ReadLite District

My sunny mood evaporated the other morning, leaving me grumpy and misanthropic. I stumped around getting breakfast ready, and I thought "What music matches my mood?" and came up with the answer: Kyuss! With scant regard for those around me, I put it on nice and loud - let 'em suffer!

The daughter, just 10 months old, surprised me by swaying, bopping and generally showing great enthusiasm for what wikipedia assures me is best classified as "Stoner rock".

I just don't know why parents inflict "children's music" on their offspring and themselves.

Of late, I've been suffering a serious addiction. Soul music has me in its clutches. It could be worse, though from time to time Mrs Banttha grits her teeth and asks nicely can we please have some good old-timey punk rock on the stereo again.

I guess the family suffers the worst. But the boys seem to be coping okay - I suppose they're growing up with it, and they just think it's normal. In fact, they even seem to like (some of) it.

The eldest, at the tender age of four, has formed an attachment to Jean Knight's "Mr Big Stuff" - an infectious, upbeat soul-pop classic. You can hear a sample (or heck, buy the track - trust me, it's a keeper) here . Every time we hop in the car to go to karate, or swimming, or the hardware store... "Dad, can we hear Mr Big Stuff?" - a request I'm happy to oblige.

So imagine my surprise a few weeks back when I put son the younger in the back of the car, and halfway up the street, he pipes up "Mistah Big Stuff, pleeeeeze Dadda".Awwww... it makes a father proud.

They now *both* request it as soon as we get in the car, as indeed they did today. They also both love John Holt's "Sister Big Stuff" - a reggae "answer" song. They have decided their little sister must be Sister Big Stuff.

All together now: Awwwwwww!

I know it's very childish of me, but did you know that taking sections of literature out of context can be amusing?

For example, a book I read recently featured the heading "Frog Adjustment". In context of the book, it made sense, but still... kinda surreal. No, it's not a euphemism either. The same book also had quite a discussion about "cock beads" which was far less salacious than one would hope.

However, my favourite recently was this: "Ensure the shaft is well lubricated, using the grease nipples". Tee hee, nudge-nudge eh? Eh? Oh well, maybe it's just me who finds that amusing.

Well, I'm off to 'adjust my frog', if you know what I mean!

They really are not a happy combination! The Banttha boys received CB radios for Christmas. Much fun was had with them - talking, squealing into them - culminating in both radios being dipped into the wading pool.

It should come as no surprise that this was A Bad Thing for their continued operation. What is surprising is that one of them survived - after a few days' drying out, it was back to normal. Of course, one walkie-talkie is really just a walkie, when there's no-one to talk to.

Children don't sleep well during Summer. At the age of two, for example, they suddenly realise that although they're in bed, it's still light outide, therefore they must get out of bed again, like some demented jack-in-the-box. It doesn't matter that it's 9.30 in the evening, and they're so tired they're staggering into walls and banging into door frames. Likewise, at the first sign of light in the morning (about 5.30am currently), by golly, they'd better get up. So where they were previously getting maybe 11 or 12 hours of sleep, they now get about 8. In fact, I've modified an old saying:

Early to rise and late to bed
Makes a young man insane in the head

Which is why I'm in the kitchen, blogging, when I ought to be in bed, sleeping. One day, Son the Younger will get over this phase. Then it will the turn of The Daughter... and then by gods, maybe we can all get some sleep.

I never really thought I'd be the type to love pottering around in the shed, but as each year passes, I become more like my Dad. And his Dad.

I've had my own shed/workshop for some years now, and I enjoy it more and more. Doubly so, as uninterrupted shed time is so scarce these days. It's getting to be pretty well equipped, and lots of emergency repairs can be handled without a visit to the local hardware store. And that makes me feel good.

But what makes me feel better is aimless futzing. Cleaning the rust from an antiquated hand tool, sorting some bolts by size, sharpening a plane I have no intention of using... you get the idea.

In almost all areas of my life, I have music playing: while I work, while I drive, in the kitchen. Not so in the shed - there's no radio, no CD player, no MP3 player, and NO clocks.

It's probably my equivalent of meditation. I wonder if I could run classes in Guided Sheditation (a workshop for those wishing to hone their skills on this earthly plane, ar har har).

Whenever I try to learn something new, it tends to make unexpected appearances in my dreams. So it is with my attempts to learn a little about radiation and nuclear physics. I recently dreamt that if I bombard a turtle with alpha particles, it will become a tortoise, and emit a high-energy photon as part of the decay.

I've never really been all that clear about the differences between turtles and tortoises, but I'm pretty sure that's not it. The unconscious mind - it's a funny old thing.

Labels: dreams