'The man on the radio said Elvis Presley died...'

“...it was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody’s ear, 
and somehow we all dreamed it.” 
-Bruce Springsteen 


I was one very sad little girl on this day 35 years ago. Much to the bemusement of my non Elvis fan parents who refused to let their distraught child hop a plane to Memphis from Sydney for his funeral. Personally, I did not see the issue with this. I think they wished they had let me go in the end as I moped and sobbed around the house for WEEKS after. 

I may have refused to go to school for a little while too. I was that kind of child.  

It was another 10 years before I finally got to Graceland. I flew into Dallas, alone, and caught a Greyhound Bus up through the deep south and into Memphis. It was my first time in the States. And even though I had my wallet stolen on the bus in the middle of the night, even though my luggage busted and my clothes were strewn all over the sidewalk at the bus terminal in Memphis, and even though I had NO money, the next five days were full of adventure and discovery.

Fortunately my hotel room and Graceland tour tickets were prepaid. And, when you are 22 and wandering around Memphis with an Australian accent, many people are very happy to help you! And back then, believe me, I did not say 'sidewalk'. Or 'tomayto'.

At the bus station, I accepted a ride to my hotel on Elvis Presley Blvd some 10 miles away, from an older gentleman driving a beat up pick up truck. He was waiting for his daughter whose bus was delayed. It was no problem whatsoever for him. In fact, he wrote down his number and told me to call if I needed any help at all. He was very kind. Evidently, it never occurred to me to be afraid. I felt like I was in a fabulous movie. I still have his number some place.

My dad wired me some money through Western Union but it took a few days to arrive, since it also happened to be Memorial Day weekend. No matter, you can sit in the meditation garden at Graceland all day long if you want. And since no one knows who you are, you can also get away with having the worst 80s perm ever while you are sitting there with the departed Presleys. (Photographic evidence exists but is conveniently packed away in a box in the basement. No digital cameras back then, no internets, facebooks, instagrams or iAnythings for real-time sharing.)

I really want to go back to Graceland. This time with my husband and child and maybe just a little more cash at my disposal. I probably won't take a Greyhound bus but I will definitely take along a much deeper, richer understanding of Elvis' amazing musical and cultural legacy. Because honestly, at 22, even though you think you know everything, you really don't know that much at all.



'Bye bye Johnny, Johnny bye bye
You didn't have to die. You didn't have to die'
- Bruce Springsteen

There's something fishy about this

A little cautionary tale from our vacation. When your 7 year old tells you his chicken tenders 'taste like fish', don't be so quick to clip him around the ears and insist he knocks it off and eats them

 or he can jolly well go to bed hungry... 

So we're in this really nice seafood establishment where Joe and I have ordered fish and shrimp and crab. William of course, sticks with his tried and true chicken tenders and fries from the kid's menu.

It had been a great day. We'd survived almost being struck by lightening on the pier then managed to drive through the flash flooded streets of Nags Head to get to the restaurant.

The food arrived and looked almost as great as my frozen margarita. William took a bite of his chicken, dipped in ketchup of course, and instantly made a face like he'd swallowed a mouthful of poison.

"Mommy this doesn't taste good. It tastes like fish."

I took a bite. Tasted like chicken to me.

"It does not taste like fish, it is chicken. Eat it please."

He takes another bite. This time a fry. Dipped in ketchup. Same face.

"Mommy it really tastes horrible. I don't like it. The fries taste like fish too. It's too spicy. How can you make me eat something if I don't like it? If *you* don't like something you send it back. How come I can't do that? I want a hamburger instead..."

Before long, our child is wailing, tears rolling down his cheeks, because we are forcing him to eat the chicken. Lecturing him about starving children in third world countries who would be GRATEFUL to eat rancid chicken, let alone be taken out a restaurant while on VACATION no less! No, young man, you are NOT going to order something else, you are going to eat that CHICKEN!

(Joe: "Do you know when *I* was your age we NEVER went to restaurants..." (blah blah blah zzzzzzz)

Our waiter comes over to see if everything's ok. I tell him my child claims his chicken tastes like fish but I realise it's just his imagination. The waiter assures me the chicken is not cooked in the same pans as the fish but he would be happy to bring him something else.

Oh no, he's going to eat this chicken if it kills him I start to say but then Joe relents and says ok, please bring him a hamburger. I begin ranting that if the hamburger tastes like fish then blah blah blah zzzzzz.

The hamburger arrives. I need another margarita. The waiter asks if he can get us anything else.

I sigh. No thanks, we have ketchup, we're good. Oh wait. In fact, we have two bottles of ketchup. That's weird. I wonder why we have two bottles of ketchup? Don't you think that's strange, that we have two bottles of ketchup I say idly to no one in particular.

Yes. Well. That would be because one of the bottles of ketchup is not ketchup. It's cocktail sauce. Nice and spicy cocktail sauce. That I had liberally poured onto my child's plate. That he had been dipping his chicken and fries into. Madly insisting that something was wrong. Being dismissed as a whining fool.

Major. Parenting. Fail. 

Above. Cocktail sauce. Right. Ketchup. Both red. But not the same. Not even close.
Any seven year old could tell you that. 

The Dark Knight Rides Again

Batman has come back to visit for a while. It's really nice. It makes a very welcome change from the WWE wrestling folk who have been here since Christmas. I am not so much a fan of grown men in their underwear fake beating the crap out of each other. They make me yearn for 

Dora the Explorer and Captain Feathersword. But I will settle for Batman.

This is a conversation from yesterday. 

William: Great news Mommy! I've got almost everything I need to become the REAL Batman!

Me: You do? What are you missing then? Special powers?

William: No. You don't need special powers. You just need bat stuff like a few batarangs, which you can buy from Target. You also need a cave with an old fashioned telephone. Those old phones have buttons that open secret doors in the cave. Do you know where I can get a cave?

Me: Um...

William: Oh! I need a sidekick. And a butler. Wait... do we already have a butler?

Me: If we do, I'm going to fire his ass. (No, I did not actually say this. I did laugh though. Quite a lot. Yes, we have a butler. Looks a lot like me).

William: I also still need some bad guys. I'll get them in New York.

Me: You're going to New York? Great! What good works will you be doing when you're the Real Batman?

William: I'm going to use the batarangs to cut open people's bags and steal candy.

Me: ???!!!

William: And Mommy, not many people can know I am really Batman, ok? Just you and Daddy and Grandma. Definitely not Uncle Ted. I think he would be a teller*. I don't like tellers.


(*Teller, as in someone who couldn't keep a secret. Not a bank teller. Poor Ted, left out in the cold again.) 

Evil bag slashing, candy stealing Batman. Wearing his Green Lantern pjs
and wielding a very small but nonetheless lethal batarang. 

Evil bag slashing, candy stealing Batman, fast asleep, still wearing mask and holding on tight to batarang. 

The original stinking cute Batman, aged 4.  

Boys

Conversation overheard today between William and his 'very oldest best friend' Isaiah.

William: Yeah, I went to a pool party last night. I didn't get home 'til ALL hours.

Isaiah: Really? Haa haa. Cool! Whose party was it?

William: A friend from my class. You don't know her. Actually, she's my EX girlfriend now.

Isaiah: Why? How come she's your ex girlfriend?

William: Because she CHEWS with her MOUTH open! Can you BELIEVE it?

Isaiah: I chew with my mouth open sometimes. 

William: You what dude????!!

Just to clarify, at no point was this girl actually William's girlfriend. There is a slight language disconnect at work here. When I explained this he looked at me like I'd grown an extra head. 'Mommy, hello?? She IS a GIRL! Well, yes, but... oh never mind. (There's nothing 'ex' about her either, they are still friends.)

Footnote: I have to take full ownership of the food and chewing thing though. From my very earliest youth, I have had a grave aversion to the sound and sight of people chewing with their mouths open. I am the oldest of four kids and my brothers and sister will testify that I was indeed the Police of Polite Eating in our house. I do not know where it came from but it stands to this day. It may be my one nod to a real live OCD issue. Interestingly, I never had to teach William to eat with his mouth closed, he knew it as if by osmosis. Evidently God saw that it would be best for everyone this way.

Eric Church - Springsteen

A while back I wrote about this song, before it had an official video. The video was being shot in Tennessee at the time. Since the song was already huge, it seemed like a kind of backward way to go about things but what do I know. Here is that official video. 

I have to say it's nothing like I imagined it would be. And I don't really understand it. 

But never mind... you don't necessarily need to understand something to appreciate it <g>

What is wrong with people?

I've just finished reading a story in today's Sydney Morning Herald. A 31 year old New Zealand woman was sentenced to jail for the manslaughter of her two month old son. After going on a 12 (twelve!) hour drinking binge, she had an argument with her partner (imagine that) and took the baby out with her to sleep in her car. It must have seemed like such a great idea at the time. Sadly, when she awoke from her drunken stupor, her baby was dead. She had accidentally suffocated him. She was given two years and three months in jail. Reckless endangerment of a child resulting in death. The same woman had previously lost another child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome some years before. Is this even relevant to the first part of the story? I don't know, you tell me.

Last week, video was captured (and youtubed around the world) of a baby being placed inside a washing machine at a New Jersey laundromat. The machine locked and began filling with water. The video clearly shows the couple (assumed at first to be the boy's parents) panicking and trying to open the door as the child sloshed around in the machine. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a staffer at the laundry managed to get the machine door open. The boy is (allegedly) fine and it turns out it wasn't his parents, but the babysitter and her boyfriend who thought it would be cute to put a BABY in a WASHING MACHINE and SHUT THE FREAKING DOOR.

The child's mother initially made statements to the effect that she forgave them and was all 'oh anyone could make a mistake'. Then she appeared on the Today show (why not?) and now it seems she's going to press charges against both the sitter and her boyfriend. Press charges? Someone did that to my baby, there would be no charges to press, believe me.

You don't have to search very hard or far to find a gazillion stories just like these where innocent children are placed in harm's way thanks to the actions of their parents or carers. I'm just going to come right out and say that some people should not be allowed to procreate. And some people should never be put in a position where any vestige of responsibility or plain old common sense might be expected of them. Since it is clearly beyond some people, the best thing is for them to keep a respectful distance.

Please don't tell me it is everyone's God given biological right to have a child. Just because you have the plumbing doesn't always make it a good idea.  

Yes, sometimes terrible freak accidents happen. Beyond our control. Extenuating circumstances. The best intentions go awry. Good people have momentary lapses of judgement. No one is perfect. I know all that but as far as I can tell, that's not what happened in either of these cases.

I get that the mother of the dead baby was probably desperately unhappy. She'd already lost one child after all. But you know what? If that had happened to me and I'd been blessed with another baby, I think I'd be doing everything in my power to take care of that new baby and I'm pretty damn sure that would not involve me drinking for 12 straight hours then taking the baby out to the CAR with me to sleep it off. And what was wrong with the father that he let her take the baby out of the house in that state? Oh, wait, lemme guess.

And should washing machine baby's mama bear any responsibility at all for the fact that she entrusted her small child to two complete halfwits people of questionable ability to care for him? It's only by God's grace that that baby did not drown or incur some terrible injury.

The next time my child asks me why HE can't have a brother or a sister like most all of his friends, I'm going to tell him that God's plan for us must be to spend all our time caring just for him. Maybe God is protecting us from ourselves. Who knows, if we had another baby we might suddenly forget ourselves, accidentally pop it in the washing machine and press play. Really, it could happen to anyone.

Summer 2012

This is William's first week of summer vacation. On Sunday, we went to the swimming pool. There is no photographic evidence to prove we were ever there. Nor will there be pictorial evidence of any future pool visits. You'll just have to take my word for it. 

But today, we went to the local orchard and picked our own strawberries and cherries. It was awesome! William discovered he likes cherries after all. Lots of photos!