Archives for July 2004

It’s been with interest that I’ve watched Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton in their new show ‘At the Movies‘ on the ABC and watched the new ‘Movie Show‘ on SBS with Megan Spencer, Fenella Kernebone and Jaimie Leonarder. I’ve got a lot of respect for Margaret and David and their show follows the same format they used to use on SBS. The new Movie Show people do a good job – they know their stuff but I think with three of them all having their say the actual movie review gets a bit lost. Margaret and David give a good overview of what the story behind the movie they are reviewing is so the audience get a good sense of what it is about whereas the Movie Show crew are a bit all over the place and I think important information gets lost along the way.

For instance this week they both reviewed Shaolin Soccer and the Movie Show gave it a good wrap and I thought ok it looks like it will be a good one. On At the Movies they mentioned that the original had been cut by up to half an hour and it had been dubbed in English which was not mentioned on the Movie Show at all. David didn’t rate it for this reason but Margaret thought it was quite good and she said the subtitles were hard to wade through.

Don’t get me wrong I think all of the abovementioned reviewers know their stuff, I just think that three presenters on the Movie Show is perhaps a bit too much. I guess though, they didn’t want to copy Margaret and David’s format too closely.

I watched Storyline Australia on SBS last night and was sobbing so much my tissue was completely soaked and I couldn’t drag myself away to get another one. It was about an Australian couple who couldn’t have children of their own so they decided to adopt a baby – a Korean baby. I actually missed the first half hour because I watched Absolutely Fabulous but caught the last half hour of Storyline. The couple that adopted baby Jeong so obviously really wanted a baby of their own and also wanted to find out all about him and his culture – not just grab the baby and run back to Australia.

What made it so heart wrenching for me was that Jeong was available for adoption because single mums over there have no government support whatsoever and simply cannot keep babies they have by themselves. It made me think that if I lived in another place like Korea I possible would have been in the same boat and would not have Jaycee Junior with me now. It was sad enough hearing that but then it was even sadder watching the foster mother giving Jeong up to his new parents. She’d had him for nearly six months and with her two other children and husband had formed a very close bond and I was sobbing as much as her when the time came to give him to his new parents.

Do you ever have a dream that you remember really vividly when you wake up? I had one last night, or first thing this morning after I’d fallen asleep after the dog woke me up with her persistent barking. The dream. There was a group of us walking in the middle of the road and I turned around and there was a vehicle coming up behind Jaycee Junior so I yelled out to to him ‘Get off the road’. He ignored me as he is wont to do so I yelled it out again. He still ignored me, then I just kept on yelling ‘Get off the fucking road’ as loudly as I could. For some reason I couldn’t or didn’t get to him to physically move him off the road but there wasn’t a sense of real danger even though there was some sort of vehicle behind him. I’m saying vehicle because I think it was more of a rickshaw than a car. Perhaps I was in Asia. Anyway the ‘Get off the fucking road’ has stayed with me all day as I woke up at that point to hear Jaycee Junior talking very loudly to himself in his room.

Like most people who work for a living I love the weekends and I’m especially lucky in that I get a three day weekend. Mind you I also don’t get the full-time salary a full-time worker gets but I think the tradeoff is far better. As I’m on my own with Jaycee Junior I definitely keep busy during the weekend trying to juggle household chores and maintenance with socialising. I can’t see the point of earning money if I’m just stuck at home on the weekend doing boring house stuff. I think the weekend just gone was a pretty good mix of both and I still have heaps left to do.

I managed to see the latest Harry Potter movie – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It’s a while since I read the book now so I can’t really remember what happened but I did enjoy the movie. When my friend and I were walking along the huge corridor to the relevant cinema there was a man with his two young children with him (the kids were about 5 and 3 years old). I said probably a bit too loudly to my friend, ‘I hope they’re not seeing Harry Potter’. Well they were. I was a bit shocked because it was an 8.30pm session for a start and my three year old would have been well and truly asleep. Aside from the late hour though I don’t think the movie is appropriate for a five year old and definitely not for a three year old. Cynical me thought this was a weekend dad occupying his kids time but I noticed the wedding ring afterwards. And to give the kids credit they were pretty good. I could hear them asking questions every now and again but not enough to piss me off. Actually the woman sitting a few seats away slurping on her slurpy ice drink was a lot more annoying and I was tempted to walk over and tip the drink over her head.

While I’m sort of on the subject of parenting, Jaycee Junior and myself went to a friends place for lunch on Saturday. Another couple and their four year old boy came along also. The place we had lunch at hasn’t got kids toys available (they’re 20 weeks pregnant) so I took along a bag of cars and a toy elephant my son selected to keep him amused. The other couple walked in carrying a great big sports bag of action figures then went out to the car to get more stuff – enough to fill a small toy store. And all this kid wanted to do was go outside and look at the horses and ride the tractor. I think my son got more amusement out of the goods than the other kid did. The kid obviously wanted to bring all this stuff with him and the parents said that he could. Actually that’s all they seemed to do was give in to him all afternoon which is not something I do with my son as it creates problems when you can’t give in to them. He was also a ball of energy and hyperactivity. I had to sit and take a deep breath after they left before I got in the car to drive home in the downpour. It made me realise how chilled Jaycee Junior actually is and how blessed I am.

I went away the weekend just gone with a friend and her daughter to visit a friend who lives near Mildura. We left Thursday afternoon and came back last night and I feel surprisingly ok seeing it was pretty exhausting. When the three of us get together we talk and analyse everything and seeing we had nearly three full days together we didn’t run out of things to talk about. Altogether there were five children ranging in age from nearly two to 11 years old and they all got on pretty well. There was a bit of refereeing between the two youngest ones. At one stage we were sitting outside, kids inside, and I went inside to do something and as I was coming back outside Jaycee Junior said, ‘Where are you going?’. I said, ‘Outside’. He then said, ‘To do some more talking?’. He summed it up very aptly I think as that’s what we did.

We probably would have all stayed in our pyjamas all day if we didn’t have to do anything but we were usually dressed by midday. It was also a weekend of eating and drinking what we wanted and on Saturday night I was literally lying on the floor holding my stomach after having eaten a good portion of a box of Pringles without really needing them. They were there is all. So this week, it’s back to the attempt at the low carb diet for me. I’ve stopped buying my iced coffee which has an obscene amount of sugar in it and I’m also trying to cut down or stop other things like pasta, rice, potatoes and cakes. I was doing quite well till last weekend but I knew it would be bad so I’ll just get back on track now.