Character study

Last night, I had four kids at my house, sleeping over - the usual gang, Jamie and Lydia, plus Lydias two friends, Emma and Robin. I got them a simple craft - one of those black papers where you can scrape off the black covering and there is a rainbow-coloured sheet underneath, so whatever you draw (or stencil) is rainbow on a black background. Now, Robin, the oldest, she is 8. She quietly immersed herself in this, carefully filling in all the nooks and crannies of the stencils and making sure the stencil stayed in the same place. Lydia, the ham, created about four pictures in the time it took Robin to do one, haphazardly slapping it together and then immediately running to her room and putting it up on her wall, wanting to see the end result and get praise and attention from me for it; after that, she returned to the craft table and bossed everyone around, making sure everybody have only their share of the black papers (knowing that whatever is left over will ultimately be hers - the little brat). Emma, 6, is a blissfully happy child, she didnt really care if the stencil was perfect, and didnt really care if I approve - she worked on it for exactly as long as she felt like it, leaving the picture somewhat unfinished and moving on to the next entertainment, unphased. Jamie, the little one, almost four, wanted my and Dereks involvement the whole time, explaining what he was doing and what he will be doing next, and after that and after THAT, trying to claim more than his share of the black sheets and stencils, but accepting the overrule of the rest of us. After supper and play, I took Jamie for a car ride, where he passed out after about two minutes. I brought him home and put him down on his bed and gazed at him for a while, he is SO adorable (when he sleeps - LOL). The girls then settled in for a movie on my bed and fell asleep around midnight, after much giggling and chatter. That was last night. This morning, though, war broke out, everybodys nerves are a bit frazzled because of the late night (including mine). After a total disaster of a pancake breakfast (note to self - next time you have four kids over for breakfast, cold cereal or toaster waffles would work better), whereas Jamie picked up an entire pancake, dripping with syrup, and walked around with it in the living room (until I caught up with him with a wet kitchen towel), the girls fought over juice and syrup, and Lydia, trying to be helpful, poured out juice on the kitchen floor. Then, while I took a blissful break, washing the dishes and trying not to listen to the squabbles through the running water and clattering plates. After I turned the water off, though, I could hear the arguments heating up, and Lydia was downright hostile and nasty to Jamie, so I had to interfere, basically separating them. Jamie played on the computer for a while, and the girls played puppies upstairs (Jamie didnt want to be a puppy, and they wouldnt let him be a duck - I have no idea why). Then, of course, Jamie felt left out, and just as the girls decided to play on the Xbox, he wanted to join them. Of course, that turned out to be an unpopular decision with the girls, as they are all lightyears ahead of Jamie in skill and maturity for that game. Again, mommy stepped in as a referee, thinking Ill never get a freakin shower, and is it noon yet, when I can drop the gang off to their prospective mothers!!!!!! But alas, its only ten, and I already intervened in three wars, cleaned up all kinds of mess, and almost cried when I looked at my bedroom (the girls slept in here, with all their animals and blankets and all their clothes on the floor). So, I decided to just blog and write it out of my system.... Its quiet upstairs right now, so maybe I can slip in the shower, unnoticed, for a quiet 5 minutes.

Tibetan Crystal Bowls

We went to a concert on Saturday, in Hamilton. The guy's name is David Hickey, and my friend Hedi went to one of his concerts and raved about it so much that we had to go check it out. This time, the performance was in his own home (his parents' basement, where he lives with his girlfriend). The music was amazing. He knelt in the middle, surrounded by about 25 different sized bowls, and pinged them with a rubber hammer, or other instruments, and sometimes he would rub the side of the bowls to get a longer, stronger, vibrating sound... At one point, he rubbed three large bowls, pinging and rubbing them to get all of them up to their highest frequency, and the entire room was filled with this magical sound as the three different frequencies merged and battled for their own space... it was like a helicopter landing, with the vibrations, but with a much more pleasant sound...
Two other guys provided a background of singing, violin, and this large instrument that has a specific name... but I forget. D. knew what it was, Buddhist monks use it to get meditative sounds.
The music was really, really great. Some of the sounds were so amazing, you wouldn't have believed that they didn't come from a sophisticated synthesizer. Meanwhile, the guy's girlfriend, Eden, was painting, inspired by his music. She was basically dropping and smudging paint on a wet plastic sheet, creating really unusual - and very beautiful - abstract art. Now for the ridiculous parts: This guy is about 45, long hair and beard and alluring eyes (he is quite hot, actually, if you just go by the looks), but yes, you read it correctly, 45 and still living in mom and dad's basement. With the lovely Eden, who is a thin, pretty little thing of about 25. All the new age bullshit was pouring out of all of them, David, Eden, and most of the visitors as well, as they were clearing their chakras and smudging from the shell David carried around, and meditating to receive the magical "energy" from the music and sipping organic tea and munching on wholesome cookies. I could have done without that, but the music WAS incredible.

slowly starting back

with a Kitty post. We only have one kitty now, Daisy. Daisy is a sleek, beautiful black cat with yellow eyes. And, since we ve moved, she decided that she is a dog. She was never a really affectionate cat, more the aloof type that cats are famous for. But since Prissy is gone from our household, Daisy has been much closer. She greets us at the door when we come home, she hangs out with us in whichever room we are in (scratches the bathroom door while I m sitting on the can until I let her in), and comes to me for long patting sessions, purring her head off. I kinda like the new Daisy, she is becoming a really good companion. She is quite used to D. now, in fact, she ll talk to him and hang out with him during the day. I m really happy about that, because I always thought I will never want to live with a guy who doesn t like cats.
If Daisy trusts him, he is OK. :-)))
BUT. Daisy has proven to be COMPLETELY useless as pest control. We have MICE! In the basement walls, mostly. Daisy will pretend to be interested, when they make a noise inside the wall, but she has yet to make teeth-rodent contact with anyone except our own hamster, Oreo, on one of her frequent bouts of cage-less freedom. She was very gentle with her, just gingerly picking her up, and then dropping her, startled, when she squealed. Yup, useless.
And lately, another mean side of her emerged, because Poor Homeless Kitty appeared on our back deck. Now, I know that feeding a homeless cat will inevitably lead to that cat no longer being homeless... but its been freezing cold outside and she looked so bedraggled and pathetic... She (or he) is a gray tabby, not particularly pretty, but, she is a cat, with no home, and I cant in good conscience let her die. So, Ive been taking scoops of Daisys food and putting it out in a red plastic bowl for the Poor Kitty. Poor Kitty came up and ate, hurriedly, not taking her eyes off the door, in case I decide to run out and capture or hurt her (awww). I tried to stay out of her field of vision, just kinda peeking at her through the patio door. Meanwhile, Daisy, not feeling the same way in the least about the visitor, did her own little stint. She hissed and growled through the glass, intimidating the heck out of Poor Kitty, who nonetheless knew that the mean hissing black beast is INSIDE, so she can continue devouring her food. After she was done and slinked off to wherever she lives in this freakin cold, I brought the bowl in to wash, and Daisy had to sniff EVERY inch of it, to get information about the visitor. This scene has repeated itself almost daily ever since. I tried to explain to Daisy about the importance of sharing and compassion, pointing out the GIANT bag of food that she has, along with a roof over her head, a choice of warm, comfy spots to sleep, and people to pet her, meanwhile, Poor Kitty has NOTHING, except the cupful of food we give her. Daisy doesnt care. She still defends her territory and continues to be menacingly mean.
Ill keep you posted on how this goes.
Hugs everyone!