she has tasted Marmite...

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

...and now she wants MORE!

(Really going this time...)

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then again, maybe not so much

Justin of Aylesbury is worried about wind farming. Specifically,

what will happen when you draw so much energy out of our atmospheric system? or how much energy can you pull from moving air before the air stops moving? [Source]

(Thanks to Melanie for the link.)

(All right, all right, I'm going...)

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good will to all people

To prevent me from finding out what my Christmas present is, Jack has forbidden – OK, maybe that's too strong a word: the lad does, after all, have a vestigial self-preservation instinct – urged me to avoid entering places of retail. As a result, the only shopping I've done lately has been quick dashes into the supermarket for cheap bread and expensive coffee. Which is scarcely a hardship: I don't regard shopping as a recreational activity, and in any case my discretionary spending capability these days is negligible if not risible, so in fact to be prevented from going into shops during this commerce-obsessed season is, for me, gift enough in itself. Although my husband may be less than rapt to learn this after all the trouble he appears to have gone to.

On the other hand I'm sensing a marketing opportunity here: gift exemption vouchers, anyone? Although a number of charities have, effectively, already taken this idea and run with it.

We're off up to Auckland tomorrow to do the Christmas with the whanau thing. Back in the new year. In the meantime, peace to all, and play nice.

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feel the love

Monday, December 17, 2007

Barbara Ehrenreich has a blog.

More online Ehrenreich goodness.

New cute pictures of the Williams Elder girlies on my flickr page.

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ow. ow. ow. la da da da da da da da da...

Another Maggie first yesterday: as a trial run for the Christmas trip to Auckland, we broke out the highly efficient German backpack and took her for a walk around Otari-Wilton's Bush.

She enjoyed it immensely. Especially after she'd discovered that Mummy makes amusing noises if you pull her hair.

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when all else fails...

Sunday, December 16, 2007

...RTFM!

(Thanks David!)

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end of the beginning

It's all going too quickly: this morning saw the first successful attempt to feed Maggie in the high chair.* Unlike the morning, however, Mummy was sleeping off a 5 a.m. boobie call, so missed the entire momentous occasion. However as at the time Jack was feeding, wrangling and entertaining both girls so I could have a lie-in, greeting me with fresh coffee when I eventually lurched from my pit several hours later, I can hardly complain.

The high chair episode takes place on the heels of her first quasi-successful attempt at forward propulsion: tummy-down on the floor, she managed to coordinate a squirm of the hips with a heave of the shoulders to shunt herself forward a good couple of centimetres. Hardly a great leap, but enough to place herself within reach of the Wellingtonian, which she promptly stuffed into her mouth. Ah, it takes me back – Becca used to eat the Cambridge Evening News...

*Incidentally, does anyone know how to embed flickr pictures? Unlike YouTube, flickr doesn't give you the code. Unless it's only available with the Pro account, in which case I'm definitely going to have to upgrade...

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why doesn't the drink just fall through?

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Sometimes you forget how literally kids interpret things. Take this afternoon's exchange, when I was putting Locoid cream on Becca's eczema:

Me: OK, where are you itchy? Here, inside your legs?
Becca: What's inside my legs?
Me: No, I mean where your legs come together...
Becca: NO! Inside my legs is a SKELETON!
[Pause]
I don't want to be a skeleton!

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the blogorrhoea guide to purposeless liberal guilt

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Liberal angst du jour: whether to buy book I want to give someone at local branch of Whitcoulls (boo, hiss!) or to drive Big Ugly Gas-guzzler further afield to patronise politically correct independent purveyors of books (yay!) but at added cost to environment (awk).

So there you have it: that's what keeps me up at night. Tune in next week to see me spin out the we're not doing Christmas cards because of, erm, the air miles thing argument for the second year running.

Maggie's transition from milk to food as primary source of nourishment is proceeding more or less as recommended by the Practical Parenting weaning book my friend Kathie in Ely lent me between babies (hers) and then I *cough* accidentally forgot to give it back and then it somehow made its way into the shipment and reappeared in NZ when we unpacked. Kathie, if you're reading this, mea maxima culpa! Although my mother-in-law reckons that my purloining of the book may have been something like a Freudian slip. (Peh. Psychiatrists. What do they know?) Anyway, for the past few weeks the Magster's been on three daily mush feeds of steadily decreasing granularity, and recently I've started giving her the odd crust of bread, which she gums enthusiastically, and only occasionally gags on. In fact her general reaction to food is pretty enthusiastic - she reacts to indications that a meal is imminent with pure delight, squealing, flapping her arms, bouncing and shimmying in her bouncy chair. Mind you this is also how she now reacts to her daddy's return home from work, finishing off the display by reaching out her little chubby arms to be picked up in a manner most adorable.

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ocho candelikas

Monday, December 10, 2007

Having listened to Tom Lehrer spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica, I wondered if we might be able to come up with some homegrown lyrics, but while Sue came up with the brilliant notion of Hanukkah around Lake Wanaka, I could only suggest spending Rosh Hashanah in Whitianga and (forgive me) lighting the menorah in sunny Gore-ah. In spite of this, last night at practice at the temple, the Rebs invited me to light the menorah for the sixth evening of Hanukkah, so perhaps cross-cultural relations haven't been too badly damaged. And incidentally, if anyone can think of a NZ place name that rhymes with Yom Kippur, this is where the newly-enabled comments function comes into its own.

On the subject of cross-cultural relations, here's one of the songs we did for Hanukkah the other night, performed by the Afro-Semitic Experience. These guys are great (and have a very cool logo).

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everybody dance now

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Played my first Hanukkah last night – one of those gigs you come home from wearing a big grin, and then wake up the next morning and you're still wearing it, like the opposite of a hangover. The singing! The dancing! The latkes! (Oh, the latkes...) And I got to play the whizzy solo in "Bella Ciao", and didn't derail during it. (Joy!)

Coffee on keyboard moment du jour: holiday edition.

And finally, some more Hanukkah linky, Tom Lehrer style.

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come and have a go if you think you're hard enough

Friday, December 07, 2007

Just for a laugh I've decided to enable comments on blogorrhoea. As an experimental measure: too many drive-bys and I'll yank them again, so play nice.

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gravy train

Further to the post about my 'decision' re. Maggie's childcare (inverted commas are intended to signify that the process was in no way particularly rational) I've made another woolly, intuition-guided call, this time concerning weaning: she's off the boobie as soon as she gets teeth. Which makes perfect sense to me, although I'm sure breastfeeding zealots (notice I'm refraining from using the n-word. No no, not that one, God forbid, the other one) would throw up their patchouli-stained hands in horror at my utter selfishness. But the way I see it, I didn't even expect that I would still be breastfeeding Maggie at six-and-a-half months and counting: Rebecca, at this stage, was entirely bottle-fed as my supply had begun to dwindle rapidly at around 12 weeks, and tailed off completely at six months. So in her sister's case, any breastfeeding at all that goes on after the six-month mark is, so to speak, gravy.

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sov sov sov

Monday, December 03, 2007

A few new songs to practise for Chanukah on Saturday: am currently having a go at 'S'vivon', a cracking little number: we're doing a swingy version of it, which is great fun. Except that it reminds me a just little of 'Zoot Suit Riot'. Which would be a somewhat monumentally inapproriate number to inadvertently segue into mid-song. Of course it doesn't help that I've just looked up the Cherry Poppin' Daddies on YouTube and am listening to them as I type. Yes, of course Maggie is down for her nap. Why do you ask?

Incidentally, and while we're on YouTube, if you're curious as to what this Klezmer business is all about and would like to hear a selection of some fine old traditional melodies, probably best give this a swerve, really.

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kumm kumm kumm

Sunday, December 02, 2007

At yesterday's gig at Frank Kitts, Maggie spent our 45-minute set lying face down on the grass, dreamily listening to the Klezmer sounds. I did a lot of rehearsing and a couple of gigs while heavily pregnant with her, so maybe there's something to the theory that babies are soothed by any music they've regularly been exposed to in utero, whether it be harpsichord, hard rock or wailing harmonic minors.

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