I have been meaning to update for a while. A few things have happened since I last wrote - I turned 40, Chet said and did some funny stuff and was very cute, the K-man was sick, there was an earthquake in Japan and the Minx was the Minx. But, my world tipped off it's axis yesterday. My father died. He collapsed while trying to start the lawnmower and the ambos were not able to revive him. He had had a heart condition for a long time but even so it was relatively unexpected.
In the wake of that everything else seems insignificant. Chet and I are going up to Queensland tomorrow to be with my mother and help organise the things that need organising. My brother is flying in from Japan. We are all in a state of shock. I keep expecting to see something about it on the news and then I remember that it is only newsworthy to me and my family and my friends. He was my Dad and I loved him. It could be a while before I write again ...
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Nothing peoples
Life and conversations with a two year old continue to delight and frustrate in equal measures - I am sure most parents would agree with this. But the strange and funny conversations continue. Chet is currently talking a lot about various people who haven't bitten his toe. As in "Grandpa not bite my toe" - he told me this last night, just before bed, apropos nothing. I asked him who did bite his toe and his response was that the "nothing peoples" bit his toe which I took to mean that no one actually did bite his toe at all. But, on reflection, perhaps it was the nothing peoples, whoever they may be. They may be related to the Beatles song, Nowhere Man which he knows well and refers to simply as "Man".
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Big boys
We are currently visiting my parents in Toowoomba. Their cat, Snouty is a rather large and beautiful chocolate brown (part) Burmese. He is also terrified of most things, including a chicken that used to visit a while back.
Overheard a conversation (well more of a monologue really) between Chet and Snouty.
Chet: Hello Snouty, you're a big boy.
Snouty: Quizzical, slightly scared interest.
Chet: I'm a big boy too.
Snouty: Hmm, goes to run away.
Chet (in a hopeful voice): I'm two.
At this point Snouty takes off with Chet in hot pursuit.
Also overheard between Chet and slightly older boy in K-mart.
Chet: I'm a big boy.
Boy: No you're not!
Chet: I'm a big boy.
Boy: Shrug
And then they both started playing with bangles.
Overheard a conversation (well more of a monologue really) between Chet and Snouty.
Chet: Hello Snouty, you're a big boy.
Snouty: Quizzical, slightly scared interest.
Chet: I'm a big boy too.
Snouty: Hmm, goes to run away.
Chet (in a hopeful voice): I'm two.
At this point Snouty takes off with Chet in hot pursuit.
Also overheard between Chet and slightly older boy in K-mart.
Chet: I'm a big boy.
Boy: No you're not!
Chet: I'm a big boy.
Boy: Shrug
And then they both started playing with bangles.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Fabric ...
I don't think I need to buy any more fabric or vintage sheets until I start actually using it for something. I now have two vintage suitcases full of fabric (some of which was my mother's incidentally), not to mention half of a cabinet in the dining room full of fabric, mending, knitting and other crafty things.
I also have piles of books I have read and want to write something about sitting on my desk and sewing basket. Not to mention the pile of books I haven't yet read.
January has been about trying to get organised and getting rid of a few things and to that end I have gotten rid of quite a few books and most of the remaining baby clothes. But, I still have a way to go. But, I haven't been to a charity shop this year and have managed to get rid of more than I have acquired. The beginning of an experiment in downsizing ... wish me luck.
I also have piles of books I have read and want to write something about sitting on my desk and sewing basket. Not to mention the pile of books I haven't yet read.
January has been about trying to get organised and getting rid of a few things and to that end I have gotten rid of quite a few books and most of the remaining baby clothes. But, I still have a way to go. But, I haven't been to a charity shop this year and have managed to get rid of more than I have acquired. The beginning of an experiment in downsizing ... wish me luck.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Baking ... mini passover cakes
I have also been baking a lot lately as well - I think to make up for the fact that I don't cook dinner much as that is usually the time I am putting Chet to bed. Luckily for me the K-man has stepped up to the plate in that regard and has become a dab hand and putting together an evening meal. I seem to often have a few oranges kicking about the fruit-bowl so was very pleased to come across a version of this recipe in Marion Halligan's wonderful rumination on cooking and gardening The Taste of Memory. I was also pleased to be able to take these mini passover cakes to a 1st birthday party recently - the mother of the birthday boy (who is Jewish) was very pleased to have something there reflecting his heritage.
Ingredients
2 oranges
4 eggs
100 grams almond meal
125 grams castor sugar
half heaped teaspoon baking powder
Process
Wash oranges and boil for 2 hours - make sure that they don't boil dry. This can be done the night before. Sometimes I might add a lime or lemon but the end result is a little more bitter.
Pre-set oven to 180 degrees
Line muffin tin with baking paper or patty cake cases. I find this makes around 12 muffin size mini-passover cakes. You could of course use a normal cake tin if you felt like it.
Purée the boiled oranges, skin and all. I use a stick blender but you could use a food processor.
Beat the eggs, rain the sugar in slowly, beat for quite a while, then rain in the almond flour and baking powder. Add puréed oranges and stir with spatula until just mixed.
Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tin.
Cook for 40 minutes or until browned and cooked through. Everything in my oven seems to take a lot longer so I sometimes end up cooking them for nearly an hour.
They are quite sticky so I usually serve them in their baking paper cases - I like to think it adds a rustic look to the cakes.
Reading ...
I have been on a massive reading bender which has been nice but feels as though my brain is a bit scrambled. I read the Millenium Trilogy very quickly on my Kobo and decided that Scandinavian crime really has got something going for it. I even bought the DVD of The girl with the dragon tattoo, that's how into it I got.
I also just read Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido which initially struck a lot of chords with me - the opening sentence "The time is the late 1970s so everyone in the house looks hideous" makes it clear that the book deals the 70s (one of my favourite decades), and is also concerned with the way things look. Tellingly, one of the main characters ends up with an architect. The book is set in the UK but there is an Australian character as well as several South African characters and part of the book is set in Durban, where my grandmother grew up and my great aunt lived for most of her life. I am a sucker for a book that references places and things I know about and the more the merrier. One of the main characters writes stories about a girl called Lola who becomes a ballet dancer - something I and a million other pre-pubescent girls have dreamed about. I liked the mirroring of Josh's academic world with the world of the characters where nothing is as it seems, everyone is wearing a mask and life becomes a funny tragic comic opera. But, I didn't like how it all tied up so neatly at the end. Two of the male protagonists effectively swap wives, and their wives in turn swap lives and daughters. I am sure that this does happen in real life but it didn't feel quite real in the book, and all happened too smoothly and easily with no real ramifications for the people involved - or so it seemed to me.
But, on the subject of husbands swapping wives, I recently read a beautifully written memoir by Jane Alison, Sisters Antipodes. Jane Alison's family became inextricably linked with another family when the two families meet in Canberra in the 1960s. Jane's father was an Australian diplomat and her family consisted of two parents and two daughters, as did this other family, who's father was an American diplomat. The daughters from the other family were of a similar age to Jane and her sister, with one of whom even sharing a birthday with Jane. Jane tells the story of the meeting of the two families from a child's perspective - somehow, she isn't quite sure how and no-one ever really says, the decision is made that she and her mother and sister will go to the US and then South American with the American diplomat while her father will stay behind with the mother and daughters of the other family. And so it set up a lifetime of wondering why and how and of searching for identity as well as the meaning of family and in turn of fathers.
I also just read Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido which initially struck a lot of chords with me - the opening sentence "The time is the late 1970s so everyone in the house looks hideous" makes it clear that the book deals the 70s (one of my favourite decades), and is also concerned with the way things look. Tellingly, one of the main characters ends up with an architect. The book is set in the UK but there is an Australian character as well as several South African characters and part of the book is set in Durban, where my grandmother grew up and my great aunt lived for most of her life. I am a sucker for a book that references places and things I know about and the more the merrier. One of the main characters writes stories about a girl called Lola who becomes a ballet dancer - something I and a million other pre-pubescent girls have dreamed about. I liked the mirroring of Josh's academic world with the world of the characters where nothing is as it seems, everyone is wearing a mask and life becomes a funny tragic comic opera. But, I didn't like how it all tied up so neatly at the end. Two of the male protagonists effectively swap wives, and their wives in turn swap lives and daughters. I am sure that this does happen in real life but it didn't feel quite real in the book, and all happened too smoothly and easily with no real ramifications for the people involved - or so it seemed to me.
But, on the subject of husbands swapping wives, I recently read a beautifully written memoir by Jane Alison, Sisters Antipodes. Jane Alison's family became inextricably linked with another family when the two families meet in Canberra in the 1960s. Jane's father was an Australian diplomat and her family consisted of two parents and two daughters, as did this other family, who's father was an American diplomat. The daughters from the other family were of a similar age to Jane and her sister, with one of whom even sharing a birthday with Jane. Jane tells the story of the meeting of the two families from a child's perspective - somehow, she isn't quite sure how and no-one ever really says, the decision is made that she and her mother and sister will go to the US and then South American with the American diplomat while her father will stay behind with the mother and daughters of the other family. And so it set up a lifetime of wondering why and how and of searching for identity as well as the meaning of family and in turn of fathers.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Oh
and I know that October is sorely lacking in posts. This is mostly because we were away, it was Chet's birthday and we have all been sick. Am in the process of catching up ... it will happen at some point.
Thank you ...
to the man who told me I was lovely today as I was rushing to the train station at lunch time. You made my day. Had you told me this ten years ago I would have wanted to punch you in the face but I am older and fatter and more haggard and tired so these days I have more appreciation for the random compliment. I also think that perhaps you need glasses or were drunk which is fine too - nothing wrong with being drunk!
These days my compliments mostly come from Chet. He sometimes tells me that either I am pretty, my eyes are pretty or my glasses are pretty. However, he also said that some dinosaur bones in the museum were pretty so I am not 100% sure he has a grasp on the meaning of the word. Still ... better than nothing I suppose as I head inexorably towards 40.
These days my compliments mostly come from Chet. He sometimes tells me that either I am pretty, my eyes are pretty or my glasses are pretty. However, he also said that some dinosaur bones in the museum were pretty so I am not 100% sure he has a grasp on the meaning of the word. Still ... better than nothing I suppose as I head inexorably towards 40.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Push me pull you
Chet has becoming very pushy lately. And I don't mean that he has become a stage parent ... He has developed a habit of pushing other kids, generally girls, and generally children that are smaller than him. We went to a third birthday party the other day and he pushed over a little girl and made her cry and hit the birthday boy over the head with a plastic plate. Admittedly the plate was purple, which is the favourite colour of both boys but still. Almost every time I take him to the park he goes to push a child and would do it unless I intervene. The other day he pushed over a girl from my mother's group, who he has known since he was about 6 weeks old.
I have to say that I am finding this new development quite confronting. I don't want him to hurt other children, and I also don't want to upset other parents. I don't feel that making him apologise to the other children is really going to change anything - I don't think he quite understands what that means and as a child I always hated being forced to apologise. So, I am left sheepishly apologising myself to the parent of the child concerned and trying to distract Chet by suggesting we go and look at the work going on at the train tracks. Fortunately the extension of the light rail that is happening at the train tracks at the bottom of the park is endlessly interesting to a small boy and there is almost always a digger or some men in flurou vests wandering about. I hope that the pushing stage ends before the track work does.
I have to say that I am finding this new development quite confronting. I don't want him to hurt other children, and I also don't want to upset other parents. I don't feel that making him apologise to the other children is really going to change anything - I don't think he quite understands what that means and as a child I always hated being forced to apologise. So, I am left sheepishly apologising myself to the parent of the child concerned and trying to distract Chet by suggesting we go and look at the work going on at the train tracks. Fortunately the extension of the light rail that is happening at the train tracks at the bottom of the park is endlessly interesting to a small boy and there is almost always a digger or some men in flurou vests wandering about. I hope that the pushing stage ends before the track work does.
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