Wednesday, January 09, 2008

holding pattern

















remember the old test pattern i think it was on the abc because they didn't have enough money to "put more television" on?

well, just think of that happening here.

i'm all kinds of concerned with a myriad of things at the moment, and just don't seem to have time to satisfactorily contribute here.

what i am wondering about:

- wondering how to solve certain bedding issues in the secret life of them flat

- wondering how to get my beloved to see atonement with me on our date friday night

- wondering, indeed, where to go for dinner on our date night friday night. suggestions?

- wondering how hard it's going to be to get my beautiful, wonderful and entirely necessary cooking books out of storage.
- wondering who graham kennedy is on facebook.

- wondering where to store gigi's other bed that we are not using. see, more fucking bedding iss-ews.

- wondering how to approach blogging about the trip. to be honest, it seems old news now. i like to move on, man. but i've promised and i will work out a way.

- pondering the golden compass and the negative reviews etc, nay religious propoganda, that it has attracted. geeze you can't win. "offensive" religious pieces get damned, and then an atheist, yet spiritual and human, movie gets panned as well for being anti-christian. what's wrong with being anti-christian? really, it's not as if atheists want to kill christians and eat them. why can't atheists have a fair go?

- wondering if leo's spaghetti bar really has gone bad or whether it was just an off night on nye?

- wondering whether i should have a martini party and invite just 3 people because i only have 4 martini glasses out of storage. people could bring their own glass?

- wondering whether nicole's pregnancy will go all right. i really hope so. she's so vulnerable.

- wondering which series of books to get princess onto once she finishes the narnia chronicles. suggestions?


what i am reading:

- phillip roth's memoir of his father's illness, patrimony.

- the third in the golden compass series, can't remember what it's called.

- the age newspaper

i am off the trash mags. trying really hard.


what i am cooking:

- soba noodles in dipping sauce

- spaghetti bolognaise

- toast

- coffee


what i am waiting for:

- fegari seafood in hampton to re-open january 21st i think it is. i need, NEED, one of my spaghetti marinaras. with buckets of chardonnay.

- d. chirico bakery to re-open, ALSO january 21st. i need, NEED, some of their bread. but in the meantime i am making do with greg brown's rye and sunflower seeds 1kg bread. a very worthy replacement. may even out-do chiricos. i will do a bread-off when chirico re-opens. anyone care to join me?

- school to re-start. it's always an exciting time of the year. plus then i get my days to myself.

12 comments:

I'm not Craig said...

Please tell that man of yours that I see one movie per year and this year it was Atonement AND YOU MUST SEE THIS FILM RIGHT NOW DO NOT WAIT ANOTHER MINUTE.

Also, I don't think we own any martini glasses but I would be willing to buy some if it gets us in to your party.

So, are you enjoying the Golden Compass and should I buy these books for the kids?

Melba said...

hey inc. first off, i will tell that man of mine exactly what you have said and i will make him see it with me.

i ADORED the book.

will keep you posted on the martini partay. the more i think about it, the more i like it. but that man of mine may have other ideas.

thirdly, are you shitting me? sorry to make with the swears when talking to a much-admired friend, HOWEVER i know your stance on religion and i wonder whether you are ragging me. if your question is serious, your kids are too young but buy the set and put them on the shelves. to me the story is not overtly anti-real world religion, but anti the religion in the world the books are set in. i'm really enjoying the series, up to book 3 now but side-tracked into roth. who is most excellent.

GS said...

I suspect that martinis drunk out of jam jars taste just as good by the time the first one has kicked in.

Am pondering a movie marathon at the Nova for the next 2 days to avoid the heat!

Have a great 2008.

I'm not Craig said...

MG
I swear I am not pooping* you.

Your Princess is currently reading the most blatantly Christian childrens books ever written so I figure my kids should read some atheistic type ones and thus the universe remains in balance.

Honey Bear actually wanted to see the Golden Compass at the movies last week because she read about all the angry Christians who have been complaining about it and she figured that was a good reason to watch it.

I remember hiring Kevin Smith's Dogma on DVD for exactly the same reason a few years ago.

We decided to see Atonement instead because if we are going to see one movie per year it is not going to be a children's film.

I figure my kids are smart enough to read a range of stuff and make up their own minds.


Also, did I mention that ATONEMENT WAS AWESOME YOU MUST TAKE YOUR BEARDED HUSBAND AND SEE THIS FILM RIGHT NOW.



* I was warned that spending a lot of time with a three year old might do this to my vocabulary.

Melba said...

thanks AOF, happy new year to you too. re the martini glasses, i am a glassware snob and couldn't COULDN'T suffer drinking anything out of jam jars. the glass is part of the whole schtik. but maybe others could drink out of jam jars?

INC i'm glad you weren't razzing me, and glad that you continue to be as solid and balanced and reasonable as you have always seemed. and yes, you're right about princess and the narnia books, though she would not pick it having religious themes (just as i didn't when i read them as a kid), as she didn't really with the northern lights (golden compass) series. she's just into the fantasy of it all, the characters and the action.

trivia note - did you know that aslan in turkish means lion?

Steph said...

Thats a lot of thinking for so early in the year.

magical_m said...

Firstly, let's get the niceties out of the way. Happy New Year! Hope you're having a lovely summer and not dying from the oppressive heat I hear Melbourne is currently experiencing.

Secondly, I agree with inc about Atonement. It is FAB, despite Keira Shiteley and her annoying jaw. James McAvoy is just divine and the cinematography is stunning and there's this one continuous shot on the beach which will blow you away and... look, just go see it ok? Even if you have to leave Clokes at home and go alone.

Thirdly. Books for Princess. Is she stuck firmly on the fantasy genre or is she open to other genres? Also, remind me of her age? I have a few suggestions but don't want to insult her by suggesting something babyish.

Fourthly. A cocktail party with 3 people is perfectly acceptable if you only have 4 glasses out of storage. You just have to make sure they're the right 3 people!

Finally (because I don't think fifthly is a real word), I heard yesterday that the Spice Girls have ditched their plans to come to Australia. Having registered on their website that I would be more than willing to purchase the maximum number of tickets (6), I am outraged that they don't think I am worthy of a tour. A hex on their platforms I say.

xo m_m

I'm not Craig said...

Since we're doing suggestions for Princess, my 11 year old niece is reading The Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. Book One is called The Ruins of Gorlan.

My niece is up to Book Seven and I'm reliably informed that the whole series is excellent.

Did you see Atonement yet?

Also, I had no idea that Aslan was Turkish for lion. This is slightly odd when we consider that C S Lewis uses turkish delight to represent food at its most evil.

BEVIS said...

Hello, MG - I think I'm with you, in regards to leading a revolt against Facebook and back towards the bloggosphere. I've missed blogging, and simply find Facebook a quicker system on which to do things while I'm at work. Blogging takes too much time.

But I now have Broadband wireless Internet access at home, and a laptop on which to do my thang, so I hope to be able to use these resources to catch up on my shamefully woeful blogging backlog (that'd make an excellent inebriation test, saying "shamefully woeful blogging backlog" five times really quickly while touching your nose with one finger and hopping up and down on your left leg). I'm not sure that I'm ready to give up Facebook altogether, but I certainly long to return to the good old days of writing nonsense (and reviewing crappy and not-so-crappy television) to my heart's content and having total strangers either applaud or condemn me for my blisteringly stubborn opinions.



PS - It is a well-known fact to Narniaphiles like myself that 'Aslan' is Turkish for lion; as INC suggested (although from him it was amazement while from me it is smarmy conceitedness), CS Lewis intentionally used Turkish Delight as the embodiment of temptation to counterbalance the use of a Turkish word representing the Saviour of mankind. It was all simply part of the genius' charm.

Melba said...

hey there m_m happy new year to you too. thanks for popping by i've been keeping an eye on your place for ever so long and then just yesterday saw "movement" aplenty and shall revisit and comment over at yours. yay you for writing again!

so everyone yes we saw atonement. for me it was a big week in movies last week. went to golden compass on the monday (not a children's movie i don't think, far less so than 'arry po'er anyway) then saw bob dylan one with mum on the tuesday night, THEN atonement on thurs night and no country for old men on FRIDAY night.

i love movies.

i loved atonement, i know it might be unfashionable to have loved it, but i did. i can't help it, i loved it. BUT these are my comments:

- like with the book i wanted more of the house, the gardens and the time at the beginning. it's one long day and evening but i wanted that stretched out so that when robbie is taken away we are more convinced of the bond that he shares with cecilia. so that when they are separated and he is at war and trying to get back to her, we know that their love is real not just a sexual thang

- i loved briony and the whole letter thing was delicious. it was very thomas hardy'esque. fabulous.

- i was convinced of briony trying to atone with her work with the soldiers, toiling over bed pans and not going to cambridge as a way of paying penance

- clokes wasn't convinced that at the end, the old briony who'd written this book was telling the truth. he felt he couldn't believe what she said, that there hadn't been the reconciliation of sorts.

- even though i'd read the book - yes, a couple of years ago - the end took me by surprise, that they'd both died and never been reunited, and so i sat there at the end with tears sheeting my face. as princess says "mum, you cry at anything!"

after all that, clokes i don't think really dug it. he's more an "american gangster" kind of guy, but luckily i talked him out of that later in the week, and made him see no country for old men... again, i don't think he dug it. but i thought it was terrific. it's slow-paced'ish and javier bardem does a sterling job remaining menacing and scary with such a bag hair-do, i swear it's a mokbel in it's incongruity. like a page boy cut for a choir boy.

spice girls. yes i registered so your news is interesting to me m_m. i also expressed interest in tickets for melbourne thinking i would take my 2 girls as a surprise, thus risking them not wanting to go, maybe spice girls wouldn't be kewl. but if that was the case i would have sold the other 2 tickets and met up with m_m.

thanks everyone for book suggestions for princess. m_m, she is 12 but a very worldly 12 and can handle quite sophisticated material. i was blown away she actually read the third of the his dark materials series, i'm reading it now and it's quite complex. when i asked if she understood everything she said no, there were some bits she didn't get. but while she was reading the series she would sometimes come to where i was and look at me with these big eyes, pupils dilated with excitement. i would ask how the book was and she would be kind of speechless. i admit it made me wonder whether the content was appropriate for her, but while there has been a couple of gory/violent bits which might be on a new level for her, so far there's been nothing i've come across that i thought "oh, i wish she didn't read that."

so any other suggestions would be very welcome. she is now re-reading old asterix and obelix and tintin books. (i remember the first time i ever read a tintin. i couldn't BELIEVE there was such a book like it, it was a transforming moment for me and reading.)

yay bevis i'm glad you are with me re: the blogging. i have missed it alot. i think i'm going to try and concentrate on my blog and visiting just a select few. it's so easy to get caught up in reading alot of stuff. so time consuming. i've got plans for this year PAID workwise so have to concentrate on that.

princess has finished the narnia chronicles so once i've finished the thing i'm reading i will read them. when i was a kid i only read the lion, the witch and the wardrobe and part of prince caspian? so i must re-read and enter the world so i can comment on the religious themes.

wow. what a comment.

am off to ikea soon to order loft beds for the girls, we have decided we have to stay in st. k. for as long as poss. then princess and i am off to airport to pick up ali.

yes it's that time of year again.

dont' go changing.

[nose wrinkle]

sublime-ation said...

Shit, you've been blogging, and I didn't even notice.

2 things:

Spaghetti Bolognaaise *drools*

and I have an in with the D.Chirico.

Oh yeah baby. Have you tried their yoghurt thingy?

*drools again*

Melba said...

WHAT YOGHURT THINGY????????!!!!!!!!

they are open again, did you know??

woo-hoo.