the day before yesterday, princess and i had a bath together. it must be over a year since we did that. the bathroom got all steamy and we laughed about how we weren't really fitting in that well together until we found a position where my legs were over the edge and she was half lying on me.
then i read her storm boy. my mum had given it to her for her birthday, and had prophetically bought it before colin thiele died.
what a magnificent story it is.
this is a 40th anniversary edition, and has a section in the middle with illustrations.
when i got to the part where storm boy releases messers proud, ponder and percival as he and his father can't afford to keep feeding them, i cried. then of course mr percival flies back to them, and stays with storm boy and hide-away tom, his father.
princess stood up while i read and wrote in the steam on the mirror
I HEART MUM
X O X O
we haven't finished it yet, but we sat there in the bath, for over an hour, putting more hot water in, and letting some out, until we were wrinkly and overheated. princess hasn't asked me to finish it, i think because she smells a sad ending. she gets so into the story it really upsets her when sad things happen. so she likes to put them off.
then yesterday we went into the ngv for some art. we saw the picasso exhibition, we wandered, me loving the way princess goes so close up to the pieces that i just wait for a guard to tell her off. i stop myself from telling her to move back, i want her to get close, to really see what's in front of her. i love that she's interested. i love that she predictably says that "i could do that!". we marvel at how guernica evolved, we are interested in the negative photographic prints of picasso, taken by dora maar. we smile over the scraps of notes and doodles that are displayed, especially the small piece of paper with dora, dora, dora written on it over, and over, and over.
i love the holiday movie, taken when a group of them were somewhere warm and relaxed. picasso clowning around.
but we both agree that his art is not to our taste.
we check out the rembrandt sketches. she gets bored.
we look at a few rooms of european art. i get teary over a couple, particularly the one with the mother sheep standing over her dead lamb, the crows circling them. also the beauty of the potato picker's face. i stand under her. she is glorious, with a little beauty mark that makes me think of the same mark on the face of my daughter.
and finally. i saw on sunday al gore's movie, an inconvenient truth.
i want you all to go and see it.
9 comments:
Vale Colin Thiele, I say. Bugger Brock and Crocodile Boy - Dr Thiele was a real Australian icon - at least for those of us for whom boofheads and jocks are excruciating company...
I brought my soon to be 10 y.o. kid to the Picasso thing and I have never heard such whining before!!!!
And regd the movie, I dont think I'll go see it. It's depressing to see movies like that.
Princess sounds very grown up - especially compared to some of the little charmers that I saw at the Picasso exhibition.
chai, depressing or not you have to see it. i am fulfilling part of my citizenship obligations by telling people to see it. don't be an ostrich about it, there are things we can do. it's scary stuff but as a father you should be scared enough to want to do something about it.
i TOLD princess about it, and she got tears in her eyes. she said "we are killing ourselves". i'm going to try and take her to see it. because she is someone that might make a difference in the future too.
am i being too idealistic?
and hey richard, nice to see you. and welcome ms batville.
I took my eight year old to see 'An Inconvenient Truth' and she got suitably fired up. Definitely worthwhile taking our future voters along.
YOU HAVE TO SEE THE MOVIE.
It will move you.
I came out informed, a little upset, but hopeful that we can make a difference.
hey dxxxx. i don't know about those food questions. and it would probably be on food musings but no one goes there, including me.
can anyone else help the loverly dstah out?
DXXXX
No idea on the freezing of sundried tomatoes. They seem to last wonderfully well without being frozen.
My mother always swore that you could freeze cheese, but she claimed this was true of pretty much every type of food in the world. The cheese always tasted slightly funny afterwards.
Also, grating cheese and then freezing it so it all sticks together and the only way to separate it is to grate it again is the most pointless thing ever.
My folks (who are, much to my chagrin, long-time lib voters) went to see An Inconvenient Truth on the weekend.
My Mum got so fired up that she went home and started writing letters.
*puts film on must-go-and-see list*
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