Waves, Water slides and Nearly Wetting My Pants.

First off, dear readers, I must apologise for my silence. Our computer has pitched a fit, and is unusable for the near future. I was completely electronically silenced for a good while, but then lovely Clint kindly loaned us this excellent little laptop (upon which I am currently typing) until such time as Mac the Knife is back up and running. Only problem is when one is used to a Mac, these PCs can be a little confusing. But, hey, I'm managing now, so we're all good. *Thanks Clint! You're my Shining Star!*

Now to the meat of this post, and, as meat goes, it's a little tough and chewy. SO.... the wave pool. I was there this afternoon with Raine's class, as part of the FFCA Southwood Fun Day. Fun indeed. Actually, it turned out to be not nearly as onerous as I had expected, but for one thing. The accursed water slide. A creation of Beelzebub if I ever encountered one. Raine dragged me on 3 times, and each time I think I aged 10 years in the 30 or 40 seconds it took to go down. First part wasn't too bad... Not too fast, and brightly lit. Then, just when one thinks that maybe one is going to get out of it with just some mild heart palpitations and a grey hair or two, one enters the final stage of the slide. One is flung into a gaping, pitch-black tunnel of hell. One is going at about 260 km/hr in this infernal tunnel, which drops off precipitously and evilly, before depositing one into a catching pool thing where spectators snicker and stare as one attempts to gather the shred of one's dignity, pieces of one's now-dislodged bathing costume, and one's carefree child before making a jelly-legged (one, and not's one's daughter, I can assure you) exit into the main pool.

I was thirsting for a champagne to calm my shattered nerves with each descent. The lifeguards would turn on the waves in the pool, which were really quite fun. Raine & I bobbed along in the waves, and our friend Paul took her out into the depths of the deep end at the height of the waves. (I used this opportunity to cling to the side, weep quietly and check that I had not peed my pants, post water-slide) All in all, it was a good day. No children on the bottom of the pool, no fights, no trauma. Well, except my own. I can tell you all that the first drink of this evening will be well-earned indeed.

Stay tuned, now that I'm back in the land of the living, computer-wise. It's nearly summer, after all, and I shall have a bit of extra time on my hands.

Be Afraid.

VERY afraid. It seems that I can no longer ignore it. People are wearing leggings again. Why, O Lord, did you allow the legging to come crawling back out of the unhallowed grave into which it was consigned all those years ago. Why? Is it because of the relentless secularisation of the western world? If it is, we're all very very sorry, and a new generation of church-goers is instantly born.

Ah, the legging... the garment created from cotton, spandex and the devil's back hair..... the garment which is 100 percent heinous and 100 percent unwearable. Even my sister, who is 5'8 and a size 2 should beware the legging. The legging was cast aside, complete with priest and holy water, in the late 80's, and there it should have remained, as a warning to us all, against becoming sartorially complacent. I had written earlier about being uninspired, but 3 (Yes, 3, for the love of all that is holy, 3) sightings today of a legging has banished my lack of inspiration and forced me to the computer keyboard.

First off ,why always is the legging sported by women who really ought to have embraced the tent dress, or the muu-muu? (Don't worry, dear readers--I entirely class myself in the "muu-muu & tent dress" category. I am under no illusions. But neither then do I own a legging.) My aforementioned sister also does not wear a legging, but she might actually have a shot at not looking like Jabba the Hut encased in Saran wrap. Jabba's sisters all apparently own leggings, and they are all in colours like fuschia, lime, and grape. Not for them the subtleties of black. Oh no. They have had their colours done by the Colour Me Beautiful lady, and they are working them in the legging. God help the rest of us.

Why also do they not invest in a pair of Spanx, or a similarly ruthless, gut-sucking undergarment to wear under the leggings that they simply must display to the general public? Not a Spanx is to be found among them. Their Lady Jockeys are simply not up to the task of controlling that quantity of flesh. Nor is the spandex of the legging going to do it. It simply rides the rolls like a surfboard on the ocean.

Now, as I said, I am a card-carrying member of the flesh encased female. I have the decency to keep it relatively well-concealed. Please, please to all of you legging-loving women out there, make them go away. Forever. There ought to be a public legging round-up, where they are all deposited into a lead-lined casket, sealed with uranium-235, and buried in the centre of the earth, with anointed ministers of all faiths speaking prayers of banishment as it happens..... I'm gonna take some medicine, and when I wake up, the leggings I saw today will all be a bad dream. Please.

Blah.

Blah blah blah.... I don't know if it is the rainy, gloomy weather or the migraine that I've been struggling with for the last few days, but I feel singularly uninspired. I have nothing at present that makes me want to sizzle over the keyboard keys and create a dazzlingly fascinating blog entry. (Not that I exactly have a history here of such blog entries, but one can aspire, no?) My wellspring of creativity is not bubbling and gurgling forth with the waters of originality, but rather sits still and abandoned, all but dried up. But stay tuned, my little blog readers, for this is a state which cannot last. You just never know what might start the wellspring flowing again, creating little gems for your viewing consumption....

Tiny Dancers

Well, we're all geared up for the girls' first Highland dance competition tomorrow. They've done dance performances, but never a competition. Competing is a big part of the whole Highland dance thing, so their teacher thought it was high time.

Raine is competing in the Highland Fling and the Sword Dance (the Ghillie Calum), and Cleo is doing the Fling. She was registered in the Sword, too, but as of class on Wednesday, her Sword dance was more like a Sword Epileptic Fit, so we have nixed it for this competition, and are planning on it for the Red Deer Highland Games competition later in June. Anyway, they are nervous and excited, as it their mother. This is really just an experience-gathering exercise for them, and I've encouraged them not to even thinking about getting a medal.

They look so great in their performance outfits: kilts, velvet vests, argyle sock, the whole nine yards. I really hope they have a good time, and that they get a sense of what the whole competition experience is all about.

Regrettably, I have to work a shift in our fund-raising concession at the meet, and I have a bad feeling that I'll be firing off brownies and gummy bear bags to sugar-starved little dancers when my own are doing their thing. Lee will be glued, veritably GLUED to the performance stage, so parental big love will not be a total loss.

So let's hope that Raine doesn't repeat a practise moment, when, due to an ill-placed pas de basque, she nearly impaled a mother with her sword. Yikes! Tonight, we rest, and tomorrow, we FLING!!

Irritating person and irritating insomnia

I cannot sleep of late. I fantasise about a night of solid, deep, restful sleep. Take the desert islands and the lottery wins and shove 'em where the sun don't shine...I'd take a full night of sleepy-sleeps over just about anything right now. It is, perhaps, due to my insomnia that I am unusually irritable at the moment, and there is a certain person who is really making me want to bitch slap her a couple of times, and maybe push her down a small flight of stairs.

She is basically a decent human being, and a good portion of the time, I even kind of like her (although I sure as hell feel sorry for her husband, but that's another story.) I don't know her all that well, but in the short association we've had, I've felt on more than one occasion my hands floating towards her neck of her own free will. She does not try and hide the fact that she has some grave reservations about me, my person and my perceived shortcomings. Tit for tat, annoying person, tit for tat...

She is, however, incredibly nice to my girls, who kind of think she's the Second Coming. This is a good deal of the problem. She thinks that children are the centre of the universe, and that they are all inherently angelic, fascinating beings who give off auras of saintliness that would put Padre Pio to shame. I need to state here that I am still a reasonable mother, despite the fact that I do not wait with baited breath for every utterance to fall from my children's lips, and I that I do not treat these utterances as always original and thrilling contributions to the annals of human history (as she does).

Furthermore, just because I know my way around the business end of a lipstick, and do not (usually) dress like a homeless person does not make me some kind of domestic anti-Christ. She gave me a bag of apples from her mum's tree once, and then proceeded to tell me, in the manner of addressing the profoundly retarded, that I might make apple crumble with them, and told me step by excruciating step just how I might go about that terribly challenging task. I wanted to clout her about the face with her stupid bag of apples. Apple goddamned crumble, I ask you... my dad could probably do it if he had to, and he is hard pressed to heat up his Hungry Man dinners when my mum's away.

Well, got that off my chest, and am feeling marginally less pissy. Whether I'll sleep is anybody's guess, and if I don't, who the hell knows who's gonna get skewered here tomorrow...