In my experience, any Enlightened Housewife doesn’t post if she plain has too many children. I have five. That’s either one to five too many depending on your outlook on life or the stage of Motherhood you are at. Also it doesn’t help if you love them dearly and couldn’t do without them. Don’t worry! I found my way into this situation by a combination of choice and accident and one day I’ll find my way out again! They’ll all be at school eventually. I find this hard to believe but am comforted that there are laws in place to ensure this is a likelihood.
Anyhoo. the lamest way you can start a blog post, is, “sooo.. folks it’s been a while.” Actually I’ll just default start my posts this way henceforth. Life seems to quite often get in the way of writing. And one trouble is with the writing is that once you’ve garnered an audience, no matter how microcosmal ( I made that word up, (definition to follow) Â is that you owe your readers an explanation. No matter how corny and mealy mouthed this explanation sounds. I use the following analogy: Â Imagine you catch a tour bus. You’ve made a choice to go on a journey and it may be thrilling or it may be lame but it will always have a beginning, a middle and a return to real life, or an end.
And then wouldn’t it be puzzling and annoying if the bus-driver stopped at a non-scheduled destination, announced a pee stop and then stood there chain smoking until the passengers realized the driver wasn’t going to go anywhere for a while, if not months. After a few minutes of one’s life thinking “WTF?” you and all the other passengers realize: A. the journey is over for now and B. there is a nice cosy pub within walking distance and the combo of music and Irish stew makes for a compelling destination.
So, blogging is like a bus journey but it never ends. And I last posted in July and then I lamely never came back to it. Analogy ended.
Something that irks me about the writing business is all the young smart arse writers who become a resounding success but never take the readers on the journey to publication and resounding success. Take my fellow Kiwi Eleanor Catton. Instead of plugging away at the biz for twenty years or so and gradually making a name for herself, she ups and writes a book in one day set in Nowhere’s-ville New Zealand (not part of Australia BTW). And she wins the 2013 Man  Booker Prize.  Who does that?
Oh she’s a Millennial. That explains it. They get it in the right order. Success then Brats.
I haven’t read Catton’s book yet. Reading ‘The Luminaries’ is a decision not to take lightly. By virtue of it’s very size it falls into a category of book called ‘Door-stoppers’. Perfect for holding the door fast or throwing at a drunk uncle on Christmas Day. However you actually have to have time or be pushed into it by the fates to embark on the journey of reading an epistle of biblical proportions. Or the wont to make a bargain with it’s placement on your reading list. As in. “I’ll read ‘The Luminaries’, when author Eleanor Catton starts sporting a pastel jumpsuit or a bad perm.”
I doubt that will happen soon folks. She looks fairly serious. Maybe a tattoo.
Eleanor Catton
Thankfully Thanksgiving is over. It was wonderful. A houseful of guests and tradition. Menu to follow.
The day after Thanksgiving I got a much needed break from my household. I call our house and surrounds, ‘The Compound’. I have it similar to Shelly Miscavige the Scientology wife who was swapped out of the public eye to “a small compound above LA”:
Shelly and I have totally so much in common. Not the least being that we haven’t been seen in the public eye since 2005. That coincides with when my oldest son was a year old. It’s time to get with the program so gleefully, albeit not without reservation I took the four hour hop (United Airlines) to go ahead two hours in time and back centuries to atmospheric New Orleans.
In the interests of preventing a re-occurrence of scurvy in the household I must stop here and attend to the nutritional needs of the household. I will leave you with this:
Defn: Microcosmal: As in, Small but important. Origination: When one son spotted another son going about his day without pants on and gleefully yelled out : “Your penis is so microcosmal”!
