So can we expect temper tantrums and wobbly walking and cute talking? Maybe! I don’t know. I don’t think it relates well to human development. Bad metaphor. My blog is a libran.
In case you didn’t notice I have removed lots of pointless and fruitless advertising today. I have also reduced my tags to a little over a hundred. Not quite as reduced as I’d hoped, but still an improvement.
Right now I don’t know what to expect from anything. Exciting hey! Scary too. I think I am getting a little stir crazy, home alone. Tomorrow I am going to visit my brother and his family and take his kids out for a movie, or some junk food, or what ever it is little kids like these days. I love kids. They are fun and in the moment, just what I need. Yes, I am not a great Auntie, I’m doing this for me.
I am feeling much restored after spending the day mostly in bed. My mum brought me magazines, soup and bread. She’s a treasure. I am probably the only Victorian who doesn’t know who won the ‘Grand Final’ – I wonder how long that will last.
‘Rose by any other name’ by Maureen McCarthy
Maureen McCarthy read aloud the beginning of this novel to us at the Melbourne Writers Festival and I was hooked. I have devoured this book in a day. I could no longer resist it sitting in that pile next to my bed.
Remembering Young Adulthood
‘Rose by any other name’ is a novel I would recommend to all older teenagers about how life can get in the way of your plans and sidetrack you. I loved it as I remembered my first year out of school and how I went in every direction other than the clear and planned path. Sometimes the emotional upsets in our life drive us to seek escape from all the good and nurturing things in our life. They build a cranky outer shell that disguises who we really are from both the world and ourselves.
Unconditional Families
I loved this novel as a mother and a daughter. That tension between the mother and daughter that is so prevalent in my own mother/daughter and daughter/mother interactions. It was so realistic and funny and sad. Maureen McCarthy captures beautifully the pleasures and trails of belonging to a close family.
Rants
Sprinkled throughout the novel are rants about the things Rose hates, that she has published in a music magazine. My favourite:
“Don’tch just hate it… when you find out the all your dirty secrets are public knowledge? You go around thinking your life is private, that no one knows your business. Well, I’m here to tell you, you millions of multi-talented, meat-eating, hoodwinked, rock-loving Saucers, that not only do the banks, ASIO, the tax department and the credit companies have all your details on file, more than likely your family knows a lot more about your every move than you do. Yep,that’s right! Face it! Your mother reads your diary. Your siblings trawl through your emails. Your friends, hungry for contact with warm-blooded creatures after a day in front of the screen, spread your private confidences like preachers at a religious rally. Don’t blame them. Privacy is dead. Get used to it!……”
(pg 266)
And what a relief it is to have all our darkest guilty secrets and pains exposed and accepted. You try to save those close to you from the pain you experience, yet it is the pain of separation from them that is the real sin.
I really adored this novel. It contains so much emotionally; from the freedom and bliss of surfing, the joys of shared music taste, the intimacy of best girlfriends and sisters, the pain of betrayal, the vulnerability of being in love, the deep pain and anger of our most important people falling to human status, the discovery of loving the wrong person to the myriad of interactions that occur in relationships. It is a full and juicy novel.
Gone With the Wind
Helping my son with homework….
I must confess I have never helped my kids much with their homework. I don’t even check if they have done it. I believe it’s their homework, not mine. This weekend was an exception as Tom had to watch ‘Gone With the Wind
‘. I was delighted to get the movie and Andy, Tom and I watched it together. It was Tom’s first viewing so Andy and I provided some explanations for him about what was going on in it. There is some great information on the web about ‘Gone With the Wind’. I loved the novel too. I haven’t read the sequel though ‘Scarlett‘. I think I might though. 
A few surprises…
I was surprises by the things I had to explain, such as the concept of a ‘ruined’ woman who had gone unchaperoned and being ‘in mourning’ by wearing black. I guess I take for granted that those behaviours have disappeared.
My First Viewing
I remember the first time I went to see ‘Gone With the Wind’ with my mum, both grandmothers and Auntie Pat. It was probably my first of many nights out with the girls! I loved it and loved Scarlett. She was such a spirited woman. I have often used her line ‘I won’t think about that now. I’ll think about it tomorrow.’
I must confess I have never helped my kids much with their homework. I don’t even check if they have done it. I believe it’s their homework, not mine. This weekend was an exception as Tom had to watch ‘Gone With the Wind
‘. I was delighted to get the movie and Andy, Tom and I watched it together. It was Tom’s first viewing so Andy and I provided some explanations for him about what was going on in it. There is some great information on the web about ‘Gone With the Wind’. I loved the novel too. I haven’t read the sequel though ‘Scarlett‘. I think I might though. 
A few surprises…
I was surprises by the things I had to explain, such as the concept of a ‘ruined’ woman who had gone unchaperoned and being ‘in mourning’ by wearing black. I guess I take for granted that those behaviours have disappeared.
My First Viewing
I remember the first time I went to see ‘Gone With the Wind’ with my mum, both grandmothers and Auntie Pat. It was probably my first of many nights out with the girls! I loved it and loved Scarlett. She was such a spirited woman. I have often used her line ‘I won’t think about that now. I’ll think about it tomorrow.’