halloween grinch

I just ... don't really like Halloween.

Most of my reasons place me firmly in the 'old fart' camp, but strangely I'm okay with that.

1. Really? Since when is Halloween a thing?
It wasn't when I was a kid, or even a young adult, or even a not-so-young adult, but gradually the long arm of consumerism has elevated 31 Oct up out of the calendar and into a place in which money must be spent and effort made and something celebrated.
Oh no wait, nothing gets celebrated, except by the manufacturers of candy and fake blood - they're having a lovely time.

2. The candy is gross.
I'm not a sugar nazi. I have a firm suspicion that my youngest (she of the remarkably sweet tooth of course) should probably not eat too much of it, I suspect it makes her bonkers, but I'm not proactive enough to try and ban it and I think I have a pretty standard policy on sugar consumption (ie not enough to ruin dinner and/or make you puke), but I don't like shit sweets.
And because everyone's compelled to buy so much of it to hand out on Halloween, there's usually a lot of shit, fake, disgusting plastic-masquerading-as-candy candy.

3. Scary is not cool.
We live in a country, nay a WORLD that is completely and utterly terrifying on a daily basis. Scary lost its cool in my book a long time ago. Round about when I become an old fart probably.
Ditto: wounds, blood, violent deaths, embracing the dark side, jokes about Ebola, weaponry of any kind.

4. Entitlement is unattractive.
Already our kids, all of our kids, even the really nice ones, are becoming painful about expecting Christmas presents, birthday parties, chocolate at Easter and cash from the Tooth Fairy. Now we're encouraging them to run around with buckets demanding sweets from people not even related to them or obliged to put out because of a complex social code of reciprocal present-giving.
Really?

5. It blows.
The wind that is. Late October in Cape Town is howling, throbbing, blasting South-Easter season. An invasive and spiteful wind that chills you to the bone, even when the sun shines, that blows grit into all your exposed orifices (and some that aren't), that ruins your hair and your picnic and your mood.
It always blows on Halloween. Really not a good time to be outside.

HOWEVER, the good news is: there is wine. Plenty of it.

And if you're lucky there are friends who aren't old farts and arrange fun and age-appropriate Halloween events in which you and your children can participate.
Friends who make snacks, and provide safe and welcoming environments out of the wind in which to eat those snacks, and drink that wine, while the sugar-fueled children run amok in the night.

My grinchiness abated .... did a slight encore to accompany my hangover the next morning, and then went back into hibernation until next year.

The Littlest Jaguar and SHOUTY MUM, appropriately wind-swept.

lists of 5: 5 thoughts for twenty-oh-nine

Just to be clear, these are absolutely, most definitely and certainly not resolutions. I am by no means beholden, possibly not ever and probably extremely unlikely to fulfill or complete them all. I will in no way be held accountable, answerable or even enter into conversation about my completion or non-completion of any of the below listed items.

I will, however, pledge to revisit this list in 1 year's time - just for laughs.

So here, in no particular order, is a list of things I'd like to think about, or be conscious of, in 2009.

1. My health. (see why these most definitely aren't resolutions? If they were this one would be doomed to failure.)

I had a profoundly happy moment last week when I received a mail to say my beloved Yogafit classes are starting up again this week! I was a lean, mean yoga machine before I got pregnant and I'm determined to regain at least a little of that svelte-ness.

2. My creativity. 2009 will (hopefully) be the Year of Craft. I've been gathering inspiration from all the wonderful crafty blogs I've been lurking on this last year and the time has come to channel all that into producing more handmade stuff myself. I'm very inspired by this, but ja, don't know if I'll even aim for 100!

3. Invest more in old friends. One of the benefits of spending more or less your whole life in one place is the large variety of friends you make, and generally keep, over the years. Husband and I, in the light of the loss of an old friend through circumstance, have been talking about how many wonderful old friends we have close by, and how we'd like to invest more time and effort in strengthening those bonds this year.

4. Getting my head and body ready for another baby. Gasp, I can't believe I'm actually committing these words to er... blog. I'm still wildly oscillating between 'no, no, no, jesus fuck am I mad to even be contemplating this again' and 'hey wow, I wonder what other fascinating little being there is out there, just waiting to be a part of our family'. On the one hand we're determined Frieda should have a sibling, on the other I get virtually paralysed at the thought of having TWO offspring - just the logistics alone are exhausting to think about. So ja, this is a long-term project...

5. Working! I'm SO looking forward to getting manically busy on this next job, so ready to taste the thrill of occupational achievement (is that a phrase? It sounds kinda cool so it should be). Besides, I need to earn some real money to pay for this , the full monty 5 plate gas/electric stove purchased by us yesterday. So excited. And now off to rip out some cupboards in our kitchen to make space for it!

green with ... boredom

The inside cover of the latest edition of one of my favourite magazines features a two page ad for Plascon paint. The left side is dominated by the following:

Green
is the new mainstream. Once a global
issue taken on by the few,
it has now come home.

Literally.

No way.

Really? The new mainstream? When, pray tell, did that happen? What ground-breaking news!
To anyone who’s been in a coma for the last 5-10 years!

YAWN.

Frankly I find this kind of shit so insulting on many levels.

A) please don’t pretend that you’re cleverer than me,

B) please try and display a little more creativity than trotting out the same tired ‘green is the new black’ line, and

C) please try and remember there’s a global environmental crisis on the scale of a Spielberg disaster movie playing out in our backyard and manipulating that to sell products such as PAINT is just not a clever marketing move.

Especially when reading on (which I can’t help doing ‘cos I love a little anti-marketing self righteousness as much as the next guy)...

Recycling, saving energy, choosing
organic, preserving the planet, it’s
all about embracing nature and
discovering innovative ways to live.

Yada yada yada.... and then the kicker:

Our Plascon Palette of 2009 is filled
with colours that mimic nature and 
bring its life-giving energy to the
home.

Oh. My. God.

I was at least expecting to read, at the end of this depressing marketing wank, that Plascon paints have become more eco-friendly. That they were ‘discovering innovative new ways’ to make paint, that they were all about ‘embracing nature’.

But no, seems it’s the same old paint, just in hues to make us feel all chummy and green. Like smug little eco-warriors in the comfort of our own (exquisitely painted) homes.

Paint to do for us what dreadlocks did for those first brave souls chaining themselves to trees in the Amazon and the like.

Goddamn sometimes I get depressed at the state of the world. As if looming environmental doom wasn’t enough to worry about...

smallmagazine.net

[Deep and delicious sigh of blissful satisfaction] 

Guys, check this out. Truly is this not the most beautiful childrens media you've ever seen? Children, and their products, toys etc, beautifully and intelligently created, styled and designed to entice the real spenders, us. The beautiful and intelligent parents with an eye for design.

I am so sick of being sold children's stuff in a cutesy way, everything with twee names and ads full of tweelittleshitlooking kids. Cute kittens on tins may sell cat food; if you like your own cat you're probably a cat person, but having your own child in no way automatically endears you to other children, or indeed the whole concept of 'childhood' as advertisers often try to sell it. Primary colours, shit-eating grins, mindless slogans.

Hellllooooo, I'm still the consumer I've always been. Different products maybe but I'm as intolerant of bullshit as ever.

Once again, altogether now: "Just could we had children doesn't mean we became one." God.

So ja, www.smallmagazine.net - wow wow wow!

 

  

bumper cars. I mean chairs. Er....

So I've got this little thing about chairs right? You know how some people have a thing about shoes? Well I got that too, but also chairs.

People warned me that once I had a kiddie I'd want to buy cute shoes for her too. Turns out its the same with chairs. And the cool part - kiddie's shoes, and chairs, are much cheaper than adult ones.

Sooo, cutting to the chase.... Imagine my delight when I recently spot some really cute kiddie's chairs in an interiors mag, then discover they're stocked by Mr Price Kids, then read on to find they're really affordable and then, and this never happens, I phone my closest branch and they have them in store! They're called Bumper Chairs, come in fab colours and MrPK is running a special - 4 chairs plus table cheap cheap!

Off we dash to purchase chairs and everything's going swimmingly until, on the way home, I rear-end someone.

Luckily it wasn't too serious, luckily the nice old guy I drove into had a big fat bumper with tow-bar which luckily connected with my number plate leaving his car unscathed, and mine ok but for this:

The funny part? Getting home to tell Husband the story, he looks up from his computer and says; "Bumper chairs huh?".

Yup, seems so.

But how cute are they?