Trick or treating - do you let your kids beg for lollies

We don’t normally do the Halloween thing apart from making sure there are some lollies in the house just in case kids come a knocking.

Our kids don’t really do it mainly because of the apathy of their parents who frankly could care less…

The only ‘encounter’ we’ve really had is when Groover hit the security panic button (which called the cops) when he saw some teenage youths lurking around his car out the front.

Turned out they were trick and treaters throwing eggs at each other.

He was impressed with the quick attention of the police officers though rather embarrassed when they arrived. Teehee.

This year Junior Poshi is very keen to dress up and pester the neighbour for sweets. Her friend’s mum has offered to take her with them and well… okay then. Not that we need the hyper-results of all that sugar not to mention the dental bills (bah humbug!).

And this year our street has become organised… this arrived yesterday for our consideration:

Dear Neighbour,

As I’m sure you are aware Halloween is upon us once again much to the lolly-makers delight…

In order to bring some semblance of order to the ritual begging that takes place on this most auspicious of occasions, we thought it might be an idea to give everyone an option ot opt-in or opt-out of being disturbed on All Hallows Eve…

So, if you are up for being hassled, doling out goodies and generally being visited by lots of children dressed to thrill then please put this ballon on your door or gate…

—if you’d prefer the quiet life, then just don’t put anything balloon shaped outside!!!

We’ll tell the kids to just hunt selectively… at balloon marked houses…

Thanks in advance, etc

How good is that?!

I think it might be the product of quite a young suburb - the average age is 39 where we live - quite a few families living in our street so lots of kids. And the parents, on the whole (apart from us) are pretty much over-protective… which is interesting because we’re the ones who don’t let our kids out.

What do you do on Halloween - is your street as organised?

Halloween is a holiday that isn’t celebrated everywhere, but since children love dressing up in superhero and Disney costumes (and of course love eating candy), Halloween is the ultimate kid-friendly holiday. You can find lots of Halloween costumes online if your local stores don’t carry them. Who wouldn’t love a fun Batman costume to wear for a day!

Well, me. But I’m more a spiderman fan.

Thank you Marcia

Those fateful words are probably what sealed the deal as far as the voting public were concerned. 

Miss “I’m not fake!” Tarasai who stomped her pretty little feet and pouted her lips to an unimpressed judging panel then thanked Judge Marcia Hines for saying nothing.

You are pathetic! Cried the watching audience throwing soft furniture at their television sets as they settled back to watch Carl reminisce about his winning form that took him to the top two this week.

Shit.  Natalie thought as she stood next to Tarasai.  WTF do I need to do to impress these people.   Surely standing on the piano in four inch heels was enough?!

No Natalie, despite your touchdown performance we were only impressed with you until Dicko pointed out that Chrissie Amphlett would have leapt onto the baby grand without the aid of steps - and she wouldn’t have accepted help getting down either just by the by.  (I thought you was robbed!)

Matt - we thought you were going to cry - we weren’t about to say goodbye to your lovely green eyes…

And Marty.  As the others implode around you - you have become the Steven Bradbury of Australian Idol.  Enough said.

Don’t phone home, we’ll phone you!

Following Feline’s advice, I’ve bought The Orchid Hunter a new phone. It cost $199 and serves as his birthday present.

He loves it.

I took him with me to choose it - we bought it from Crazy John’s because the guy in the shop was so helpful and attentive and gave good advice I think and because Crazy John himself died this week and it was like I was wishing him well.

Bryan from Crazy John’s is leaving next week to move to Narrogin with his girlfriend. He reckons he has to move to the country to be able to afford anything, the cost of living and housing being prohibitive in Perth. It will help that for the first couple of months he’ll be staying with her folks. He doesn’t have a job there yet but has an interview next Monday. He came across to me as a sensible young man, very helpful customer service manner and I think he’d do well whatever the job was.

His advice to me was that if my son wasn’t going to use the phone to chat a lot, to go for a prepay plan which can be carried over month-to-month. Bryan reckons cap plans which offer say $310 for $49/month develop bad habits in teenagers. His offsider agreed. She’s had a phone since the age of 7 (is that child abuse?) and finds the cap plans have led to profligate phoning.

So I bought the nice Nokia 6300 which has enough features - like a camera and bluetooth - to keep him interested - and games (crap though they are) - to encourage him to turn it on. He keeps the charger by his bed and uses the phone as an alarm clock - so hopefully it will be charged. I’ve also plugged in some useful phone numbers for him and we’re going to try the “blind call” technique for getting us to call him and hopefully keep the credit lasting a while.

Day two and he’s still carrying it around and it’s mostly turned on. I did discover he was keeping it on silent (!!!) but we’ve sorted that out now… I hope. Lets see how he goes in a month… :)

The great, the bland and the angry

I can’t compete with Bland Canyon so I’m not reading her wrap of tonight’s Idol until I get my thoughts down.

Matt - The first thing that struck me was that he’d obviously had some fashion advice since last week and had ditched the floral prints and lederhosen.  Good move Matt!  The song was something by Thirsty Merc (can’t remember… I’m not as diligent as Meg is in taking notes… you’re so good Meg).  He sat at the piano and sang it to the keys.  Didn’t see his gorgeous eyes once.  But nicely sung.  He said afterwards that he had problems playing… I didn’t notice it.

Natalie - scored a touchdown for her song All the Boys in Town by The Divynals.  She started at the piano and then rocked out totally.  Loved it as much as the judges.

Marty - sang These Days by Powderfinger.  Apparently it meant something to him and his mum.  Good on him.  I found it dull.  He might sound good in the studio but I look at him onstage and say - pull your bloody pants up.  In fact “pants” just about sums up what I think of him.

Tarasai - sang something angry by The Veronicas.  Song was okay.  She threw her mike stand on the ground.   Ooooh you angry little muppet!  She’s gone back to those horrible jeans after the dress didn’t work out for her last week and got the GHD irons onto her hair - which looked pretty good I thought.  The judges (mostly) thought she was a fake and she spent a few minutes trying to convince us that she’s not and undid it all by saying “Thank you Marcia” in that pathetic little girl butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth way she has after Marcia said she had nothing to say.  I suppose “nothing” was a relief after what Dicko and Mark said.

Carl sang Reminiscing by The Little River Band which I thought was okay.  He’s growing on me now that I no longer have to throw cushions at the tv to stop him scatting (not that it works).

Last week I confidently predicted Daniel would leave the competition and I was (thankfully) right.  This week I’m thinking Natalie, Carl and Matt are safe.  The bottom two will be Tarasai and Marty… and I think the time has run out for… actually this is tough.  

Okay okay… I’m going for Marty to leave as I think the audience might be keen to see Round 2 of the Judges v Tarasai.

Just sayin’…

Wigging Out

Groover bought me two wigs for my birthday. What an awesome present! I love wearing wigs and up until now only had a blonde one to have fun with.

I wore the black one to watch number one son play cricket yesterday and my friend said … how on earth did you have time to get to a hairdresser (as she’d seen me at 6pm the night before and it was now 8am in the morning).

And before you start worrying… no I don’t have a dread disease… apart from ridiculous amounts of grey hair… I just like dressing up.

I’m going to wear the red one to Groover’s Christmas Party where I’m playing a saucy barmaid called Mad Rose (they have a pirate theme going on). Can’t wait!

Oh nuts

Typical. I upgrade finally to Wordpress 2.3 and two weeks later they upgrade to 2.3.1. Grrrr.

More mobile advice for parents of teenagers

A colleague of mine gave me some interesting advice on the mobile question…

“Cellobella”, she said, “don’t buy the phone.

“You rely on three things when you do so: one, that the phone is turned on, two, that the phone is charged and three, that the child has the phone with them.

“The chances of all these things happening at the same time are virtually nil.

“Besides, if everyone in the class has a phone, he can use someone elses.”

So I mentioned this to Feline as we went out to lunch today at Lamonts (did I mention it’s my birthday tomorrow…), and she said:

“The problem with getting him a phone is that then the arrangements you make become fluid. Instead of ‘I’ll meet you at the gate at 3.30 on the dot’ it becomes ‘I’ll meet you at the gate at 3.30 and will text you ten minutes before I get there’. The mobile allows plans to change and this can cause even more chaos.”

And as Feline wrote in comments, unless the phone is up-to-scratch rather than just scratched, he won’t use it anyway… That said both of Feline’s teenagers have phones. :)

Finally I spoke to a male colleague who told me about a phone available where you can program the phone with just 10 numbers so that it can’t be used “willy nilly”. Is that a gecko phone? I read one forum which said I would be setting my kid up to be bullied if I bought one… so maybe not…

So. I think I’ll get him a new phone on some cheap pre-pay with text plan. But who? In comments I have two “votes” for Optus and one for Virgin…

Would a bloke have thought of panties for peace?

Now this is what I call a very female solution.

And if a bloke thought of it, all I can do is say well done brother - you are indeed in touch with your feminine energy.

When PC gets desperate

Darren Barefoot alerted me to this issue which frankly has me gobsmacked this evening.

Members and allies of the Filipino American community created a petition which asked ABC (America) and the producers of the show to apologise to their community and edit the show.

“In a scene in which Susan was told by her gynecologist that she might be hitting menopause, she replied, “Can I just check those diplomas because I just want to make sure that they are not from some med school in the Philippines.”

“…we are writing to inform you that this type of derogatory remark was discriminatory and hurtful…”

So far there are 125,910 signatures. The ABC has apologised.

Am I alone in thinking political correctness has gone too far in this case?

Would it have caused such a stink if Teri’s character had been Filipino?

Perhaps she should have said can I check the roots of your hair to make sure you’re not a ranga!

When I contrast this rather bland series with the very edgy Chris Lilley productions of Summer Heights High and We Can Be Heroes… I wonder if they would have ever been made in the US. And if they hadn’t, we’d be the poorer as a society.

Top 50 Australian Women Bloggers

Hey guess what?! I’m on the inaugural Top 50 Australian Women Blogger list over at All for Women (thanks to Leigh and Meg). Yay me! And thank you for reading this blog and making it so.

Now the pressure is on to create interesting and erudite reading material for you… my fingers are flexed, my computer is buzzing… :)

In the meantime, your correspondent thanks you for your advice on mobile phones.

The Orchid Hunter (my boy) now says he won’t have a mobile phone if he has to use my munted old one.

Well! Of all the cheek! Should be grateful to get one at all.

(Oh that’s right it’s me who wants him to have one)

Apparently there are only two other kids in his class who don’t have a mobile phone. Isn’t that amazing?

Can you remember when they first came out? They were so special and only really high-powered executives seemed to have them. The rest of us sneered and said we wouldn’t want to be permanently on-call while secretly wishing we had one too. We couldn’t justify getting one ourselves and work didn’t see the need. Now I couldn’t imagine not having a mobile. Or a computer. Or a blog. Or a digital camera.

I can lose the PDA though. In fact, I have lost it… :(

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