Thursday, September 07, 2006

tantrums

my outburst yesterday was precipitated by the comment from my Mum that my nephew had cried himself to sleep on monday, as no doubt did many thousands of seven year old boys, I hazard a guess that if Donald Trump or John Howard died tomorrow, most seven year old boys would continue playing with their dinosaurs and teasing their sisters, there wouldn't be much crying from that quarter.
We don't have enough heroes, and that's where Germaine placed herself in my firing line - SHE was a hero, I was a child of the seventies - I watched my Mum rally for women's rights, fighting for a woman's right to choose, fighting to criminalise rape within marriage, fighting to maintain her dignity after divorce, those fighters are Grandmas now, and most of them, like my Mum, constantly affirm their daughters and grand daughters to ensure that we fight whenever those rights are eroded or undermined.
I suppose that I am lucky to come from a country where the Prime Minister, Attorney general, Governer General (until last week) are women, and where women head a lot of the largest corporations, New Zealand - the first country to grant women universal suffrage.

Go see these cool t-shirts at the nzgirl website - Dame Whina, Kate Sheppard, Jean Batten

So I understand if you are dismayed at me for accusing Germaine of having a shrivelled heart, but I feel that this is the time of her life when she should be able to sit back and relax a bit, be indulgent of those seven year old kids who want to save the world, and I was cross at her, because she is one of my heroes, and she made me cry that she could be so cruel, this isn't about her, it's about our environment losing a voice (albeit a loud one), a woman who has lost her husband, and 2 kids who have lost their Dad, and I think that deserves respect.

Ok, now that's over! I try not to have many tantrums on the blog, I'm all about the knitting and the family, unfortunately in this issue two things I care about collided and I imploded.

I've had food poisoning this week, and haven't managed to do anything but lie in bed with a book or the laptop(and a bucket) Flash say's that I didn't have to go to such extremes to lose weight for our trip to Noosa - he's a funny guy.

I'm finally up and about (kind of) and flat out cleaning the house so the babysitter comes back, and running all of the errands I should have done earlier in the week, sending out orders and doing the accounts. Ailsa, the confectionary will have to wait a week or two, I am not in a good frame of mind to be bending the knitting machine to new tasks, it's all I can do to fulfill outstanding orders with the patterns I know by heart at the moment, but I'm taking some bits and peices with me to play with on holiday, so I'll have a running start on the frippery next week.