Capitalism at play

H waiting for her first visit from the tooth fairy:


Yesterday she lost her second baby tooth. I'm pleased to report this time she just left a flower for the tooth fairy.

Worldview

Some photos taken by H & K on my phone, captions in quotation marks are what they said at the time they took the photos:

"mummy's back"

"purple flowers"

"pretty flower"

"beautiful picture"

"my pushchair"

"Shirley"

"Andy, smile!"

under the painting easel

"washing"

cow teapot

H

Greener than I'm cabbage looking

Today I got my hair dyed green. A vibrant kelly green. I'm very pleased with it.

Why green?

1. It is an strange personal joke about 'natural' hair colours.
2. It will stop me applying for other jobs before I know what is happening at my work.
3. It's one of my favourite colours and purple is too trad.
   
4. I'm feeling rebellious.
5. It will help me do some other things that are outside my comfort zone.
6. I've been meaning to do it for years.
   
7. My sister's hair hasn't been green.
8. Our corporate colour wasn't radical enough.
9. I thought it would make my complexion look less florid.
10. It is a transition stage from white back to brown.

Puddle ducklings

[H is the one in purple, K in turquoise and pink.]

Workplace guerrilla

Leaving home

At the bus stop

On the bus

At work

What I've learnt so far:

• choose your gorilla mask carefully
• children are much friendlier to strange gorillas than strange people
• adults like to know whose inside and are generous to gorillas
• people are more surprised by a gorilla when the lift doors open than a gorilla appearing beside their desk
• wise gorillas carry safety pins.

A glimpse of summer

Cooling my feet in the new Grey St fountain.

Gold, cat food and myrrh

On Christmas Eve H, K and I visited my parents and went for a walk. As we passed a garage a few doors down the road we heard a loud, persistent, unhappy miaowing. We talked to the cat through the door and checked to see if we could let it out. Like half of Wellington the owners appeared to be away for Christmas and had most likely shut this cat in accidentally when they left.

My mother got some water and cat food and slid it through the small gap under the door and tried the neighbours to see if they had any way of contacting the couple who own the garage. No joy. We also noticed the cat was not moving around the garage and did not come to where we were. We worried it was trapped not only in the garage but also within the garage.

On Christmas Day I visited the garage again. I was pleased to see nearly all the food we'd provided had gone. I topped up the food and saw, for the first time, a fluffy white and ginger nose and was able to read the name BAZ on his collar. The collar also had a phone number but I couldn't read it as Baz wasn't keeping his head still enough. I reached through the gap to hold the collar and Baz pulled away and left me holding a loop of wire that had been around his neck. The wire looked like it came from a paper lampshade and was possibly why he couldn't come to us the previous day.

Talking to Baz

Next I managed to get hold of Baz's collar and it came off in my hand. Good new - now we had a phone number, bad news - the phone number had been disconnected. The other side of the collar had the name and number of a vet in Palmerston North. I rang their emergency number and they called back with a little more information about Baz's people but no current number. I also registered Baz on http://www.petsonthenet.co.nz/.

On Boxing Day my mother rang to say that the garage is no longer miaowing. We hope Baz has escaped and gone home. Today the vet rang with the name of Baz's people and I managed to track down their new number and have left a message to call if Baz isn't home.

Baz's plight has been the theme of Christmas 2006 for me. It has most of the elements a good Christmas story needs. I'm just hoping it has a happy ending.

[K is closer to the camera with the pink gumboots, H is in orange.]

Oh Christmas Tree

When I was growing up we always had a real christmas tree. Normally a large branch off the neighbour's enormous pines. On Christmas Eve my father would take the ladder down to the bottom of the garden, pull it through the undergrowth to the fence, prop the ladder against the tree and climb up. The next phase of the procedings involved extensive negotiatons with the accompanying daughter or daughters, with my father eventually settling for the largest, reachable branch potruding across the fence.

When I moved out of home I bought a four foot tall, fake christmas tree and a large bag of cheap ornaments. The ornaments include a very strange set of slightly furry polystyrene amoebas wearing masks. They slightly resemble Father Christmases, angels, elves and snowmen in a spooky kind of way. They are not only slightly deformed but also made by aliens who thought that it would be appropriate to give the snowmen legs.

Figure 1. Masked "elf".

Figure 2. "Snowman" showing caudal pseudopods.

(Note low quality of photography due to alien interference with Earth technology and in no way reflecting on lazy blogger using phone rather than decent digital camera).

Last night H said to me "Do we have a christmas tree?" so I told her that we'd get it down when K and she were both in pyjamas. In think they broke the pyjama donning record.

Here is the end result:

H multitasking

Construction!

Diggers are one of H & K's favourite things and they were absolutely delighted to visit W's J at work and ride on the digger he's been using. They got to ride on a dump truck too.

The title of this post comes from a story S told me when she was teaching three year olds. She asked a small boy, who was dividing the world into things for girls and things for boys, "What is something for girls and boys?" and he thought very hard and said "CONSTRUCTION!"

[K is closer to the camera in a turquoise jacket, H is in purple.]

An ode to shoes

I wear Merrell Jungle Mocs,
I wear them all the time,
I've persuaded myself they're corporate enough
to wear them on work time.

I like the way they're comfy,
I like the way they feel,
I'm delighted that work doesn't bat an eye
since I hurt my heel.

My toenails aren't making holes
in my socks anymore
but all my other shoes are getting dusty
on the wardrobe floor.

[Insert standard doggerel disclaimer here.]

New Zealand idyll

Yesterday was Father's Day in this part of the world so I asked D what he wanted to do (while cooking him breakfast) and he said "Hokio" somewhat wistfully. So we went.


H&K went barefoot to the beach, climbed sand dunes and played in the river. D enjoyed a quiet break with his book.

It was lovely.

[K is standing, H sitting.]

Hair today

Walking to work this morning, feeling frustrated with my appearance, I decided not just to have a hair cut today but a radical change.

So my hair which has been brown most of my life with occassional episodes of orange or red highlights is now white blonde.


(Photo taken by me with my phone at work hence strange composition and expression as I couldn't see what I was doing.)

This is in part a tribute to my sister.