When someone thinks for you....

 Saturday night Sarah, Josh and I were in the car coming back from Sweeney Tood (an amazing production/performance). We'd gushed about it for most of the trip back and then were silent in the car.

Sarah breaks the silence by saying
"Mum where's the..."
and before she finishes the sentence, I say
"It's in the bottom drawer"

And silence took over again.


And as I was sitting there replaying those few words in my head I wondered what Josh thought of it so I said
"Josh did you notice how we did that?"

Being a teenage male, he wasn't even aware that we'd spoken, let alone that we'd had a mental telepathy moment....

 But there is something about my daughter that makes her know exactly what I'm going to say before I even say it! This is probably the first time I've noticed it work the other way.

Half the time I don't even know what I want to say myself and I stumble over my words
"Did you see...? where's the....? did you want...? remember when we did that thing?"
No matter what I'm saying, she knows what I'm asking and answers accordingly...

She's a clever chookie that one! Don't know where she gets it from ;)

Feeling for Rudolph

It's the time of year when Xmas carols start being sung. You either love them or hate them but I think, even if you love them, by the time Xmas comes around, you're ready to throttle someone every time you hear one.

This seems to be especially true for me seeing as we have a few Xmas shows coming up with the chorus, and we've been busy rehearsing our Xmas carols.

There's one carol that has always puzzled me. I don't understand why everyone thinks it's a great song. There seems to be a very bad message behind it.

The carol I'm talking about is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Lyrics can be found here

Don't know what I'm talking about?

Well, here's this poor little reindeer who is picked on by the other reindeer for being different.
Poor Rudolph had a shiny nose. The song makes it worse by saying if YOU saw it, you'd laugh at him too! So it's saying his nose is so bad,  you couldn't help but torment him about it. As if Rudolph had any control over his shiny glowing nose...

So the cruel reindeer laugh and call him names (honestly couldn't Santa have picked a better crew??)
That is, until that fateful foggy Xmas Eve when Santa came and singled out Rudolph.
"Hey Rudolph, I kind of like that thing you've got going in the middle of your face there, why don't you guide my sleigh tonight?"
So maybe Santa felt sorry for him, or maybe Santa wanted to piss the other reindeer off, or maybe Rudolph was picked for his sleigh guiding abilities.. either way, that night, he was the man.

It's the NEXT bit that really baffles me...
THEN how the reindeer loved him... only THEN???? Only when Santa said "hey this dude is ok"?? There's no mention of the reindeer being repentant or of learning a lesson about bullying.. no, they only loved him because they were brown nosing Santa...
Bad, bad lesson in that!

If you ask me, Santa should have done away with them and picked a new crew and he probably should have interviewed for the sleigh guiding position and hired someone on merit and ability.

But that's the world we live in isn't it.

*******

I was challenged to come up with an alternate version of the song so here it is... set to the same tune of course!

You know Dasher and Dancer
And Prancer and Vixen,
Comet and Cupid
And Donner and Blitzen.
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
You would say his beauty shows

All of the other reindeer
Were mean and often called him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Play in any reindeer games

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
You're shitting me with your bicker all night
So Rudolph guide my sleigh tonight
Then all the rest were jealous,
And they seethed internally.
Santa has gone and sacked them,
And Rudolph will make history...

On being food delusional....

Do you really want to know who's making your food?

When you go into a restaurant, are you happier if you can see the kitchen, or if it's nestled somewhere out the back out of customer view?
While I understand the value of being able to see the kitchen (after all, if you can see them, they're more likely to use proper hygiene) I don't always want to know who's handled my food.
I like to pretend my food just materialised like that, without any human handling... after all, you can't be grossed out by what you don't know about...

Today at lunchtime, I went into one my regular convenience stores in the city and got a vegetarian baguette. It's not always there so my food obsessed heart did a little leap as I saw one remaining... behind the counter... just waiting to be consumed by me!

So I asked for it and the girl behind the counter said "oh I made those today! I'll just get one for you"

Now she wasn't excessively gross or grubby, but I did find myself assessing her after she'd told me she'd made it.
Yeah ok, I'm strange like that.
Of course, it didn't stop me from eating it but I just wish she hadn't told me and the fantasy of my baguette springing to life from nothing could have lived longer in my head.

I've never thought too much about who handles my food until I started watching those cooking/restaurant shows on tv. Have you seen what they do on some of those shows??? And that's with the camera!! God knows what goes on in a normal restaurant kitchen where there are no cameras and no other eyes watching!
I honestly don't want to know!


Who said delusions were a bad thing??

But you said.....

The teenage brain is a curious thing.

Recently Miss 16 came to ask me if she could attend a certain concert with her boyfriend.
Being the sometimes cautious mum that I am, I said she could go if she could get an adult to go with them...

She shuffled away, brain cells churning no doubt, to see how she could make this happen.

I had suggested asking her dad, or asking my brother, or another relative that might be interested in going...

A few days later she bounded up to me, eyes shining brightly, barely able to keep her excitment level down.
"I found an adult!"

Now I should add at this point, that Miss 16's boyfriend is 17 and just happens to have a birthday a few weeks before this concert that they both want to go to...

"Steven is turning 18 just before the concert!" she exclaimed. I think there may even have been a hint of "a ha, gotcha!" in her voice...

"That's fantastic for him. Why are you telling me?" I replied..
"Because that means he'll be an adult!! And I'll be able to go to the conert with him! You said it had to be an adult!"

And honest to god, she still doesn't get it...

And now for the next attention seeking headline: Sibling Rivalry

Sibling rivalry is sometimes hard enough to live with without having the eyes of the world scrutinising and interpreting every move you and your sibling make.

I saw this headline today

Kate vs Pippa: Royal rivals


Really? You don't think Kate has enough of her hands right now? She has to worry about being upstaged by her sister? She got the prince, I think she's happy enough!

They first sentence in this article states
"As the Duchess steals the show at another wedding, the sisters’ lifelong rivalry over who is “thinnest and prettiest” heats up."

Do you think they are really competing to get more accolades than the other?
"Sure, you got the prince, but everyone thinks my butt is better than yours so there!"

So why do we flock to this stuff?
Why do we demand such articles?
Who is the winner here?
Pippa is now a celebrity in her own right. Why should she be compared to her sister?
Kate is now a princess, why does anything about her have to be compared to her sister?
Why can't these two just enjoy their own limelight? Why do they need to be compared?

I'll tell you why... because we like controversy!
We like to think there's something going on so we can talk about how terrible it is over the water cooler or while we're getting out hair done, or sitting having coffee with the girls... It makes us feel better about our own lives if celebrities aren't having the perfect lives they're sometimes portrayed to have.

And it works!
Magazines live on controversy!
A controversial story will win every time over a feel good story.

I feel sorry for those girls. I just hope they have the maturity required to not give in to the public pressure and won't let a rift or sibling competition appear when there never would have been...

When you don't want to be noticed...

It's no secret that I can tend to be obsessive about things.
Whether it's exercise, my diet plan, podcasts, writing music or whatever, I can go overboard.

Today I stepped out of the office during my morning break to visit one of my favourite convenience stores.
It's the closest one where I can get Home Made Rice Custard from and I've got quite the taste for it lately...

I thought I had been discreet.

There are actually three convenience stores in walking distance that stock this rice custard and depending on where I am and how much time I've got, that will dictate which store I visit.

I try to spread it out so that my obsession doesn't become apparant.

I usually buy two at a time and always ask for two spoons... as if I'm buying for someone else too but no, it's just for me, no one else... and I have a drawer full of spoons at work...

I thought I was being so clever and with the million people that go in and out of those stores every day, I thought I'd never be noticed but the guy behind the counter today said to me
"You must really love those rice custards"

I wasn't sure what he said so I asked him to repeat it and he did...

"Those rice custards you get all the time. You must really love them"

I was mortified once again...

You can always tell when I haven't been there for a few days as stock builds up...
One store has even increased the price of them and I'm sure it's because I'm buying them all the time!

I don't think it's going to kill my love of rice custard but I think I'll wait at least a few days before going into that particular convenience store again!

When it may be time to change professions...

Recently I had the opportunity to hear a speaker and it was an interesting experience to say the least.

This speaker didn't have english as her first language and while her command of it was very good, she did have some interesting pronunciations.

For example, the word "determine" was pronounced almost as two words. "Deter" and "mine" (as in land mine)

She was reading from a slide and this word, determine, kept appearing in the slides over and over again and all I could think was, "is someone going to tell her??"

I didn't tell her either so I guess I have to answer to myself too!

Apart from the mispronunciations, this speaker was interesting to watch because of her lack of patience.
We had opportunity to ask questions at certain point and if you didn't get it, she would grow increasingly frustrated, to the point where she would roll her eyes and you just know she wanted to say "listen you stupid moron, it's simple, just understand what I'm saying"

The trouble was, everytime she repeated herself, she said the SAME thing.

If someone doesn't get it, best practice is to say it another way! It doesn't do anyone any good to just repeat the same thing over and over again. Everyone she did this too eventually gave up and we just discussed it amongst ourselves later.

We were respectful to her despite all that. Even when she decided to mispronounce names.

Our names were all clearly displayed yet she insisted on calling "Joan", "Joanne".

One time when she did this, a few of us giggled a little too loud and she shot her head around and said "what's so funny? what are you laughing at?"

Touchy much?

Probably just as well we didn't point out the "determine" thing.

While it was entertaining, it's a shame we didn't get to learn as much as we might have done if we'd had another speaker...