Christmas at home.....

Christmas with my rather dysfunctional extended family consists of laughter, loud music (and people), and smattering of love. The offspring contributed an item for the Christmas program and i think it went quite well, even though there was no choreography or music to back her singing, but it was the way she stood there gamely and sang her heart out with a smile. =) It may be that being a parent has changed my view, but i think a little child singing beats any adult any day (duet competition or not (in fact it was rather goose pimple inducing due to the numerous off-pitch slides and overused vibrato singing (gosh i sound like Simon Cowell))).

More examples of the Machiavellianist behavior from some of the little brats:
- getting caught jumping on the (rather expensive) leather recliners and sofas, and climbing over the table
- pouting and venting when put in the time-out corner
- "forgetting" and leaving the time-out corner
- more pouting and slamming of walls with a toy when put back in the time-out corner
- setting up a new obstacle course with other furniture
- sulking and whining loudly when things don't go the way wanted
- lying through the teeth when confronted about jumping on the furniture
- yelling, shrieking, shouting at the dinner table "because i feel like it"
- running everywhere at full speed
What do the parents do/say about this? Bugger all, because they are totally blind and oblivious to these random acts of malicious mischieviousness.

I only hope that our offspring does not learn from such ....behavior......was looking for an adjective as 'naughty' is too mild, while 'evil' is too extreme.

Seasons' greetings!

My Reminder

It was drizzling when i got to her school, and the offspring insisted on using an umbrella, which i initially resisted because after i needed more hands to do so (especially to lock the car door), but of course i gave in (how can one resist that pleading tone from one's offspring). A bit of a balancing act was needed to do so, but we managed. Seeing her so enthusiastic about school really started my day off well, and i walked with such a happy step that i forgot i left my umbrella hanging by the entrance to the school.

Tried to call the school about it but to no avail (left a message but no call back) and i had written the umbrella off. As we were heading for a family outing that day, I picked her up myself and as i approached the main door, lo and behold my umbrella was still hanging there. =)

I then promptly forgot about it (again) because i was so happy to see her (we did our little dance/hug of joy), and i heard a little voice exclaim while she was in my arms walking to the car: "Papa, your umbrella!"

Really observant of her considering it was hanging in a corner. That made my week......well that and spending the rest of the day with the wifely person and the offspring. *grinz*

Playing for mass

I play for mass at church and the parish where i am, one of the priests takes an active interest in music as he is truly multi talented, being able to play all kinds of instruments from basic guitars, to more exotic banjos and mandolins, as well as flutes, trumpets and percussions. 

However, a disagreement today has led to my being excused from playing for mass (i.e. i got fired lol). Not really a nice feeling, but i feel i should pen down happened in an effort to make sense of it (and for record's sake). 

We were told to combine one of the mass proper songs with a hymn, but they were in different keys, so we amended the key of the mass proper to match. Now the priest decided to play his ukelele with us today, and it may not have been communicated to him about the key change. So he comes charging up after mass demanding that we stop making a mess of it as the two songs could not match. No amount of explaining could deal with the situation and even playing it on the piano for him to show it matched, didn't help (probably because he still didn't realise we changed the key to match). 

A while later, he came up to me and asked me to clarify again, and we didn't really want to argue at that point, so we said we would play whatever he wants us to play. Then he brought up the subject of practice, as he felt we were doing great injustice to the scores with bad endings and intros, but i replied that we are playing to score, so since he wrote the scores, he could amend as he saw fit. Instead, he started going on about me not turning up for practice.

Now there is a simple reason i don't turn up for practice, aside from the fact that it is at a really bad time on Friday for me due to family commitments, it's that the other band is there at practice and they have their own keyboardist (and only 1 piano). The few practices that i attended seem to start rather late, and didn't leave me anything to do aside from listen, so i stopped trying to kill myself attending these practices by rushing around.

I was then presented with the ultimatum. Turn up for practice or don't play for mass, and since i could not commit to practice, i was therefore excused from playing. 

In a way, it is a relief as i was struggling each week to gather a band to play (our drummer quit after one of this berating sessions), and i needed the time to prepare for a house moving, but it still cuts to the core to be treated this way by someone of the cloth. I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt or attribute this to his old age, but am embarrassed to say i cannot find any reason for this injustice i feel, and I've tried to give my best to the church, but to hear him say "you can go play at other churches, i excuse you from playing here" was a bit of a shock to the system to say the least.  

I do hope the music ministry continues to flourish, and hope they find a good committed musician, at least one that is better than me, as i have tried my best and it is apparently not good enough. 

The circus is coming to town

So Christmas is coming, but instead of glad tidings and good cheer (or a random jolly guy in a red suit and beard) we have a media circus coming to town with a PAP MP (and speaker of parliament) resigning from his post.  As seen from the various events throughout the year, the media has now encompassed various electronic forms like email, websites, forums and smses, aside from the traditional printed paper/TV/radio. Both sides do take cues and clues from each other and by putting both sides together with an objective eye, one can gain an appreciation for most sides of the story. There will always be bits missing, although this appears to be less and less with this multi-media onslaught.

I have to applaud the men-in-white for moving rather decisively and nipping this issue in the bud, although I would be jumping the gun abit since the saga is far from over. The issue of a by-election is now on the cards, and going by precedence, it should be a no-brainer, although we have been surprised before. Reading through the various official announcements and letters, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the PM. I actually like him and think he is doing the best job given the situation and circumstance, but the issues he's had to deal with throughout the year merely highlight that the job is getting harder and harder.