an el cheapo skirt bought from a catalogue, will have a properly constructed waistband - but the hem might still look like it was sewn by TLM on a Dora the Explorer sewing machine (you can get those, y'know).

But maybe 2 sewing posts in a row is too much, eh?

The semi-nekkid seamstress

You might not believe me, but it helps to sew in just your underwear. I know this after working on a couple of refashioning projects lately.

My first one was the large man's polo shirt with NYPD embroidered on it, which the boy got for me last time he was in New York. Needless to say, it was hugely unflattering because of it's very bigness. I only wore it with over-long bootleg jeans and heeled army-style boots; every time, it reminded me of the time I walked into a party thrown by a lesbian work-friend and realised that the room was completely full of short-haired women in lumberjack shirts.

I spent several hours turning that shirt into one more suitable for woman's body shape, mostly by trying on, cutting, trying on, pinning, trying on, sewing, trying on etc. There was an awful lot of trying on, so most of the time my top half was semi-nekkid.

The other project was to take an ankle-length stretch denim skirt that was too tight at the waist, and turn it into a flippy knee-length skirt. As before, there was an awful lot of trying on, so most of the time my bottom half was nearly bare.

This isn't a method I'd recommend using if your sewing machine sits in front of a large picture window, but it's fine if you have curtains. (Also, I mightn't be so keen in the winter.)

Before...

...and after...


(I haven't quite finished the skirt yet.)

The Historian

Last night I finally finished Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian. I'm still trying to decide whether it's a good book or not.

It's very, very long.

If you ever wanted to know what it might be like to do Raiders of the Lost Ark but replacing the archeologist with a historian, then you'll be disappointed that the the book contains no ominous advancing boulders, hardly any guns and only negligible amounts of vodka.

But there is a huge amount of research. In fact, I got the feeling that Kostova might have spent years doing research on how historians do research, and couldn't bear to leave any details out of her novel. I'm fairly certain that this door-stopper of a book could easily have been half as long, without losing any of the story.

There were far too many transcripts of letters written by monks about trips around the Balkans. Worse, I was bothered by the unexplained, too-fortuitous meetings with complete strangers who turned out to have a connection to the big D (Dracula).

And so much of the story is told via letters - letters to the young girl from her historian father, letters to the father from his PhD supervisor, letters to the supervisor from his best mate, letters from the girl's mysteriously absent mother, and of course, letters between monks travelling around the Balkans with their bloodthirsty baggage. I know it's a literary device, but I couldn't help wondering why these people wrote such detailed letters - why didn't they just write a book and be done with it?

Last of all, the ending was predictable. And I'm not even one of those annoying people who see the plot twist in the first hour of the film and then tell everyone what's going to happen.

Having said that, I did manage to read the whole thing, and I only got bored with all the letter-reading about two thirds of the way in. So maybe if you've time to kill, like the idea of an adventure peopled by undead librarians and feisty academics, then this book wouldn't necessarily be a waste of money.

I feel some grunge coming on...

After the huge success of my jeans-turned-skirt (i.e. I've been wearing it almost every day and no-one's laughed at me yet), the idea of clothing reconstruction has become very attractive. And what's not to like? It's cheap, it's eco-friendly and...well it's cheap and eco-friendly.

The only thing that could be an obstacle is that, having Googled "t-shirt reconstruction", I get the feeling that the results tend to look good only on the young. I suppose if you're into your 4th or 5th decade, you should aim to look like you can afford to buy your clothes new.

But there's gotta be a way to turning all those ill-fitting souvenir t-shirts and that itchy alpaca jumper from La Paz, into something I can be happy to wear (or sit on, if it turns into a cushion cover). I'll keep looking around - I can't be the only person under 25 who wants to re-fashion their clothing.

Otherwise I'll have to start wearing beanies.

And now for something completely different

Here are my results from the Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz - most of it is spot-on, if I may say so myself.

You Are an Ingrid!

You are an Ingrid -- "I am unique"

Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

* * Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
* * Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
* * Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
* * Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
* * Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting!

What I Like About Being an Ingrid

* * my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
* * my ability to establish warm connections with people
* * admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
* * my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
* * being unique and being seen as unique by others
* * having aesthetic sensibilities
* * being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What's Hard About Being an Ingrid

* * experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
* * feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved
* * feeling guilty when I disappoint people
* * feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
* * expecting too much from myself and life
* * fearing being abandoned
* * obsessing over resentments
* * longing for what I don't have

Ingrids as Children Often

* * have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
* * are very sensitive
* * feel that they don't fit in
* * believe they are missing something that other people have
* * attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
* * become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
* * feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)

Ingrids as Parents

* * help their children become who they really are
* * support their children's creativity and originality
* * are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
* * are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
* * are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Click here if you're curious enough to take the test yourself. I found it on this sewing fashionista's blog.

How to make a preschooler sound like Tom Waits

First my mum got it. She had the sore throat and the sneezes; when she couldn't get through the day without a scary-sounding pneumonia-like rattle, I had to take her to the After Hours medical centre. A nebuliser, an x-ray and two courses of pills later, she's almost back to normal.

Now TLM has it. Fortunately for her, she is not an elderly woman with a portfolio of medical ailments. TLM is not likely to need a nebuliser or any kind of medication. But when she sings she sounds like Tom Waits and when she poos I am utterly grateful that she's finally cottoned onto the idea of putting them in the potty.

So we didn't get to go to the white-folks' Chinese New Year festivities. Ah well, there were no fireworks anyway, and probably no lion dance either. There is still a chance of attending the Teddy Bears' Picnic tomorrow afternoon (which is entirely unrelated to anything Chinese).

Otherwise it will have been a fairly dull, croaky weekend for TLM.

Happy Chinese New Year

Are you an ox? I'm not - I'm a dragon. Apparently this is gonna be a good year for dragons. It should be a good year of oxen too, because it's their year.

My mum still keeps up the Chinese tradition of giving out lucky money to the "children" i.e. my brother and I, our respective partners and our respective children. But neither I nor my brother wish to keep that tradition going. Because if we did, we'd have to stay home all day to avoid other peoples' kids. And if we stick to giving money to the kids within the family we'd just end up swapping similar amounts of money (well, we'd hope it's similar amounts)

We don't let off firecrackers at Chinese New Year, mainly because I think it's illegal to use fireworks outside of Guy Fawkes' Night. But we do have a special meal. I suppose in a Chinese family, food-related traditions are probably the last to go!

But there's some touristy stuff going on in town next weekend - y'know, food stalls, a lion dance performed by a local cultural society, um...more food...

Anyway, I'd like to take TLM to the touristy Chinese New Year celebration so she can have a taste of what it's about. She's already done the food and gotten the red envelope (and got to hold it for exactly 2 seconds before I whipped it out of her hand and put it in my purse, because that money's going straight into her bank account). I'd quite like her to watch a bit of lion-dancing, see a few pretty girls in traditional costume, get sucked into a human tide of new-clothes purchasers (if you've ever been in Hong Kong during this time you'll know exactly what I mean)...

Us Chinese may be cheap drunks, but we're expensive eaters.

In a spin

TLM is having her nap - I should be cutting out my fabric to make that dress I've been meaning to make for the last month, or re-starting my yoga habit, or something. But I don't want to do either of those things because, lately, I get dizzy when my head goes below my waist.

I don't know whether this is a symptom of a bug, or because my sleep has lately been disturbed by strange and...um...disturbing...dreams, or because of the hot weather (I have low blood pressure so it's not unusual to feel dizzy getting up from a hot bath). But it's very disconcerting.

Unfortunately, being light-headed won't get me out of cleaning the house.

Who knew?

Who knew that Christians had sex problems that could only be solved by Christian sex books? (I found this link when looking for websites about yoga.)

Ah well. You can go back to whatever you were doing now.

black and tan

When it comes to sunshine and tanning, I have a problem that is different to most peoples'.

Some people worry about the risk of skin cancer. Other people fret that they can only choose between two skin colours - pink or white. I worry about looking like an easy jigsaw puzzle.

See, my arms are almost black; my upper legs and torso are that sallow-white that you see on Chinese folk who truly shun the sun; my face and lower legs are something in between; my shoulders are off-sallow-white.

This is fine if I'm showing just my arms, or just my legs.

But I don't see myself swanning around in a bathing suit any time soon. Creeping would be more like it.

The time capsule in my drawers

I can still remember my mum and I down at the local furniture shop - one of those places that looks like it specializes in stock rescued from the backs of trucks - and picking out a small, unassuming student desk in a dark, mahogany-finish MDF.

It was my first ever desk, and I conscientiously did my schoolwork at it for the next few years – right up until I completed my undergraduate degree, actually.

When I bought and moved into this house, the desk came with me, in the guise of a stand for the television set. Later, I used it to support the stereo that I was looking after for a friend while he was overseas (somewhere along the way I lost the surround-sound speakers, but not on purpose).

And now it is my sewing desk. The sewing machine has in fact been sitting there for the last 5 or 6 years, but now I actually sit at it to sew stuff.

I hadn’t cleaned the desk drawers in years, so going through the contents of the drawers brought back a few memories: the Margaret Sparrow book on contraception, which was most valuable at a certain time in my life; the belt bags that I bought for my overseas trips and never used (because who wants to look like they eat twice as much pizza as they really do?); the grey fabric dye I bought to fix my favourite jeans following a laundry catastrophe (but they'd shrunk too, so I didn't have to fix the colour stain); the sewing patterns for clothes I never finished (there’s a lesson there); and the drawful of music cassette tapes.

There’s a lot you can tell about me from my collection of music cassette tapes, if you don’t have a million other things you’d rather do.

Spanning the 80's and 90's, it includes AOR, NZ indie, and stuff I can’t even remember listening to. Amongst the slightly uncool Hall and Oates, Beach Boys and Jimmy Barnes, there’re the mystifiying selections of Desmond Dekker, Ofra Haza (didn’t she have a dance hit in the 90’s?) and Linda Ronstadt singing in Spanish. Some I bought as souvenirs of my travels: Ram Narayan, I got while waiting for a bus in India; Aguas Claras, bought in Peru; The Peking Brothers after I saw them busking in London.

Some, I wish I’d got on CD, so I could play them now: Prince and the Revolution (x 2); Bill Withers; U2; Hunters and Collectors (x2); The Psychedelic Furs; Straitjacket Fits; Nina Simone; Hot Chocolate.

I’m faintly embarrassed to have: Nigel Kennedy’s Four Seasons (a present); Apache Indian; Jimmy Barnes (x2); and Kid Creole and the Coconuts. The Tom Jones tape belongs in this category, but then it was an in-joke referring to the time I got the Welshman confused with Sean Connery (and after I’d been living in Edinburgh for almost a year!).

I’m loathe to dispose of the little buggers, but we don’t have a cassette player – I don’t know whether anyone does any more. Perhaps I could just keep the cover inserts, for old times' sake, and ditch the tapes at the dump.

poos to you Blogger

I just wrote the wittiest blog post ever, and then lost the whole damn thing because the Save Now button wasn't working. So poo to you, Blogger.

I might look like mutton dressed as lamb, but I don't care. Much.

Contrary to my earlier post about what I was going to sew next, I decided to make an old pair of jeans into a skirt. You must've seen them around, especially if you were conscious in the Seventies because I think that's when they were really in.

I actually made a jeans skirt out of a pair of jeans back then (well, either the Seventies or the early Eighties - I don't remember exactly), but I messed up fixing the the crotch seam and ended up with bulges in peculiar places.

This time around though, I was inspired to try again when I saw these instructions on the internet. I ended up not following them exactly, but I'm pleased with the result anyway.

I'm just not sure if this kind of thing is appropriate on a 44-year-old.

Should never have been kissed

"Haven't you watched this before?" the boy asked, when he came into the living room and saw me watching Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed. I bet you'd be thinking the same thing - it's a very old film and it's almost unthinkable that Barrymore would look so nerdy, now that we've seen her all foxed-up in the Charlie's Angels movies.

So, no - I hadn't seen it until a couple of nights ago when it screened on the telly (because now is the time that the programmers schedule repeats of old shows, right?). I'd heard that it wasn't a bad movie. But actually, some of the movie is bad.

In case you haven't seen it either, Barrymore plays a 25-year-old newspaper reporter whose undercover assignment is to infiltrate a local high school and bring forth juicy teen gossip articles. Having had a truly hellish time at high school the first time around, our heroine is initially confident that the second time around will be much, much sweeter. Only it isn't because going back to high school would be like going back home. It doesn't matter how much you've changed, you'll revert back to your old self once you're there. Then her ever-popular brother joins in, pretends to be her cool teenage ex-boyfriend and wham! Barrymore's nerd is suddently hot stuff. She's one of the "popular" girls, rejected by the geeky (i.e. intellectual) friend, going to the prom with a studly 16-year-old (hmm...) and headed for an almost-inappropriate relationship with her tasty teacher (double-hmmm).

It's light and all, so I wasn't expecting it to be thought-provoking or life-changing. But still. I just have issues with the ending. The girl accidentally outs herself and her teacher is totally disgusted, which is quite understandable. Then the girl writes an article in the paper which resembles one of those confessionals you see in the trashiest of women's magazines, inviting the hurt teacher to meet her on a heavily-populated baseball field for a kiss.

As if, I thought to myself. If I were a teacher who's found myself falling for an underaged student, only to find out the student was under cover and under orders to find a scandal, the last thing I'd want to do is go kiss her in front of a huge crowd (not to mention tv cameras).

But he does.

And that just ruined the whole experience for me.

Is it because she's a lefty?

TLM has been quite accident-prone lately:

This evening, she walked into the bathroom door on her way out and turned her pretty forehead into something Frankenstein-ish.

Yesterday at her best friend's birthday party, she went to pick up her party favour off the floor (what do you call those little whistles that unroll when you blow on them, hitting people in the eyes?) and banged her head on a lowered desk lid.

Last Friday as we walked out of the living room to get to the front door, TLM inexplicably tripped over her feet and grazed her chin on the industrial-grade (i.e. not soft) carpet.

On the first day of our holiday - and after TLM's first dip in the resort pool - TLM slipped on the wet tiles and into a nearby rock garden, skinning both feet.

I've heard it said that left-handed people are more accident prone, and I can offer myself as a prime example. Okay, so it's either because she's a lefty, or because she's inherited clumsiness from her mother.

Oversleeping

This morning we all overslept and didn't get out of bed until nearly 8am. But I put TLM down for her nap at 1.30 anyway. And she did exactly what she's been doing all week - fluffing about in her room until 3pm and then falling asleep. She'll probably need to be woken up at 4.

That means she'll have been in her room for, like, 3 hours. And she'll still be having her bath at 6 and be in bed for the night by 7pm - even if she spends the next hour or 2 reading and singing before falling asleep.

So, she's in her room a lot. Which means a lot of down-time for me.

Does that make me a bad person?

Wii fun

The boy and I had sweaty fun playing Wii tennis tonight. I say sweaty, not because of the undercurrent of sexual chemistry running between us through every serve, parry and double-bounce, but because the games room (formerly the study) is suffering from sun-trap syndrome i.e. it gets tons of afternoon sun and we tend to leave the window closed because the boy likes it dark and cave-like in there.

I might have another go at Wii Music, but I'm still sulking because my first attempt at conducting the Wii orchestra yielded me around 11 points, compared to the 100 or so points that TLM got.

The next project

I'm just gonna put that trouser failure behind me for now. Next up is this Burda tunic dress (it's the brown print one in the picture, though I might add the collar from the red dress below it).

The pattern and instructions can be downloaded off their website for free, so I spent most of TLM's nap time today printing and taping all 24 pages of the pattern together. It's supposed to be easy, and it's loose-fitting so I shouldn't have all the fitting issues that have made trouser-sewing such a hassle.

I would love to get into the fabric shops right now (when their sales are on) and find a nice print to make the dress up in, but unless I get there in the weekend then I probably won't get a chance to even start this until some time in February. Still, it's nice to dream.

Time for some feminism training

Yikes. Yesterday TLM declared that doctors are boys and nurses are girls. This, when her own GP is a woman, and the mum of one of her ex-playmates is a doctor too.

Good grief.

Two-nil to the pants

After giving up on my first trial pair of trousers (which frayed to the point where I lost my seam allowance, and which were too tight at the waist), I re-measured everything, re-adjusted the sewing pattern pieces, cut them out in a new fabric and set about pin-fitting them on myself. It took ages. But eventually, I thought I had it sussed. So I transferred my adjustments back to the tissue pattern and sewed it all up, leaving only the hem to finish.

Alas, they make my bum look a couple of denim beachballs.

They're also a little too tight across the bum, the waistline sits too high and the legs bag at the back. And the zip is pucker-y at the lower end. Sigh.

I'm not sure whether to just plough on and make trial pants number 3 (with another attempt at fitting them), or back up a bit and make something a bit easier, like an unlined waistcoat.

last night at the beach

Today was our last day here at the beach; by lunchtime tomorrow I expect to be home again.

While I'm not looking forward to the end of our holiday because we'd been looking forward to it for about two months, I reckon I'll be glad to be home again.

TLM too - even though she's absolutely loved being in the pool every day and having both parents to play with all week, she's said that she wants to be back in "the old house". She probably misses the rest of her toys, her friends and the much cooler temperature of her bedroom. The bedrooms here are damned hot, and the mattresses are a little bit hard. Although having a dishwasher is pretty damned cool.

My holiday highlight is - still - probably the miniature train ride (and I'm not even a trainspotter). I don't know what the boy's highlight was, but my guess is it was teaching TLM to walk on her tip toes in chin-deep water and generally having a splash-tastic time with her. As for TLM, it's either the daily dips or the Maisy pop-up book that opens up into a dolls house.

Happy New Year.

Two movies and a novel

Notes on a Scandal: It was the only movie on the telly that sounded even remotely watchable, with Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett heading the cast. And it turned out to be really, really watchable. Dench plays Barbara, a loveless old history teacher at a secondary school (high school) who develops a crush on the new and beautiful art teacher, the married but desperately lonely Sheba (played by Blanchett). Barbara soon becomes Sheba's only friend and confidante, which plays into the former's hopes for some kind of lesbian relationship. And when she catches Sheba in an inappropriately intimate embrace with an underaged boy pupil, the stalker-ishly needy Barbara sees their little secret as an opportunity to get even closer into Sheba's undergarments.

The thing about this story is that - even though I disliked Barbara for being psychotic and manipulative, and I disliked Sheba for her irresponsible fling - in the end I just felt sympathy for the both of them, for their loneliness and need to grasp at any chance of emotional intimacy.

Madagascar - Escape 2 Africa: It was rainy this morning, so I took TLM to the movies. It was her very first cinematic experience, and she was enthralled. There was none of that restless wriggling that you might get when at the movies with small children, though it might have helped that she had her own packet of chippies to munch through. Although she did almost disappear into her fold-down theatre seat when she sat too far back.

As for the film itself, I really enjoyed it. But I did feel sorry for the poor creature that became the "sacrifice" to the rain gods in the volcano, when the waterhole dried up. There were lots of laugh-out-loud moments, and even a tear-inducing romantic scene between the giraffe and the hippo.


The Historian: Having not been a teenage girl for quite some time, I have absolutely no interest in Twilight, that vampiric Mills and Boon series that has become a teen hit movie. I picked up The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, from the discount bin at a local bookshop and have been enjoying it since. It's, like, a literary vampire story for academics and librarians. Or something.

I'm only about three chapters in, but so far it's about a teenage girl whose historian father possesses evidence that Dracula is alive and sucking somewhere in Eastern Europe.

Blogging from the coast

We're 2 days into our holiday. Believe it or not, when we realised that there was broadband available in our holiday apartment, the boy went into Harvey Normans and bought a MacBook. Otherwise my holiday blog posts would be handwritten on paper and you'd all be spared them...

The weather's great, the beach and the shops (dress shops!) are only a few minutes walk away in opposite directions, and TLM is loving the heated pool just outside our door.

I took TLM on a ride on the miniature railway this morning and it's really pretty cool; there are three trains all going in different directions - over and under bridges, through tunnels and overlooking the well-used paddling pool. Actually, I might've enjoyed the ride more than she did.

Waiter! There's a bug in my soup!

Halfway through the dinner (a nice winter-y beefy stew for a slightly wintery evening) that the boy had lovingly cooked, I noticed it.

A weta, curled up in foetal position, was quietly lying in my stew.

The boy, who is greatly disquieted by all bugs but especially wetas, was more distressed than I was.

I told myself it was just as well that it wasn't half a weta that I found in my dinner.

We still haven't figured out how on earth in got there.

Merry Christmas!

I must be insane

"Are you insane!?" I asked my mum (in Cantonese), after she proposed that I spend the afternoon of Christmas Eve at Pak 'n Save with her. Shopping at the busiest supermarket chain in the country, during the busiest day of the year, can only lead to trolley rage, sky-high blood pressure and plans for emigration.

My mum took offense at having her mental capacity questioned.

Nevertheless, I ended up realising that I'll need to buy fresh produce for the fresh fruit salad I am making for Christmas lunch - meaning that I will end up in a supermarket on Christmas Eve anyway. But I insisted on visiting a far less crazy-busy supermarket, and at a far quieter time.

So she got her way - sort of - in the end.

I am not alone

Yesterday, I was the first to arrive at the pimp's Christmas lunch (oh, the embarrassment!). Eventually though, everyone else showed up, including a few people I was friendly with. So my fear of spending two hours shovelling food into my face because I'd no-one to talk to, was unfounded.

The interesting thing about this lunch, apart from the fact that the NZ CEO and the global boss both came over to say hi, was that the woman I sat next to has also worked with a woman-who-hates-her (not the same person as the-woman-who-hates-me).

I find it quite shocking really, because this firm's point of difference is their cosy, caring atmosphere. It's why having lunch with the NZ CEO is no big deal. They are nice. This is not the working environment for office politicking, and there definitely shouldn't be two cases of junior staff (albeit contractors) being bullied by insecure, passive-aggressive senior staff.

The two of bonded over our mis-treatment. We even swapped phone numbers. But...it's not really a good basis for a friendship is it?

The food was delicious.

TLM's Christmas party

Yesterday we all went to a Christmas party at TLM's daycare.

I'd taken a few hours beforehand to practice deep-frying my mum's wontons, and - against all expectations - they turned out really well. I should know, because I ate six of 'em and my tummy is still fine.

At the last minute I realised the party had a Seventies theme. Apparently we were encouraged to "brush off" our Seventies gear (like I have such things in wardrobe!). At first, I went for a hippy look. But my maxi skirt is denim and my flowy top is black. So the overall effect was not so much hippy, as bogan. In the end I just wore jeans and a nice top.

TLM decided not to dress up as a fairy or a baby jaguar. Instead, she wore a too-small, pink, bib-front dress over a green tank top. I told her that if anyone was to ask, she was a go-go dancer.

The head daycare teacher was dressed up as the Captain Stubing of the Love Boat (thereby reinforcing my suspicion that she is gay - not that I have anything against that). If there'd been any prizes for costume, I'd have voted for her.

The highlight (apart from watching the crowd of mums and dads and kids eat all the wontons) was watching all the kids stand on the stage and sing Christmas songs. TLM stood at the front next to her best mate, both stage-struck. But at least they were brave enough to stand there, right? Anyway, considering only about half of the kids actually sang, there was an impressive amount of volume.

And then Santa came out and handed out the presents, and we all went home.

Busy all of a sudden

Just when I have a sexy top and nice trousers to sew up for our holiday getaway at the seaside, it looks like I won't have the time to do any sewing after all:

I found myself a couple of days's work this week (which is great, because soon I'll have money to buy Christmas presents), so Monday and Tuesday were busy. Plus, I didn't finish what I'm being paid to do, so I'll go back in to work on Thursday morning to get it all done.

Wednesday is TLM's day with her mum, and we're going to take my mum for a morning out (to the bank and the supermarket - how exciting).

Thursday I have to practice deep-frying wontons for TLM's daycare's Christmas party. Hopefully there will be some left over from practice, that are actually nice to eat.

Friday I have Christmas lunch with the pimp - it's free and I get to go "Hi! Merry Christmas! Why haven't you been returning my calls?"

And then it's the weekend, 2 days of Christmas shopping...then it's Christmas.

Not that I'm complaining.

The annual Christmas letter

Actually, I never do these. But if I did, then this year's letter would go something like this...

Dear Friends and family,

It's hard to believe another year is nearly over with, isn't it? I hope you're well and aren't too badly affected by the economic downturn that those irresponsible Americans are putting the rest of the world through.

TLM is doing well at daycare; at the parent-teacher meeting I was told that she has "outstanding" knowledge and vocabulary. I told her that this is due to all the DVDs she watches, though the teacher might have thought I was joking. I am thinking of enrolling TLM in Chinese and/or ballet classes next year. What a pity there are no classes that teach both at the same time; it might be cheaper. Oh yes, and she has started sleeping in a big kids' bed. It has been a week and she has only fallen out twice.

As you know, I was thinking of going back to work as a technical writer. Well, I did indeed get some work in that area! But then I got fired so I'm back to being a stay-at-home mum until I get another contract or permanent job. But in the meantime I am using my free time to do 7 months' worth of housework that didn't get done while I was working.

The boy is well; he is still expanding his collection of electronic games and wants to rearrange his study so that half of it (not my half, I hope!) can have his XBOX, PS2, Game Cube and Wii consoles set up permanently. Fair enough, I suppose, as he doesn't spend every night at the pub like some dads.

Well, I'd better sign off now. Write back soon and I hope the rehab is going well.

Love,
Violet

Or something like that.

Crossing off the financial to-do list, not

Way back in March, I posted a list of the things I wanted to spend my spare money on, once I started earning again.

But I haven't managed to get many of those things done:

buying a compost bin (they probably don't cost much, but the boy isn't interested so if we get one it'll be because I paid for it) Nope

- having my will done (I mean, as in "my will and living testament" or however it reads - not some kind of Willow-magic) Nope

- buying shoes that are both stylish and super-comfy. (It may not be possible, but apparently Kumfs come pretty close.) Yes. Twice.

- and some nice white shirts (I have a problem with white clothes, as they have to be washed separately - but I hate to underload the washing machine. So the only solution is to wear a lot more white) Yes, if you count 2 nice white t-shirts.

- spend more time in cafes (probably in the form of half-hour lunch breaks, but time spent in a cafe is time pretending to be a Beautiful Person) Surprisingly, not really.

As you can see, the only items I could cross off my list are fashion-related.
There were further items which didn't get onto the blog post (putting in underfloor insulation, having my vision checked and getting new glasses, saving up to renovate the kitchen and bathroom), but they didn't get done either.

And now I'm unemployed again. So, not much achieved then.

On the other hand, my friends tell my I look very stylish now.

Sewing for a square peg

My second sewing project was going to be a pair of close-fitting trousers - pocketless, unwaistbanded trousers with a side zip to minimise tummy bumpage. I now know that I was too ambitious, because it's turned out that getting the damned thing to fit properly is a hell of a job. It's a good thing I decided to make a trial pair first, because they were way too tight around the waist and a bit too loose everywhere else.

This should not have been a huge surprise to me, as commercial sewing patterns made by the big brands seem to be based on the hourglass figures of women in the Fifties. I've read that women are getting bigger and more straight up and down - yet this isn't reflected in the fit of sewing patterns. I don't understand how sewers put up with this, unless they are mostly differently-sized versions of Marilyn Monroe.

I'm going to press on, though I'll need the help of some good dressmaking books and websites.

Dresses and skirts must be so much easier to fit. Thinking about the shop-bought trousers I own, really the only ones that fit well are the stretch denim jeans. I can see now why it's a good thing that women have the option to wear dresses.

But the boy is far prettier...

In the midst of much tantrum-ing, due to wanting another hundreds'n'thousands biscuit and not being allowed one, The Little Madam lightened up jungle hour with this nugget of cuteness:

"That's dadday!" says TLM.
I look over to where she is pointing.
She's eyeing the back of the weekend newspaper, where they put pointless photos of celebrities at parties and opening nights.

She is pointing at a photo of David Beckham.
I rush to the phone to tell the boy. He sounds as pleased as I'd expect him to be.

TLM does not, however, identify the not-Posh model standing next to Mr Beckham as her mummy.

Oh, and in case you were wondering - Becks was not in New Zealand at the time of TLM's conception.

I made that

It took me years to decide that I like the dress-over-trousers look. Here's a picture of me wearing my first sewing project in many years, a green-on-black tunic dress (i.e a mini dress which I will only ever wear with trousers). I've even reviewed it for the Pattern Review website (the link is over on the right - go and click on it to see my review of the sewing pattern).

Anyway, on the envelope it says One Hour Pattern in large, friendly letters. But trust me, it did not take me one hour. Actually, just hemming the dress took longer than that. I must be out of practice.

p.s. you can thank the boy for taking this photo in such a way that I look even shorter than I am.

Mummy's got a brand new project

Recently I've decided to accept my slightly unhealthy obsession with fashion; like all my previous obsessions, it's just a matter of giving in to it until it's out of my system. I'd predict that, at most, I've another 18 months before I'm ready to move onto something else.

This is a little at odds with my need to rein in my spending, what with being out of work and all. So the aim will be to minimise the glossy magazines and make do with fashion blogs and related websites.

I'm also going to sew.

Actually I'm kinda excited about it, because it'll provide me with a creative release and a cheaper way to get style-y.

There is the possiblity of ending up with masses of almost-dresses, held together only by crooked tacking and destined to be completely dated by the time they're finished. There is also the possibility of having to scan the living room floor with a large magnet at least once a day, to avoid pin-in-foot disease.

But it'll keep me off the streets (at least, once I've chased down some patterns and fabric etc).

The Day After Tomorrow, last night

It was TV last night and there was nothing better to view.

The Day After Tomorrow could be the movie to convince the masses that climate change is a load of bullshit. Because, if you can believe that the world (well - Tokyo, New York and LA, at least) can shift from "normal" to ice age in a matter of days, then you'd have to be a moron. And if that scenario is unbelievable, then how believable is the idea that it could happen over a few decades?

Those tornadoes over LA were pretty impressive, though.

But not impressive enough to stop me from turning the telly off so I could get the dishes done and get myself off to bed.

Getting back into SAHM mode

At first, I continued to dress in casual Friday clothes during the week. I didn't want to wreck TLM's daily routine by suddenly acting like I didn't have a job to go to.

After the first week, I stopped taking my work bag with me when I dropped her off in the mornings.

By the middle of last week I'd stopped putting on makeup in the morning (which, admittedly, is just foundation and concealer).

Today I almost put shorts on after my shower.

But that would be going too far.

bellevue

It used to be my daily fitness walk - nothing as strenuous as a full gym workout, but a cheap and easy-to-schedule substitute. Somehow I got out of the habit, and yesterday was the first time I'd ventured up into the hills since last summer. Today, the view was even more beautiful than yesterday.

Sometimes I forget just how pretty my home town is.

(And no, that is not my house. If it were, I'd either have a mortgage hefty enough to buy someone a couple of those jewel-like islands in the Marlborough Sounds, or sell it and live off the proceeds for the next ten years. Lovely building, eh?)

Notes from Unemployment Land

It's been two weeks since my last contract ended (not counting the 2 days' work I found at the end of last week), and the novelty of having all this free time is finally wearing thin (missing the income has something to do with it). TLM is still attending daycare on her usual days, but I pick her up earlier.

That extra mummy-and-daughter time at the end of the day has not been filled with fun activities, as I'd expected. I'm finding that even by 3pm, TLM just wants to relax with a Dora DVD or - if she's feeling energetic - smear acrylic paints all over the furniture. But the shorter daycare days will be cheaper so hopefully I won't be under financial pressure to get work.

My days have not been completely idle. This morning I washed down the front porch, which I've decided has been specially designed to catch and store as much dirt as possible. Yesterday I baked a batch of muesli bars for TLM's lunchbox. On Tuesday I hemmed up a pair of work trousers which I bought last year, before realising that they look rubbish on me. And on Monday I turned the bedroom rug around so that the non-worn-down end is now where we actually put our feet. That last one was actually hard work, because there were half a dozen pieces of furniture keeping the rug in place.

I've also been looking around for permanent jobs, but the interesting-sounding ones are all full-time.

Tarrah for now, I think I'll go for a walk in the hills.

It's called having priorities

I am not a shopaholic. Because if I was, I wouldn't have left The Editter's Tupperware party empty-handed; I would have bought the Madagascar lunch box, or a set of vegetable-freshness-preserving boxes or even the Happy Chopper. Though it was nice to see The Editter of course.

On the other hand, I discovered a wonderful clothes boutique called Scintilla. Not only did I want to try almost everything on, but several of the things I tried on looked good on me, which was a pleasant surprise. So, although I saved a hundred bucks by not buying any Tupperware, I spent some (and then some) at Scintilla. I liked the clothes so much I've even posted photos, so you can validate my taste.



Here on the left is the red tunic dress I bought, which looks great over jeans (and hopefully also over leggings or work trousers), with or without a t-shirt underneath.



And this is the sleeve detail on a cowl-necked black t-shirt which also looks great with jeans (have you guess I was wearing jeans today?), and hopefully also with skirt or work trousers.





Another boutique on the same street, Rose Petals, had some really costume jewellery (they also had some lovely trendy, cheap, clothes). I'm not a jewellery person - I don't even wear a watch. But this necklace pictured here would be a nice shot of colour (there's more blue on there than the photo shows) on those days when I go to work in top-to-toe black.



That is, if I get another contract.

Which reminds me. I'd better stop spending money.

Like putting money into a shredder...

The boy and I have a car each. But for a couple of months we had to make do with just the one, because the boy's car had something wrong with it. And two months passed before he could get it fixed because the spare parts weren't available. I think they had to be freighted in all the way from Japan. By canoe, I reckon.

So, two months came and went and finally, the spare parts arrived and the boy could get his car fixed. In that time, the car's warrant of fitness expired. The day before the boy drove the car to the mechanics' garage to get it fixed and warrant-able, he got a fine for having a car without a current warrant of fitness.

Ah, you say - but he hadn't been driving it. And he couldn't get the WOF because he was awaiting the sparts, etc. I said that too. So the boy rang the police (for they are the dudes who collect such fines). And it turns out that, if your car doesn't have a current WOF you'll get fined for it, whether you're driving it or not. The only way to avoid paying the 200 smackeroos is to hide it off the road, like in a private garage.

Well, that's all well and good if you have a garage (we do, but that's beside the point). But what if you're one of the huge proportion of households in or around the inner city who don't bloody have one?

It seems pretty bloody unfair if you ask me.

Taking Tinkerbell seriously

After about the twentieth viewing of Disney's Tinkerbell movie, I started to treat it as a media studies case. That's not to claim that I have any credentials whatsoever in the field of media studies. But I've heard enough dissing about Disney films like Pocahontas etc, to encourage me to have a go at analysing Tinkerbell.

The plot goes loosely like this: at the beginning of Tinkerbell's existence, she discovers that her fairy talent is as a tinker. Whilst exploring her new home and place of work in Neverland, we see that she is probably the only tinker fairy who is classically pretty - her main workmates are a plus-size boss-woman (voice by the enormously talented Jane Horrocks), a geeky boy fairy with oversized spectacles, and a Scottish boy fairy who looks like John Candy. Tinkerbell's best mates are a cluster of nature fairies; all girly girls and all looking forward to going to "the mainland" to make Spring happen. Tinkerbell decides she doesn't want to be a boring old tinker and tries to learn another talent. Along the way she accidentally destroys all the fairies' Spring work but saves the world from another Ice Age with a plan that includes much tinker-made machinery. Tinkerbell learns that tinkering is her thing, and to be proud of it.

So. Themes.

1. Tinkerbell's gadgets and automated Spring-creation allows the fairies to re-make Spring in a fraction of the time it took them to do it the labour-intensive way. Obviously this story is all about the triumph of industrialisation over agrarian economies. Those pointy-eared pixies would be stupid to go back to their old ways of working.

2. Tinkerbell initially wants to change the way she makes her living, but eventually learns that she can't be anything other than what she is - a tinker. Doesn't this concept contradict the Great American Reinvention myth? That you can better yourself, be whatever you want to be as long as you believe in yourself and work for it? Tinkerbell, meet Flashdance.

3. On the other hand, perhaps it's a positive message, that we should all accept who we are, regardless of what our respective strengths and weaknesses are.

4. Tinkerbell, and most of the other female fairies, have large, childlike heads atop grown-up bodies. This is very disturbing. At least Barbie is supposed to resemble a physically mature woman.

5. Tinkerbell wants to be a nature fairy like her friends. Her friends are like a high school girl clique, but nicer. Tinkerbell's workmates, fairies she ought to feel a bond with, are not. Tinkering is unsexy. Nature is sexy. But tinkering wins the day. Maybe Disney is trying to tell us that geekdom will inherit the Earth - but don't expect it to look pretty.

6. There is one fairy "of colour" i.e. she's black. I didn't see any fairies with Asian features, nor any with wide flat noses or frizzy hair. Hell, it's not like the producers had to go and find a bunch of actors to fit the range of human appearance and ethnicity. It's animation!

7. Vidia is a fast-flying nature fairy. She's a lot like the-woman-who-hates-me at work, though far prettier (and, of course, the latter is not a fairy by any sense of the word). She's the one fairy who isn't "nice", and she's the one who gets Tinks into trouble. Why oh why oh why did the animators have to make her a brunette! That's soooo stereotyped!

TLM doesn't seem to mind any of the above. So I'll probably be watching it again tomorrow morning.

Not just a gob-smackingly pretty face, y'know...

1. TLM was going through a pile of old greeting cards. She pulled one out, announcing "This is a grown-up card!". I looked up to see what was on that card - it had a photo of a couple having a steamy up-against-the-kitchen-bench kiss. I took it off her and put it in the recycling bin. Funnily enough, that was a birthday card to me, from a woman friend.

2. TLM was playing with a set of shape blocks, specifically with some pentagons. I said "You've got two pentagons there, and there are 5 holes in each pentagon. How many holes are there altogether?" TLM took an astoundingly short time to answer "Ten!".

Smugness ensues.

Her father's daughter

I always hoped that TLM would be more like her dad than like me - tall, clever, confident and allergy-free. So far, she's fulfilling my wishes.

But there's a downside to the fact that she's so much like the boy (albeit smaller, female and Asiatic in colouring). The downside is that she burns really easily.

My brother and I have that classic Chinese ability to turn almost black with sun exposure.
The boy, who comes from original English stock, has skin so white it's almost blue. When it's slightly off-white, that's when you know he's got a tan.

TLM's skin is so white it's almost English. She burns a little if she spends time outdoors even if it's very overcast (when it's very overcast my skin doesn't even get out of bed). Yesterday afternoon she spent an hour at the park, mostly covered up but un-hatted because it was so windy. Not long after, she started exhibiting the symptoms of mild sunstroke (I, on the other hand, don't even have tan lines around my sunglasses; the boy was safely tucked away in his darkened study playing computer games).

It's a shame that TLM is so sun sensitive. On the other hand, it's way better than having eczema.

The hard decision

When old people are portrayed in the media as cantankerous and grumpy, their anti-social behavious is usually offset by an admiration for having "attitude". And if it's a movie, that old person probably ends up passing on great wisdom to the younger person who previously resented them.

But what if an old person is cantankerous, grumpy, utterly negative, paranoid, unappreciative, demanding, suspicious, and miserable - and refuses to redeem themselves Hollywood-style? What if that person is your aging parent and you can see that in the near future you're going to have to make that choice?

Old folk's homes with Chinese-speaking staff and/or residents are pretty damned rare in these parts.

Slime in, cake out

I made a banana cake today; it was my first attempt. The over-ripe bananas which had been put aside in the freezer for the big day were dug out, microwaved and peeled. They were slimy and surprisingly elastic, and mashing them was harder work than I'd expected. But the end result was still really yummy and moist.

It was also really, really easy to make (apart from the banana-mashing) - even for me. Here's the recipe, which I found on the Internet:

Quick egg-free Banana Cake

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp egg replacer
½ cup melted dairy free margarine
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup mashed banana
1 cup milk (rice, soy etc)

1. Sift and mix dry ingredients.
2. Add wet ingredients and mix until smooth.
3. Bake 40 -50 minutes at 190°C.

TLM liked it too, but the boy is probably waiting to see whether I suffer any delayed stomach upset from the big wedge I ate a couple of hours ago.

I shopped. I dropped.

Be warned - a proliferation of brackets follows...

I made the not-entirely-rational (seeing as I am now between contracts) decision to spend the last two days shopping. Yesterday was a helluva busy day; I literally shopped from about 9.30am until 3.45pm, with a short lunch break and a chat-with-friend break. Today, I forced myself to return home after finding a couple of fitted t-shirts that actually fit.

My other spoils include:

• a navy cotton hooded cardigan (not the short, shaped jacket I was looking for, but it will do nicely in the meantime) from the up-market store, Kirkaldies
  
• an ink-blue ankle-length skirt with white trim (having decided that spending the whole summer in long trousers for the sake of simultaneously obeying the What Not to Wear rules, and fulfilling my need to keep my legs well covered, would be slightly masochistic), also from Kirkaldies
  
• a pair of straight-legged summer weight jeans, from Max (because even though there was a designer-wear sale on, I just couldn't bring myself to pay hundreds of dollars on a pair of Marc by Marc Jacobs jeans, even at discount).

Now that I have some decent-quality clothing to wear to my next contract/interview, there's a good chance that this current obsession with fashion goes the same way as my past obsessions (with travel, karate, painting, being a librarian, and creative writing, respectively) have gone i.e. away (though hopefully the writing and painting will find a way back into that particular portion of my brain).

On a happier note...

I got my hair cut today. It's a slightly shaggy bob which is just short of shaved at the nape, and lengthens subtly to chin length towards the front. (Before you say anything, I did not get my inspiration from Posh Spice.) I'm very happy with it, and even the boy - who has already expressed a preference for long hair on me - said it was nice. Even TLM was very approving.

So...does this mean a new job is on the cards?

Enforced leisure time

TLM and I were returning from a laidback morning at the library and playground, when I got a call telling me that my contract has been unexpectedly terminated - as of today. The reason given was that they'd run out of work for me to do, which is mostly true. But I think it's a bit shabby to make that decision on the one day I'm not at the office, and make it effective immediately (two weeks' notice is normal). Fortunately, the only personal items I won't be able to retrieve from the desk I shared, are a small disposable drink bottle and a packet of tissues. But I hadn't actually completed finished the piece of work I had taken over for the-woman-who-hates-me, so I would have expected at least to be asked to finish out the week.

I'm thinking that the people we've been working for are doing this, partly to keep the-woman-who-hates-me happy. She is, after all, their star worker and I'm just a newbie who doesn't quite know what to do with all those stab wounds in my back.

It's weird really, that after being in the workforce for 20 years, only now have I experienced, first-hand, the horrors of office politics.

The upside is, I now have 2 whole days free to shop till I drop.
The downside is, I don't want to spend any money because I don't know when my next contract is coming.

Life would be so much less stressful if I were thick-skinned and cocky

Halfway into the morning, I got an email from the-woman-who-hates-me, telling me that she'd taken over my documentation project (which I'd handed over for approval last week), because it was full of spelling errors, incomplete sentences and inconsistencies. At first, I thought Yeah, there probably were a couple of spelling mistakes that I missed; after a week of poring over the type looking for grammatical errors and URLs without underlining, there was bound to be something. No big. Though I was a bit pissed off that she didn't tell me on Friday and give me a chance to fix it up myself.

And then, the bomb hit.

Just before I left work, I got another email from her, casually mentioning that she's spent all weekend fixing my work and that certain people were "not happy".

Well, that was a whole new bucketful of downers.

For the rest of the afternoon I stewed over it. What could I have done to make people actively unhappy about my work? Was my pimp regretting that they'd ever taken me on? When I got home I ate a packet of Rocky Road Mallowpuffs and sat down to re-read What Color is my Parachute? 'cos, you know, maybe I was heading for a much longer break than I'd planned for.

When the boy got home I told him everything, and he was a veritable Mount Everest of support and solace. He also told me to get on the phone to my pimp and get it all sorted out. So I did.

And it all turned out to be an itty bitty anthill. The-woman-who-hates me wasn't fixing a shitload of shocking errors; she was just put my document through routine quality assurance (which, I admit, I was remiss in forgetting to do myself). People weren't unhappy with my work; they were just unhappy that they'd have to wait a little bit longer before seeing the completed document.

The-woman-who-hates-me was just f***ing with my mind, and doing a pretty exceptional job at it. I told my pimp that, in my defense, my co-worker had been less than helpful. She told me that she'd already suspected that the two of us had "issues", and that I needn't worry about my rep; it's still solid.

But y'know, if I wasn't such an oversensitive little flower with less self-confidence than a beneficiary in a Rogernomics economy, all this angst could have been avoided. I could have just told my pimp within the first week that a certain someone was out to get me.

Ah, we live and learn.

While the US hangs to the Left, NZ swings to the Right

I ended up voting for Labour and the Greens again on Saturday, reasonably confident that Helen Clarke's government would get to continue the good job they seem to be doing balancing themselves between environmental awareness and economic pragmatism. So it was a bit of a shock when, standing at the newsagent's counter to pay for TLM's My Little Pony magazine (I got myself a Bust), I spotted the front page news - Labour has lost to National.

Despite the fact that we now have a right-wing government on our hands (and who know how many social welfare and conservation cutbacks they will be making in order to give big business a leg up?), I guess we will just have to wait and see. Maybe it will all turn out okay. At least we are no closer to declaring war on some unsuspecting oil-rich nation.

There is one definite silver lining though - Winston Peters, that bandwagon-jumping salesman, is out of the political picture. Way hey!

List for Wednesday

Favourite TV show right now: 30 Rock (although Liz Lemon dresses far too well to be a date-challenged geek). It's so funny, the boy takes notes so he can quote the best lines at work the next day.

Most recent proof that I have truly emerged from 3 years of self-imposed sartorial repression, and am making the hell up for it: a pair of cherry-red patent leather round-y toed mid-heel pumps. And I haven't even started wearing the bronze sandals I bought last month (mostly because my toes would freeze off if I did).

The Little Madam's cutest feature right now: that she will raid her dress-up basket and emerge dressed as a fairy princess pirate baby jaguar. (And speaking of TLM, we had her measured today by the Plunket nurse. She is now a wopping 15.1 kg and 95 cm tall. Perfect.)

The least-funny thing that made the boy and I laugh like a pair of tiddly hyenas: when I told him that the-woman-who-hates-me had to go home sick yesterday, and added how sorry I was about it.

The annoying thing that happens almost every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday: my mum ringing me just as I'm trying to get TLM through her naptime routine. And I do tell her to ring at a different time. Every time.

The last thing on my mind: who the heck I'm going to vote for at the general election this Saturday.

Grownups night out

The boy and I went out last night to see a play called The Pillowman. We only knew about it because one of the actors is the husband of a friend, and we only went to see it because it sounded like some kind of early-Grimm adult fairy tale. Well, it was really good.

It's about a writer who's being interrogated by a good cop/bad cop team, over some child murders that have taken place recently. He's there because the murders bear close resemblance to some of his grisly - but highly inventive - short stories. But it's not all dark and depressing (and it does get even darker and more depressing than I've just outlined). Because it's full of really funny dialogue. And the stories he tells are Clive Barker-esque. I'm not completely sure that the mix of comedy and horror is a comfortable one (which reminds me a little of the movie Life is Beautiful). But I came away with my head full of memorable, shocking images and ridiculous ideas. To the writer character, his stories are the most important thing - worthy of living on after he dies, powerful enough to turn harmless people into monsters. Hmm...perhaps The Pillowman is making fun of those people who take literature so seriously?

This link will give you plot summaries of the play itself and of the stories told within it. Go have a look.

Holiday planned

Against all odds - laziness, forgetfulness and feared poverty, at least - it looks like we are going to have a wee holiday after all, over Christmas and New Year.

My first choice (after weeks of vagueness and indecision) was Tahuna Beach, in Nelson. It's a hugely popular family holiday camp, promising nice weather, safe beachplay and lots of playmates for TLM. Unfortunately it is booked out already. But anyway, the airfares would've cost almost a grand for the ten minute flight each way.

So we're driving an hour up the coast and staying in a resort for 6 days. There may not be loads of playmates for TLM in this price range, but she probably won't notice.

Hee hee...

Speechless

I should have seen it coming, because last night I gave TLM some kiwifruit. You may not know this, especially if you have never fed a kid kiwifruit, but those furry little green ovals activate a child's bowels like nothing else on earth.

This morning's surprise output was so encompassing, that when I took off TLM's trousers some of it landed on my lap. The rest of it fell between my knees onto the long-suffering rug.
I screamed in horror. The wipes were just out of reach.
The boy, only just dressed to go to work, rushed into the lounge to see who was getting murdered.
I screamed some more and pointed at the box of wipes in the far corner.
The boy went in the opposite direction, perhaps thinking I was thirsty and in need of some elderflower cordial.
I screamed still more, this time with an edge of irritation and waving my pointy finger agressively.
Then I said "The wipes! The bloody wipes!".
The boy muttered something about mind-reading and fetched the wipes.
And we used them all up in the clean-up operation.

Now, I was going to post about TLM's toilet humour. But toilet horror is probably a bit less cliched, right?

Elderflower cordial

Elderflower cordial is a slightly herby, but otherwise very sweet syrup that you mix into a refreshing drink. The boy thinks it's healthy, though I have my doubts because it's still basically sugar water.

Over the last few days of her tummy bug, TLM has gotten accustomed to having a bottle of elderflower drink in her bed at night, with a pinch of salt added, to help her re-hydrate. But her tummy's all better now and I've put my foot down - only water in her bottle at night, because having one's teeth and gums awash with sugary liquid all night is a sure path down to the city of BlackTeeth.

TLM is not taking it very well. She starting throwing a tanty as soon as I confirmed that there was nothing in her bottle except tap water. It continued as she climbed into bed, and escalated into full-on screams and wails and tears after I left the room.

Geez, you'd think I was making her sleep in a bare bathtub or something.

Vapours

Just now I'm really wishing we had separate family and living rooms - that, or at least warm enough weather to have all the doors and window open without freezing one's nipples off.

Because, with all the farting, spewing and bad-pooing that's going on around here, it's not a very nice atmosphere. I mean that literally.

Last post about the joys of this month's bout of gastroenteritis, I promise.

bad luck, bad karma or bad building?

Before I left work at midday on Thursday to look after TLM (the boy were tag-teaming it), I cheerfully mentioned that she was actually quite happy; she just couldn't keep her food down. Four hours later, my own stomach felt like it was full of concrete and I knew that a night of puking was a 99% possibility.

That night, I got up about eight times to throw up. I was really glad that all I'd eaten was half a carton of wedges, because those wedges came out with a close resemblance to gruel which has been left on the burner too long so that all the moisture has evaporated from it.

But I had a deadline to meet. So the next morning I crawled into work, just in time to meet up with my SME (Subject Matter Expert). And left soon after I finished picking his brains.

Either I've had an extremely unfair and unfortunate run of luck on the health front, or I've inadvertantly enraged the gods of good health, or those little black mould-like patches on the bathroom wall really are that infamous black mould I've heard about.

Or, it's just a combination of being over 40, a parent of a young child, spring, and lack of fresh vegetables.

It shouldn't have to be exciting

Rather than rant on about my work stress, or TLM's recent vomits and runny green poos, I'll just give you my 5 cents worth (equal in value to 2 cents, in olden times) about New Zealand's general election this year.

In short, they are boring. I'm as unpolitical as most people, only getting interested when there's a threat to a welfare service that applies to my life stage at the time (e.g. student loans and fees when I was a student, paid parental leave when I was pregnant, the possibility of taxing residential house values when I'm a home owner.)

The American elections are much more exciting. But I'm not jealous of the Americans, because the only reason for this is that they could end up with a president who has no experience of the world outside her own state, thinks that family planning is the devil's game of poker, and would only win because she's not bad looking for a working mother of five.

It's relatively dull to be faced with minute policy differences between political parties, which is what we've got at home. But it's far more sensible.

Bad double-whammy

Which is worse -

1. having a work deadline which is tighter than rat's bum, to complete a project for which I have only a smallish amount of experience, un-aided by a workmate who hates me, and for which the subject matter experts (SME's) are either ignorant, verbose or too geeky to communicate...

OR

2. having to do one's GST (that's VAT for Brits, something else for the Yanks) return, deadline in one week, with potentially heaps of expenses I can claim for, but no experience in claiming for, un-aided by a man at Inland Revenue who won't answer my emails?

The correct answer is...both at the same bluddy time.

Stylish and brainy

I might well the only person on Earth who prefers a bit of copy to go with her fashion magazine photo spreads. For most people who like looking at nice clothes, it wouldn't matter if the words were in French, German or Icelandic.

So I'm really enjoying The Meaning of Sunglasses: And a Guide to Almost All Things Fashionable, by Hadley Freeman (it was one of the three books I ordered on the Internet - I'm still waiting for the Buffy book...). Freeman is a fashion writer for The Guardian, and this book is a collection of her columns for that paper. It's, like, literary.

What I like about the book is that it's well written, witty, and quite down to earth. She obviously has an interest in fashion, but she's not going to tell you that a trenchcoat - or any item of clothing or accessory - is a "must have", and has a healthy disrespect for fashion media. She also acknowledges that it's quite okay to spend a grand on a handbag, as long as your love of the handbag outweighs your guilt about spending so much money on it.

And there aren't even any pictures...

Quietly perfect

Despite the unsociable-ness of having no party today, I still enjoyed my birthday very much. I got to sleep in till about 8.30, because TLM has been sleeping in till then.

It was a beautiful day today, so sunny I even got out the sunscreen lotion for the first time since last summer. What a change from some years, when we've been hit by hurricane-strength spring winds and lashing rain.
My presents from the boy included Gok Wan's How to Look Good Naked - my choice - and an Angel comic onmibus. I've already read the former a couple of times today, but am saving the latter for when I'm in the mood for a concentrated spell of reading.
In the morning, we managed to also fit in a shopping and brunch trip into town (although only the boy actually ate anything because TLM and I had only just had breakfast just before leaving), which included me spending a birthday voucher (from my "employer") on a couple of trashy mind-candy fashion magazines.
TLM also experienced her very first bike-ride out on the footpath. She's getting better at steering but has yet to learn that it's not a good idea to looking downwards whilst moving..
The afternoon was a bit lazier - reading magazines in the sun while TLM got kitted out in a very girly sun dress (by her own insistence). The house across the road has builders in putting up a new fence, and she looked so cute with her red plastic hammer, doing her own impression of the lads as they sawed and hammered.
Then we had some pretty amazing chocolate-coated banana cake whilst watching Mary Poppins. Boy, but doesn't Dick van Dyke's fake Cockney accent sound terrible! He doesn't even sound English, much less Cockney...

Death times 2, or double-happiness halved - A pre-birthday ramble.

That's just a cryptic way of saying "44". Which, by the way, will be my age come Sunday. I'm not really looking forward to being 44 (though to be honest, I haven't looked forward to getting older since I was about 31).
Although I said in my meme that I'd love to celebrate my next birthday with a 2-hour afternoon party, like the kind toddlers have but with more alcohol and better music, this is probably not going to happen. Not unless the boy is planning a surprise party, and he isn't the planning-a-surprise-party type of guy. He's more the type of guy to order a fabulously expensive birthday gift for me, which appeals more to him than to me (unless it's a MacBook).
Actually, he recently gave me some money and told me to order whatever I wanted from Amazon, so that was probably his birthday present to me. Though it's a pity NZ Post is taking it's sweet time delivering them to me.
Okay, enough waffling. It's time to sign off and do some some research into mobile phones.
Ciao.

Getting back on the mobile phone bandwagon

The hideously expensive smartphone that the boy got me as a birthday present a couple of years ago, is apparently on it's last legs. Half the time I don't get notified of a text until about three hours after it was sent, and lately it's been telling me I'm out of range of the mobile network (in the middle of the CBD! In the middle of a telecommunications company office!). So I reckon it's time for a new one.

But I don't want another smartphone, because I wouldn't use most of the features. All I really want the phone to do is: make and receive calls; send and receive text messages; and take pictures that don't come out all blurry when you get them printed at a decent size. I don't want email or web browsing, because it's bloody expensive to use those from a mobile phone. And I don't listen to music much any more either.

What do you reckon I should shop for?

Cyberwomen, mind-reading and "nobbing fellas to death"

You could say that I turned a corner on Saturday. On that day, I started being able to breathe through my nose again, sometimes. On that day, the feeling that the back of my nostrils were harbouring slimy pipe-cleaners, started to go away. I could watch a DVD and actually concentrate on what was happening.

We've been enjoying Torchwood lately. At about 5 episodes in from the beginning, I feel that the characters are still not particularly well-drawn. Gorgeous Gwen, obviously, is the most developed, but that's to be expected since we're seeing the show from her point of view. But Tosh, the IT guru with the Japanese heritage, is a disappointingly boring woman so far. She's not endearingly geeky, nor even quirky - just lonely. It might take a few more episodes before I know them enough to like them. The stories are quite good though, even though one or two of the plotlines look like homages to episodes from Buffy or Angel.

It's also a whole lot more fun than Terminator: the Sarah Connor Files.

It's an age meme

At a certain age women should ... be confident about asking for a raise.

At a certain age men should grow up.

When I was a kid I thought I would grow to be taller.

Now that I'm older I wish I were taller and younger.

You know you are too old to go nightclubbing when you spend all night complaining about the loudness of the music and the messiness of the toilets.

You know you are too young to die when you can think of at least ten things you haven’t done yet.

When I was in high school I listened to rock music, because it was way cooler than disco music.

Nowadays I find I like the music of the same bands, but also some jazz and opera.

On my last birthday I didn’t have a party.

On my next birthday I want to have a daytime party so TLM can be there too. In fact, have a party just like a kid’s one – with balloons, cakes, toys and a 2-hour time limit.

The best birthday present I ever got was my iMac.

The first time I felt grown up was when I moved out of home and was able to do everything myself, my way.

The last time I felt like a kid was the last time I played on the slide with TLM.

When I read the little blue line on the pregnancy test it changed my life.

Last year was the last one in which I was a stay-at-home mum.

Next year I hope we get sick a whole lot less often, the boy gets a nice new job and I get comfortable with my work.

Not all better, but not all sick either

I'm a little better today (and I should be, since it's day 2 of the doctor's antibiotics and 3 different kinds of painkillers). I must be because, despite the coughing and forgetting to eat lunch (that would never happen when I'm well), I managed to get 2 loads of washing on the line, deal with a bucketful of pooey stuff, and clean the toilet. Two days ago it was all I could do to get out of bed and put an Outrageous Fortune DVD on.

If the boy were to be home sick though, you would never catch him wasting energy on housework. He'd be recuperating with his computer game (don't ask me what he's playing though, those empire-building epics all look kinda the same to me).

I reckon he's got the right idea.

My first rejection letter

Do you remember when I posted about sending a story to the NZ School Journal? It was my first ever (and still my only) story submission. And how excited I was when the editor sent me a letter saying they liked parts of my story and wanted to see it again when I'd improved it? Well, the editor who is filling in for the first editor, didn't like my rewrite (assuming that is what it means when they say they couldn't find a space for it, which I do).

I'm disappointed, and receiving the rejection today is a little bit like being kicked when I'm down ('cos I'm still sick). But I'm quite aware that even the most successful authors have had submissions rejected, possibly many times. So it's not that bad really.