Category Archives: Introspection

Books, Introspection

Discomfort books

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marjorie
Jennifer Byrne from the First Tuesday Book Club on ABC1 says her comfort book is Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk.

She read it when she was a teenager and it resonated.

It’s the story of a Jewish teenager  in the 1930s, living in New York with dreams of becoming an actress – she falls in love with this glamourous songwriter – look I could go on but perhaps Wikipedia has a more fulsome description…

…are you back with me?

SPOILER ALERT

Anyway many readers – in particular young teenage girls are completely disillusioned by the ending.

This is because Marjorie doesn’t fulful her dreams of becoming an actress, preferring to follow her dreams to marry this charming writer – who is a wastrel and a bit of a bastard if you ask me.

He skives off to Paris and she follows him, eventually finds him and when he asks her to marry him… turns him down.

She then goes back to New York and marries someone else, has four kids, goes prematurely grey and lives happily ever after.

Jennifer says she found this book very empowering as a teenager.
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Here is this young girl with big dreams living in New York, a working girl.  A girl forgoing the hunt for a husband in order to be a broadway success.

Maybe you have to be a teenager to see that.

I read a completely different story.

I read about a young girl, very beautiful but with not that much acting talent in a co-dependent relationship with a cad and who is more concerned about marrying said cad than her acting career.

Eventually she becomes worldly wise, realises the acting thang just ain’t never going to happen and realises that Noel is a complete loser as well.

Maybe it’s because I’m a grey-haired (though dyed a fetching brunette) mama from the burbs reading this and not a young 17 girl full of dreams.

Or maybe as a 17 year old you can’t see the old and cynical tone of Herman Wouk’s world?

For me, this book is about acceptance.  Acceptance of your limitations and those of others.

Have you read it?

What do you think?

Introspection, Work

Shocked that I care

cup

I was in two office sweeps this year at a total outlay of $7.

I feel I got away lightly.

I was a bit bah humbug about the cup today. 

It felt like an interruption.

I resented the distraction.

Of course I tried to contact someone in Melbourne for work and it was a public holiday.  Sheesh!
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I’m sure my horses did their best.

The highlight?

Watching the trainer realising he’d won.

It brought a tear to the eye.

Maybe I do like the Melbourne Cup after all.

Hand me the new Dick Francis novel and a champagne darling!

Introspection, Recipes

It’s my birthday

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Sigh.

Why is it that birthdays are less exciting the older you get?

cookies

Groover was sweet.  He knew I wanted to take choc chip cookies to work rather than a cake and so he made some for me.

Unfortunately they didn’t work out so well – dud recipe with no baking powder.
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But I love that he tried.

Luckily I had bought extra ingredients and the result you see above.

And maybe next time he’ll go to redsultana.com for the best choc chip cookie recipe of all time.

We don’t call them nom noms for nothing!

Introspection, Restaurants, WA

A perfect life

4 Comments

What would you do next if you were at the top of your game in a Melbourne restaurant?

Open another restaurant?

Get even more busy?

japaneserestaurant

Well the fellow who runs this place got it right I reckon.

He has a restaurant in Albany which he opens when he feels like it.

Maybe he’ll open the whole restaurant, maybe he’ll just take a table of six, maybe he’ll go fishing and not show up for a week.

When my colleague wanted to hold a Christmas lunch there, he said yes but they had to have their orders in two days before and they ended up being the only ones in the restaurant.

This is not a place you can just roll up to and hope to get a table and so I will never ever dine there. 

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But I kind of like his attitude.

He obviously cooks for the pleasure of it and you can imagine the food he prepares will be made with a light heart.

And isn’t that what we want?

Not just from a chef but from whatever job we are doing, from whatever service we require?

I’m going to work on that light heart stuff.

🙂

Oh, and apparently the food this guy prepares is fantastic.

No surprises there.

Family, Introspection, Relationships

Three score years and ten

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family_dunsborough

We were down in Dunsborough for mum’s 70th birthday celebration.

She had invited her family to Caves House for a breakfast.

The photos in the room were of Caves House in the year of her birth – 1939.

cezanne

This is the youngest member of the family being held by the oldest, my great aunt.

mum_cousin

I didn’t take many photos.  This is my mother’s cousin.  They are very close in age.

Two brothers married two sisters and mum and her cousin are both the third children of their respective pairings.

They used to play together.

They both have sons who are artists.

They are both into alternative health.

The birthday celebration was lovely.
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We brought up all the old stories… those awful eggplant patties even the dog refused to eat, the time she tried to make my brother sick of meat pies by making him eat them for every meal (she gave up after a fortnight), the education we received in transactional analysis…

But.

And I have never been so embarrassed.

How does it happen that you spell your mother’s name wrong in a video slideshow on her 70th birthday?

Please tell me how that could have happened?

OMG.

The shame.

I know my kids are going to deliberately spell my name wrong now.

It’s going to be one of those stories.

Up there with the eggplant patties.

And they’ll probably also add the inedible lime casserole I made last week.

Who knew you couldn’t substitute limes for lemons?

Introspection

Senescence

8 Comments

leaves2

I was over  at Mum and Dad’s today raking leaves.  They are away and we want to make the house look lived in.

It was another beautiful autumn day.  The sun glistening through the leaves, and onto the leaves that had fallen.

The many, many leaves.

It started me thinking about senescence… the crispy brown leaves crackled under my feet as I gathered them into piles.

Just like me, slowly getting older, more wrinkles, dryer skin.

Still it’s hard to resist a big pile of autumn leaves isn’t it?

And that inner child, just under the surface of that 42 year old skin, came out to play.

autumn3

autumn1

autumn2

Eventually I had enough throwing leaves around. Bits of dead leaf had even worked their way down my jeans into my underpants. How does that happen?
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I picked a few lettuce leaves from the vege patch and went back to my car.

When I got their the door was open. 

My handbag on the seat.

Had I left the door open when I got my camera out?

Shit, I thought.  This is where I discover my wallet has been nicked.

It wasn’t in my handbag.

I felt sick driving home.  The hassle of sorting out my credit card again.  Oh and my cash splash cheque was gone.

The momentary joy of throwing leaves in the air forgotton.

When I got home I found my wallet on my chest of drawers.  Where I had left it after going out last night.

I made a salad from the greens picked in mum’s garden and sat outside in the sunshine.

Bridge, Family, Health, Introspection, Work

Just saying yes at the moment

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groover1

This is a photo of Groover at the top of the overbridge that we walk on during our weekend’s walk.  He nearly always beats me to the top.

These days I find it hard to find the time to exercise.

Yes I know it’s an excuse.

Yes I know that if I really prioritised properly I would find the time.

The fact is my life is full and exercise comes a long way below family time, work, sewing, bridge, twittering, blogging, reading… just about anything in fact you care to mention.

I’m playing in two competitions at the moment – State Swiss Pairs – first night last night = epic FAIL, and the Interstate Women’s Selection.

Well I’m practicing for the latter.

I’m playing with two different partners with two quite different styles so it is quite interesting.  One seems as steady as a rock, but can be quite intuitive with her bidding – in a good way, the other follows the rules strictly.

As I’ve also been described as intuitive (but not in a good way), it makes for erratic scoring. 🙂

If only work didn’t get quite so in the way…

As far as sewing goes, I’ve made Dippity an outrageously short bubble skirt, which she of course wears ALL the time because it is so revealing – and not with leggings as I suggested.
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And I ran up a pair of black pants to wear with the black and white overskirt Mum picked up at Freo Markets.  They were surprisingly simple to make.

Reading – well I’m taking an age to read the library books I’ve got out and have already had to go back and renew them.

Work is insane at the moment – I seem to be filling in for several people all at the same time – and I am so over fire season!

Family – yes they still seem to be occupying the same house… Hugamuga gets his lower braces tomorrow…

And so to exercise. LOL.

At least giving up alcohol seems to be helping control the weight.  17 days and going strong.  You never know I might even make it to the end of the month.

The other thing I’m trying this month – in the spirit of open-mindedness – is Bettina Arndt’s just say yes policy in the bedroom.

It raised my hackles when I first heard her talk about it.  It struck me as a blow for feminism and the rights of a woman to say no.

But.

But.

Okay perhaps I’m not entirely living without exercise at the moment.

Introspection, Parenting

My Mum’s racy past

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mum

This is my mum and my daughter in 2005.  We were in Italy, in Venice in fact.

I thought I wouldn’t like Venice.  I thought it would be too much of a cliche, too geared for tourism.

It was.  I didn’t care.  I loved it.

The other week I caught up with my oldest cousin.  

When she was a teenager, my mum was a young adult.

According to my cousin she was the coolest auntie a girl could ever have.

She fought back to her parents.

She travelled the world.

She slept in the nude.

My cousin tells me she once overheard an argument between mum and my grandparents.

They were upset because she’d cashed in her savings to buy a ticket overseas to follow my Dad to Canada (eventually).

Mum said it was her money and she would do what she wanted with it, cashed up and took off and the rest, as they say is history.

The effect on my cousin was profound.  
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She kept the boarding passes mum gave her and used to look at them and imagine being like my mum.

In later life she travelled far and wide and still does.

Listening to my cousin I felt a kernel of pride that this was my mother she was talking about but interestingly also a sense of wonder.

Who was this woman?

This racy, defiant, inspiring person?

She just seemed like a normal mum to me… a little vehement about me not being a teacher (she didn’t enjoy her chosen profession…) but otherwise…

It is only now as an adult,  I recognise that I grew up with a pretty radical person.

Mum was always experimenting.

From eggplant patties (don’t ask – they were a disaster – even the dog wouldn’t eat them) to Transactional Analysis, she explored her inner and outer worlds and took us along for the ride.

This year she is celebrating a significant birthday.

Dad and I were going to start planning a party but we’ve been informed that there will be several functions.

A festival of Mum.

Bring it on – you deserve it!

Introspection, Relationships

I don’t want to hear your excuses

8 Comments

A walk on a Rottnest beachl

I realised something today.

I don’t like to hear excuses, and not only that, I don’t think others do either.

It’s always been my pet hate when people give me chapter and verse when they can’t do something – go out, do a task, whatever.

Okay I get it – I fume inside my head – it’s making me feel worse hearing your excuses.  Just say you don’t want to come!

It’s that whole – “I would have done it if” thing.

If I didn’t have to wash my hair, if I wasn’t so tired, if I could have found a babysitter…

The truth is maybe – maybe you just didn’t want to go.

The only things I think I want to hear are that you already have a prior task or appointment OR that you don’t want to, maybe it’s not your cup-of-tea.

Because in the end that’s what it mostly boils down to doesn’t it?

This is what highlighted in yellow texta to me that I don’t like excuses – my Dad rang about some chairs and I gave him my excuses as to why I didn’t go to a concert with him last night.
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Now the truth is I didn’t want to go.

Yes I was tired and underwhelmed with enthusiasm by the rest of the family but if I had really wanted to go, I would have.

He cut me off and I realised that I was doing to him what I hate being done to me.  

A reflection.

Sorry Dad.

I think underneath we know why people say no to invitations.

And it does hurt a little when we get a no.

But it’s like salt in the wound to get a list of excuses on why.

So next time, I’m just going to own my feelings and take responsibility for my life and just say no, politely.

I think it hurts less.

Dippity, Hugamuga, Introspection, Parenting

No going back

6 Comments

How did I look after my two kids when they were little?

Yesterday, we picked up the younger cousins (4 & 3) for a sleepover.  My sister-in-law needed some free time to pack as they are moving house soon.

The big cousins are fantastic with them.  Hide and seek, mudworld, swimming, they are like built-in au pairs who look after the two littlies with good grace and humour.

Within an hour of getting home yesterday, in the middle of the first game of hide and seek though, the 3 year old started crying, holding her neck.

There was no blood but she was in a lot of pain and couldn’t be comforted.

We all packed into the car and went to see the doctor who prescribed Painstop and thought she must have strained her neck, like whiplash.

It did put a damper on things but Dippity remembered the chocolate icecream we’d bought and the Princesses DVD and 3 decided that she wanted to stay on the sleepover!

Dippity was brilliant at cuddling her and distracting her from the pain.  Brilliant.

Of course I rang her mum to let her know of the drama but that 3 seemed okay if sore.

The rule with children is “never wake a sleeping child”, we all know that, but because of the suspected head injury the doctor advised that we should. 
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So we did, and she cried, so we gave her some more medicine and took her for a wee and she went back to sleep.

In the morning she was fine.  Her neck still stiff and putting a tee-shirt on and off painful, but smiling and wanting to go for a swim.

(We rang mum to tell her she was better, and mum reported a lovely sleep-in)

Today we’ve had mudworld, a swim, a tv show and now they are walking to the DVD library for a movie (we’re hoping it will tire them out a bit).

I’ve got 20 minutes to write this and reflect, maybe finish a cup of tea.

You know, I don’t think I could look after little ones again full-time.  They are exhausting!  Little balls of never-ending energy.  

I’d forgotton how you become the entertainment machine – always thinking ahead to the next activity, the next snack, the next meal.

It makes me appreciate my teenagers.  Sure, sometimes you only get the odd grunt out of them but they are self sufficient.

And I especially appreciate how good they are with their small cousins.