53 posts tagged “family”
- The star jasmine is flowering over the arbour outside our patio door. It looks like a huge white bridal bouquet and smells like heaven.
- Daughter 1 has her wedding dress. It took her 20 minutes to select off the rack. Daughter 2 had her bridesmaid dress. It took her 15 minutes to choose off the rack. The Boy has his groom's suit. It took him 90 minutes to choose off the rack...
- Grandma Flamingo fell asleep during the funeral on Friday. I looked at her and she was dozing on the pew. I told her to snap to, or she was in danger of being wheeled out to the hearse. She was ram rod straight for the rest of the service!
- Mr FD is flying to Adelaide tomorrow. Peace in our time! I won't say for whom! He has orders to bring back jumbo Haigh's chocolate frogs. They are HUGE and YUMMY and last about 32 seconds in the Flamingo Dancer household! He has been told not to come home if he fails in his mission.
- God daughter turned 1 last week. She is soooo cute. I played with her on Friday afternoon. We unwrapped her birthday present together. She was very serious about it, with a little frown across her brow until she achieved opening the present and had time to inspect and then the smiles came. A woman not easily won...Flamingo Dancer to the core!
- I understand why Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. Didn't you breath a sigh of relief when he said the USA wouldn't go ahead with its Stars Wars project and putting bases in Poland etc facing Russia? I felt as though we had taken a giant step back from another catastrophe. I feel it is recognition that the rest of the world is happy dancing that USA is coming into the 21st century and seeking peace, not conflict. Give him another if it helps!
- My brother in law turned 68 on Friday. I have a BIL who is 68! We did not put candles on the cake.
- Son has learnt a new way to get extra money from me. He says he needs cash to get a hair cut and of course no mother is going to refuse that, so I hand over the cash. He somehow forgets to get the haircut and three weeks later asks me for cash for a haircut. Of course he needs it more urgently now and so no mother is going to refuse and so he gets the money. Now when he requests hair cut money, I ask if this is for the pretend haircut or the real haircut. He still gets the money.
- You know that I am doing this just to waste time away from my studies don't you?
- For those of you who have seen the black face routine on Hey Hey It's Saturday, please don't think that is representative of contemporary Australian humour. Darryl Sommers has been the sad butt of jokes for the past few years and the only way he could cling to celebrity was to revisit a show concept that had its time 20 years ago. I was horrified to hear that they were bringing the stupid show back in the first place - it was always pathetic. A sad example of a television network who thought returning to the past would get ratings. One point though - few people picked up on the fact that the man with the white Michael Jackson face was in fact an Indian. Not that it made the skit any more palatable. Still the hoohah doesn't stop the children dying of starvation and malaria in Africa does it?
- Now that my daughters live away from home, it takes half a day of phone calls to catch up on my family each week - Mother Flamingo Dancer, Sister Flamingo Dancer, Daughter1 and Daughter 2...whew. Mr FD gets his mother and usually his sister, though there are times when we fight over answering the phone when we suspect it is her and I get the short straw and have to speak with her...
- It is raining tiny tiny rain drops. The first rain we have had in over 2 months. I am pretending I don't hear it, in case I scare it away. The lawn is crispy dry under my feet when I walk out to the clothes line...Mr FD just called out that it is raining. I told him to shut up. He apologised automatically as he is trained to do. I can smell the dust settling. Heaven.
- BIL asked me if I went to communion during the funeral mass. We both said at the same time "because that is the only way people know you are there!" I love my BIL - he understands my evilosity.
- It is raining harder now. Obviously the rain doesn't read blogs. Yet.
- I can't avoid the study any longer can I? Can I?
Hey World,
It’s been 51 odd years and so I think it is finally time to have a word with you. A summary of your efforts and effects as it were.
First, right out of the chute you loaded me with a couple of physical problems that have shaped my life and me. Oh, and then there was the bit about telling 1950s Mothers that bottle was better than breast, and that we had to be on a schedule. Thanks for introducing us to the world of anxiety and rules, World, good idea that. Not. And before we move out of the hospital nursery, thanks for loading me up with the time bomb eye tumour – eye and I just made it to 18 years.
Ok World, out of the nursery and onto the catholic primary education with the Sisters of No Mercy. I enjoyed the terror and fear for those seven important formative years of my life. It was probably a good thing that I didn’t figure out until my adult years that a lot of the treatment that was dealt out was according to whether you were Irish catholic [Australian] and therefore favoured or German catholic [Australian] and therefore bullied by racist nuns. [Australian Irish catholic]. Not sure World, if that was a lesson I needed right then, but it probably fuelled the strong desire for social justice that drives me now. The big plus was the friend that I found in the kindergarten sand pit that still has an important role in my life to this day.
Thankfully I discovered books and reading, thanks in part to a neighbour that you placed next door. And my big sister. Thanks for that one World. It helped me escape the cultural wasteland of a happy home. I bless you for the happy home and the parents who obviously loved me. Of course World, you had to balance it out with a mother who passed her anxiety about EVERYTHING on to me, so that her voice questioning my ability to accomplish anything new or unusual in still in my head. Maybe that is why I have become so stubborn and will launch myself into the new challenges just to achieve. I won’t let you get me down you know, World, even though you try over and over again.
I did think the alcoholic father, a melancholy self medicator, might have been a step too far, but hey, everyone in my world had an alcoholic father after WWII. Despite that I never doubted he loved me and was proud of me. He was a gentle man, and he thought I could do anything. He shaped me stoic and persistent.
Ah the teenage years. At least there was release into the state school system. Sadly it was a country high school in the early 1970s and so the male teachers just taught to the male students. However, thanks to a couple of female English and History teachers the rest of my life had a shape. And of course I found those lifelong friends that I have to this day, as precarious as some of their lives now are. That was a good one, World, I’ll congratulate you on that one.
The eye was probably the defining moment for the teenage years, but you did balance it with the arrival of Mr FD in the middle of the drama. Not many men think a young woman with a hole in her head and a huge bandage is sexy but he managed it somehow, so big tick on that one. Big tick on that one all round – except he could have been a little taller. I think even he would agree on that one.
The twenties – marriage, babies, domestic life. The good life. I never wanted it to end. If I could have stopped time that is where I would be now. They grew up though and so did I. I just tried to make them confident, and happy, and encouraged them to follow their passions. I will let it up to them to score me on that one, but I enjoyed it all. It kind of pissed me off when you made it all progress away from me.
My 30s. Well, World, you gave me a mixed bag there. University education as a mature age student – 36 when I began the first degree. Back into the work force full time to educate those children. Emergencies that meant sleeping beside hospital beds at night and trying to juggle employment, but we all survived. Maybe even thrived.
The big 40. It was ok, you know. Frustrations at the lack of a career where I wasn’t used and abused and bored. Family life – you gradually took Dad away from us, first his mind and then his spirit. Can’t forgive you for that one, World. You gave Daughter2 too many physical burdens too, and we watched her fade until we snatched her back. Mr FD unemployed, and me the bread winner for awhile. We came back stronger, and learnt the life lesson not to let others – parents, employers or your own fears – set your life agenda. Even you World – I can’t always choose the people and events that you send me, but I can choose the way I deal with them. And I do.
The end of my 40s brought a change of city that I tried to ignore, but maybe in the long run was the best thing, World, for me in a long time. Maybe not for Mr FD, but that is his story to tell. Ups and Downs all around, but opportunities to be what we really wanted to be, all of us. New lives crafted, new friends made, old ones rediscovered.
Ah, now you have me in my 50s, World. Not bad. Not what I imagined – back at university, and a new career. A new me. New experiences, new friends. The Boy added to our family. Big tick there, World. Some financial security would be good, hopefully in the new year, World – no, definitely in the new year, thanks. Don’t worry, I will sort it out for myself.
Not sure, World, if you loaded up the early years with hard stuff for a purpose or not. Was it just luck of my draw? Could have done without most of it , well in a perfect world, all of it, but then again maybe I wouldn’t like me as much as I do now if I hadn’t lived through what I did. Do. Others had much worse, and others much better. One of the things about you World that puzzles me – our human need to rise above despite the cost to others. Man’s inhumanity to man. Ditto women.
Not ready to rate you yet, World. The race is not yet run. I expect there are going to be some more hardships, and hopefully some happy times. I like the happy dances. I hope that at the end I can shake my fist at you and declare that I took you on and did my best. Go on, move along, I am here.
Saturday was like a double layer chocolate cake that I kept going back to for second helpings. Friday was like the entrée that you really enjoy eating but find a hair, of a colour not your own, towards the end of the dish.
Winter is not 35 Celsius. It is not officially Spring until next week. This really sucks!
We thought the crisis had passed but apparently it was just a brief rally before the end. The dishwasher died.
Mr FD has noticed that we have fewer chickens in the nest - there is less food and clutter in the fridge. Daughter 2 is dairy free and wheat free so her special needs are no longer our problem. Daughter1 had to take a school lunch [as teachers do!] everyday so we had fiddly bits in the fridge for her and other items meeting her diet needs. Son only drinks milk and coke from the fridge and anything I hand him. So this morning Mr FD went looking for something and he found it first go. No standing at the door flailing his arms going help me, help me. First go he zoomed in on the bottle straight away. Who is a good boy, then!
However it is balanced off by the amount of difficulty that now comes from arranging a joint activity. Daughter 2 and I want to go to the American Impressionists Exhibition at the art gallery this weekend. So first there were calls and texts - was she busy with work or dating, what day, what time etc. Got that sorted out. Then Daughter1 woke me from my slumber to ask if The Boy could go into the exhibition with us as she had seen it with a friend earlier. So more calls and texts to ascertain yes no and all that. And yes The poor Boy is in my clutches now too. Then the time didn't suit Daughter1 and so I said call Daughter2 but she didn't want to as she thought that D2 might think she was muscling in on D2's Mummy time....oh my popularity knows no bounds - and so I had to call and yes later was fine and then back to D1 to say yes later is fine etc etc. I am so exhausted I am not sure I even want to go anymore.
Once I was MUMMY and I orgainsed everything and they all heeled. Now I have to be understanding and considerate, which is painful at the best of times, but I can't frigthen The Boy too much yet either as we need to slide him into the web a little more - get him comfortable before the trap springs shut. It is exhausting having children all over the place - well I guess they are all in one city - maybe that is the problem, If they were on different continents and time zones it might be easier. Though Son is on a different time zone as he is nocturnal.
Anyway, I forget what I was going to say, but parenting doesn't get easier as they age. One still has to be mindful of how big a piece of the Mummy pie they each get and still treat them like the adults they think they are. Which reminds me, I have to go phone my mother and treat her like the adult she still thinks she is.
Have you ever been drawn into a conversation, just to be polite in a social gathering where, as it progresses it takes on a turn that makes you feel comfortable, but once again, out of politeness you maintain a presence?
Well, that happened to me last night and even hours later I am upset about it. Last night was Daughter1 and The Boy’s engagement /housewarming party. It was at their home, I just had to supply most of the contents of my kitchen. The person who delivered this distress upon me is MrFD’s Rotating BIL. We call him rotating because he had an affair [after 25 years of marriage and it was more a symptom of a bad marriage than the cause if you get my drift], Mr FD’s sister threw him out for over a year, took him back, then wanted to throw him out again but he refused to go so they lived in separate parts of the house and now after another year she has taken him back [ to what degree I don’t want to know].
He is very tall, very loud and always negative and competitive. She thinks everyone thinks he is a god. We know everyone is just being nice for her sake. In 25 years of knowing him, we have never come close to being able to stay close to him for any length of time. Mr FD bristles with him very fast, so it always fell to me to spend time with Rotator – of course Mr FD paid for it later, as he does whenever I am lumped with quality time with MrFD’s father also. I think his sister just married a bigger version of her father but that is another blog.
ANYWAY, Rotator is a burned out teacher and has gone into an unsuccessful career in real estate. He was talking to another person, also a long time teacher though semi retired. One thing I have found in this age group is that they don’t like change... mention powerpoint presentation to them and they grow pale and shake. They are the type of people that should have left teaching a long time ago as they are not willing to equip the students with the skills they need for today. And while I am mentioning this, let me be clear that there are a lot more teachers in this age group who do embrace change and technology and are exactly what the students need.
Rotator thinks he is an intellectual giant too – yes has an opinion about everything and always negative. So he launches into a tirade against the government and outcomes based education and starts asking me questions, because obviously I have the most recent information on what is happening in the field. I tried to answer the questions honestly and fairly with the knowledge I have, but am honest that I don’t understand it all as yet, maybe never will. Rotator always has his negative agenda working though and so starts to twist the questions so that I have to answer things in a negative way about teaching, the education department and the university I attend. Now, not that there aren’t negative aspects but there are some really positive ones too, and as we all know that some issues have multiple parts to them.
After awhile I noticed that the people around us had stopped talking, probably because Rotator has such a BIG VOICE. They are listening and some are sitting with heads on the side to listen better....I feel embarrassed that they may think that the opinions being addressed are really my own. They aren’t. Rotator is working to put down something that I appear to be achieving that he failed at doing...agenda item 1. I was also trying to be polite as this is the first time we had seen him with Sister since last year – for her sake, because she will tear flesh from Mr FD otherwise we remain polite [ MR FD was collateral damage in the first break up due to no fault of his own] .
As the conversation went on and I exhausted myself trying to put a positive on the negative I gave up. I said I was feeling ill, not untrue, and Mr FD and I left. Other people were leaving so we felt that it was ok to come home – Daughter1 understood.
Well, Daughter understood to the point that Rotator and wife were the last to leave, bar Daughter2. Apparently they led them to the front porch in the hope they would go home but they continued talking and talking until Daughter1 was going to say WILL YOU GO HOME ALRIGHT!
So today, I am feeling horrible. I was drawn into participating in a conversation that was not me, and I didn’t say , you are full of crap, to someone who is full of crap. Someone should have said that to him years ago. And someone should have said that to Mr FD’s sister too, except she has a vicious tongue – one of those people who can dish it out but won’t take it in return. I did it out of loyalty to Mr FD, to maintain family harmony, and to be polite. So if all those things are so honourable, why do I feel so bad today?
I guess that I don’t want people to think that might be the person that I am. I don’t want people to have received information that is tainted. I would hate if Daughter1 and The Boy’s friends thought that I was a horrible old battle axe. Sigh. Can’t win this one I know, but I am angry that Rotator is back in the fold and causing issues again. Luckily we only socialise at major family events... and if lucky they may be separated by the time Daughter1’s wedding comes around!
On the up side, as Mr FD and I were leaving the party we were able to reunite a lost dog with its owners, so maybe that will balance my karma for the day. I suppose in my own heart I know that I am a better person than that and maybe that is all I should worry about. I can live with me.
The only thing that I am going to say about Michael Jackson is that it makes one think about one's own mortality. Sure, I don't have a dependence on drugs (well not that I am admitting anyway!), but Michael and I were both born in 1958.... As I have mentioned previously, MJ, Prince, Madonna, Sharon Stone and I are all 1958 babies - it was a great year for fabulous people, dahling! So, when someone dies who is the same age as you it makes you realise that you need to make the most of what you have, while you have it. [And yes Snowy I can make anything about me!]
Oh and one more thing - how long do you think before all the sordid Michael Jackson biographies and tell alls hit the bookstores? I would say 2 weeks. Maybe 3. [Ubi Caritas waiting for you to report on that one!]
Mr FD is still suffering and hence so am I. The ultimate in care to Mr FD is a hot lemon and honey drink, so I just made one for him. I can hear him mewing in the other room now. I am playing with his mind again, just when he gets used to me being nice to him, I will slam him with a "you expect what? Excuse me!" It works everytime. He lets his guard down and I whammy a zinger in - it is what I live for... well that and chocolate.
Daughter2 and The Boy were over this afternoon. She is selectively packing up her belongings and has a removalist booked for Tuesday to come and empty our house....well, it will be empty when all her stuff goes. When I say selectively, no doubt you know what I mean - good stuff to go with her, crap and crud to stay at Mum and Dad's. I can't complain, I did the same to my parents - it is like the revenge of the generations.
I am back to Uni on Tuesday - wow wasn't that a great 4 days of holiday. I should be working on assignments already, but still feel so wretched that I have no motivation. It gets to early afternoon and I am so weary that I have to go and have a nap. My lungs still wont expand enough to take in the oxygen I need without a major coughing spasm, so I am putting the lack of oxygen down as the reason for my brain feeling as though it is loose from its moorings. I have a first aid course to attend on Friday, at this rate I may be the body!
This afternoon I was on the phone talking with my Mum when Son did something to our home network and disconnected us. Poor old Mum got quite confused as one minute she was talking to me and then she got a click and was busy saying "hello, hello" when next thing her sister replied. It seems that sister just happened to phone at the moment my call dropped out. Poor old Mum thought the angels were speaking to her for a moment I think - it was all too much for an 82 year old.
I think I need to go out and buy a large bottle of motivation and maybe a new attitude, in the large economy size. I seem to have lost the dance in Flamingo Dancer. Maybe it is in that pile of boxes Daughter2 has piled near the door - must have a peek and see what I can do.
My Groups
-
I blocked another Vox A**hole Updated: 2 minutes ago
-
Freethinkers Updated: 17 minutes ago
-
The Thinking Woman Updated: 39 minutes ago
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
