Dim Sum Mum - Tess' Little Pieces

alannis morrissette could write this into a song

remember last week i blogged about booking plane tickets and how it had not been done yet? and the next day, being all responsible and communicative, we booked the flights?

today, magnificent and i learned that the airline company we booked the nonrefundable tickets with has gone into liquidation.

needless to say, paying another $4,000US for flights, just to vancouver, wasnt part of the budget.

we are a little bit stunned, but we are determined not to freak out. i want to handle this like the probable rent increase. beyond my control. all i can do is pray.

it is unlikely, so unlikely we will see our money again. but a big part of my life is about FAITH. so, i am choosing to believe it is all going to work out. i just may need to redefine what working out means.

while i may be all environmental no toilet flushing bla bla bla, one thing that gets the porcelain bowl swirling in our home is mushy cereal.

i get nauseas when i touch wet mushy cereal.

i hate changing the garbage and there being liquid at the bottom of it. that really bothers me. and i can't dump wet cereal into the garbage because if it leaked, i would be livid and nauseas. a very bad combination. and i cant dump it in the sink, because mooshy cereal doesn't go down the drain very well. and pulling the cereal out of the drain, oh that is even more dissgossting than washing garbage cans that don't get daily cleanings.

my only option, therefore, is to toss it down the toilet.

i just find the texture of that wet cereal revolting. and actually the taste is pretty vile too. when i eat cereal i prefer to eat it 1/4 cup at a time, so that it doesn't have the time to get soggy. or even better, i'll eat my cereal with yogurt instead of milk.

my fingers are odd like this. they have adverse reactions to some textures.

they are also supersensitive. if the little blue plastic thingie isn't covering my ipod, i can feel it vibrating. it causes my fingers to tingle. i don't like that at all. no one believes me that i can feel the ipod thrumming, but i can. in our spare time, for entertainment purposes, charles and i have done tests where my eyes were covered and i had to tell him when he turned the ipod on and off. every single time, i got it right.

the sight of the cereal flakes, slowly losing individual shape and morphing into one slimy undefined communistic lump is enough to make me purse my lips and shake my head as i write this. i unfortunately don't believe in forcing kids to finish their food, however if they don't start disposing of their unfinished cereal in the manner which i find least offensive, i may start giving them smoothies for breakfast. smoothies, it is worth nothing, slide nicely down the drain.

persuade this

i know im going to get berated by experts (most of them british) come book club night, but despite re-reading most of persuasion, i still don't see it as being a great book. the only thing that makes it even slightly interesting is when you compare it to other jane austen books, (ie: jane austen tends not to have a high regard for good looking men) or take into consideration the author's circumstances at the tme. (ie: she was ill at the time she wrote this, what influence did this have on her sick characters.)

here are three (sound) reasons for not liking the book.

1. not enough dialogue. it's hard to warm to any of the characters, when we don't know them very well. because of the lack of dialogue, characters seemed remote. since anne said very little and most was said for her, i never got to know her. and NO, i didn't think austen did a good enough job portraying emotions in the dialogue she provided. ditto for anne's boyfriend, he didn't speak a lot either, so it would have been better to give him the few lines, rather than converse for him.

2. takes a long long time to get going. yes i know you need to set the stage, but...nah.

3. we never really learn why anne listened to her benefactor and broke off her engagement in the first place. what was so redeeming and wonderful about the woman? why didn't she open her home to anne if she cared so much about her? (and ruined her chances for marriage).

someone's going to have to persuade me pretty hard to make me change my mind on this book.

moving on.

the triplets are at the age where they are fascinated with their baby pictures (or any pictures of them) and like sebastian, love hearing stories of "little baby..(insert name here)". egomania starts early. how am i supposed to share with them all sorts of stories about my wonderful childhood if all they want to hear about is them?

they are happy to sit on my lap and look at their baby pictures for hours on end. what astounds me is that they can tell who was who, at such an early age and stage.  was jasper's trademark "bewildered" look so noticeable even then? and although carys doesn't suck up her bottom lip any more, they must remember that she once did, because they can identify her in the lineup. and sela's nosy, wide eyes? even though they're blue in the baby pictures, her siblings still call out, "that's sela!" i find it quite uncanny.

carys can look at pictures of herself in the nicu, covered with tubes and tape, and then she will point to the white, now just slightly raised bumps on her hands, and say, "i got these when i was in the hospital." and i will agree with her. she doesn't know that they are slight scars from the mainline iv's, she just knows they aren't playground scars like so many of her friends have.

sela is happy to pull sanitary napkins out from under the cupboard and announce that when she was a baby she wore nappies smaller than this.

jasper is pleased when i swaddle baby batman in his Special Blanket because, "when i was a little baby the nurses used to tie me up".

i don't think they have twigged that their first months were extraordinary. i think they figure that since i have so many pictures of preemies in the house, and we pray for a lot of websites where preemies are featured (go baby "winif"!) that all babies start off in nicu's with blood transfusion bags at their side. i wonder when they will figure out that not all do, and what it will mean to them.

it's deadline time for my column, so in order to extend my procrastination, here is my list for how i procrastinate, and the always necessary justification:

10. surf you tube - it's just so great. and this way, i am still near the computer so when i get the guilts (shag the guilts!) my work is nearby

9. spend time with my darlings - what a good mother i am! nothing is more important than my children! a clear conscience enables me to write with focus and clarity.

8. touch up my pedicure - ahh, better. wearing my too tight louboutin (suspected but nearly confirmed) knockoffs caused a pit of my THRILL OF BRAZIL red nailpolish to chip off. toes are very important to the rest of your body, and i shouldn't jeopardise my health by not properly caring for my feet. being in optimum health ensures nothing will distract me from writing.

7. snack time - a quick healthy snack (what? i don't keep lentils in the house?) will re-invigorate me and cause me to think up all sorts of witty tru-isms and i will zip through the column and finish it in record time. actually, i see myself finishing it very quickly. all because i ate. technically, the more i eat, the faster i will finish.

6. manicure - can't have scrotty looking fingers if your feet are looking perfecto, now can you? and besdies, typing with a chipped nail (especially since i will be typing speedily following my delish snacks) would slow me down and might hinder my artistic impression and we can't have that.

5. i had forgotten how adept i am at procrastinating, halfway done! let me take a wee break, be right back.

(brushing crumbs off self).

re-read a chaper of persuasion. yes, the jane austen tome is our book club choice for this month and i must confess, i am not all that into it. if it didn't have the jane austen byline attached to it, i might have given it up. i got a bit upset with the wet girl, listening to people that obviously weren't as stellar as we were supposed to believe they were. but it's JANE AUSTEN everyone who disagrees with me cries, and i must admit, that seems a rather weak argument! and so i either have to re-read the whole book and start loving it, or re-read the whole book and get ready to take the rest of the team on in what will be a civilised but firm argument. reading, especially fine literature like JANE AUSTEN can only help me become a better writer.

4. turn off music. that was good for the researching part, but really, 3 Dog Night isn't particularly helpful throughout the writing process. tour the flat to see if any windows need closing. if my music was playing loudly and the windows were open, i might have offended a neighbour. tara is just seven floors up. i might have to visit her to apologise and check. crap. she's out of town.

3. make a phone call - surely someone needs to hear from me. i have been a virual hermit all day long! contact with the outer world will give me the opportunity to be in touch with other people and to bounce my ideas and flow off them and they can give me feedback...a free edit. obviously beneficial to my writing.

2. brush teeth and floss -  think i have a poppyseed (squatter from the poppyseed and very low fat cream cheese bagel i consumed earlier) in my teeth. nothing is more important than good dental care. except my toes and fingers. but if i have a toothache i won't be able to write at all, which would not be beneficial to me or the column. and flossing. since i am right here infront of the mirror, this is an excellent opportunity to floss as well. flossing is also very important. i can think about smart sentences as i admire my cavity and filling free mouth.

1. clean - cleaning my house of clutter is symbolic of the excess free writing i will do just as soon as i return to it. congratulate me.

this column, whenever it gets written, is going to be excellent. surely my most stellar effort yet.

let's celebrate.

let's do the time warp...again?

i am aging.

briskly.

as if my pouchy eyes, and birth certificate aren't evidence enough of my aging, there's this: i no longer have any concept of time.

everything was a few days, weeks, months or years ago.

on the surface, that sounds pretty good. no worries, mate!

except for the context. i refer to something that happened in february as a few days ago. my pre Christmas shopping spree was a few weeks ago. a conversation with graeme at fintry in august was a few months ago. and the last time i had call waiting was august 1991, a few years ago.

is it that the years are just smushing together? that as my good friend knobody says, the days are slow but the years rush by? is my life so mundane that all the days are so grey (like my knickers?:) that i can't keep track of them individually? oh, if that is the case, please, let me be aging. anything but a boring life.

acceleration of time would have been good during say the teenage years or my twenties. why are things speeding along NOW, the best time of my life? where's the justice there?

i'm taking my baggy eyes off to bed. i may soon (aka: in a few months) be declared mentally incompetent, but at least my eyes will look good when i go.

can the scandanavians finnish?

despite our best intentions, there are some things magnificent and i just dont get around to doing.

a great example of this would be booking flights and programmes for the kids. over one month ago i found a great summer programme for the triplets, located two blocks away from charles' dad's place. i also found flights for us. a great discounted price.

that was february 29.

four weeks, plus, later, those flights and classes have not been booked.

why?

magnificent is right here beside me. let's ask him why.

"charles, why haven't we booked those flights?"

"time." he responded. to which i replied, "what do you mean, time?"

"lack of time." at this point i am sure we both remembered watching seven episodes of lost and other time consuming things we enjoyed (or spending time with the children, which depending onthe day might not have been enjoyable) throughout march.

"no really, why haven't we booked the flights?"

"why do you think we haven't booked them?" he's almost asleep, i better make this quick.

"traditionally, you do it.": this is a fact, but is it also an excuse? could i just flash charles a look one day after he came home and say, "i've booked the summer flights?" as he's not going, would that look a bit rude? or aggressive?

he's not answering me any more...i think he is asleep or bored of the conversation. but we tend to have mental block in our relationship like this. our conversations only take us up to certain points. and then nothing gets down and despite all the preplanning, we end up in a tizzy, which of course is not good for the anal retentive soul.

does this happen in any other household and does any one know WHY?