The Motorbike and Comfortable Couch Ratio

Once upon a time, a family named Fixit moved into a house in Melbourne.

A kind friend asked them if they'd like a second-hand couch for their new house, because their Nan was going into a nursing home and didn't need hers anymore. So the Fixits were delighted and said Yes please. Unfortunately, nobody thought to check if Nan's Couch was comfortable first. Why would you, surely the whole point of a couch is that it is comfortable to sit on?

But whoever designed Nan's Couch was either very short, very stupid or a complete bastard. The couch had a monstrous hump right where a normal adult's neck would rest, which meant that when you sat on it, most of your body reclined on a backwards angle, except for your head and neck which were thrust forward by the stupid hump.

(Not such a huge issue for very short people)

The Fixit family, like many others, did not have huge disposable income so the problem of the uncomfortable couch was often discussed but never solved. They spent their evenings in the Grown-Ups' Room either perched on the lounge arms, lying vertically across it, or on the floor with their backs leaning up against it. Or just on the floor. Sometimes they (and their visitors) tried sitting on it the proper way but that never lasted long. However, the Fixits did reach an understanding that the desired ratio of comfortable couches to motorbikes owned by Mister Fixit would ideally be 1:1.

Time passed. The motorbike to comfortable couch ratio became 2:0.

Another year passed. The ratio blew out to 3:0...


...and Mister Fixit began to feel horribly guilty, but the time available to him to sort it out became negligible.

Finally after 5 years of sitting on Nan's Couch of Neck-Torture, Fixit managed to sell one bike.

More time passed.

But! a trip to IKEA was planned...

... and eventually the Fixit grown-ups found themselves in affordable furniture heaven. (Strangely though, in all his 40 years of life, Mister Fixit had never really absorbed the complete ramifications of the IKEA do-it-yourself philosophy and became more and more outraged at the lack of *service* therein. And Stompergirl, at first slightly worried that the motorbike money might go back in the wallet, was soothing towards his manly ire, but eventually couldn't stop herself from saying Dude that's the whole point of IKEA and why we can actually afford furniture from here and although the grumbling continued whilst he used his excellently good manly muscles to hoist sofas [and bookshelves and a chestofdrawers, they thought they'd go the whole hog] onto some trolleys, the transaction eventually went through)

The next day, the furniture was delivered, and Stompergirl put in a call to a churchy charity group who advertised that they took unwanted furniture away. She was a little bit unnerved by the what sort of condition is it in? questions from them, especially since her visiting nephew had got ink all over one of the seats, but she put that one at the back when the men rocked up, and the next thing she knew the World's Most Uncomfortable Couch was out of her life forever.


And on it's way to put someone else's neck into agonizing contortions but she really can't think about that now.

Ten Dot Points.

• The rostering system at Fixit's work sucks. They tell him his next week's roster, which could include evening or weekend work, three days prior. (And don't think he gets paid overtime for working crazy shifts or 91/2 hour days. Oh no.) This means I am now hosting the Mother's Group Christmas Party on my own. How anyone at that company is supposed to organise their Festive Season Social Life is beyond me.

• It is probably just as well that our Festive Season Social Life is restricted to kiddie events this year, like the Kinder Party on Thursday and the Grade 2 Party next week. Yep, that's it. Live it up, hohoho.

• Climber's Slapped Face Disease has almost left his face and he now has a lacy rash over his shoulders, arms and legs. There's no pain or discomfort, he's just a bit more decorated than normal.

• The boys are really getting into the nightly ritual of the advent calendar. We have those crappy commercial el-cheapo open the little door for a chocolate ones, but at least the Cherub got the Thomas the Tank Engine one, bought mid-November as I stood in a long queue at Toys R Us. At no point did I search out a suitably themed one for Climber, I did what I always do which is run into the local supermarket in a panic on November 30th, and grab the only option available which is always Blinky Bill. Not that I'm down on Blinky Bill but this is the 3rd year running that Climber has had that one. Luckily all he cares about is the chocolate inside.

• I say: Dinner's ready boysies and Cherub calls back: Okay we just have to destroy the bad guys first.

• The fact that I have not screamed abuse at or performed physical violence on Fixit and his very annoying hacky, phlegm-y noisy cough is testament to what a saint I am.

• I've just finished the Mary S. Lovell biography of the Mitford Girls and loved it. I suspect I will be searching out more things Mitford from now on. It was the perfect book to read hot on the heels of Brideshead Revisited. I now realise I need to own Love In A Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love; the library's versions which served in the past are now not good enough.
• I'm finding it very hard to buy presents for anyone who is not my child when I go shopping.

• The second of my happy swap cds arrived but our clapped out cd player wouldn't recognise it so I've only been able to listen to snatches of it through my computer's crappy speakers, when the kids would let me near. I'm working on it, but meantime thank you so much trixiejones and friends!

• I harvested the first broccoli from our garden:
  

Isn't it teeny-tiny? Fixit probably planted them too close together.

The Christmas Tree goes up.

You know what really says Christmas to me? Having a real tree at Christmas time. It's the smell of a pine tree in a loungeroom. Sure, they are messy, and wonky, and getting more and more expensive, but the smell! It brings me Christmas cheer.

We did some preliminary decorating when Fixit first brought the tree home. While he sawed off excess branches so we could fit it in a pot, I found some pretty fabric for the underlay and Cherub got the stuff together for a circular track round the outside.



Then we waited till after dinner and bath, and the whole family including Nell began the decorating process.



Nell is very good for tying fiddly string onto ornaments and unravelling tangled fairy lights. The boys are good at hanging baubles (up to a certain height of course), and Fixit is good for reaching up high and plugging stuff in. I float around filling gaps and directing operations.



Bertie Wooster, however, is good for nothing.



Climber took a hand in the photography, behind and in front of the camera. This is him doubling as a particularly rosy-cheeked elf. I'm pretty sure he has 5th disease (also called parvovirus or slapped face/cheek.) He's absolutely fine, and I would like to reassure everyone that no actual slapping was responsible for this face:



There was of course discussion about who should put the star on. Cherub had been eyeing it off ever since I bought it last week, and wasn't going to let any height requirements enter the agenda.



In the end we had a sort of mid-air passing ceremony so that both boys did the star. This montage shows the action, but in a strange order: basically start at the top on the right hand side and go down that column, then go the middle top and down then the left.



The Cherub was also facing health issues, he gagged on his dinner (he had this mean mother telling him to get on with it, just eat that last mouthful for goodnessakes) which caused him to bomit it back up and he was heard to repeat pathetically many times during that evening I don't like bomiting. Well, who does? And maybe just maybe the bomit wasn't all the faultmeanmother, as his guts have been acting up all weekend (causing me to thank my stars that he has finally learnt the ancient art of wiping his own bottom). Nell captured this last photo of us; rather than saying Happy Christmas! or even cheese! we are all saying Cherub farted!!, and if you look at his pleased but slightly guilty face you'll know it's true.

Making and Doing

I spent most of yesterday putting together my happy cd for Sooz's swap. It only took that long because of technical difficulties but I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I posted them this morning. Then I knocked up another one for Frogdancer in gratitude for services rendered vis a vis Wallace & Grommet. Sooz despite having a week of hell managed to get hers out so that I received my first cd yesterday, and I see that she and I have quite similar tastes and were probably knocking round the same gigs in our lives Before Children.



I ordered the WhipUp calendar, featuring two of my favourite bloggers Poppalina and Ric-Rac, and that arrived in all its beauty this week. I just need to find somewhere to hang it because the other calendar spot is right in the cooking prep area, and poor old Leunig '08 is covered in splatters. Purchase of the calendar entitled me to a new member discount at Red Bubble so I have ordered a present for Fixit from there which I can't tell you about yet, but I think it will be really nice.

Finally, the boys and I made the Christmas cards! See, I craft. Once, sometimes twice a year...



I found the idea and tutorial at this awesome site, and I am so chuffed with how beautiful the results are. They were also so simple and fun to make...



...that I decided to make gift tags as well..



Now for the shopping. Have I mentioned how much I love the internet? I've already done some online purchasing and it beats the hell out of shlepping round a Shopping Centre.

Pardon?

We were sitting at the dinner table tonight and our conversation with the Climber was getting quite animated, when out of nowhere a small doleful voice announced no-one listens to me. And a small doleful Cherub-boy leant his face into his hand, and looked glumly at his plate. There was a moment when both Fixit and I sat frozen, just looking at our small son, while we replayed the conversation in our heads and realised he had been trying to interject without success. We then added insult to his injury by bursting into surprised laughter, but we reined ourselves in and asked him to tell us what he'd said.

The thing is, we're so used to him being our happy-go-lucky baby that we forget he's growing up, and getting more complicated. So sometimes he has to remind us. He's only got 5 (five!!) more days left at kinder, and he's just spent the last few weeks attending Transition programs at school. (School!!!) See the new school bag and school hat on that big boy there?



Sorry bubsy. I will try harder to listen to you.

All I Want For Christmas

The Climber's Third Ever Letter to Santa:

Dear Santa
May I please have a rubix cube, slinky and Any 3 in 1 creator lego set please.
Love from Climber.

(previous letters to Santa from Climber here)

The Cherub's First Ever Letter to Santa

DEAR SANTA
I WOULD LIKE MIGHTY MAC FOR CHRISTMAS.
WITH HOOKS PLEASE
FROM CHERUB

(I wrote it out for him to copy. Please note that my template was written in straight lines.)

(Oh, and Santa? Just in case you don't accept letters posted on the internet, we have also sent you a hard copy via Snail Mail. We just sent it to Santa Claus, North Pole. Hope that is okay. We're hoping Australia Post isn't too stringent about the postage costs, we posted 3 letters for the sum total of 95cents, would that cover it do you think?.. )

You say potayto and I say potahto

You may have guessed, from my predilection for dance and drama and writing that I'm Humanities Girl. Not Maths / Science Girl. And definitely NOT Engineering Girl. This is not to say that I did not do well at those subjects when they formed part of my curriculum (well engineering was never there but I was pretty good at maths and science. If you don't count calculus and physics, and why would you?) It's just that, given the choice, my interests lie on the arty-farty side of the brain. Whichever one that is, I always forget. Once stuff gets a bit technical I lose a lot of focus. This is why I suspect knitting and I will never be great friends, because if I try to read one of those fancy patterns I immediately feel my brain fuzz over. It's not that I'm dumb, but let's face it, I am more given to creative flights of fancy than technical analysis.

So I don't know why Mister Fixit thinks I want to hear all about the mechanical stuff he did at work. Or TAFE (trade school). I'm starting to dread TAFE weeks to be honest (and not just because poor Fixit gets so angry about the incompetency of pretty much everything or everyone involved in the schooling process - which of course comes home to roost with us, his loving and -mostly- competent family.) No, I dread TAFE weeks because Fixit's method of processing new information is to talk it out. He has to regurgitate in his own words to understand; it's just the way he learns. This has been vaguely annoying, but when the subjects were easy (like say maths, which he already knew, or Human Factors, which is common sense) he didn't feel the need to bang on about it so much. Recently, however, they had to cover Year 11 Physics in the space of 3 weeks and he had a lot to wrap his head around. The upshot of this was that he spent a fortnight trying to teach me physics and I don't want to be mean or anything but : I DON'T WANT TO LEARN PHYSICS!

I acknowledge that it is important and would probably be very helpful in day-to-day life but I already have too many things to think about and..

.. I DON'T WANT TO LEARN PHYSICS!!
It makes my brain bleed. Also, the day I decide that Aircraft Mechanical Engineering really IS my cup of tea is the day I sign up for my own apprenticeship, meanwhile I don't really want to learn it second-hand. Call me crazy.

Do people wonder what we see in each other? A typical after-work conversation at our house goes like this:

ME: (sitting quietly doing something absorbing like reading your blogs or playing online scrabble)
FIXIT: (walks past and stops) Oh, you should have seen, at work today we had to dismantlelandinggearstripbackwingtipblahblahblah.
ME: *thinks* can he not see I am busy? Still, better be polite.. Oh right.
FIXIT: It was a prick of a thing. The guy Philip who was the leading hand [inserts a whole lot of information about Philip that I couldn't care less about]
ME: (eyes straying back to computer screen or book or newspaper) Mhm hmm...
FIXIT: Anyway, he got us to pull out the blahblahblah and there was this blahblahblah. (wanting me to understand, because to him stuff like that is Very Interesting and Important to the Anecdote:) You know how a blahblahblah goes blahblahblah?
ME: (sensing an answer is required) *thinks* No Yes.
FIXIT: Well, the blahblah goes into the blahblah like this (demonstrates)
ME: (nods intelligently)
FIXIT: Yeah, so then we had to blahblahblah ad infinitum...

... which goes on to the end of the blahblah while I keep trying to make my eyes look at him and interject appropriately. It usually winds up with me trying to connect the only way I know how, by contextualising it on an emotional level ie Was that annoying? or Gee I bet that was frustrating. Or with him realising my eyes have glazed over and saying good-temperedly I don't know why I bother talking to you! or more snarkily Would you pay more attention if I put a computer screen round my head?

I, of course, never say anything boring to him.