Lol

While cleaning up after dinner today, we (Mum, James, Sis and I) were discussing the possibility of Sis and I going to see Pirates III at the cinema. Mum accidentally said "Harry Potter" instead of "Pirates" (we're watching the first HP tonight), which prompted me to suggest that it was only a matter of time until there was a spoof called "The Pirates of Azkaban".

This led to . . .

"The Return of the Fellowship of the Parrots of the Pirates of Azkaban".

After pronouncing this we all caught the rhythm of it and chorused:

"But it's too late, because they just passed by!"

(cake for anyone who can name the song we were quoting)

I love my family!



Edited to add two things:

1. I've realised that this post probably makes no sense to anyone who wasn't there. Oh well!

2. My wonderful uncle (who leads a Labor Party sub-branch, the one that had the meeting at which I met the rather nice guy from three posts ago) . . . sent me the link to the Facebook of aforementioned nice young man. "Nice young man" is not too young for me! *squee* There is hope!

Bedtime now . . .

Aww Jemmy

Jem has just come home from her desexing operation, and she's a pretty sad and sorry-for-herself kitten. She seems a bit restless, and won't just settle in her bed and go to sleep (which I think would make her feel better, but what does "mummy" know? lol) but keeps wandering around the room then stopping and licking the stitched area. Poor muffin.

And I'm in trouble, because she passed water while I was driving her home, and instead of being absorbed by the towel she was sitting on, it all ran out of her box and into the carpet of Mum's car. As if I could do anything about it! So Mum's all cranky as if I'm an irresponsible teenager. I want to point out to her that this is my first cat, whereas she's had cats most of her adult life, and that because she knows best and since it was her car, she should have thought of the problem and pre-empted it . . . but I don't think that would go down too well lol. *sigh* I've cleaned it up, anyway, and despite Mum's unwarranted cynicism, I'm pretty sure it's all gone, as is all the other dirt and grime and whatever that Mum has never had cleaned out of her car carpets!

Time Warp

I've experienced several time warp moments recently - moments in which I was revisiting places and routes I haven't been to in a long time.

On Wednesday, I decided to get my WA College of Teaching registration in no matter what, which meant visiting both the University of Western Australia and Curtin Uni to get my academic transcripts. I went by bus to both, and in between I visited the school I'll be praccing at, which is in a suburb I lived in for a while. All three locations were places I hadn't been for a while, and I hadn't taken any of the bus routes for even longer. All very strange and time-warpy.

Then, today, I went with Mum to visit the high school that Sis may be going to in a year and a half. I went to that school for two years (1993-4), and although I haven't grown more than a couple of centimetres since then, I was astonished at how out-of-scale everything appeared. The gym was about a third the size I thought it was, and the lawn where my friends and I used to sit was much smaller as well. I guess I felt smaller back then, even if I wasn't!

The tour whisked us through at such a pace that I hardly had time to reminisce, but we did go through all of the buildings, new and old, and we happened to go through or past a couple of my old classrooms. I could still remember which desk I sat at in Year 9 Science! It's shaken loose a lot of memories, which is good as I have a reunion for that school this year.

It was nice to see the school again, and especially to see what they've done since I'd been there. They have a simply outstanding set of resources for art, IT, music and drama among other things, and they're starting an academic extension programme, so I think Sis (who is extremely bright, very artistic, has perfect pitch and loves computers . . . AND her hair is blonde and curly, don't get me started . . .) will be very happy there. It's the local school, so most of her friends will be going there, but there are three other "available" public high schools in surrounding areas as well as the academic-select school in Perth . . . so we had to make a decision. Well, I say "we", I have nothing to do with the decision except having an opinion lol. When it comes down to it, it'll be up to Sis, with Mum and James' guidance.

In other news . . . implants notwithstanding, my problems at the moment are clearly hormonal. About half a dozen big lumpy pimples have popped up on my otherwise rather good skin, and I only ever get those when hormones are involved. *sigh*

So very moody . . .

WTF is wrong with me at the moment? I can't seem to stay in a stable mood for five minutes together. I'm constantly feeling stroppy or cranky or just plain angry, and I can't figure out why. I'd say it was hormonal, except that I have a 3-year contraceptive implant so I'm not supposed to *get* hormonal, not in the usual time-of-the-month way anyway. Everything is just frustrating me and pissing me off and I can't seem to concentrate. And I burst into tears at the slightest provocation. Gaaaah!

I did a 900-word rewrite of the problematic first chapter of my novel yesterday, while sitting cheerfully at the cafe inside Borders bookshop. Yesterday it was great writing, but today I'm not sure I like any of it. And yesterday evening I had a great time at a Labor Party meeting and met a really nice guy, but today I'm just frustrated because he's probably too young and I've got no idea when I'll see him again.

I wish I knew what to do to shake myself out of this moodiness. I could go for a walk, except it's going to rain . . . 

Of course, it also isn't helping today that the apparently OCD woman next door won't stop goddamn vacuuming. The constant noise is making me want to tear my hair out.

*wanders off to contemplate flour-bombing the house nextdoor*

Jemima Update

Due to various problems with managing Jemima's life inside this house, she's made the transition to being allowed outside this week. I don't really like her being outside - it's not good for the wildlife - but there's no other way to handle things at the moment. We're on a half-acre block on a quiet street, so at least it's pretty safe for her.

She's been an absolute hoot - it's been raining on and off so it's very damp out side, and her initial explorations yesterday were punctuated with little remarks of disgust about the fact that she was getting wet.

I kept going to find her yesterday to see if she was ready to come inside, and she would first miaow to let me know where she was, then start plaintively miaowing because she didn't want me to pick her up and take her inside! She's thoroughly enamoured of the outdoors life and fascinated by everything. She only came in well after dark yesterday because it started to really pour with rain. Poor Jem came streaking up to the back door utterly drenched, and was very pathetic and cranky for about an hour until the combined forces of my towelling, her cleaning and the bedroom heater dried her off again. This morning she couldn't wait to go outside, and she ran away when I tried to bring her in again. She can use the cat flap (as long as the other cat doesn't ambush her, which she did this morning, grr) so she'll come in when she's ready, I guess.

I feel like a parent whose child has gone out alone for the first time. It's scary but rather rewarding as well lol.

Heh

Well, that didn't last long. I "played Mum" to Sis this morning by walking her to school and buying her new school trousers from the uniform shop, and as a consequence of encountering dozens of small children in the process, I'm now clucky again. Grr.

Of course, there are two other factors contributing to it: one, I'm working with a pregnant girl at the moment (who is my age, a constant reminder of what I don’t have), and two, there's a "guy of interest" at uni (who's been in 3 of my workshops all year, workshops that ended just after I realised that he was of interest. *sigh*). He’s the first real “guy of interest” since Daniel back in February so I guess the lack of cluckiness could also have been due to a lack of anyone to trigger the hormones lol.

My long prac (4 weeks from now) is with Year 1 students (aged 5-6), who are tiny enough as it is, and many will have baby / toddler siblings. I’ll warn you all now, my hormones will be rampaging over the 8 weeks of prac. I’m going to be teary and cranky and this blog is going to be flooded with sobby overloaded entries bemoaning my current childlessness. Fair warning, so be prepared!

Nearly there . . .

I'm blogging from the uni computer lab this morning - Mum had to be in early. It's 8am and I've got an hour and a half to kill until my class starts at 9:30.

I've got classes from 9:30-12:30 today, and then the semester really is over and apart from work I'm really, truly almost free for two weeks. *sigh of relief*

I'm not feeling so droopy now that relief is almost in sight - even though I have assignments to work on, it's still a break and I'll still be able to get to do what I want for a while.

I'm also excited, as the preparations for one of my two high school reunions this year is ramping up. Unfortunately it's on the same night as my uncle's wedding reception, but I'll be able to leave the reception at an early-but-still-respectful time and go across to the reunion, which is only a couple of streets away. This reunion is for the high school I attended for year 8 and 9 (then had to switch schools) and I'm very excited about seeing all of those people again. Especially as many of them are people I also went to primary school with.

And I've sent a contact email to the girl who's organising the reunion at my other high school. Unfortunately she really disliked me at school, so hopefully she won't be an idiot about it after so long and do anything stupid like give me the wrong date. Lol. I'm not quite so excited about that reunion, as there's fewer people I'm really interested in catching up with, but it'll still be good. I just hope to God that they don't choose the same date as the other one!

I will say one thing: 10 years isn't as long as it used to be!