Did some painting last night.
When we first moved into this house, Alan and David shared a room, while Jacob slept in ours. But when Jacob was big enough, we moved him into David's room, and moved Alan downstairs. To celebrate him having his own room -- big boy! Not afraid to sleep by himself! -- we painted his room. Neither Claudia nor I are artists, but we got modestly ambitious and painted a sort of mural... an astronaut floating in space, colorful stars and planets, and a spaceship. It ended up looking pretty nice. So, every night Alan went to bed with the spaceship on the wall over his head, and the astronaut hovering protectively by the foot of his bed.
But now it's just me in an empty house, and the landlord would like the room back the way he left it. I'm painting in stages. The stars and planets and spaceships are all bright colors, so they will need several coats before they're covered. Did the first couple of coats last night.
I found myself oddly reluctant to cover up the astronaut. Just paint, of course. But... thanks for watching over my little boy, spaceman.
-- In other news, the Hash House Harriers will not meet today, because large public meetings are still forbidden under the State of Emergency. So, I'll take a nap instead.
-- Suddenly today, as if a switch had been flipped, the streets were full of vendors selling flowers. The last sullen scabs of dirty snow haven't quite disappeared from shadowy corners, but the air is warm and the birds have been going nuts for a week now. Saw my first bee this afternoon, buzzing around some violets for sale outside my office. Yeah.
Women's Day, love. Gotta buy flowers for the woman in your life. If she's conveniently close by, I mean.
Posted by: Claudia | March 08, 2008 at 04:54 PM
D'oooohhh.
Doug M.
Posted by: claudia | March 08, 2008 at 08:06 PM
And that would explain why it was violets for sale - purple being the colour of IWD.
Posted by: Nich Hills | March 09, 2008 at 05:32 AM
"Women's day?" Is there something I should do before I go home from the office? Confused.
Oh, any pix of the wall? Wouldn't mind getting a gander of that astronaut.
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 09, 2008 at 08:57 PM
It's a socialist thing, Noel. All over Eastern Europe - also, the leftish parties in Germany insist on giving out red carnations to random women in the streets.
I do have a picture of the astronaut but it's buried somewhere on the backup drive. Give me a day or so...
Posted by: Claudia | March 09, 2008 at 11:10 PM
Ah. Eastern Europe only. OK. Phew!
Looking forward to the pix.
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 10, 2008 at 01:08 AM
Socialist thing! Eastern Europe only?
On Thursday I bumped into a couple of colleagues, from the office choir, returning from a gig. They were wearing lurid purple tops. "International women's day?" I asked.
They confirmed, they were just returning from an official function to celebrate the day.
A quick Google shows that the federal government, the NSW and Qld state governments and even the IT industry have IWD web-pages. The federal web-site links to the celebrations in each state and territory:
http://ofw.facs.gov.au/iwd/index.htm
Now excuse me, please. I must go and queue for potatoes. :-)
Posted by: Nich Hills | March 10, 2008 at 03:55 AM
Wrong impression, Noel. As Nich already noted, it's not "Eastern Europe only". As the name indicates, it's the _International_ Women's Day.
Yes, it has a socialist background (an American socialist background, in fact). Yes, it's considerably more visible in the former communist countries, but it features reasonably visibly also elsewhere.
And these days, in some parts of the world, the Women's Day is, at least on surface, really no more socialist (or even feminist) than the modern Christmas is Christian. Unless one regards these Womens' Day bridal shows, wedding expos and other such clap-trap that simply reinforces the traditional feminine stereotypes as "socialist" or "feminist". [1]
(I have probably mentioned before that I have a radical feminist friend who boycotts the Women's Day precisely for this reason.)
Cheers,
J. J.
[1] I hate weddings. God, but I really, really hate weddings.
Posted by: Jussi Jalonen | March 10, 2008 at 01:09 PM
Ah, OK. An Eastern Hemisphere thing, then. I've never heard of it in Latin America or the Caribbean, although if it has socialist origins, then I'm sure that it's on an official calendar somewhere.
Either way, point being that Amma has never heard of it either, and thus I wasn't forgetting anything.
I now leave you to your queueing. Hasta la victoria siempre.
P.S. What's wrong with weddings?
Posted by: Noel Maurer | March 10, 2008 at 04:28 PM