Archive for the 'movies' Category

The Night is Darkest Before The Dawn

magikquilter August 31st, 2008

Daniel about Eighteen Months

Just come back from seeing Dark Knight for the second time with my young friend Daniel who turned 14 this week. This was a small celebration compared to a year ago and his Bar Mitzvah and all the preparations and celebrations which went with that. So it is a year since I made the Oriental quilt for him to drape over his bed, he now has a double bed so this has been a year of transition for him. I felt that taking him to the movies at a more grown up time was more of a celebration so we went to the 6pm session and afterwards we went to a cafe where Daniel had hot chocolate..a first for him and coffee for me and we both had scrummy chocolate coated marshmallows which came with extra dipping chocolate. I served myself some water from the communal tap which was placed so that customers could access it themselves. Unfortunately the tap when I turned it off did not turn off, it continued to pour water [there was no sink or basin] all over the surface of the cabinet! I grabbed some napkins and cleaned it up as best I could and sat down with Daniel and said that was interesting!  I would have been mortified when  I was younger…just find it interesting now.

We had a great time dissecting the film and discussing the repercussions for Heath Ledger of playing The Joker. My son has had profound sleeplessness for over six months now and I am well aware of the sense of sheer exhaustion which accompanies this disorder.  I was able to explain the reasons behind Heath’s death and the adverse drug interactions which led to this. We also discussed the implications of the housekeeper not calling the ambulance hours earlier and the whole how do you know when someone is asleep or in trouble. We also discussed the aspect of heroes and what it means to do the right thing and how good people can do bad things and how in fact it is harder sometimes to make the right choices in life. We found it a lot of fun going out later in the evening as opposed to our usual practise of going to movies in the daytime where there are often a lot of younger children present. Lots of topics were covered and we were discussing role playing as a method of learning how to interact with strangers in a social situation when his mum arrived at Chocolart to take him home.

It is interesting and a lot of fun seeing him grow up…we have a great relationship and indeed he thought for a while that I was his friend…not his mother’s when he was a little boy and he was also quite jealous of my son. Eventually he came to see Christopher as a role model and almost older brother which is good for them both. We were joking all the way home that he had a date for the evening even if his older sister’s didn’t! Below is a photo of the Bar Mitzvah quilt and above is the little cutie when he was about eighteen months old. Yes people did keep saying to me that I had a cute daughter when we were out together, they would not make that mistake now…his voice has broken and he is a young man, one whom I am so proud to know!

Daniel's Quilt 2

Hellish helicoptors hovering……5pm

magikquilter July 19th, 2008

Well now I know what is close to hell on earth and its all because of the Pope!! We live about five minutes walk away from the racecourse where the Pope is to celebrate Mass tomorrow and tonight is to take part in the vigil….where hundreds of thousands of people are anticipated to sleep over afterwards.  So I shall do a countdown to the event…starting from now and perhaps in the process retain some of my sanity! As you may know I am a Christian albiet a low key one and am thrilled that the youth of the world want to celebrate their faith, however there are some issues which must be addressed …..not ignored so I shall attempt to do that here.

As I walked through our local shopping centre in the vain hope of getting some peace and quiet I chatted to some young Aussie pilgrims who had also come inside for a few hours to try to regroup ie sleep on each others shoulders, and in the process get away from the constant music and noise. They said they were sleeping out tonight but were exhausted by the constant music and the sheer volume of it and when asked why they thought the music was like this they said they felt it was aimed at keeping them going, keeping them awake.

Okay what noise is she talking about you ask? Well there are many many helicopters at present overhead…..its worse than APEC last year and for days now there has been almost constant music being blasted from the racecourse....see my other post. And this is a residential area twenty minutes by bus from the CBD. There are events all over Sydney, I am just going to report on what is affecting myself and others who live here and are impacted by this. The level of sound is unbelievable…all our doors and windows are shut….we have television on and we still cannot get away from it.

I bought some silicone ear plugs from the chemist for tomorrow although we are going to see the Batman movie…..and stay in the Westfield complex for most of the day….its all relative really as we usually find that noisy!!! The pharmacist Amanda said that she had heard that the vigil is largely silent so that is something although the helicopters shall be constant due to television and security coverage. When I walked through the centre several monks or priests from either the US or Canada came through in their white robes, accompanied by several young pilgrims. They looked prepared as they had sleeping bags and bedrolls however a lot of the pilgrims I saw had very little apart from each other to keep them warm.

A lot of the pilgrims have I Pods etc so maybe they are tuning the noise out to some degree….so does anyone know if this is a stategy for meetings or festivals like this one…….bearing in mind its a whole week of it? Also shall be trying to find out if this was considered by the state government ….they warned us of the disruption with traffic and closed roads etc ..was this covered? The reason why Randwick Racecourse was chosen was because of the mild temperatures at night …milder than the Western suburbs and the proximity to Centennial Park for the spillover. The public transport was a large part of it….easily accessable from all over and walkable for a lot of pilgrims and others.

I have also not found anywhere that there will be any form of ticketing at any stage and I thought I read that it is an offense to do so. My friend who is prone to taking urban legend as gospel was adamant that priests were charging $300 a ticket for tomorrow…I have found no evidence of that at all and am getting so fed up with these people who do not check their facts when slandering people. If anyone is being ticketed it is an offense and will be dealt with so do not fall for it if you are offered tickets…..though I probably do not needto tell you guys that.