Posts by Jolisa
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Come on, sausage, you can handle it! And being the first commenter is a great start to the new dawn of a truly wimmin-friendly Public Address.
(Sorry for earworm!)
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Gosh terribly sorry David. Did I forget to mention the fountainous arcs of poo? Can't think how that slipped my mind. It was utterly indelible at the time. (And for all I know, the current inhabitants of our first New York apartment are still working on it).
Pat yourself on the back though, and Jen, very cautiously, on the hard-working boobs. Barring his unfortunate digestive issues, Bob-Rodney is clearly some sort of genius baby. Neither of my boys ever managed to wee on their own heads.
PS By the way that's Doctor F*cking Lying Beyotch to you. You wanna Public Address Gangsta Parenting Rumble, bring it on! Playground, three o'clock, bring your blankie. Yo Mama'll bust you up, just as soon as I ... oh crap, gotta change a nappy. Can you pass the wipes?
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And a synthesiser called Roland! (Except in this case, Poland??!)
And the Tron style flying grid! Awesome. Those headphones are totally ELO. And Taika as the big money 80s businessman nodding as the EPs fly off the shelves... Love it.
The only thing it's missing is a cheesy narrative acted (badly) by the lead singer and some random girly. As immortally satirised here:
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Thanks for confirming the donation site, Tze Ming. And for the Chch details, Michael.
Stephen Fry's blog is priceless, but astonishingly long. Was he on a manic episode or something?
I read everything all the way to the end, and yet I practically needed Ritalin to get to the end of his posts! The man needs to get a day job.
...perhaps it takes a certain state of mind to write that much. I run out of steam at around 1000 words.
Always smart to leave 'em wanting more :-)
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And so from the Islamic state of Malaysia emerges this long simmering plot. Lucky the ever-watchful US citizenry uncovered it before the Hasheds got to unleash the second stage of their plan. (Throwing actual anthrax in large handfuls onto the streets?)
Oh yes, those wily Orientals and their cunning Teutonic conspirators. So, let's see... if you can throw one handful of anthrax every five seconds, and one handful is approximately two ounces, and you have a two pound bag of anthrax, exactly how long would it take to - cough - gasp - thud.
I realize now that I forgot to mention in the blog that Connecticut was one of the epicentres of the original anthrax freakout (domestic in origin! and unsolved to this day!). The letter that accidentally killed an elderly woman went through a post office about fourteen miles north of where I'm typing.
Which might explain some of the overreaction. I guess I should go back and add that in... although nobody officially mentioned anthrax on the day, they must have been thinking about it.
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OK, so I have to contribute now. I heard the news in a skanky Motel 6 somewhere along Rt 90. We were driving from Ithaca to Providence, to deliver Richard to his new gig at Brown University. It felt like such a long drive (what wimps we were in those days - last week we did 11 hrs straight with two kids in the car) that we decided to stop for the night.
It was close to midnight. I flicked on the TV, as you do in cheap motels - especially when you've been living without a TV - and the report of the crash was all over the news on CNN.
We watched for about half an hour as they talked grimly about how severe her injuries probably were, and all I could think was "Can you still be a princess with one leg? Can you be a princess with horrible scars? Can you be a princess with massive brain damage?" and so on. And then it became clear that it was all moot anyway.
I remember feeling absolutely gutted for her sons. And weirdly shaken that someone so monumental was mortal after all, just like the rest of us. It looks so banal written down but it felt huge at the time.
It was definitely a bigger deal for (young?) women, and quite a few gay men. My usually very level-headed flatmate and I made a little framed icon that hung in our kitchen for the rest of that year. And the funeral was taped for me by my friend Christopher, who woke up early to watch it himself.
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Later that year, our family and the larger Irish family up the road won a special prize in the Holy Cross Parish Fancy Dress Parade as "The Royal Wedding". I was Diana (I was blonde then),
Oh my god! I seem to remember I was Charles, on account of my long nose and superior height. And we had almost as many bridesmaids and flower girls as the actual wedding. Handy thing having big Catholic families. Another year we collectively went as Snow White and the Seven or Nine or possible Twelve Dwarves...
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Ta, Kowhai! You still in Japan?
Lisa, it took me a second to realise you meant a *sign* saying "poo in the pool", and not the act itself!
Great article, Rob - ta for the link. Guilty as charged, as a firstborn... married to a firstborn...mother of a firstborn.. and very glad to have our little revolutionary/convention-buster on board to shake things up a bit.
Of course, they say you should have a third child to avoid the perils of binary thinking. After reading that article, I wonder if it would perhaps also give the second child a natural ally?
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Jackie, I'm fascinated by the link to Moving Smart. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that there are multiple dimensions to being "smart" and learning. And also that different children will respond to different approaches.
This reminds me of a visit to my big boy's school earlier this year. They had a school dad from Guinea doing a drumming-and-dance session with several classes of kids in the gym. Awesome movement and music: his son was drumming (brilliantly) while the dad was showing the children the dance moves.
What caught my eye was one lad from my son's class, who is generally a spacy kind of kid, has a hard time settling down and following instructions. In the (stupid, IMO) 'traffic light' disciplinary system they run in this school, this poor guy is almost always 'on red' and thus missing out on play options and recess.
But there he was in the school gym, not only doing the dance moves and performing them with fluid genius, but he was getting them instantly, without even stopping to figure out which arm or leg to use or which direction to whirl around in. He and the dancing dad were entirely in synch. It was astonishing - especially against the backdrop of several dozen randomly uncoordinated little kids doing their best to keep up.
I looked around to make sure that someone, anyone, one of the teachers, was seeing what I was seeing: a child possessed of physical genius. A child routinely dismissed as unable to learn, and badly behaved. A couple did, which is heartening.
It's interesting to note that the boy in question is African American - so he's already fighting an uphill battle to make it through his first year with his self-esteem intact, let along make it through school in one piece.
I dunno where I'm going with this -- just in the general direction of a more flexible approach to "success" in the classroom, I guess. And a more intuitive and productive way of understanding children's behaviour and coaching them into the reading and writing that they will all need...
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Squerp'yens might be scorpions
Bingo! Scary whichever way you spell 'em!