It’s OK everyone – I haven’t been hit by a bus – merely lots of visitations and social events!
Also had Princess return after a mere 7 hours sleep (instead of the usual 12-13) a little on the feral side – she slept well last night and should be OK by tomorrow. It’s been very social, with the lovely and blogless Jill visiting to carry out her threat of teaching me to cable without a cable needle. I have done one row of Juno using this technique and think that if I practice I will improve. She is quite right – once I have it organised I think it will be faster, and has the advantage of not needing a third hand!
Tomorrow the lovely Knitting Knight is visiting – so I’m looking forward to meeting her and her brood – should be great fun, and her children and mine will probably form a pack and run free!
It was going to be a very deep and meaningful posting today, but it may have to wait until Sunday!
Enjoy the fun of Friday and the 2 days of potential knitting stretching out before you!
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Pets I have known
Thanks for all your kind words on the party front – I’m still basking in the warm parental glow that accompanied it!
Meantime, I examined some recent posts, and noticed on Knights Don’t Knit a link to the most astonishing and gobsmackingly enormous stash – Look at this! I swear – I will never suggest that my stash is getting overwhelming ever again!!
She also suggested the low maintenance goldfish as a pet – a good suggestion, but it brings me to the subject of today’s post – pets.
During my time I have owned or lived with the worlds most neurotic and downright crazy pets. So let’s start with Eloise, the suicidal goldfish.
I actually found Eloise in a pond in an abandoned gravel pit – I have no idea how she arrived there, but there she was swimming with others in the pool. To children of sixish, this was a godsend. I took Eloise home (probably in a billy or ice cream container -standard practice for tadpoles etc) and only when she was ensconced in a clear bowl on top of the fridge (we had 3 or 4 cats) did her tendencies become apparent. She would leap from the fridge top nearly 2 metres to the floor on a regular basis. We usually returned her to the bowl in time, but one day we were too late – and one of the cats seemed too full to eat dinner.
Then there was Baabaa – the orphaned lamb we bottle reared. He buddied up with the Labrador we had and thought he was a dog. He tried to herd cows. He walked behind horses. The first time my father hand sheared him, it was so bad that the ducks laughed at him. He retreated to the hen-house and refused to come out for 3 days – mind you it was possibly the absolute worst sheep haircut I have ever seen – tufts held together with Rawleighs Man and Beast ointment on the nicks!
Baabaa lived to a ripe old age (for a sheep), became enormously fat, and was driven into a heart attack by the pig we acquired from the local vet. We only owned half the pig – the vet owning the other half, but Snorty was a playful and active pig. He lived in our quarter acre chook yard – along with the ducks, occasional geese (who hated me and used to bail me up in the corner by the brambles and peck my legs), and Baabaa the sheep.
Snorty had been given to the vet as part payment for a debt and was raised by us on a diet of windfall apples, soy bean meal swept up from the wharf when the bags broke (this included the odd bottle cap and cigarette butt) and dad’s home brewed beer that used to explode in the middle of the night under the house. He thrived on this diet and when he was castrated (by the vet) my father had the gall to draw the cookbook cuts on his white skin in indelible pencil – he looked just like the diagram. This also reminded us that living on a farm meant we couldn’t hide from the origin of our food and Snorty’s eventual fate.
Snorty met his fate and my mother and I refused to eat pork for more than a year. I still feel bad about Snorty. I didn’t get so attached to the 10 ginger Tamworth pigs we got after Snorty – we called them Mao, Chauvin, Stalin, Trotsky, Marx, Pol Pot, Lenin, Kruschev, Chaplin and McCarthy – they were red pigs and Mum figured that naming McCarthy as a Communist was the least she could do. Besides, it was my job to clean out the pig house. When they left us, I still ate pork.
Probably my favourite weird pet wasn’t actually mine, but belonged to a flatmate. Genghis the paraplegic budgie had been in a serious car accident with his owner. She sustained major leg injuries and his cage slipped off the back seat and lodged under the driver’s seat. He was left unable to move his legs from the elbowy bit down. He used to balance precariously on his perch, stall in midair to land on your shoulders (he preferred wool to cotton because it gave him the chance to tangle his toes in it and bring him to a halt – polished cotton shoulders often meant a slide on landing and an uncontrolled plummet to the floor.
He used the stalling technique of landing all the time – he’d fly around and just stop flapping his wings when he reached stalling speed – then nosedive into the carpet. Genghis had a tendency to sit on your shoulder, nibble at your ears and then try to stuff your earrings into your ear – a painful and potentially injurious process.
Unfortunately, my cat of the time, Floozy, developed a fascination with Genghis. She’d sit on his mantle-piece staring at him for hours. Sometimes we’d find him on the bottom of his cage with his legs in the air, but he always recovered. When he finally went to the great birdcage in the sky, the entire household and all our friends went into mourning. He was one of the few budgies I ever really liked and admired.
I love pets – but seem to be a magnet to those with strange personality quirks – I can’t understand it. After all I’m a sane, responsible… grown – up….OK – Now I understand. No wonder they feel at home!
Meantime, I examined some recent posts, and noticed on Knights Don’t Knit a link to the most astonishing and gobsmackingly enormous stash – Look at this! I swear – I will never suggest that my stash is getting overwhelming ever again!!
She also suggested the low maintenance goldfish as a pet – a good suggestion, but it brings me to the subject of today’s post – pets.
During my time I have owned or lived with the worlds most neurotic and downright crazy pets. So let’s start with Eloise, the suicidal goldfish.
I actually found Eloise in a pond in an abandoned gravel pit – I have no idea how she arrived there, but there she was swimming with others in the pool. To children of sixish, this was a godsend. I took Eloise home (probably in a billy or ice cream container -standard practice for tadpoles etc) and only when she was ensconced in a clear bowl on top of the fridge (we had 3 or 4 cats) did her tendencies become apparent. She would leap from the fridge top nearly 2 metres to the floor on a regular basis. We usually returned her to the bowl in time, but one day we were too late – and one of the cats seemed too full to eat dinner.
Then there was Baabaa – the orphaned lamb we bottle reared. He buddied up with the Labrador we had and thought he was a dog. He tried to herd cows. He walked behind horses. The first time my father hand sheared him, it was so bad that the ducks laughed at him. He retreated to the hen-house and refused to come out for 3 days – mind you it was possibly the absolute worst sheep haircut I have ever seen – tufts held together with Rawleighs Man and Beast ointment on the nicks!
Baabaa lived to a ripe old age (for a sheep), became enormously fat, and was driven into a heart attack by the pig we acquired from the local vet. We only owned half the pig – the vet owning the other half, but Snorty was a playful and active pig. He lived in our quarter acre chook yard – along with the ducks, occasional geese (who hated me and used to bail me up in the corner by the brambles and peck my legs), and Baabaa the sheep.
Snorty had been given to the vet as part payment for a debt and was raised by us on a diet of windfall apples, soy bean meal swept up from the wharf when the bags broke (this included the odd bottle cap and cigarette butt) and dad’s home brewed beer that used to explode in the middle of the night under the house. He thrived on this diet and when he was castrated (by the vet) my father had the gall to draw the cookbook cuts on his white skin in indelible pencil – he looked just like the diagram. This also reminded us that living on a farm meant we couldn’t hide from the origin of our food and Snorty’s eventual fate.
Snorty met his fate and my mother and I refused to eat pork for more than a year. I still feel bad about Snorty. I didn’t get so attached to the 10 ginger Tamworth pigs we got after Snorty – we called them Mao, Chauvin, Stalin, Trotsky, Marx, Pol Pot, Lenin, Kruschev, Chaplin and McCarthy – they were red pigs and Mum figured that naming McCarthy as a Communist was the least she could do. Besides, it was my job to clean out the pig house. When they left us, I still ate pork.
Probably my favourite weird pet wasn’t actually mine, but belonged to a flatmate. Genghis the paraplegic budgie had been in a serious car accident with his owner. She sustained major leg injuries and his cage slipped off the back seat and lodged under the driver’s seat. He was left unable to move his legs from the elbowy bit down. He used to balance precariously on his perch, stall in midair to land on your shoulders (he preferred wool to cotton because it gave him the chance to tangle his toes in it and bring him to a halt – polished cotton shoulders often meant a slide on landing and an uncontrolled plummet to the floor.
He used the stalling technique of landing all the time – he’d fly around and just stop flapping his wings when he reached stalling speed – then nosedive into the carpet. Genghis had a tendency to sit on your shoulder, nibble at your ears and then try to stuff your earrings into your ear – a painful and potentially injurious process.
Unfortunately, my cat of the time, Floozy, developed a fascination with Genghis. She’d sit on his mantle-piece staring at him for hours. Sometimes we’d find him on the bottom of his cage with his legs in the air, but he always recovered. When he finally went to the great birdcage in the sky, the entire household and all our friends went into mourning. He was one of the few budgies I ever really liked and admired.
I love pets – but seem to be a magnet to those with strange personality quirks – I can’t understand it. After all I’m a sane, responsible… grown – up….OK – Now I understand. No wonder they feel at home!
Saturday, August 4, 2007
It's my party
Well we’ve survived the 5th birthday party – getting to be old hands at thegame now, and it gets a bit easier in some ways as they get older. Ten little girls, and 2 little boys all 5 or nearly 5, a ‘Come as your favourite fairy tale character’ theme – the girls did Disney proud with Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, 2 Snow Whites (including the Princess), a Dalmatian, a number of assorted fairies. The boys went to less effort – 1 had a tube on his nose (yep, Pinocchio in a wildlife warriors T-shirt), the other turned up as Harry Potter and took his robes off within a millisecond of arriving.
Destructoboy did not dress up. His only interest in the entire party thing was the Party food, so he sat in a high chair in solitary splendour, eating his way through chips, fairy bread and the icing on 2 cup cakes while ignoring everything else.
The kids had a great time. We did bursting balloon games, balloon races (you’ll notice we like balloons – they’re cheap, cheerful and unlikely to break the china or injure others) and pass the parcel – a prize for everyone and messages such as ‘to the person who makes the best animal noise’, who has the longest tongue, who blows the best raspberry, makes the funnniest face etc. This is as much fun for the parents as the children.
Then party food, the cake, playtime, loot bags and home – while the Accountant and I collapsed exhausted into a glass of wine.
Princess was over the moon about her presents – hooray for parents who buy crafty stuff and useful things – she scored a little over night case, which will no doubt later become a beauty case, some dolls and books and activity books. All deeply satisfying and lots of fun.
The mess was minimal and quickly cleared up – hooray for plastic plates and tablecloths and for having the food bit on a polished wooden floor – slightly louder but very easy to vacuum up – and now they’re a little older – no spillage!
Everyone was getting into the party spirit. Cat of the House (COTH) brought home a friend last night. I let him in and he was closely followed by a rather gorgeous ginger and white fellow. The ginger and white boy decided to claim the back room as his territory and was promptly hustled outside again. He would very much have liked to return inside, but I decided that one cat is enough. We once acquired a cat when I was a child because he came inside, ate everyone else’s dinner and refused to leave.
It’s an interesting way to acquire residents – ‘He followed me home, Mum – can I keep him’ has to be one of the oldest excuses for acquiring a pet (and one I used to use with remarkable frequency and success when I was younger. I love having a houseful of animals, but we are hoping to have some holidays over the next few years and animals must be cared for. I haven’t wanted another dog since our gorgeous elderly black lab died last year and while I love cars they tend to be hard on native wildlife, bells and nights inside not withstanding.
I have a feeling that rabbits and guinea pigs may just be providing meals for quolls and we’re down to 2 bantams who eat, scratch around and provide eggs for about 6 weeks a year!
Tried out my ball winder on Friday and it gave me a large tangled mass – maybe it doesn’t like the Colinette jitterbug. Managed no knitting that night as I prepared for the party instead and last night I spent the entire allocated knitting period doing 3 rounds of the Red Bird May sock of the month and then disentangling and re-balling the damn jitterbug.
Tonight ironing night (hope there’s a decent movie on) and if I’m fast I might get some knitting done. Squatty sidekick remains unfelted and Rowan aran un-balled.
As a knitter, this weekend has been an abject failure.
As a parent – maybe I’m not as appalling as I hoped.
Destructoboy did not dress up. His only interest in the entire party thing was the Party food, so he sat in a high chair in solitary splendour, eating his way through chips, fairy bread and the icing on 2 cup cakes while ignoring everything else.
The kids had a great time. We did bursting balloon games, balloon races (you’ll notice we like balloons – they’re cheap, cheerful and unlikely to break the china or injure others) and pass the parcel – a prize for everyone and messages such as ‘to the person who makes the best animal noise’, who has the longest tongue, who blows the best raspberry, makes the funnniest face etc. This is as much fun for the parents as the children.
Then party food, the cake, playtime, loot bags and home – while the Accountant and I collapsed exhausted into a glass of wine.
Princess was over the moon about her presents – hooray for parents who buy crafty stuff and useful things – she scored a little over night case, which will no doubt later become a beauty case, some dolls and books and activity books. All deeply satisfying and lots of fun.
The mess was minimal and quickly cleared up – hooray for plastic plates and tablecloths and for having the food bit on a polished wooden floor – slightly louder but very easy to vacuum up – and now they’re a little older – no spillage!
Everyone was getting into the party spirit. Cat of the House (COTH) brought home a friend last night. I let him in and he was closely followed by a rather gorgeous ginger and white fellow. The ginger and white boy decided to claim the back room as his territory and was promptly hustled outside again. He would very much have liked to return inside, but I decided that one cat is enough. We once acquired a cat when I was a child because he came inside, ate everyone else’s dinner and refused to leave.
It’s an interesting way to acquire residents – ‘He followed me home, Mum – can I keep him’ has to be one of the oldest excuses for acquiring a pet (and one I used to use with remarkable frequency and success when I was younger. I love having a houseful of animals, but we are hoping to have some holidays over the next few years and animals must be cared for. I haven’t wanted another dog since our gorgeous elderly black lab died last year and while I love cars they tend to be hard on native wildlife, bells and nights inside not withstanding.
I have a feeling that rabbits and guinea pigs may just be providing meals for quolls and we’re down to 2 bantams who eat, scratch around and provide eggs for about 6 weeks a year!
Tried out my ball winder on Friday and it gave me a large tangled mass – maybe it doesn’t like the Colinette jitterbug. Managed no knitting that night as I prepared for the party instead and last night I spent the entire allocated knitting period doing 3 rounds of the Red Bird May sock of the month and then disentangling and re-balling the damn jitterbug.
Tonight ironing night (hope there’s a decent movie on) and if I’m fast I might get some knitting done. Squatty sidekick remains unfelted and Rowan aran un-balled.
As a knitter, this weekend has been an abject failure.
As a parent – maybe I’m not as appalling as I hoped.
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