Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Mozart, and Lollies

Image via Wikipedia

This morning, on a whimsical (word choice intentional), I put on a “Children’s Classic Favourites” CD while the children were playing a tangible version of Angry Birds (wooden blocks, and mighty bean-like toys that looks like pigs and birds).

The Boy was disgusted.  “I don’t want to listen to *your* music,” he complained.

I just shrugged. He’s been so grouchy lately (roll on School Year Start!!) that I took that with a grain of salt.

He grumbled under his breath right through Fur Elise.  The next song, however, caught his attention.

“Awww Mum, that’s just ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

“It isn’t,” I countered.  “It’s called ‘variations on Ah, dirai-je, Maman.’ By a famous composer named Mozart.”

Suddenly I had his full attention.  “That’s French,” he observed. “What does it mean?”

So I told him. (For the translation, see the link above for “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”)

“It’s about eating lollies? That’s mean!” **

“Quite.” I agreed.

“And you know what else, Mum?  It’s the same song as ABCD and Baa Baa Black Sheep, too.”

“You’re absolutely correct.”

Then the music switched to the Alla Turca Rondo by Mozart.

“Mum?  This is my favourite song.”

And bliss. No more complaining. Just some lovely music.

 

** “Mean” in NZ primary school vernacular, means the same as “cool” “sweet” “awesome” etc.

 

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Yes, it is Wednesday in New Zealand.  Sorry if you are from the other side of the dateline and got confused.

This is my happy picture at the moment. It’s just a little plastic elf, but it belonged to my Nan. Now it belongs to me.

Stream of Consciousness Sunday/Monday: Sunday morning cartoons

How did you spend your Sunday mornings growing up?What are some of your favorite memories?

Sunday mornings were always the day of bad cartoons.  I remember getting up as early as possible on Saturday to get all the good cartoons, but Sunday mornings were horrible.  I think I avoided them when I was at home but I remember having sleepovers at my Nan’s house where both Nan & Poppa wouldn’t get up until after 8am and I’d be wide awake at 6:30am.  Since my bed was the couch in the living room, I could turn on the TV really quietly and watch all the horrible cartoons.  And shows. “Size Small” and “Hercules” were two of the ones that were on.  I remember wishing Nan would wake up sooner!!

But Sundays at my house were filled with the smell of cherry pipe tobacco,  the sound of CKNW radio (with hits from yesterday… and today!) and in general needing to occupy myself.  When I was younger my mom tried to get me to go to Sunday School… but she literally had to drag me so she gave up.

Sometimes Dad would take a load of stuff to the dump – that was always exciting.  But most of the time, my brothers and I were playing outside. And not always with the neighbourhood kids. Our backyard had a swingset and lots of good places to play with my smurfs.  Plus we had a tree house! It was unfinished and the paper wasps would often come in to get the wood to make their nests but it was a great place to hang out and watch the rain.

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. Wanna join in? Click the button above.

The Muppets movie – a review

WARNING:  Contains spoilers!!

 

Hubby and I took the children to see The Muppets on the January 7th weekend. I am a huge Muppet fan of the kind that watched Sesame Street longer than I should have just to see the Muppets.  Of the kind that can recite many Muppet Show skits.  Of the kind that knows both the original song, and the Muppet version. Seen all the movies. You get my drift.

I had hopes for his movie. Not high hopes, since it is a Disney movie, and since Frank Oz wanted nothing to do with it. But I did hope that it would be decent enough.  I suppose it was. But I was still both disappointed and elated by the movie.

My disappointments:

1.  Human “stars.”  The Muppets should have been the stars – humans are only supposed to have cameos. A lot of Muppet time was lost in the human storyline.  And seriously, what is with a human musical number at the beginning?

2. Same old same old storyline.  “We need to get the Muppets back together to save the [fillintheblank]!!”  And don’t tell me the writer’s weren’t aware of that – they made jokes about it right there in the script!!  Surely they could have come up with something better than rounding everybody up again. This, again, took up valuable screen time that could have been better used.

3.  So you get a excellent musician like Jack Black to cameo in the movie, a star who would have definitely been on the original Muppet Show as a Guest Star, and you don’t even give him a musical skit? Seriously?   You keep him tied up the whole time? Opportunity lost, folks. Big time.

4. The whole “Animal can’t play the drums” storyline was dumb. Opportunities lost here, too.

5. The Kermit/Piggy thing was confusing.  It took me most of the movie for me to figure out what the hell was going on there. I kept saying to Hubby “But they were already married in a past movie!!” It’s not until the end that it’s explained.

6. Fozzie Bear’s fart shoes.  People may disagree, but I felt these were not in-line with Fozzie’s usual schtick.

7. A lot of the YouTube Muppet videos feature Beaker, Animal and the Swedish Chef together.  I was hoping for some kind of storyline that referenced those videos.  Nope. Nada.

8. The ending. Talk about “Oh yikes, we ran out of time better finish this movie!” I kept thinking it would have been really interesting if they had lost the Theatre and they had to move on to something new. That would have been unexpected and a great way to “reinvent” the Muppets.

But it wasn’t all a disappointment.  Here’s what I liked:

1.  Bret McKenzie‘s music.  This was fantastic, and absolutely appropriate for the Muppets.  I liked the songs so much I’ve been singing them at home. The kids, too.

2. Walter.  When Walter’s talent was revealed I was impressed and quite happy about it.

3. Jim Parsons as Walter’s human counterpart. A pleasant surprise!

4. The telethon skits. There were not enough of these.  What was there, I liked.

5. Kermit’s Office. Why did we not go back there?

6. The Rainbow Connection.  Hubby & I both got a bit misty-eyed over that one.

7. Uncle Deadly.  I was thrilled to see him AND thrilled at his role.  At one point, I leaned over to my daughter and said “Don’t worry! He’s really a Muppet – you watch what happens!!” and I was not disappointed.

8. Muppets in 2D, not 3D.  Thank goodness they didn’t do this movie in 3D.

All in all, I’m not surprised Frank Oz wasn’t happy. I think he was right.  I did, however, enjoy watching the movie.  It just could have been so much more.

**All opinions are my own – nobody paid me or gave me anything complimentary to do this post.  (Can you tell?)

I wrote a Haiku for my friend Jenn.  Won’t you?

Using one idea to answer another

Not too long ago, I read a post at BlogHer about a different way to get out of debt. In a nutshell, since concentrating on paying off her debt wasn’t working for the author, instead, she concentrated on making more money. (Focussed on a positive (more money) rather than a negative (less debt).) In this way, she paid off her debt.

I’m fortunate enough that Hubby & I agree on financial matters, and we have no financial difficulties in that way.

But it got me to thinking – I am physically challenged in the fitness category.  And when I say challenged, I mean that.  I have had foot, knee and hip problems since long before my BMI went over 25.  Within the last few years, I’ve concentrated on the negative – removing body fat to alleviate some of the pain.  But maybe (as in the link above), I would be better off concentrating on the positive – increasing how much I move.

And then a friend of mine posted this video on Facebook (Oh how I love these videos!!)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo&w=560&h=315

Seems I’m not the only one who thinks increasing my movement – however I do it – is of greater benefit than trying to remove the fat.

So that’s what I’ve already started to do.  I can limit my sitting and sleeping to 23.5 hours a day, surely?

Everything looks okay, but it’s not.

The beach looks okay.

Just the same as it ever was.

It's a lovely walk around the sleeping volcano.

Looks beautiful. But there's a problem.

The beach is not the same. It's a health hazard. We must use caution.

The warrior couldn't stop the Rena from ending up on the Astrolabe reef.

And if you look, you see places humans can't go without some safety gear.

And if you look again, you can see the oil on the rocks. It makes me wonder if it's hidden in the sand.

It looks okay. But all the same, us locals are staying off the beach.

Related articles

• A path 30kms wide and yet, he hit the reef. (lostinaseaofblogs.wordpress.com)

All about food – are you tagged?

Cyndi at Latte Junkie challenged me to answer some questions on food and cooking.

1. What, or who inspired you to start a blog?
I wanted a place to write out my musings and learnings. Just get back into the habit of writing. Writers write, you know.

2. Who is your foodie inspiration?
Healthy Food Guide (HFG) and Pinterest at the moment.

3. Your greasiest, batter – splattered food/drink book is?
Betty Crocker Cookbook. Before I discovered HFG (see above) I used this most of the time.

4. Tell us all about the best thing you have ever eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?
Kangaroo steak in Melbourne, Australia on our 10th wedding anniversary.  Yum!

6. What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?
Does a range hood count?  Hmmm. I’d love a kitchen aid mixer.  I think I have a whole list of stuff I want from Pampered Chef. New baking pans would be fantastic since some of mine are rusting.

7. Who taught you how to cook?
My mother, my home economics teacher, and a lot of trial, error, and practice. I like watching youtube videos to learn new techniques.

8. I’m coming to you for dinner what’s your signature dish?
I make a really yummy homemade pizza.  Crust from scratch. (That’s the one my hubby always requests) but I’m also proud of my hot & sour prawn soup.

Hot and Sour soup by jetalone, via Flickr

 9. What is your guilty food pleasure?
I love baked goods of any kind, but especially flavoured cakes, like an orange flavoured cake I request on my birthday.

10. Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?
Even though I’m relatively skilled in the kitchen and can make a decent version of most recipes at which I try my hand, I have yet to make a successful batch of homemade uncooked fingerpaint for Playcentre.  (I think I’m the only one!!)

Finally…tag 5 other bloggers with these questions…like a hot baked potato…pass it on!

Righteo:

Karen at Solodialogue

Jenn at You know … that blog?

Jenn at Out of the Mouths of Gamers’ Babes

Jenny at Practically Perfect

and Susan at Mighty Acorns

Although of course I neither expect you to do it nor will I be insulted if you don’t.   Do it, or not. Your choice!

(wow, I know a lot of Jenns)

Grrrrrrr hotmail!!!!

I have had a hotmail account for a very very long time.  I’m sure I was one of the first ones to get a hotmail address, because my email account had no numbers or funny letters or anything in it – I put in, and got, my preferred username without any trouble at all.

Throughout the years, I’ve used that email whenever I suspected I’d get a lot of spam from signing up for something, or when I wanted to do something anonymously.  Until today, it was even attached to my Facebook account.

Until today.

During the last few years, I only actually accessed my hotmail account to check my junk email folder.  You know how it is.  Sometimes legitimate stuff lands in there.  Otherwise all my emails were forwarded, so I wasn’t in there daily, if at all.

And during the last year or so, in order to actually *access* the account, I’d have to go through a song and dance.  Enter password. Be rejected.  Reset password to exact same password. Resign in. Accepted. Do what needs to be done. Not sure why I put up with it, tell you the truth. But I did.

Today I attempted to do the usual song and dance.  But this time, same password wasn’t accepted.  I tried one more time and of course, got locked out.

Windows Live is very helpful to us international types when this happens.  (Sarcasm!!) They can’t send me an SMS because my mobile provider is not recognised by them.  So their help centre (helpfully!) says “Click here to contact the support team to have your account reinstated.”

Guess what happens if you click the link. Go on! Guess!!

I clicked it, and collapsed into maniacal laughter. Hubby was about to commit me.

“Please sign in to access the support help desk.”

[Pause for a moment while I knock the last straw off the camel's back.]

I spent the rest of the night changing all the accounts I could from my hotmail account to another email account.  Except for the ones where the change notification went into my hotmail junk folder, of course. I’ll have to wait until I’m allowed to access my hotmail account again before I can change those.

Too bad they won’t even notice I’m gone.

Do you still have a hotmail account, if you ever had one?

What I learned from my SITS day!

Photo by HelloJenuine via Flickr

See my previous post (It’s my SITS day, Yay!) to understand what this relates to:

10. Being a featured blogger makes your email, twitter, and page count go nuts. In a good way.

9. It’s really hard to go back and visit lovely people who come and leave comments on your blog when they only leave their email address and not a blog link.

8. WordPress makes it very difficult to email people a response to their comment, whereas in Blogger, you just have to click “reply.”

7. It would be really helpful for us international bloggers if our lovely hostesses would provide a day and time with a time zone attached.  I asked what time the post went live, and was only told “midnight.” I guessed at midnight EST, and I was wrong (my post went up earlier than the SITS post!). I figured that when they said the 6th of January, they meant the one on the other side of the dateline, so thankfully I wasn’t a day ahead of myself!!

6. I should include more Te Reo Maori on my blog. (Great feedback, ladies!)

5. I should include more pictures of New Zealand on my blog. (Again, great feedback, ladies!)

4. I should include more information about what I actually do at Playcentre.  (Feedback, again!)

3. It takes a really long time to go back and answer each comment and visit all the lovely visitors. Well worth it though. I don’t know where some of these lovely ladies were hiding but I immediately followed them!!

2. Even though there might be 10,000 bloggers registered at SITS, they don’t all come for a visit.  Considering #10 and #3, I think that might be a good thing.

1.  If you make a major mistake in your Featured Blogger blog post (no, I’m not gonna tell you where) either all your visitors (minus a favourite bloggy friend who is a frequent visitor) will politely not mention it, or won’t even notice. Thank goodness.  (*muah* Jenn!!)

Thank you, one and all, for visiting me on my SITS day!! I enjoyed my day and I am very slowly making my way around to visit each and every one of you. At least, those of you who left me a link to which I could get!