Read All About It.

Headline Stories at Sparkly Street, since the last post:

• MISTER FIXIT QUITS ANNOYING JOB TO RETURN TO HIS TRADE •



This is definitely a good news story.  The Warehouse Manager job that he left was driving Fixit crazy. It was stressful, badly paid, physically tiring and gave him no job satisfaction.  It was the job he got after he was retrenched from his Airline Mechanic job, and he took it so we could pay our rent. At first it seemed okay; they realised he was a good worker and they appreciated him, which was good for his self-esteem after retrenchment. But it gradually became quite toxic, and he was hating the job and his employers (family business, high staff turnover, no actual systems to run things properly, you get the idea...). He started looking for work back in the industry for which he had qualifications, and despite there not being a great deal on offer, he came very close to getting an airline job. At the last minute they said they had to give precedence to mechanics working for the company in casual positions. The logical step at that point was to apply for a casual job so that he could be back in the system again, and hope for the best when permanent jobs came up again. He's been a casual employee since June, working 4 night-shifts in a row with 4-day rests in between. It's not perfect (no sick leave, no holiday pay, no job security) but it's better. 

• FIXIT FAMILY ADJUSTS TO HAVING DAD WORK NIGHT-SHIFT •

 

The cat thinks the new arrangement is pretty good. On night-shift blocks there is nearly always a human in the big bed to cuddle up with. I'm enjoying seeing more of Fixit - we get to hang out and go for coffee dates during daylight hours. Also, he is contributing more to daily life.  The kids, particularly Climber, have had to step up on the evenings that Fixit and I are both working (I teach 2 nights a week) so that we can manage getting them to and from their sporting/work commitments, (Climber has a job, he's a gymnastics coach!  Also: he has started shaving OMG.) but they're older now so we felt confident that they could do this. I've been very proud of them. They catch public transport or ride their bikes, and then they get themselves off to bed. They're good boys. None of it is unmanageable, it just calls for forethought and organisation.  It's good that we now live so much closer to everything, certainly makes a difference. Fixit is coping remarkably well with staying awake all night. I don't think I'd cope nearly as well at all. Still. It would be good to win the lottery so he could give up work and spend his time pottering round the shed and likely being a neighbourhood handyman.



• STOMPER GIRL GOES TO CRAFT CAMP (AGAIN) •



Mid-winter craft camps are best.



A whole 4 days away from the daily grind. Comfort food, woodfires. No insects. This year I got to meet Tracy in person after years of blog friendship; we found each other to be just as we'd imagined. I suspect that means we have our online voices right. I was awarded the Princess Room, which is the one where you don't share with anyone and you get a queensize bed all to yourself. I made a rhubarb and apple pie for my turn at the cooking.

As for my crafting, I had two successes and one failure. Success #1 was an Orphan Annie frock (adapted from the Clothkits Tea-Dress) for a fancydress party (We put a baldcap and a suit on Fixit and he was Daddy Warbucks).



The failure was a bias cut top with under-bust darts, the Curlew tank from the Merchant & Mills workbook.  The under-bust darts turned into weird side air pockets around my rib cage.  We think it's meant to be worn by women with a more ample bust. But then I made a Ruby top out of a tablecloth and all was well.



I love going away with my Crafty Friends.  More photos here.



• STOMPER GIRL BUYS THE BEST PAIR OF TAP SHOES EVER •



All the way from New York. Miller & Ben SporTaps. So good in every way.

• STOMPER GIRL IS EMPLOYED AS A PROFESSIONAL WUTHERING HEIGHTS INSTRUCTRESS •



This may need it's own post, but in precis I can tell you it was slightly bonkers but enormous fun, several thousand people on a perfect Melbourne day clad in red dresses and re-creating the dance from Kate Bush's song Wuthering Heights.

Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home and I'm so co-o-o-old.



• CHERUB BREAKS HAND IN FINAL GAME OF SOCCER SEASON •

Cherub's team was playing the top team in the league, and when one of the opposition players couldn't stop Cherub making one of his excellent runs with the ball, they resorted to a foul push which sent my poor lad hurtling to the ground.  The Ref said as he helped Cherub up they seem to be targeting you. Cherub landed on his fist with all his body weight on top.  He was awarded a free kick, but soon afterwards asked to come off and didn't play for the rest of the game.



You can tell its a break because the edges of the index knuckle, on the lift side, are not smooth and rounded, but slightly jagged. There was a also a wavy line -not visible here- in the middle of the bone where it had bowed at the point of impact.



We took him and his poor swollen hand to the Childrens' Hospital next day where they found a small break just below the knuckle, and he ended up with a splint and 6 weeks of showering with a plastic bag on his arm, no writing, no playing clarinet, and no gymnastics or swimming. He also had to miss playing with his school soccer team in the state finals. And then he came down with a virus/flu and was as miserable as I've ever seen him for 3 solid days, we assume because his immune system was concentrating on bone repair and couldn't fight the other nasties or because he'd been to a hospital and picked up something awful from there. Or both those things.



Good on you Fawkner, you dirty thugs.

At the End of Year presentations Cherub was awarded Best and Fairest for the season and I give you this picture to represent the highs and lows of sporting life: I call it Sling and Trophy



• FIXIT FAMILY FIND & RESTORE MISSING CAT •

This mini adventure felt like therapy for all of us, after the trauma of our own cat who went missing but never came home.

On a Sunday night Cherub heard cats meowing outside and we went to investigate, in case Basil was getting involved in a territory dispute.  A silver tabby saw us and ran off into the street, but at the time I did think his meows were strange, more hello can you help me than I hates your poncy cat.  The next day Fixit and I saw the Missing Cat sign, so I immediately rang and reported the sighting. We all felt really hopeful about re-uniting a lost cat with the worried owner, and were disappointed when the owners texted back saying they'd searched but hadn't found him. They also asked if we would catch him if we saw him again but as the days went by we thought we'd missed our chance.

Then on the Thursday night, Cherub ran down from the bedroom to say he'd heard the cat again. This time we grabbed some dried catfood and our cat-cage before we went out. Basil was looking mildly defensive (he was safely tucked between the wheelie bins, but he wasn't fluffed up and snarling) and the tabbycat looked at us warily. I could see he didn't want us to touch him but when we put some food on the ground he immediately came over to eat, and after many soft words and plenty of food and a bit of sneaking quietly round the back of him, I eventually got the cage lid on top of the kitty. Cherub sat on it to stop him getting out while Climber and I spent some time wrangling him into the cage with towels and trays and Cherub's one good hand.



The owner wasn't able to get to our house til late so the boys sat for a while keeping Juan company and we all hoped we had the right cat, and hadn't falsely kidnapped a non-lost feline.



At 11.30pm a very grateful young man arrived at our gate and confirmed that we'd captured the lost Juan. He was extremely apologetic about keeping me up so late and offered me money, but I explained that we didn't need rewarding because we'd lost a cat once and finding one for someone else had made us all very, very happy.  (He probably thought I was mad, but I'm just a good neighbour!) So he transferred Juan into his own cage and went on his way, texting me afterwards to thank us yet again.

We recently watched a documentary about cat behaviour and this experience did make we wonder about cat dynamics. Juan came to our house twice, so did he know that a house where another cat lives is a good option for a lost cat? And did Basil, who never behaved in a hostile way, recognise a fellow feline in distress?

PS. Last night the owners dropped round a very fancy looking bottle of wine as a thank you.



• WE FAREWELL THE FAITHFUL COROLLA •

My Dad has given us his old car which is in much better nick than my poor old beloved Corolla, and it's a stationwagon, which will be so handy for lugging stuff around, so I keep reminding myself that it's great news. But the truth is I'm a bit sad because I really loved my girly hatchback. I could park it anywhere, it was an automatic with aircon and four doors, which were my 3 prerequisites when I purchased a car in the lead-up to starting a family, the heater worked, the petrol economy was great, and the mechanic used to give it a fond slap after working on it and say Corollas, best cars in the world. What more do you really need? Sure, it didn't have cup-holders or button-click doors, and the driver window wouldn't wind up properly unless Fixit did it, and the stereo volume was stuck on full, and the rear windscreen wiper didn't work, but I was used to living with those things.  I must admit too, to a sneaking Luddite preference for car features that are mechanical rather than electrical or computer-chipped. They're easier to fix, especially if you have Mister Fixit in your life, and you'll never get trapped without air in a car that has an actual winding-stick for the window operation is what I'm saying.

But also, it was the car that I chose, a style that I'd admired when I'd seen others driving around, and one that I duly researched in the Trading Post before finding the model-I-wanted at the price-I-could-afford at a mansion in Toorak of all places. This was me on the day I bought him, sometime in 1998. He was extra awesome because the number-plate said FBI. That fact always made me happy.



And this was me yesterday, taking a last pic to remember him by. Eighteen years together. Sniff. I also re-read this post when I was looking for pictures and it made me smile. My Corolla was cool. It was probably the coolest car I'll ever own.




 Thank you for joining us for today's bulletin. Here is the Weather Report.

• WEATHER •

It's spring!  There is some sunshine coming into our house again.



* BONUS FEEL-GOOD STORY FEATURING CUTENESS •

It's a meerkat from the Childrens Hospital. Nnaww.

Baking, vouchers, beach and bikerides

We are having a very quiet holiday this January, due paartly to Fixit's mean employer not granting him any time off this month, and partly to financial restrictions.   I don't really like going away without Fixit anyway (except to Craft Camp/ Spa weekends with Jen and Astrid, obvs. that's totally different) but also, my car's steering is definitely dodgy, which means I don't want to drive anywhere too far away.  Specially on my own. We're at that point of working out whether we throw a lot of money at the old Corolla, or investigate a new car, which will mean even more money, a bank loan, research and just general botheration.  I will miss my car if we do this, I am very fond of it.  But on the other hand, I keep thinking how nice cupholders and keyless entry would be.  (Except when you leave your clicker in your shorts' pocket and it accidentally goes through the washing machine.  Then you can't drive, until the rice dries it out.  Ask Fixit if you don't believe me.)  Plus I have so much work I need to get done for my tap business, to do with the website mostly.  So even though my sister very kindly offered us the use of her house (she lives near the beach now) while she is away, we are opting instead to mooch around our house.


 Mooching boys in my faithful car.  Climber can't actually drive but he certainly looks the part.

The boys had a few Christmas vouchers so one day we went into the city to see what we could spend.   The expedition to Dymocks Bookstore to spend my Mum's gift vouchers was a success; both boys bought some Doctor Who paraphernalia, Fixit bought a fixitty How to Make Anything book, Cherub bought the latest David Walliams book (Awful Auntie), I bought More Fool Me by Stephen Fry and The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood and Climber bought a really good baking book (Baking Recipes and Secrets from Our Test Kitchen by The Women's Weekly) and we have so far made coconut macaroons, a spongecake and today we're trying the gingerbread cake.


Sponge cake, so good

Even the cat is benefitting from the baking book. 


Whipped cream, mmm.

We then went to to see what they could do with their Myer vouchers. Sadly, Cherub's are still burning a hole in his pocket owing to the traditional January Lego-Drought in All Major Stores (We've also tried Target and Kmart to no avail.  January is a terrible time of year to buy Lego.  It used to make buying for Climber's birthday a real pain). Climber chose to spend some of his vouchers on nice clothes, so I took him to the boys wear section (last year of getting him into boys wear I think, he is now taller than me even if I put on high heels) while Fixit took Cherub to the deeply disappointing Lego sections.  They saw this while we were there, a Lego replica of the MCG. Pretty impressive.



Cherub spent a few nights away from us in Queenscliff with his best friend.  He had a lovely time and came back tanned and fit from all the beach cricket.  Climber was very quiet while he was away, not unhappy but fairly introspective.  It was lovely seeing how much he came out of his shell when his brother returned.  They do get on so well.  Lots of laughing, lots of trying to make each other, and us, laugh.  It makes me so happy.



As always in January, Melbourne throws in a few +40 degree days to punish us. We were able to escape one of them by driving to Barwon Heads to see my Aunt and Uncle.  Cherub was very impressed with the recliner chairs.



We drove over the bridge to the awesome beach at Ocean Grove, where the waves are perfect for boogie-boarding.  Bliss.



The cool change arrived as were leaving so we travelled with it back to Melbourne.



Small expeditions aside, the days are mostly spent round the house, with me periodically encouraging the children away from the computer for some exercise. Or as Climber puts it forcing us to go on bikerides.

A Cupboard of One's Own

The Organisation that I hire my Tap Hall from finally let me have my own lock-up cupboard there. I'm ridiculously excited about this. Here's why.

See all this stuff?



That used to live in the Corolla's hatchback. And had to be unpacked and packed all the time.

But now, look! Space. For the groceries. Or school bags.



Three years I've hauled a boot full of boxes, shoes, t-shirts, hats, canes and other tappy paraphernalia. Now I can just unlock my Very Own Tap Cupboard. No more staggering out at the end of a class with loads of stuff. I can just lock it up and stroll out to my car, the one with all that space in the back of it. No wonder I was smiling like a Cheshire Cat yesterday.

NB. The bottle of coke is for making my floor non-slip and absolutely not for drinking. Ask Nell how she got the hole in her stomach lining if you want to know why. I mop the floor with the evil sugary addictive corrosive so-called "soft" drink mixed into hot water and detergent and it works quite well. A ballet-teaching friend of mine told me that tip, and when I said Wouldn't lemonade do? because I hate buying coke, she said No, it has to be coke. I did buy some very expensive fancypants anti-slip stuff recently and it is much better than coke. But while I save up for the next container of that, the best solution is mopping the floor between each class. It's taken me ages to work this out, but I'm pretty sure the slipperiness is caused by the tap plates leaving a metallic residue. I know, duh! All this time I thought I'd used the wrong paint. And if all else fails I also have an emergency can of hairspray which can be sprayed directly onto the tap-plates for instant grip and a bonus asthma attack.

Ce qui est chaud, ce qui n'est pas

Playing along with Loobylu

N'est pas:

• Internet being shaped to dial-up speed for nearly 2 weeks. I was of course blaming the children for overdoing it on Club Penguin but turns out when I looked at my usage stats my blowout day is Monday when the blameless children are safely at school. And the activity eating most of my bytes? Catch-up blog reading after the weekends. So it's your fault, bloggers. You and your fancy pictures.
• Rent going up, due to "market forces". I think "market forces" is a mean reason to up the rent. Especially when the real estate market in Melbourne is so massively inflated anyway. There's this unstated power-play thing going on which is that people NEED somewhere to live so we keep letting it be inflated. And, renters in Australia are treated like second-class citizens and can't get long leases like you do in Europe so landlords are allowed to put the rent up every 6 months if they want, by as much as they feel like. We aren't even supposed to put blue-tack on the walls. I know I'm acting like a baby about this in many regards because I chose not to be a wage slave and our rent is actually very cheap comparatively but I don't care. Market Forces my arse. Our rent is not cheap to us.
• The Corolla's alternator dying, causing 2 flat batteries in 2 days and then making us carless over the weekend. What was even more NOT-HOT was that when we had the flat battery at the pool after swimming lessons, the 2 young boofheads in the shmancy yellow convertible initially refused to give me a jump-start because they were in a massive hurry to get to A HAIRCUT APPOINTMENT. I tell this to people and they say youth of today I'm not surprised but I WAS surprised. I seriously thought they'd be glad to help. In the end, they thought better of it and came over and gave me the jump and I quietly put up with the high levels of patronising that accompanied it and said thanks, have a nice haircut as I left.
• Getting myself an internet filter thingo to make sure the kids don't stumble onto anything nasty and then finding I couldn't upload anything to Flickr or weigh in on Facebook. I've fixed the facebook side of things, but the only solution to the photo problem is turning it off while I upload. Apparently it's a known Mac /K9 problem.

Well, that was quite a lot of whinging wasn't it? Now for...


Chaud.

• Being unfazeable in the face of mini-crisis. The first flat battery was at 8am in the morning just as were leaving for Climber's dental check-up (no cavities!) and it takes 2 months to get a new appointment. So I ran next door and asked my neighbours if I could use their car for a jumpstart, and as he was baby-wrangling at that moment, I took his keys, drove the car down our skinny driveway, squeezed out the 2 inch gap between cardoor and house, rang Fixit and he talked me through doing the whole palaver on my own. Backed the neighbour's car back out the driveway without incident (have I mentioned I hate reversing?) thanked them profusely (we have lovely neighbours, both sides) and got to the dentist on time. Left the car unlocked and running the whole time (Fixit couldn't believe I did that but it had to recharge for 30 minutes, it was on a quiet street off a noisy main street and I could see it from the waiting room) and then got the kids to school at 5 minutes after the bell which meant we didn't even have to sign the late book. And my battery was fully charged again. Let me tell you that I swaggered into coffee with Elda feeling pretty impressed with myself.
• Having a Mister Fixit for a boyfriend. He took the day off Monday, took the busted alternator out of the car, dropped it into an auto-electrician's, picked up a working alternator at 3.30 and had the car ready for me to drive to tap that night. Which was a good thing, because I wasn't really keen on coming home in the dark on the tram with my stereo equipment and my takings, call me crazy.
• Fixit getting through to the last round of the Epic Never-Ending Job Application. They rang him today. His final step is the face to face interview (out comes that suit again) which will be next Wednesday. Last week I was completely confident that he'd make it through, but when the phone stayed silent so long we both (separately and tacitly) gave up hope. When he texted me this morning I was Christmas shopping at ToysRUs and I was so relieved I all but burst into tears. Fortunately I was able to pull myself together, because otherwise it would have been me and the thwarted 2 year olds carrying on like pork chops, and that just would have been embarrassing.
  

Corollas are slightly cool

After watching several episodes of Top Gear and listening to Jeremy Clarkson espouse the coolness of Aston Martins and Zondas, Climber began to question us: Toyotas are quite cool, aren't they? Umm, no sorry sweetie. But Toyota Corollas like ours, they're a bit cool? I'm regretful and Fixit is chortling. Nay, scoffing. No sweetie, sorry, definitely not. It's a really good car for getting a tricky carpark, it's reliable and easy to drive, but erm .. no darling, not cool. Climber takes it quite well. Like me, he has an emotional attachment to good old Claude Corolla and has been known to get a bit tearful at the prospect of selling it for a station-wagon (still on our to-do list) so maybe he doesn't really believe us. Deep down, I'm not actually convinced that I believe us, because I thought my car was way cool when I first bought it and not just because it had an FBI licence plate. I mean, look, is that the face of a chick who's just brought home an uncool car? I think not. Ten years later, my opinion hasn't changed that much. Climber may have picked up on this, the fact that I don't care what Clarkson thinks. Or Fixit, come to that.

Being cool, it's so subjective. I didn't think that I was at all cool in high school - too scrawny, too fair-skinned, too red-headed, and a teacher's pet and A-grade student to boot. But then, I know my stocks went up after each performance in the school plays, so maybe I was cooler than I thought. These days I think why on earth would I care whether the bogans at my high school thought I was cool, what sort of recommendation would that be? See? Subjective. I'm at peace with my personal level of coolth these days. To some people I might look a bit cool, to others I'm a hopeless loser. What can you do? I yam what I yam. I'm pretty happy in my own skin these days, I generally like where my life is at, and only fear the derision of others once a month when the hormones take over.

At a time when I might have been expected to abandon pretensions to coolness because cool is for the young and hip, the whole issue is cropping up again. At least this time I'm not a hormonal teenager wondering if I'll ever get a boyfriend and having meltdowns because I'm wearing the wrong style of trousers to school. This time, I'm a mother to a boy who is beginning to grapple with the whole concept and this means I can just observe it, I don't have to live it. Also, my cool stakes, as far as the Climber is concerned, are just about as good as they'll ever be. He's still young enough to think Fixit and I are the duck's guts, doesn't really matter what we do.

Climber likes the concept of cool. And popularity, too. He is starting to aspire to coolness. Actually, I think (in my objective and unbiased way) that Climber is already quite the cool dude, with his shaggy blonde good looks and his laid back charm, and the way he carries off a size 4 teddy-bear dressing gown in Grade 2 on Pyjama Day. But he is just starting to sort all this out for himself. Thankfully, the fact that he now knows there is such a thing as being cool (and therefore also uncool) has not wrought any actual changes in him; he does not modify his appearance or his behaviour or his belongings in any way to improve his popularity or his image, unlike some of his peers. He's just thinking about it all. He is still young enough to adore his parents and does not see us as embarrassments and potential life ruiners. He knows I have a tap website and a blog, and that people visit and comment on my blog and he says you're quite popular, aren't you? with this look, almost pride in his eyes. I suspect he confuses web presence with, say, being in the newspaper or on television, but meantime, take heart you cool and popular bloggers, you! And let's see if he still thinks my blog is cool in seven years time, when I start telling the world about his teenage love life.

Recently, we had the Climber's best friend from school over, and when he went home he told his mother that he wanted to live at our place because it was so cool. His poor mother started to get a bit miffed after a while and told me she'd resorted to painting me as a very mean parental figure indeed to burst his bubble: Caroline's very strict, you know! And you'd never get to drink lemonade there! He weighed it up and announced that he was prepared to give up lemonade if only he could live at Climber's house. I don't take credit for the perceived coolness at our place, I know in his eyes it is due to Climber's presence and Climber's toys. Our house could never pass for cool in a grown-up's eye. It is a scruffy rental, full of flaws. We have second-hand, mismatched furniture which could never be gussied up for a style feature, not even one that advocated scruffy, mismatched décor. Our storage solutions are hopeless and bursting at the seams and I am a reluctant housewife, our walls are covered in laminated artworks by the children and alphabet charts. But Climber's friend loved it here, and now his mother is wondering what's wrong with her house. (Nothing, it's lovely, I've checked.)

So there you go. Cool: it's all in the eyes of the beholder. Just when I was starting to feel old and irrelevant, along came a couple of 7 year-old boys to make me think I'm really ace. And as for poor uncool Claude Corolla, don't you go listening to the likes of Jeremy Clarkson, because the Cherub announced this week he is going to give the new splat t-rex bike a name. He's calling it Toyota.