Peaceful Sunday morning.
From my chair here at the kitchen table I can see the sun shining outside beyond the shaded deck, the gilt of the pre-noon sun making the greens of the garden even greener thanks to a wetter than usual summer. The sky's a soft pale blue, not the usual brazenly glorious blue that you just want to dive into. Today's sky has a slight haze and the temperature's cooler than the oven-like conditions during the week.
The kitchen's a mess. Remnants of last night's rather lovely bottle of Marlborough Sauv Blanc, a couple of glasses, spoons from when we shared some ice cream straight from the carton while watching a late movie, condiments, a dirty blender jug from breakfast and the kitchen table containing the minituae of daily life - newspapers, magazines, telephones cameras laptops glasses pens cds posters for Fringe. I told you it was messy.
The only sounds are that of the birdsong outside and the occasional huffing sigh from one of the three sleeping dogs.
Its very peaceful.Out there.
Meanwhile inside my head the world is whirling: edit the standup for the show (again), learn it (better), learn the script, tidy up, do the washing, get some dusting done, get something ready for tea, do some exercise, send out more publicity stuff for the show, what am I forgetting, there must be something I'm forgetting, think think think.
And so it goes on, for at least 16 hours a day, and much of the 8 that I sleep, I suspect, as I go from world to world not quite able to keep up in that one, and only slightly less cack handed in this one.
Perhaps its the remnants of the virus I had this week that's making its way through my workplace, sending us all dizzy and cramping.
But its probably not. These are the usual conditions inside my head.
Why can't I absorb the peace of my surroundings? Perhaps I need to develop a more 'fuck it' kind of attitude.
Ah well. I suspect I'm not the only one with whirling brain syndrome, virus present or not. Chances are you have it too. What's the solution?
Well, I heard when i was a child that in Iceland television was dead on Thursdays. There was no TV service at all to allow families to spend an evening together hopefully communicating.Maybe we could have a kind of 'time out' day to kick back and relax?
Oh dur, I've just realised that we do. Its called Sunday.
I think this is where I came in...
Have a good week!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Stop The Brain Spinning
Its 23 January and a significant date in a couple of ways.
First, its my lovely husband's birthday and so very special because of that. I never knew that two people could fit so well together, that even when we're doing different things in different parts of the house, it feels so much better just knowing that he's there. We'll celebrate two years of marriage this year and its funny, it still feels new while at the same time it feels like we've been together a million years.
In another way its a significant day as we've taken one more step in bringing Three Stuffed Mums - both the show and the brand - out into the real world. We had coffee this morning with one of our superb Fundbreak supporters, Linda. We met in the coffee bar and within a few minutes you'd have thought we were old friends. conversation flowed easily and happily with many laughs. Its good when you meet people who are so easy to be with - makes you feel like you're in the flow.
And the third way that today is significant is that it means we have only three weeks and five days until the show opens. Heavens, its been so long in the planning and production that it's actually going to be real! Our songs and our comedy, married into a brand new show and a new outlook on what we're doing with our performing careers - what a blast!
So, I'm going to tootle off just now to see if I can stop my brain spinning for a while. Hope y'all have a great week!
First, its my lovely husband's birthday and so very special because of that. I never knew that two people could fit so well together, that even when we're doing different things in different parts of the house, it feels so much better just knowing that he's there. We'll celebrate two years of marriage this year and its funny, it still feels new while at the same time it feels like we've been together a million years.
In another way its a significant day as we've taken one more step in bringing Three Stuffed Mums - both the show and the brand - out into the real world. We had coffee this morning with one of our superb Fundbreak supporters, Linda. We met in the coffee bar and within a few minutes you'd have thought we were old friends. conversation flowed easily and happily with many laughs. Its good when you meet people who are so easy to be with - makes you feel like you're in the flow.
And the third way that today is significant is that it means we have only three weeks and five days until the show opens. Heavens, its been so long in the planning and production that it's actually going to be real! Our songs and our comedy, married into a brand new show and a new outlook on what we're doing with our performing careers - what a blast!
So, I'm going to tootle off just now to see if I can stop my brain spinning for a while. Hope y'all have a great week!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Sending Love Across the Ages
Can love be sent across the ages?
Can strength and healing be sent back in time?
Something has happened this week that's made me desperately want this to be possible.
Having just dipped my toes into the whole genealogy thing, looking at my family mainly from their time in the late 1800s in Donegal, their move to Glasgow and subsequent generations, has been a revelation.
By what seems sheer chance I've been put in contact with a cousin I never new I had (hi John!) - a grandson of my grandfather's sister.
It seems the genealogy bug had also hit John and he's amassed an amazing amount of information, but one episode stands out and is particularly heartbreaking.
My grandfather Thomas was the eldest in the family. By the time he married my grandma in 1917 his youngest siblings were still young. His mother had died and soon afterwards his father died leaving Bridget (11) and young John (10) as orphans - that's them in the photograph below with my great grandmother Margaret Gallen, Sarah and Mary at the back, and in the front row, Bridget and John.
From what we can see of the documents my grandparents applied for some relief to the responsible body, saying they were happy to have the children with them but they would need some help as their total earnings were little more than two pounds a week - not much to house, clothe and feed five people, as a baby had appeared by then.
It seems the request for relief was refused and the children were taken and sent to the poor house.
Not much is known after that bar a few notes on the official documents that John found (and wisely advised my sister and I not to read them at work).
On Bridget there isn't much. Some papers later say that she bore a male child in 1929 at Stobhill Hospital. There is a record that he was baptised but no name and no birth certificate found as yet, and certainly no marriage certificate - she was still listed as McGinty, our family name.
On John, when he was admitted he was diagnosed as being 'mentally defective' and 'feebleminded'. This poor wee boy who'd lost his parents and now was taken away from the rest of his family - even his sister. Of what happened to them later, John seemed to catch TB and was discharged from hospital back to the guardianship of the state as a 'mentally deficient' in 1925 and he died in 1940 at the age of 32 of 'acute pleurisy and myocardial insufficiency'. We don't know as yet what became of Bridget.
The thing is. I knew I had photos of John and Bridget and this weekend I searched them out as they were pics of them as adults. I'd looked at them before with interest but now, knowing their story, well, quite a few tears were shed. There were photos of them as adults, but I also discovered some of them as children too and I just wanted to grab them and take care of them myself, but all I could do was a bit of useless weeping.
So, if by some miracle of deity or science there is a way of sending love and comfort to two little children over the distance and time back to 1917 at 61 Oran Street, Maryhill, Glasgow, then please do that.
Can strength and healing be sent back in time?
Something has happened this week that's made me desperately want this to be possible.
Having just dipped my toes into the whole genealogy thing, looking at my family mainly from their time in the late 1800s in Donegal, their move to Glasgow and subsequent generations, has been a revelation.
By what seems sheer chance I've been put in contact with a cousin I never new I had (hi John!) - a grandson of my grandfather's sister.
It seems the genealogy bug had also hit John and he's amassed an amazing amount of information, but one episode stands out and is particularly heartbreaking.
My grandfather Thomas was the eldest in the family. By the time he married my grandma in 1917 his youngest siblings were still young. His mother had died and soon afterwards his father died leaving Bridget (11) and young John (10) as orphans - that's them in the photograph below with my great grandmother Margaret Gallen, Sarah and Mary at the back, and in the front row, Bridget and John.
From what we can see of the documents my grandparents applied for some relief to the responsible body, saying they were happy to have the children with them but they would need some help as their total earnings were little more than two pounds a week - not much to house, clothe and feed five people, as a baby had appeared by then.
It seems the request for relief was refused and the children were taken and sent to the poor house.
Not much is known after that bar a few notes on the official documents that John found (and wisely advised my sister and I not to read them at work).
On Bridget there isn't much. Some papers later say that she bore a male child in 1929 at Stobhill Hospital. There is a record that he was baptised but no name and no birth certificate found as yet, and certainly no marriage certificate - she was still listed as McGinty, our family name.
On John, when he was admitted he was diagnosed as being 'mentally defective' and 'feebleminded'. This poor wee boy who'd lost his parents and now was taken away from the rest of his family - even his sister. Of what happened to them later, John seemed to catch TB and was discharged from hospital back to the guardianship of the state as a 'mentally deficient' in 1925 and he died in 1940 at the age of 32 of 'acute pleurisy and myocardial insufficiency'. We don't know as yet what became of Bridget.
The thing is. I knew I had photos of John and Bridget and this weekend I searched them out as they were pics of them as adults. I'd looked at them before with interest but now, knowing their story, well, quite a few tears were shed. There were photos of them as adults, but I also discovered some of them as children too and I just wanted to grab them and take care of them myself, but all I could do was a bit of useless weeping.
So, if by some miracle of deity or science there is a way of sending love and comfort to two little children over the distance and time back to 1917 at 61 Oran Street, Maryhill, Glasgow, then please do that.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Change No One But Yourself
Well, we've had Christmas and we're in that lull between then and Hogmanay, or New Year's Eve as most people here in Oz call it.
For the first time in ages I'm having holidays between the two celebration days, and its lovely. Usually when I have holidays I'm either traveling or in a show (and sometimes both). This time its just lovely to have days to do nothing, or do something if you feel like it. So far the house has suffered my extra energy and some massive tidying up and clearing out has been happening. Lots more needs to happen but its a start.
We resisted the manic aspect of Christmas and chose to have a quieter day of our own design. Funnily enough we managed to see most of both of our families between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, and in a much more satisfying one to one way than the usual wild-eyed panic way that often happens on the big day.
I've managed to find time to sit and stare, which is one of the most recuperatve exercises ever, I've finished a book I've had for ages (reading it, not writing it), written some standup for February, juggled the Teenager's Maccas work schedule chauffeuring requirements, drunk some lovely wine, eaten some great food and had plentiful time to hang out with my gorgeous husband.
New Year's Eve will be similarly and deliberately quiet with just a gentle thanks being felt for all the good things we have.
2011 is going to be an awesome year - I can feel it in my bones. With us Three Stuffed Mums just getting started, the learning curve is just getting steeper, but with two such excellent companions on the journey as Kate and Kehau its more like fun than work. Our backing tracks are almost complete thanks to Mike and we're practicing like crazy.
Its so difficult for women - especially women over 30 to see their lives reflected back in a positive way from the the media and that's the imbalance we want to help address.
Its ok be you, to enjoy your life and your age whatever that may be. If you're a mum, whatever you and your kid are going through, its probably pretty normal and a bunch of us have gone through it before.
If we can laugh about it, it ceases to hold power over us. If we can talk about it, maybe together we can solve it. Whatever it is that's bugging us, just getting together with a group of women to talk will unearth so much wisdom. The media and business world aren't too interested in that wisdom, but it's there for us and we just need to find our own ways to channel and distribute it. It used to be that there were grannies, mums,aunties and sisters about to create that support group but its not so prevalent now and so many women, especially new mums, can become isolated. And that's what Three Stuffed Mums is pretty much about. We live our lives, we bring up kids, we make mistakes, we learn from that and we have a laugh about it.
Anyway, we're heading towards the new year, so I'll just say this: I wish you the best of all that you wish for yourself in the coming year. To quote from someone else that I know;
"Keep close, spread love and change no one but yourself."
Happy New Year everyone.
For the first time in ages I'm having holidays between the two celebration days, and its lovely. Usually when I have holidays I'm either traveling or in a show (and sometimes both). This time its just lovely to have days to do nothing, or do something if you feel like it. So far the house has suffered my extra energy and some massive tidying up and clearing out has been happening. Lots more needs to happen but its a start.
We resisted the manic aspect of Christmas and chose to have a quieter day of our own design. Funnily enough we managed to see most of both of our families between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, and in a much more satisfying one to one way than the usual wild-eyed panic way that often happens on the big day.
I've managed to find time to sit and stare, which is one of the most recuperatve exercises ever, I've finished a book I've had for ages (reading it, not writing it), written some standup for February, juggled the Teenager's Maccas work schedule chauffeuring requirements, drunk some lovely wine, eaten some great food and had plentiful time to hang out with my gorgeous husband.
New Year's Eve will be similarly and deliberately quiet with just a gentle thanks being felt for all the good things we have.
2011 is going to be an awesome year - I can feel it in my bones. With us Three Stuffed Mums just getting started, the learning curve is just getting steeper, but with two such excellent companions on the journey as Kate and Kehau its more like fun than work. Our backing tracks are almost complete thanks to Mike and we're practicing like crazy.
Its so difficult for women - especially women over 30 to see their lives reflected back in a positive way from the the media and that's the imbalance we want to help address.
Its ok be you, to enjoy your life and your age whatever that may be. If you're a mum, whatever you and your kid are going through, its probably pretty normal and a bunch of us have gone through it before.
If we can laugh about it, it ceases to hold power over us. If we can talk about it, maybe together we can solve it. Whatever it is that's bugging us, just getting together with a group of women to talk will unearth so much wisdom. The media and business world aren't too interested in that wisdom, but it's there for us and we just need to find our own ways to channel and distribute it. It used to be that there were grannies, mums,aunties and sisters about to create that support group but its not so prevalent now and so many women, especially new mums, can become isolated. And that's what Three Stuffed Mums is pretty much about. We live our lives, we bring up kids, we make mistakes, we learn from that and we have a laugh about it.
Anyway, we're heading towards the new year, so I'll just say this: I wish you the best of all that you wish for yourself in the coming year. To quote from someone else that I know;
"Keep close, spread love and change no one but yourself."
Happy New Year everyone.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
The Man with the Van
There's an ice cream van that comes to our area every Saturday afternoon.
The guy driving it is obviously someone who is unclear on the concept of ice cream vans, given that the idea is to pick a good spot, play your tune through the speakers as you approach it, stop there and wait for your punters to rock up for a sugar hit.
The guy on our local Mr Whippy hasn't quite made that connection. You can hear him for the entire afternoon going around the area with an alternate selection of Home on the Range/Greensleeves playing, but he never freaking stops!
He's just raced up our street with a blast of Greensleeves, got to the turning point, done a 180 and raced back down again with Home on the Range going like the clappers.
I've lived here for ten years now, I've never seen him stop! He's too fast to try running out to hail down, and I can never hear Greensleeves or Home on the Range in my head without the doppler effect. Steven reckons the 'no stopping' thing is to get the fat kids moving, the reasoning being that if they catch him then they truly deserve an ice cream.
Not like when I was a kid (she said, adjusting her mature boobs like Les Dawson in drag). Back then in the 60s in Castlemilk the nightly visit of the ice cream van was the highlight of the day. Two bottles of ginger (Irn Bru and Ginger Beer, Barr's of course), an oyster for my dad and a cone for me, and two packets of crisps (always Golden Wonder cheese and onion).
It got to be that the sound of Pelosi's van chimes produced a Pavolvian response in me, such was the importance of his visit to our street. I'd grab the bag with the two empty ginger bottles in it for refund, grab the money from dad and run down the close stairs. God forbid I was slow and missed the van.
It all went well until one night when I was about ten. The van chimes went off when I was mid-pee and the pavlovian response kicked in. I was running down the lobby of our flat trying to hitch my knickers and grab the empties at the same time. I made it down most of the first flight of stairs then, horror! I tripped and fell and the bottles smashed around me.
My brother in law who was staying with us ran out to see if I was ok. According to his reports he saw me lying in the middle of a pool of smashed glass wailing "Ahm gonny miss the van, ahm gonny miss the van!"
Such is the power of the sugar hit!
Thankfully, the kids in my area will never have that problem. They'll live with that disappointment ingrained in them, as each week demonstrates they'll never catch Stirling Moss who drives our ice cream van. And forever, every time they hear Greensleeves or Home on the Range their hearts will remember that feeling of not being able to quite catch what they wanted.
The guy driving it is obviously someone who is unclear on the concept of ice cream vans, given that the idea is to pick a good spot, play your tune through the speakers as you approach it, stop there and wait for your punters to rock up for a sugar hit.
The guy on our local Mr Whippy hasn't quite made that connection. You can hear him for the entire afternoon going around the area with an alternate selection of Home on the Range/Greensleeves playing, but he never freaking stops!
He's just raced up our street with a blast of Greensleeves, got to the turning point, done a 180 and raced back down again with Home on the Range going like the clappers.
I've lived here for ten years now, I've never seen him stop! He's too fast to try running out to hail down, and I can never hear Greensleeves or Home on the Range in my head without the doppler effect. Steven reckons the 'no stopping' thing is to get the fat kids moving, the reasoning being that if they catch him then they truly deserve an ice cream.
Not like when I was a kid (she said, adjusting her mature boobs like Les Dawson in drag). Back then in the 60s in Castlemilk the nightly visit of the ice cream van was the highlight of the day. Two bottles of ginger (Irn Bru and Ginger Beer, Barr's of course), an oyster for my dad and a cone for me, and two packets of crisps (always Golden Wonder cheese and onion).
It got to be that the sound of Pelosi's van chimes produced a Pavolvian response in me, such was the importance of his visit to our street. I'd grab the bag with the two empty ginger bottles in it for refund, grab the money from dad and run down the close stairs. God forbid I was slow and missed the van.
It all went well until one night when I was about ten. The van chimes went off when I was mid-pee and the pavlovian response kicked in. I was running down the lobby of our flat trying to hitch my knickers and grab the empties at the same time. I made it down most of the first flight of stairs then, horror! I tripped and fell and the bottles smashed around me.
My brother in law who was staying with us ran out to see if I was ok. According to his reports he saw me lying in the middle of a pool of smashed glass wailing "Ahm gonny miss the van, ahm gonny miss the van!"
Such is the power of the sugar hit!
Thankfully, the kids in my area will never have that problem. They'll live with that disappointment ingrained in them, as each week demonstrates they'll never catch Stirling Moss who drives our ice cream van. And forever, every time they hear Greensleeves or Home on the Range their hearts will remember that feeling of not being able to quite catch what they wanted.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Making it Better for All
Hello there,
Its been a while. Its been rather busy. Work especially has been deadline-heavy, so roll on the post-cutoff calm - and Christmas.
And yes, Christmas is about to roll around once more and once again I try to cope with the northern immigrant dissonance of a winter festival in the middle of summer. I know European settlement in Australia is only 200 years old but I guess I must be a bit tied to the pagan ways of following the seasons. I do wish we had a midwinter celebration of lights here to help literally enlighten the winter. And then celebrate midsummer at Christmas time instead of copying the northern hemisphere in its images of a snowy landscaped Christmas.
And then there's the whole Christ story itself. I used to be a strict catholic, brought up by strict catholics, but as I grew older I started to question what kind of God thought it necessary to allow his son to be tortured to death. What kind of rule said that had to happen. He's god after all, he could make and break rules with impunity. If he chose not to do that, then I chose not to keep company with that particular deity.
Same for the virgin birth thing. When you read past the gloss of deification its a rotten way for a baby to come into the world with an unwed mother forced to travel far so near to delivery time, with no accommodation at the end, giving birth in a byre just so daddy god could prove the point that he's still 'from the block'. Hmm it begins to smell like something a human of limited imagination would write, rather than an all knowing deity.
Don't get me wrong, Jesus is one of my heroes. He stood up and spoke of love in a time and place that was decidedly short of it. His words - his true words, not the edited gospel ones - talk of new ideas about actually loving your neighbour. He didn't make any rules about condoms or gay people or the evils of marrying a protestant (one of the biggies from my childhood). He just said that the greatest law was to love the creator, and to love your neighbour as you love yourself. You can spend your whole life just trying to get that little bundle right without anything else. Everything else was added by us humans under the Jesus brand.
So, even for us pagan heathens, there's something in the Jesus story to celebrate and reflect upon. The love for a baby, the fellowship with the animals and our position here together upon the earth. The baby depends on his parents for survival, we humans depend on our animals and our plants for survival. We're all part of the chain of life and throughout that chain we need to apply what we know to make it better for all.
Enjoy the run up to the holiday, enjoy reflecting on what it means for you, and wherever you are hold your people and your animal companions close to your heart because they are what its all about.
Its been a while. Its been rather busy. Work especially has been deadline-heavy, so roll on the post-cutoff calm - and Christmas.
And yes, Christmas is about to roll around once more and once again I try to cope with the northern immigrant dissonance of a winter festival in the middle of summer. I know European settlement in Australia is only 200 years old but I guess I must be a bit tied to the pagan ways of following the seasons. I do wish we had a midwinter celebration of lights here to help literally enlighten the winter. And then celebrate midsummer at Christmas time instead of copying the northern hemisphere in its images of a snowy landscaped Christmas.
And then there's the whole Christ story itself. I used to be a strict catholic, brought up by strict catholics, but as I grew older I started to question what kind of God thought it necessary to allow his son to be tortured to death. What kind of rule said that had to happen. He's god after all, he could make and break rules with impunity. If he chose not to do that, then I chose not to keep company with that particular deity.
Same for the virgin birth thing. When you read past the gloss of deification its a rotten way for a baby to come into the world with an unwed mother forced to travel far so near to delivery time, with no accommodation at the end, giving birth in a byre just so daddy god could prove the point that he's still 'from the block'. Hmm it begins to smell like something a human of limited imagination would write, rather than an all knowing deity.
Don't get me wrong, Jesus is one of my heroes. He stood up and spoke of love in a time and place that was decidedly short of it. His words - his true words, not the edited gospel ones - talk of new ideas about actually loving your neighbour. He didn't make any rules about condoms or gay people or the evils of marrying a protestant (one of the biggies from my childhood). He just said that the greatest law was to love the creator, and to love your neighbour as you love yourself. You can spend your whole life just trying to get that little bundle right without anything else. Everything else was added by us humans under the Jesus brand.
So, even for us pagan heathens, there's something in the Jesus story to celebrate and reflect upon. The love for a baby, the fellowship with the animals and our position here together upon the earth. The baby depends on his parents for survival, we humans depend on our animals and our plants for survival. We're all part of the chain of life and throughout that chain we need to apply what we know to make it better for all.
Enjoy the run up to the holiday, enjoy reflecting on what it means for you, and wherever you are hold your people and your animal companions close to your heart because they are what its all about.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Despite the Daily Shit
Trends, signs, synchronicities. Interesting times.
Just when I think that its good, in my more creative area to settle for the status quo I get some pretty prime indications that its time to move forward and progress. Meanwhile in the area where traditionally the world would be telling me to be ambitious and push forward at all costs, I'm finding a fantastic pool of calm and contentment. Life, huh? Who'd know?
My work colleagues at Council - that raggle taggle mob of souls who are genuinely dedicated to serving the community - guys I salute you and I salute the warmth and - dare I say it - love - you bring to the workplace. We're a diverse bag of personalities and preferences, but you guys make coming to work on a Monday a lighter experience, and for all that I salute you!
My Stuffed Mum Sistas - Kehau and Kate - who knew that nearly ten years after we all met, and after working on various projects together that in hindsight were perfect 'training wheels' we'd be embarking on the adventure of a lifetime together?
And then there are the wonderfully supporting partners - Steven, Jeff and Glynn - who act as chefs to feed us, photographers to make us look good and handymen to provide our infrastructure amongst other things - we love you guys and we are blessed for having you. Go Guys.
I guess I'm just having an attack of thankfulness, and a realisation that despite all the daily shit we must attend to, I'm pretty much enjoying life right now.
I hope you are too!
Just when I think that its good, in my more creative area to settle for the status quo I get some pretty prime indications that its time to move forward and progress. Meanwhile in the area where traditionally the world would be telling me to be ambitious and push forward at all costs, I'm finding a fantastic pool of calm and contentment. Life, huh? Who'd know?
My work colleagues at Council - that raggle taggle mob of souls who are genuinely dedicated to serving the community - guys I salute you and I salute the warmth and - dare I say it - love - you bring to the workplace. We're a diverse bag of personalities and preferences, but you guys make coming to work on a Monday a lighter experience, and for all that I salute you!
My Stuffed Mum Sistas - Kehau and Kate - who knew that nearly ten years after we all met, and after working on various projects together that in hindsight were perfect 'training wheels' we'd be embarking on the adventure of a lifetime together?
And then there are the wonderfully supporting partners - Steven, Jeff and Glynn - who act as chefs to feed us, photographers to make us look good and handymen to provide our infrastructure amongst other things - we love you guys and we are blessed for having you. Go Guys.
I guess I'm just having an attack of thankfulness, and a realisation that despite all the daily shit we must attend to, I'm pretty much enjoying life right now.
I hope you are too!
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