Sewing? Me?

While belly dancing I’ve often thought of wanting a better costume – an actual costume, rather than just a skirt, some random top and a coin scarf.  Our belly dancing teacher has got us making bits and pieces to try and get us looking like a dance troupe and I have bought a couple of items but it’s all a bit haphazard.  However, it did get me looking at material and thinking of items I could possibly make.

I’ve often looked for ideas, from photos and videos of belly dancers, but never put anything into action.  I bought my first actual belly dancing costume recently and it needs altering, as I’ve mentioned.  This also involves making a skirt to go under the costume’s skirt which is actually see-through.  So I went to ‘Spotlight’, a material and crafts shop, and bought some material for the skirt.  I also bought material to make another coin scarf as well as stiffening for the ‘cabaret’ style belt.  Then I saw some beautifully coloured chiffon-type material which gave me another idea for both a decorated bra and some trimming to go over a skirt.  I ended up buying 5 items with which to make stuff and saw additional trimming for future reference.  This now leaves me with about 10 sewing or costume projects and a sewing machine that doesn’t work. (Below is an example of a cabaret style costume – the costume Westerners normally associate with belly dancing).

So, next step, get the sewing machine fixed.  Then I can start on them all!  In the meantime I am decorating a piece of bamboo to make another ‘cane’.  I bought the one I have currently from the belly dancing teacher who obtained them for our cane dance performance this Saturday.  Mine is pink and purple and I hate pink.  I also paid $20 for it.  I bought the bamboo for about $3 for several poles and the sequinned decoration is just $8.  I could sell one for $10 and still make a profit as they don’t take much time to decorate.  Below is an example of a cane dance.

Let me just say that in no way will I ever show off my belly (unless it somehow miraculously becomes flat and firm).  This video’s quite good actually as it shows a cane dance and drum solo, both dances of the type we’re performing on Saturday.  I’m starting to get nervous.  I hope it all goes well.

Now to get off here and start one costuming project which doesn’t need a sewing machine!

Sounds like my style of parenting

Found this manifesto on a site about a book called “The Idle Parent” which I saw here.

THE MANIFESTO OF THE IDLE PARENT

We reject the idea that parenting requires hard work

We pledge to leave our children alone

We reject the rampant consumerism that invades children from the moment they are born

We read them poetry and fantastic stories without morals

We drink alcohol without guilt

We reject the inner Puritan

We don’t waste money on family days out and holidays

An idle parent is a thrifty parent

An idle parent is a creative parent

We lie in bed for as long as possible

We try not to interfere

We play in the fields and forests

We push them into the garden and shut the door so we can clean the house

We both work as little as possible, particularly when the kids are small

Time is more important than money

Happy mess is better than miserable tidiness

Down with school

We fill the house with music and merriment

We reject health and safety guidelines

We embrace responsibility

There are many paths

More play, less work

While not all of the above reflect my “style” of parenting.  I’ve always believed in treating my kids as individuals with respect rather than possessions to boss around.  I have, of course, been influenced by the fact that I’ve been the sole parent for most of my eldest daughter’s 22 years.  I was solely responsible for them – the discipline and teaching and guiding.  I tried the more traditional forms of discipline and they failed miserably.  Instead I let them be and guided them as best I could.  Having said that, I certainly wasn’t a parent who let a child scream in public.  They were brought up to respect others. 

As children of a solo parent they were supposed to be lumped in with the “disadvantaged”, labelled as such because solo parents are most often regarded as poverty-stricken and uneducated who ended up alone with children because of being young and irresponsible (ie end up on the benefit on purpose).  This is the attitude of many – I know, I came across this attitude many times.  And yet when my girls started school the teachers complimented me on their abilities to read and write.  (I’m going off track here.  Memories flood back of difficult times on the benefit when they were young.)  By ‘giving up’ on strict discipline, life was so much easier.  The kids didn’t get more difficult.  They had brains and common sense.  I listened to them, played with them, helped them and they are both responsible, intelligent adults with morals and common sense.  I’m very proud of them.   You could say they brought themselves up and I just led by example.  If others moaned about my parenting, I ignored them.  More than once I’ve had my kids’ friends label me as “cool” because I don’t go on about strict rules which either have no basis in common sense or don’t allow the child to be trusted.  I’m not expressing myself well at all in this post.

I had, in fact, come here to blog about something completely different and found the beginnings of a draft which I’d started earlier in the week!

My next post will be what I wanted to blog about in the first place!

Was good weekend

even though, as usual, it seemed short.

I went down to Wellington on Friday night.  H and her boyfriend wanted to see his brother ’debuting’ at a wrestling event in Petone.  So, left work early, picked up kids and headed down to Wellington.  Got there with 15 minutes to spare.  The hall was freezing, full of wrestling fans.  I’m not into wrestling at all, I have to say, but I thought I’d make an exception and watch a local event and meet H’s boyfriend’s brother at the same time.

Well, it was entertaining.  The comments coming from the audience were just as entertaining as the antics of the wrestlers.  One young chap kept proclaiming how good he was while ‘beating up’ his opponent.  Naturally, the opponent got the upper hand and gave him back the treatment.  A woman in the audience said “that’s what you get for being mouthy”.  A couple of the wrestlers were women (there were about 8 matches in total I think) – it was quite good watching the ‘bitch fight’.  The big Maori chick won over the shorter blonde chick, of course. 

I saw the family resemblance between the brothers (or actually half-brothers).  They’ve both got an engaging smile.  H’s boyfriend’s brother’s “debut” was simply him acting the part of a bodyguard to pull apart wrestlers who’d ‘got out of hand’.  He’s still training so is not ready for a public match.

Stayed overnight at older daughter’s place and the next day went on the hunt for a belly dancing shop which had a huge sale on, according to my belly dancing teacher.  Traipsed down Cuba Street and there it was – Lola’s.  She had umpteen belly dancing costumes and dresses all for the very discounted price of $120 each (they’re normally close to $400).  I tried on a few but I don’t have the right figure for a figure-hugging dress.  I ended up buying a four-piece costume – bra, belt, skirt and veil.  Good value.  I’ll have to adjust the straps on the bra though.  I won’t be wearing it to any events this year – it will take me ages before I’ve gotten round to adjusting the costume to fit properly.  But at least I’ve got it now.

Headed home in the afternoon, so we still had Sunday.  Excellent.

Sunday I headed to Levin with fellow belly dancers to practise our dances for the public event on 4th July.  Starting to feel nervous.  The Levin women liked our cane dance.  Although both groups have learned the same two dances (and they’ll join us for one of them) they dance completely differently to us – their timing is different.  I’m glad we won’t be dancing one of the dances with them – they’re doing that one on their own.  So, from initially 3 or 4 dances, we’ll only be doing 2, as we lost one of our belly dancers who moved down south and the other dance we’ll leave to the Levin girls to do.  I showed off my new costume to some of the other dancers and they vowed to visit Wellington soon.  Sunday was a nice sunny day too.

Monday came again all too soon.  Still two more days of the week to go and I finished Spanish classes tonight, for this semester anyway.  I wasn’t going to go to Spanish next semester but the tutor tonight said I was the best at the oral ‘interview’ and should continue and that after next semester I probably wouldn’t be able to learn Spanish so cheaply (because of government funding cuts).  So, I’ll brave another cold dark evening during the week to continue Spanish.

The weekend that was, or “the search for food”

Another weekend flew by, most of it spent in Wellington.  My daughter had just come back from Fiji so we headed to her place to return her pet budgie (we had been looking after it while she was away and spent a lot of time trying to distract the kitten from taking too great an interest in it).  On the way down I was informed that there was a birthday party on for the daughter of one of the girls’ cousins who was turning three.  My first reaction was ‘well, no-one told me, I’m not prepared for it, I’m not going’.  The trip south had only meant to be a day trip.

Naturally, I ended up going to the party which didn’t actually start until 6pm, food at about 7.30pm.  That meant I didn’t get away before 9.30pm.  So much for the day trip.  I ended up staying the night and headed back home the next day about 12.30.  We hadn’t had any breakfast or lunch so we thought we’d stop at Paraparaumu for a bite to eat.  We’d spotted a new Mediterranean place there on the way down. 

Well, we got there and had a look at the shop part of the Mediterranean place.  In a word expensive.  Had a look at the food on offer – seemingly no different to any other cafe food and expensive.  We’ll pop over to the supermarket, I suggested.  Under the “Food to Go” sign was packets of ham.  Ok.  Headed over to the bakery.  Nothing particularly appealing – basically just loaves of bread and buns.  Thought then we’d head into the mall to the food court.  Big queue at Mcdonalds which I didn’t want anyway.  The cafe opposite had expensive food on offer but didn’t look appealing either.  The Indian takeaway next door advertised chicken and chips and samosas.  No samosas were available and the chicken looked like it had been cooked 3 days ago.  Another cafe offered equally expensive cafe food which I didn’t want (huge cakes or paninis) but they looked stale.  The pies in the warming oven looked several days old as well.  Meanwhile, my daughter’s boyfriend got himself a couple of “snack” burgers for $2 each from Mcdonalds.  My daughter and I then headed over to Wendy’s to buy a couple of “snack dogs” mini hotdogs (way overpriced but by now we didn’t care).  However, the service was appalling.  A young girl was standing at the cash register slowly counting dollar notes in her hand obviously incompetent.  The queue didn’t lessen.  My daughter and I gave up and headed back to the car.  The burgers were eaten by boyfriend and announced to be disgusting with stale buns.  What was wrong with Paraparaumu?  To say we were not impressed was an understatement.  

Got home about 3pm with a mere few hours until another week of work.  I felt cheated of my weekend.

Peeves

It’s been a day of them – things that annoy or just make me think “what b.s”.

First it was following a slow driver, a woman, who insisted on brushing her hair and at one point actually took both hands off the wheel to fluff her hair.  What is it with these women?  I followed another woman just last week who did the same thing.  I mean, come on.  How absolutely stupid is that and why couldn’t they have done their hair BEFORE driving?  It gets me so pissed off.

Then it was another report about swine flu – how the WHO are going to upgrade the pandemic.  Come on – they say there have been just over 100 deaths worldwide – weren’t most of those in Mexico (where the virulent strain was probably released)?  This came on top of another report of some people being quarantined after arriving in New Zealand because one woman had flu symptoms.  She’s recovered already but they have to make a big thing about it.  Last week a “news” report mentioned how schools received letters about what to do in the event of an outbreak at school.  Hasn’t everyone at work or school had similar shit?  I mean really – news?  I don’t think so. 

In the same newspaper in the miniscule world section – an article about how Nancy Reagan still talks to her dead husband.  THIS IS NOT NEWS!!!!!  Arrrrgggghhhh!  It makes me want to scream!

As well, in the news, mention of how the government plans to stop funding night classes.  How short-sighted is that?  Not all classes are for things like embroidery – there are many courses that are relevant to work or upskilling – and even if they were for cooking or tapestry or whatever, isn’t that just as important for people to occupy themselves especially in times of financial difficulties?  I thought then that I’d better continue Spanish next semester while it’s still cheap, but then had a look at the time of the class.  The next level of Spanish is at 7pm.  I already have to fill in two hours after work before going to belly dancing classes.  I don’t think I could cope with two such nights, especially in winter.  (It’s a total waste of time and petrol to go home after work – I’d be there one hour and have to head back into town again.)  Nope, think I’ll give it a miss.  It’s not like I’m planning to go to Spain or South America.

Another thing that peeved me was some mention I read somewhere of Australia using nuclear power and I thought why the hell don’t they use solar power??? 

The world is just so idiotic and I’m not in the mood for stupidity and ignorance and short-sightedness – not this week anyway!

Yep, must be the hormones.  I feel so aggravated.

Too cold to do anything

So a three-day weekend went by without me having achieved much at all.  One day was a write-off as I stupidly got drunk.  The ‘kids’ had bought some mixed drinks and that stuff is like drinking lolly water so I drank far too much and suffered the consequences the next day.  What a waste.  The ‘kids’ on the other hand seemed right as rain.  I just can’t do it anymore – too old.

The rest of the weekend saw me hovering near the electric bar heater trying to keep warm.  It was the coldest weekend of the year so far.  My room, where I could have de-cluttered or found the costume piece I wanted to cut up, was freezing.  I had no incentive to go in there at all.  I should have practised belly dancing, as I have a performance coming up in a month’s time, but I didn’t.  I did do some Spanish and the usual washing, etc, but that was about it.  I played Grand Theft Auto 4 or Sims 2 or browsed the web – all near the heater.  Not at all productive.  My list was forgotten.

This week is going very slowly already and it’s only the second day of work this week.  Every day seems to drag and I feel very tired.  It’s the weather and the season.  I just want to hibernate at this time of year.  What a shame we can’t. 

Right, I might do some Spanish homework while it’s fresh on my mind.  Tonight we learned how to say how old we were and on what date our birthday is.  For some bizarre reason I didn’t give my true age and chopped 6 years off, so I then had to add six years to the date of my birth.  How silly.  Then I felt stupid because one woman said she was 40 (cuarenta años) and didn’t look it and another said she was 52 (cincuenta y dos años) and didn’t look it either, so I figured I probably looked old for my artificial age.  The teacher did say we could lie about our age if we wanted to though.  He just wanted us to say it properly, whatever it was.  I’m still undecided whether I will continue Spanish for the next half of the year.  I feel I need a break and want another evening at home to do something like genealogy, but will I?

Taking stock

Yesterday (was it only yesterday?) I spent a pleasant lunch hour at a free concert put on by the New Zealand String Quartet playing Haydn.

It was very pleasant.  I should go to these things more often.

Today was another nice sunny day.  I went for a walk but there was definitely a chill in the air.  I considered I might next time find a sunny private spot and just read my book.

Today went slowly and I thought of all things that need doing but when I get home, particularly in the weekends, I can never remember what it was I was going to do, so it’s time for list-making.  I will have to make a list of all those things.  As well as belly-dancing and Spanish lessons, I want to do some genealogical research, de-clutter my room, write blog entries, make costume parts, deal with my photos, etc etc etc.  Instead I end up doing a bit of Spanish homework and think about dancing and the rest of the weekend is taken up by tedious housework or dishes, etc.

Yep, time for some organisation.

Hmm – idea

Purely by accident while browsing something Spanish (I can’t remember what) on the library catalogue, I came across a Spanish renaissance CD, which I borrowed.  It was very nice and made me realise that I missed the medieval feasts the medieval club used to have.  It got me thinking.  I have a significant birthday coming up next year (how depressing – already!) and thought it would be very cool to have a medieval feast.  It would entail hiring a hall, providing food, etc (since my house is way too tiny for a ‘feast’).  I shall have to start planning, while the motivation is there.

There are three friends of mine (including the cow) who all have the significant birthday within three months of each other.  We’d always planned to have a combined event.  The cow friend (hereafter referred to as CF) initially thought it brilliant to all go for a trip to Macchu Picchu.  Sure, I thought – I’ll save up. 

Then last year she and her partner decided to join the Burning Man event in Nevada.  Initially I thought, oh yeah, could be fun.  Then the more I looked at it, the more I thought – na.  A week in the desert, no shade, surrounded by Americans – no, I could see myself hot, tired and very grumpy. 

That plan’s off as well now, it seems.  Instead, CF thought she’d just have a party at her place.  Talk about an anti-climax – and I could see it all now – all her friends (why would anyone else’s friends travel all the way to Tauranga for a tedious non-event?). 

I discovered the reason for her change of heart yet again.  She and some friends were planning on a yachting cruise off the coast of Yugoslavia or whatever it’s now called.  Those friends visited while I was in Tauranga and they started talking about it.  Too late, CF realised I was there and belatedly said I could join them if I wanted.  Yeah right.

So, back to my original plan which I’d thought of some time ago – a medieval feast.  It’ll be more difficult to arrange now that the medieval club has basically disbanded and the other local club is in trouble, but no worries.  All that’s required is a caterer, a venue and costumes.  I have heaps of suitable music and know a few dances.  Could also get a couple of belly dancers in.  Yep, sounds like a plan.

Sigh

Didn’t go to belly dancing class tonight – I get fed up waiting around until 7pm especially when it’s dark and there’s nothing to do – can’t read a book or go to the public library.  I went to Warehouse and bought some cheap shoes and a cheap jersey.  One pair of shoes I’ve been wearing to work are not waterproof and there’s rain forecast every day.  I’ve also been cold at work so need added layers – also some gloves and hat and scarf.  I can’t find my old gloves or hat, dammit.  Didn’t buy any at Warehouse – there was little on offer – one type of glove and hat, that if you didn’t like, well, tough.  I’ll try somewhere else (like KMart) which stays open long enough after 5pm for me to get a look in.

I should have gone to dancing, of course – I need the exercise.  I feel myself getting fatter, despite the longer walk to the car and going up and down stairs (although that hardly counts does it).  I feel fat and frumpy so really need some self-discipline and do some regular exercise every day.  The fact is that I’ve been a bit depressed since my visit to Tauranga and my “friend” suggested that I needed to lose 5kg and actually implied that I might find a man if I did so.  I said nothing at the time but that was one of her comments that had me fuming.  She’s never been one for tact.  Perhaps I’m less tolerant of her tactlessness and selfishness as I get older, but I’m too weak to say anything, preferring to avoid unpleasantness and any confrontation at all.  I should have told her that I personally knew of three other single women about my age who are attractive and intelligent (and not overweight) but have given up on “having a man” – there are simply none available that appeal for longer than five minutes.  As if I want one!  She must pity me my singleness or something.  Perhaps she thinks I’m not successful if I don’t have the well paying job and a man, new car and nice house.  Well **** that!  (I’d like to see her survive on what I have been during the past 20-odd years.  She on her large salary and two incomes…)

I had a totally different topic in mind when I loaded this page…  Odd.

I opened a book today which belonged to someone now deceased.  Inside was an inscription and some photos from some young man, possibly Russian (the book was by a Russian author).  Judging by the comments made by this man, he appeared to love the recipient of the book a great deal.  It made me pause and think of all those emotions between people, which, when they die, just disappear as if they’d never existed.  It all seemed terribly hopeless and pointless.

I’m in need of some humour, obviously.

Or some alcohol…

WordPress hassles

Can anyone tell me how to do columns in a blog post?  I lined up a column as best I could and it looked all good in the editing box but after publishing it it’s all over the place!  AND I got the varying font sizes again too!  It’s so frustrating.  The visual box should reflect the HTML.  Oh yes I can change the size of the font in HTML but it’s annoying to say the least – I don’t even know there’s anything wrong until I publish.  Grrrrr.

Feeling irritable, not sure why.

Some low grumblings of discontent in the “office”.  I’m keeping out of it.  Apparently it’s our turn to wash dishes in the staff kitchen next week – some even moaning about that.  It’s only one afternoon every three months or so!  Crikey.

Think I’ll head to bed and read more of another Agatha Christie.  I used to read them during summers when I was a kid.  I don’t have all the Poirot/Miss Marple books but quite a few.  The only book I remember whodunnit is “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” which, incidentally, is showing on TV on Prime on Saturday night.  I’ll be watching, knowing full well there’ll be nothing else on TV worth watching.