New Shoes and other news

Have you ever bought a pair of dressy shoes and worn them to work on the first day and not noticed you are wearing them?

Neither had I, until today.

I’ve got new shoes and they are SO comfortable they feel like slippers. I’m seriously thinking about buying a second pair. They’re even pointy and they don’t hurt. Sure I look like I’ve got enormous feet but I’m prepared to wear that to wear them. They are great.

Daughter’s favourite saying is from Benjamin Franklin - Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy - yep, straight from the billboard to you.

In Bridge news, East and I have been invited to play in a mixed teams event by a vrey good pair. Bless them. Obviously mistaken us for people who can play bridge!! Anyway if we can make the dates it should be a laugh. Good to see South Perth Bridge Club again anyway. I hope they don’t expect to win.

And finally this little website to make you feel better about the wage you’re on - thanks Sophie. Global Rich List

The mother of all managers

When I first started my new management gig I said to my opposite number over east how finding replacement staff was like finding a babysitter. To quote “No one is ever available - the only ones who are the kids (read staff) hate or they charge a fortune and in the end you end up staying home (filling in yourself) or calling mum and crying.”

Now a few weeks in I can say being a manager is JUST like being a mother. You are juggling a thousand things at once and work off several different schedules. You never quite feel completely in control and at no time is “everything done”. Other people continually try to impose their will on you. You have limited success in imposing your will on others and will try ANYTHING to get your charges to do as you want. Yes, bribery included.

People think you are better off than they are. You know you’d swap in a heartbeat. Your charges do things without asking, get themselves in a muddle, and you get to pick up the pieces. If only they’d asked you first! You are always the mean one.

The main differences - there are two - you can’t send your staff to their rooms and they never write you cute little notes saying they love you.

So next time you are looking for a middle manager - look first at the mothers among your applicants!

Satisfaction

Just got home from LaPage’s fantastic The Dragon’s Trilogy. I feel a bit mean writing about this because we saw the last performance in Perth. But it is touring I think so perhaps you will see it in another city. If it is on - go. It is the most satisfying theatre I have seen. Ever. It spans three generations and is mesmerising from the get go. Lyrical, poetic, harsh, soul renching theatre. A brilliant set. Layers of meaning. I cannot describe it but you feel completely sated at the end. Your senses tingling. A bit like really good sex - without the wet spot. Awesome.

I’m sure I will come up with other favourite scenes as I reflect on it but at the moment the ones that stick out in my mind are the dragon scene, the gambling scene and the opium scene. Superb. 10/10. My friend Russ said it was the best thing he’d ever seen. On the strength of his review I went. It was.

This year I was determined not to let another festival go by without attending a thing. I remember the Peony Opera - a nine hour Chinese piece - which was supposed to be amazing - I missed it. Do you remember the angels. Even now I regret missing that. I feel good that this year I didn’t miss out.

Of course it was not without its dramas and my apologies to fellow theatre goers and the actors. You know at the start where they say to turn off your mobile phones? Well I did. Or thought I did. But I obviously turned it on instead. My face is flushing now remembering. How embarrassment! (to use an Effie-ism) It was work telling me about a fire that was happening North of the city. Not that I knew that at the time of course because I turned it straight off. I could hardly look at anyone at the first interval and took my phone to the car and locked it in.

I am NEVER taking my phone to ANY theatre EVER again.

Earlier in the week my brother and I went to the Ballet at the Quarry. I must say, apart from one piece called I Live, I was rather disappointed. Yes it rained but that just welded us together in adversity - us being the audience. But the ballet was so pedestrian (apart from that piece and the final piece was okay). Tutus at the quarry just don’t work.

I wondered how they got away with the advertising. The picture on the program was last year’s and the dance filmed for the TV commercial certianly was nothing like what I saw on Wednesday night. Not a tutu in sight - not even tulle. Surely that is false advertising. If I had bought tickets on the strength of the TV ad I’d be asking for my money back.

Is it too mean to take them to task for it? After all I want the Ballet to survive financially. I think it’s important to have a state dance company, and I want to know that, even if I’m not a regular patron, that dance is happening and doing well.

I think really that it is short-sighted of them. After all surely I can’t be the only person who looks at that ad and says - well that’s not what I saw at the quarry and quite frankly I’d have rather seen what you’re advertising. Maybe I won’t be enticed next time I see an ad for the ballet because I won’t be convinced that what I see in the ad is what I’ll see when I turn up to view the performance.

Is their cheating by false advertising okay because they are “The Arts”?

Boot Camp

Have I told you I am going to Boot Camp? Boot Camp means that I’ve signed up to go to my gym Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for four weeks at 6am for an hour of running, strength exercises and shouting. Not that our instructor shouts that much it must be said.

It hasn’t been too bad but I feel SO unfit. Perhaps its because I’m pushing myself a bit harder. I’d like to think that was the case but it feels like I have no lung capacity if I’m honest with myself.

We’re on week three. Today we did walking lunges. These are diabolical. Tomorrow I suspect I will not be able to walk. But even before we did the lunges my thighs were protesting. Rather than feeling like a spring they feel like blocks of wood.

Well unless you touch them - then they just feel flabby as usual.

Moorditj Launch

Just come back from the Festival Overture in Kings Park. The ceremony opened with an elder welcome, traditional women’s and men’s dances, spirits on stilts (very exciting moment when one fell over!) and the burning of the grass tree and banksia.

Then after a response from the new Governor Dr Ken Michael - who impressed us by his moorditj command of the Noongar language - the overture proper began.

It was a glorious setting, on the banks of the Pioneer Woman memorial park with the freeway lights twinkling through the leaves of the gum trees. We saw some exciting modern Aboriginal dance, listened to some sublime singing from Emma Donovan, and watched the unveiling of an enormous canvas.

The smoke from the burning of the trees created a great atmosphere and the ash from the grass tree floated down like snow as we sat in the warm darkness. I loved it.

Mostly I loved the feeling of being part of an event bigger than myself. Being part of a community, sitting there experiencing it altogether was lovely. Even Groover who, it must be said, came along somewhat reluctantly, enjoyed himself.

Not as much as the two year old boy we saw who gave the dancers a run for their money - he was a true little groover.

Roll on Festival 2006!

The Wives

Went to see The Drovers Wives on Friday night. It was superb. I usually find modern dance a little hard to take (though often beautiful), but this piece had so many layers - the story, the photography, the set, the music and the dance that I found myself carried away.

The other thing that surprised me was that the piece - though about women in the bush in Henry Lawson’s day - really resonated with me as a modern-day woman. Isolated in the suburbs with a small child - as I was. Brilliant. If you get a chance to see it - last day Saturday.

This year I am vowing once again to see some festival shows. Already I’m 100% in front of the last two years. I don’t know what happens. I just don’t get round to it I guess although last year I was IN the festival as part of Mr Cha Cha’s Ballroom and I MC’d the Salley Vickers luncheon so I guess you could say I went to two events - it’s not the same when you’re in them.

I’m going to the WA Ballet and the opening night thing in Kings Park and well after that, we’ll see.

Today I rang up my daughter’s teacher because she is not happy at swimming lessons - compulsory for two weeks. The problem is that technically she is not so good even though she can swim confidently so they put her down levels - well now she is so far behind her peers that it’s embarrassing for her and she would prefer to sit out.

It’s a tricky one. While I can see the swimming teacher’s point about correct frog kick technique my girl certainly won’t gain any benefit by sitting on the sidelines. On the other hand I don’t really want to give in to her stamping the foot. Anyway he’s going to “have a word” and “see what he can do”. It can’t just be my child surely?