I recently looked on the calendar to find the following appear under Dad's name...
NEGP BBQ 6pm
As I pondered on this event - to which Mam was also invited, but whom presumably had as much clue as myself, I also noticed the following under Mu's name...
Sch Sts
And this under Karoo...
Tods 10am (This was extended to Roo but unless it involves throwing, hitting, kicking or wrestling - he won't be interested in it's content.)
It's led me to conclude that I am now working at Bletchley and the only way to ever know what's going on is to build some form of super computer which can simultaneously guess 100 variations of the enemies code for any given day.
It has also led me on a bit of a rant - which, you'll be overjoyed to know, you're about to hear.
What is it with abbreviations? I don't just mean acronyms, but the abbreviation of words, not just due to a space shortage on a calendar but IN ACTUAL CONVERSATIONS?
People are actually speaking in 'abbreves'. It seems you can no longer use full words for more than 50% of your sentences. I mean what will this signify for literary compounds such as The Chrons. of Narn. - which I also note has been hijacked by some amateur cook on BBC (you never saw Tumnas engineering a 3D biscuit) or War and Peace, I mean that's just going to be letters?
I say all this as this week, Mu starts school - wait...that makes sense now...
She starts school but my question is for what purpose - to unlearn the words she has just spent the last 4 years learning.
Now I realise that this truncated natter-style is all just "for bants" but IT'S RIDIC. Where will it end, and how is Mam going to explain the fact that Mu is in the Pooh Bear class at school BECAUSE I DON'T THINK THEY'LL BE SHORTENING THAT TO The Winnies...
It's not just the young either. Since Mam and Dad got married, Granny and Granda have signed all cards and texts with 'AOLA Mam and Dad'...what does this mean??? Granda Pete constantly puts LOL in his texts, but he has no clue why he does it, which was evident when he sent a message to say that Gran had just got a new haircut and he put this at the end.
So, JIC you didn't realise I SMH, IYKWIM.
Tuesday, 6 September 2016
Tuesday, 2 August 2016
Living In Anaheim
So although you might think from my bio on this blog that I am currently living in the real world it seems I am actually still living in a fictional one. And that one being Disneyland. And what's more, as the swaying vote on exactly which parts of Disneyland I am forced to spend my days in is dictated by 3 and 4 year old girls, I can honestly say I'm not living in the good part of town. There are no Cars or Planes (or any form of transportation out of here), I've given up looking for Nemo as priority has to be given to finding a way out instead. Nope, while I might be living my own Toy Story I am left living it in Princess world - and it really is a world of it's own.
Not only am I now word perfect on the films - Tangled, Little Mermaid, Frozen - but I am also well aquatinted with each princesses pet (yes, they all have their own) and their accessories (of which there seem to be endless, and of which Mam is regularly informed we DON'T have enough of).
All this has led to me thinking, while I did enjoy the odd Disney flick as a child, watching them as a fully grown Lion gives you a very different spin on them.
For example, As a child I loved the Little Mermaid. There, I've said it out loud in the Blogosphere. Judge me all you want but that Lemon Sole's got Soul. Anyway, as a young lion club I identified with this 16 year old, oppressed by her parent, and unable to live the life she dreamed - nay, deserved. But watching it as I do now my overwhelming thought is
"That girl is spoilt and needs a good kick in the pants. You are 16 years old young lady-fish, and you know nothing. You dad knows what's best for you and your behaviour only serves to re-enforce his thoughts that you're not in love with Eric, you won't be forever unhappy unless you get legs and all the other mer-people are NOT doing it too. This film should have been called The Little Madam"
And it's not just Ariel that I have issues with.
Rapunzel, needs a good hair cut from the off and then all her troubles would be over before the film had begun. And while I'm dwelling on her life story let me just point out that if she's got time on her hands and is going to 'Have a Dream', it needs to be a better one than medieval Germany's Blackpool Illuminations. After all that she's been through she's going to need a good 5-7 years of counselling in order to process who she is, re-affirm her identity and deal with her overwhelming issues of attachment and resilience caused by being ripped away form her parents as a baby and placed in the care of a crazy woman who never let her leave the house. And so with that said, her and Flynn Rider - not going to last. She's not Tangled, she's Messed Up.
Elsa, told all her life that she's not good enough to be seen by humanity and then asked to be queen of a kingdom - she wouldn't have had time to be coronated as she would have let her frozen vengeance reign down like a...well, like a snowstorm. All that pent up anger and resentment from her parents being ashamed of her and thinking that a pair of gloves will solve all her problems means she's only going to be a whirlwind of fury by the time she's 'Come of age'. She ain't letting anything go. And that analysis is purely based on the obvious mental health issues her younger sister has. She's not Frozen, she's Furious.
I could go on..
Jasmine - needs the real world not a whole new one.
Cinderella - needs a Solicitor not a Fairy Godmother.
Snow White - needs to stop encouraging vermin to help her clean things - mice and birds are incontinent you know?
and Belle - well, actually, Belle's pretty cool...
All of them need a good talking to - and one where they don't get to answer back with a catchy 4 chord melody.
All I can say is hurry up Roo and grow up because a couple of episodes of Fireman Sam every 4 weeks is not going to save the day - well, not mine anyway.
Monday, 20 June 2016
Growing up
The Worst Witch once sang "Growing up isn't easy". Peter Pan said "Never grow up". And until recently always thought growing up was just growing older and gaining more responsiblity for more things...like the spread of that black stuff on bathroom ceiling and children (who spread faster than the ceiling stuff)
As a lion of some years and, as I look around, some responsibility, I had still never considered myself a fully grown lion.
Yes, the number of DIY jobs has grown (and, rather like in my teenage years with my emotions and my dress sense, my level of DIY skills is still waiting for it's spurt).
Yes, the number of children throwing me from floor to ceiling (hence noticing the black stuff) has increased.
Yes, I can now drive a (remote controlled) car and I own my own (dolls) house.
Yes, I am married but I still didn't think I was Grown Up. Which led me to thinking...When does one Grown Up? Especially as I'm told it's hard to do and recommended never try?
In order to answer this I decided to pluck the grey hairs of matter from the heads of those older than I and those I consider to have mastered this most tricky of life skills. I started with Auntie Jean (nearing 70) - the oldest person I could think of...and as I walked toward her, paddling in Grasmere Lake, no shoes and the bottoms of her trousers under the water line, I recalled something that made me think again. It wasn't that she was busy - she was also in full song - or that she was barking - although that is the case - but more that she'd only recently had a cast removed from her index finger due to an unfortunate incident at the bottom of a slide in a children's soft play. Whereby she had had to be dragged out of the ball pit by her grand children (6 and 3) and her daughter had had to take her to the Walk-In Centre (once they'd found her shoes). I surmised that she too had not found the secret to growing up.
Beating a retreat I stumbled on Grand Frank (nearing 65). I literally stumbled on him as he was hiding in the the grass waiting to jump out on his grandchildren in the guise of a tiger. And as I watched him crouched between the blades, only his twitching ears visible, I thought 2 things...
1) His grandchildren have the speed of gazelles, and therefore once this pounce has been executed, there's no way he will be able to stand up quicker than they will be able to pin him to the ground.
2) This is a man, who came over to our house to survey a DIY job done by dad, and in the 4 minutes he was there, he swung a hammer and pulled this back, and trod on an upturned nail and had to visit A & E for a tetanus.
No Growing Up here either.
And the more I thought about it the more I realised I was surrounded by non-grown ups...
Granda Pete who, not only travels the world wearing a tartan skirt and wooden shoes but who, recently, couldn't answer the phone because "he'd joined the French circus". And this shortly after making an appointment with his G.P. to discuss the problems he's having with his head, shoulders, knees and toe (I kid you not).
Mam, who despite being married, owning a house, driving a car and having her own children - can't always remember to put on underwear.
And Gran who still can't go to a public toilet without it ending in her running out shouting "Leave, leave, leave!"
But, what, might you ask, has prompted this philosophical look at life? Over the last year it seems to me that I have said goodbye to more people than usual - my usual being 0. I seem to have come to a point in life where, I am actually a grown up.
Those around me have indeed grown older, from Mu and her siblings to Grandas and Grannies and I find myself, for the first time stood between 2 generations for whom I am responsible. Now don't get me wrong - I don't feel solely responsible for the older generation in the same way I do for the younger one, but these moments of goodbye have marked a change. I think there comes a point in large Prides like mine whereby one generation starts to take on the responsibility previously undertaken by another generation. A point where we are no longer shielded quite as much as we once were, from the heart ache and turmoil experience by those around us. A point where we are needed to step up and hold the hands of those around us rather than wait for our hand to be held. Where we stand with others rather than behind them.
This point in our lives is not one where the older generation gives up, puts on their slippers and starts going bonkers (although for some lions in the Pride, this last part happened a while ago so it'll be hard to tell when that time does come). But it is a point whereby we are no longer children on the outside, watching and being told what to do in a situation. It is a point where we suddenly find ourselves right in the middle where the tears are the hottest and the pain is the sharpest and life is its realist. And we find ourselves handling it rather than being handled by it.
It seems growing up does not automatically happen when we have children or get married, or when there's no one to tell us not to each chocolate for breakfast. It doesn't automatically happen in the "hellos" or the "hoorays" of life.
We grow up in the "goodbyes".
As a lion of some years and, as I look around, some responsibility, I had still never considered myself a fully grown lion.
Yes, the number of DIY jobs has grown (and, rather like in my teenage years with my emotions and my dress sense, my level of DIY skills is still waiting for it's spurt).
Yes, the number of children throwing me from floor to ceiling (hence noticing the black stuff) has increased.
Yes, I can now drive a (remote controlled) car and I own my own (dolls) house.
Yes, I am married but I still didn't think I was Grown Up. Which led me to thinking...When does one Grown Up? Especially as I'm told it's hard to do and recommended never try?
In order to answer this I decided to pluck the grey hairs of matter from the heads of those older than I and those I consider to have mastered this most tricky of life skills. I started with Auntie Jean (nearing 70) - the oldest person I could think of...and as I walked toward her, paddling in Grasmere Lake, no shoes and the bottoms of her trousers under the water line, I recalled something that made me think again. It wasn't that she was busy - she was also in full song - or that she was barking - although that is the case - but more that she'd only recently had a cast removed from her index finger due to an unfortunate incident at the bottom of a slide in a children's soft play. Whereby she had had to be dragged out of the ball pit by her grand children (6 and 3) and her daughter had had to take her to the Walk-In Centre (once they'd found her shoes). I surmised that she too had not found the secret to growing up.
Beating a retreat I stumbled on Grand Frank (nearing 65). I literally stumbled on him as he was hiding in the the grass waiting to jump out on his grandchildren in the guise of a tiger. And as I watched him crouched between the blades, only his twitching ears visible, I thought 2 things...
1) His grandchildren have the speed of gazelles, and therefore once this pounce has been executed, there's no way he will be able to stand up quicker than they will be able to pin him to the ground.
2) This is a man, who came over to our house to survey a DIY job done by dad, and in the 4 minutes he was there, he swung a hammer and pulled this back, and trod on an upturned nail and had to visit A & E for a tetanus.
No Growing Up here either.
And the more I thought about it the more I realised I was surrounded by non-grown ups...
Granda Pete who, not only travels the world wearing a tartan skirt and wooden shoes but who, recently, couldn't answer the phone because "he'd joined the French circus". And this shortly after making an appointment with his G.P. to discuss the problems he's having with his head, shoulders, knees and toe (I kid you not).
Mam, who despite being married, owning a house, driving a car and having her own children - can't always remember to put on underwear.
And Gran who still can't go to a public toilet without it ending in her running out shouting "Leave, leave, leave!"
But, what, might you ask, has prompted this philosophical look at life? Over the last year it seems to me that I have said goodbye to more people than usual - my usual being 0. I seem to have come to a point in life where, I am actually a grown up.
Those around me have indeed grown older, from Mu and her siblings to Grandas and Grannies and I find myself, for the first time stood between 2 generations for whom I am responsible. Now don't get me wrong - I don't feel solely responsible for the older generation in the same way I do for the younger one, but these moments of goodbye have marked a change. I think there comes a point in large Prides like mine whereby one generation starts to take on the responsibility previously undertaken by another generation. A point where we are no longer shielded quite as much as we once were, from the heart ache and turmoil experience by those around us. A point where we are needed to step up and hold the hands of those around us rather than wait for our hand to be held. Where we stand with others rather than behind them.
This point in our lives is not one where the older generation gives up, puts on their slippers and starts going bonkers (although for some lions in the Pride, this last part happened a while ago so it'll be hard to tell when that time does come). But it is a point whereby we are no longer children on the outside, watching and being told what to do in a situation. It is a point where we suddenly find ourselves right in the middle where the tears are the hottest and the pain is the sharpest and life is its realist. And we find ourselves handling it rather than being handled by it.
It seems growing up does not automatically happen when we have children or get married, or when there's no one to tell us not to each chocolate for breakfast. It doesn't automatically happen in the "hellos" or the "hoorays" of life.
We grow up in the "goodbyes".
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