..and one ikea youtube video from about 7,910 options

Here's Spike Jonze's take on an Ikea commercial....

from the 149,007 ikea images on flickr

weekend wonderland

We went to Ikea. Again. On a Saturday. I suppose Sundays could be worse, but Saturday at Ikea is one of those little hells on earth that you come across every once in a while, and vow to avoid for ever more. If you must go, there are about a million less people on a weekday.

But J. needs me and my car and neither of us can do a weekday. Just a short while ago she needed "things" from Ikea, and now she's moved up to the bigger room with the balcony she needs more things. She is my daughter. This is what I do, now that I don't do the meals and the washing and the nappies and the sleepless nights and the school run and the stories.

J. knows her way around Ikea and when to get the bag and when to get the trolley. We join the throng and we shuffle along. Children run amok and climb and disappear and need to be shouted out for. There are always people arguing in intense and angry voices, saying things like, "It's not my fault", and "Look can we just do it and get out of here," and you know they know they'll be leaving with those flat boxes and a million screws and flimsy instructions.

Not us. We just need smaller things. Laundry basket, mood lighting, plates, maybe a doona cover. I resist the scented candles, I have a cupboard full already. But, hmm, could use some vases. J. says I should get some of the in pieces and boxes furniture and get a handyman to put them together. I resist.

At the checkout, the queues are astounding. "We may as well accept that this is just how it is,"says J. "And just wait, calmly."

We get through, eventually, and rattle over to the brown paper and wrap our breakables and J. realizes what I know already. That she will have to wait in the loading bay and I will have to get the car. Tricky Ikea, there's no getting out with your trolley.

I remember where the car is, yay is me. But I can't find the pay station and have to hail down a woman leaving to ask where it is. Back upstairs, she says, and adds a sincere apology. Up I go and join a queue and there are mutterings and rumblings as people realise this is a cash only point. I hope the validation from Ikea means I don't have to pay anything and I don't, but I sweat anyway.

Back to the car. I drive around looking for the way to the loading bay but can't find it, and anyway I mix up the exits for cars and feet. So I take pot luck and throw the car out an exit and it's totally wrong, but there is a way of redeeming this mistake if I drive on into the dead end, u-turn and drive back. I hesitate at the intersection and the car on my right flashes past in front of me to turn left,the driver swelled with road rage.

I take my chance, drive ahead, u-turn, cross the intersection again when the opportunity presents itself, and drive back towards the car park. Now, between the line of traffic behind me and the line coming toward me, I must u-turn again into the bay. It is done. Eventually.

Now the loading bay, which is chock-a-block with cars backing and filling and driving off. Looking for a space. I cannot see J. but chugging along I see my space and I indicate. drive forward, reverse on an angle. I see J. wheeling the trolley forward and I flip open the boot, get out and we load up. Back in, waiting for an opportunity to move forward and out of this place as cars and people and trolleys swell around me.

"Well," says J. in a satisfied, content sort of way, "that was pretty stress-free and easy, wasn't it?"

Would for the 2 a.m. feeds.

putting those childish things behind you.......

He started school this year.

This is the boy who climbed me as if he were a koala on a tree, and clung on, when it was time to stay at child care.

This is the boy with the head of curls that the Japanese tourists borrowed for some photos at the Botannical Gardens, and I had to rescue and seal into his pusher at his request until we were safely away.

This is the boy who mixed his fs and his ss, so that one day, having lunch by the Yarra just after the Commonwealth Games, he looked about and squealed, "Look at all dem big Australian slags!"

This is the boy who cried with frustration because he wanted a nightie, just like his sister. And a fairy dress, and wings too.

This is the boy who hid the library book under his bed so I wouldn't find it and couldn't take it away.

This is the boy who had a Dorothy tail and a little red car and a little guitar and liked to bellow "Wake Up Jeff" every once in a while.

This is the boy who selected my Christmas present himself, a lovely fat Buddha magnet, because he thought I'd like a baby Jesus on my fridge.

This is the boy who, at McDonald's against my better judgement, yelled out in a panic, "I need the boy's toy, get me the boy's one and the 'structions!"

This is the boy who came home from the tram ride and reported, ecstatically, that he had seen Hawthornland.

This is the boy who came in when I was showering and sat at the end of the bath and tucked in his legs and asked, so sweetly, "Would you like me to have a chat with you?"

This is the boy who told me I could come up to him at the Ausskick and high-five him when he kicked a goal. "I wouldn't kiss me though," he advised.

This is the boy who started school.

This is the boy, with the curly hair and the chunky cheeks and the bright eyes with the beautiful lashes, who I lean over to wipe the dried spaghetti still around his mouth in spite of the teeth brushing when I'm tucking him into bed for the night.

This is the boy who says,

"Yer elbow's stickin' into me dick."

life after 2.0

Eight months after the completion of the 2.0 course I am picking up the ball again. Time to shake off the dust and remove the rust. I've decided that this is good practise in all manner of things. Even though I expect that the only reader will be the writer! I have been inspired by the reading of Virginia LLoyd's Blog which is as entertaining as a book. And I say that only a few months in.

Let's see if I can be as diligent and as focussed and as eloquent. Even if I am not, most unfortunately for me especially, writing about New York!!

#23...and it's all over, now, baby blue.....

Well, this is an occasion to remember! I've done it! Yay is me!

This is a great moment. I was very keen to do this since I heard Helene Blowers and other experts speak at the State Library earlier this year. I felt like a whole world was passing me by, and that I was completely missing out. But I also found it all a bit overwhelming and terrifying!

It has been quite a slog sometimes, most things took much longer than I imagined they would as I nutted out what I'd missed / done wrong / not read properly / not understood. But there was a sense of great achievement (like you get from the perfect sentence!) when the blog post was done and I'd learned something/s new!

When I started, I had just taken an enormous leap into the millenium by buying a laptop and getting the internet on at home. Whacko! This was very fortunate as I would never have got through this if I'd have had to do it at work. I needed time and space and patience that couldn't be squeezed into the working day.

I feel full of ideas for using some of the 23 things at work, both in big ways like a library blog or wiki and in relatively smaller ways like being able to show people some of these things so that they, too, can see the light!

I like to imagine I won't forget the things I have learned and that I will go back to those that didn't quite gel and do a bit more fossicking. I have become a convert of rss feeds, youtube, image generators and flickr and am coming to grips with del.icio.us and rollyo.

Mostly, what Library 2.0 has done for me is increased my confidence on the web - no mean feat! I am much more at home on it - and much braver too! So while I might still find myself on World ebook Fair, scratching my head and staring hopefully, wondering what exactly it is I have to do to get the ebook to play, I'll now have a go and fiddle away until I find the way.

So, thank you Helene Blowers, and thank you Lynette and Leslie for the huge amount of work you've been doing so we can do this, and thank you Tara for setting the benchmark and urging me on! I salute you all.

And, by heck, I salute m'self!!