Archives for November 2009

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

Take this drug in the amount advised by the physician. tadalafil lowest price Your doctor might also test you up viagra discount sales for liver, kidney, lung problems or any other serious physical condition. Low self-esteem in this ordering levitra regard may in turn be the result of a specific situation where someone has laughed, denied or criticized in the bedroom. It relieves males from purchase viagra fatigue and offers effective cure for sexual debilities like infertility, low libido, premature ejaculation, low sperm count. Him:       I love you too.  So.. how was your day?

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