Container death

They looked at each other with death eyes.  There were other players at the table but the end-game came down to these two.  The others slipped aside under the sheer force of the need of this last two.

It was a dark irony that these last, two fighters were father and son.  Both equally stubborn, both desperate to be the last man standing.  One of them would lose.  There was no alternative.

Finally, there were just the two of them and the circling began.  There was 1/2 a container left but one must be the last.  One would win.  What possible weapon could they use in this social situation? What deceptive politeness could hide the fact that both men were determined?  Determined to be the last man on the cream container - the last man to drip out the last few precious drops on the waiting bowls of tinned friut.

Pathetic but true.

If I was making children's television...

... I wouldn't have a show where all the characters made squeaky noises - I am looking at you Ickle Pickle.

I mean, aside from the babysitting the little buggers when you might otherwise be slurping gin in quiet motherly desperation, there are very few redeeming qualities to television for children.  Even language development skills go by the way when the inanimate faces of stuffed puppet people don't even pretend to talk.  Jumping up and down and clapping your big puffy hands demonstrates joy but it is a tad limited as education in human interactions.

Then there are plots, or not, in some cases.  I assume some shows are very popular with chronic dope-heads sitting on their sofas eating jumbarooni containers of peanut-related snackies at 4 am.  (Note to self, if I ever take to such hobbies, Costco is just the place for snackies.)  I knew one such lad whose idea of a good night at home was the weather channel.  I love the weather but even I don't want to spend my nights watching storm cells forming over Siberia.

Finally, characterisation.  Not every one plays with their friends and siblings in a kind, flexible and constructive manner.  No, really.  It is true.  Watching Pepper, her snorting little brother and her zoological friends sharing, giggling and generally getting along does not seem entirely accurate to me.  Further, I am not sure it is helping my monsters when they are totally sick of each other and generalised niggling breaks into shouts and shoves, followed by a good, solid kick.

Oh well, on the up side the girls don't watch the lower level crap on commercial TV. There are limited merchandising opportunities on the national broadcaster and no opportunity to convince my children that grease-a-rama crap is a valid dinner choice.

"No, you do not need a Hootabelle umbrella.  You neither."

Girls - an owners guidebook.

Here are some interesting aspects of being an owner/operator of girls:

• Irrespective of your own views, in-laws will buy your children Barbies. 
• If you throw away your children's Christmas presents they are scarred for life.
• If you have to live in a house with Barbie-loving girls, you are scarred for life.
• Eventually the obsession with pink attenuates slightly - I am hoping for black, emo/ neo-gothic adolescences.
• None of the craze for exotic dress-ups and styling translates to wanting to be clean.
• It is possible to inhale a piece of chicken in a millisecond and spend 30 minutes nibbling a piece of lettuce, often both in the same meal.
• With the same genetic ingredients and the same diet, two girls can have completely different digestive flora and toe-nail growth rates.
• Two girls can be 15 months apart, have different coloured and cut hair and different coloured eyes, have different shaped frames and faces and quite different personalities and members of your family will not be able to tell them apart.
• And finally, watching gentle 3-year-old girls have life or death karate fights with burglar goblins is something you have to see once in your life.

Ah, I feel all refreshed.

I just reread the last post and I feel all refreshed.  Nothing like a good rant.  People are a bit odd that way.

Apologies for the radio silence.  I have been on a bit of a binge.  Books, that is.  My dear mother loaned me 10 books a couple of weeks ago.  They are not longies - mere snacks - but they sort of follow each other and as I narrow in on the end of book 9, I feel like I have eaten most of a chocolate cake and am gazing at the last couple of mouthfuls wondering if I can get them down.  These books are definitely the chocolate cake of the literary world with great goops of icing pooling around the plate.

Bugger.  Now I am getting hungry for cake and all I have for lunch is a metwurst samo.

On the chocolate topic, this is on my list of things to cook one day.  Phillipa Silby is a living goddess.  I think we can safely assume my version won't look this good.  The recipe can be found here in case you are tempted.  Send me some!!!

This is why wives and mothers leave.

Because we get sick of saying to husbands and children:

• Please don't leave bits of food and a foot of bubbles in the sink after you wash up. The detergent drops its payload of grease as the bubbles disappear leaving crusted-on crap to add to the decaying lumps in the sink.  If you want to use half a cup of detergent then deal with the bubbles.
• We have 3 square inches of sink top in the bathroom.  That means the shaving soap can not live there permanently.  Or toothbrushes.
• Your clean washing is in the hall. Don't just rustle through it scattering undies around the place instead of putting it away without my having to nag.
• Oh, about 6000 other things.

And finally, if I go away for five days to a funeral and you all discover you have itchy bottoms, move through the steps.  It is just fucking rude to mention it in passing two days after I get home.  I will now be joining in the worm treatment and washing all the sheets, etc.  It also means my one-woman campaign to upgrade the quality of hand-washing around here has been a complete fail.

I hate living with pigs.  Three of you are small children or furry quadrupeds so you have some defence.