Latest Posts

Friday 22 March 2013

WITH THIS RING I THEE EAT FRUITCAKE


I was asked the other day if I ever got any opinions from friends, family or otherwise when I was an un unwed mother (that phrase is just rife with connotations isn’t it?). It sounds so Lifetime Channel doesn't it? Unwed mother, unwed mother, ahhhhh! And of course I thought it would make a great blog discussion topic (thanks MG). Because, like it or not, no matter how progressive we think we are now as a society, there is a definite stigma attached to those who choose to have kids out of wedlock. 

For me personally, I’ve always considered my family very open-minded, liberal individuals (okay my parents may have peppering’s of conservatism in there, but I chalk that up to a generational thing). And despite occasionally asking me if I thought my partner and I would ever marry (we were together six years before we did), I don’t think anyone really gave a toss either way. Actually, I just heard my mother clear her throat from 5000 miles away. She’s Catholic and even though she has a much more progressive view of the world than let’s say the Pope, I think deep down somewhere she thought I was living in sin…or at least in disfavor. And of course she’s a mother and all mothers like things sewn up with a neat little bow, makes the world neater and puts their parental minds at ease. I’m sure by the time the King is twelve I’ll be asking what his intentions are in regards to dating.

Over the last six years, my partner (now husband) and I were both mutually content with our arrangement and when we had doubts or leanings towards getting married it was never  - funny enough - at the same time as one another. I think in some small way we prided ourselves on doing things a bit untraditionally. ‘Yeah man, we’re rebels, look at us, we had a kid out of wedlock. He’s such a cute little bastard, like on Game of Thrones. Woo hoo….Sh*t is it 9pm already, we have to get to bed!’ (Keith Richards we’re not). And when the King did arrive, we were both fine with continuing to stay unmarried and do things the unmarried way, like say, double barrelling his surname; okay, that’s not entirely true. My partner was keen on his surname and I was keen on mine, so we agreed out of exhaustion that a double barrel surname would end the argument quickly. I made the strong case of course that I wanted my family line to carry on as much as his and damn it, there are far too many girls in my family so it all rests on the King’s shoulders!

The truth of it is, a small part of people out there (okay, maybe not so small) believe that until you have a ring on your finger, your situation isn’t fully sewn up…or down, or locked into place…or whatever metaphor you want to throw out there. If you’re married it somehow suggests to all those skeptics out there that you’re in it for the long haul; you’ve committed, you’ve eaten fruitcake together (they serve that over here at weddings, despite how many times I try to tell the English that Yanks regard fruitcake as something you give your enemies) and you’re taking this relationship seriously. The irony of course is that most of those people forget that the global divorce rate is absurdly high and marriage isn’t as binding as it used to be. I always figured that if my partner and I weren’t married, it meant even more because we were choosing to stick around without a document mandating us to.

Then again, in our seventh year, we changed our minds and got hitched. For whatever our reasons (which shall remain private, some mystery is in order), we decided it was time to do it. Or time to have a party and eat fruitcake. And of course, on that blessed day, my adoring husband looked at me across the aisle, with love in his eyes and said…‘can we change the King’s surname now?’

Not a chance sweetie, not a chance. Ah marriage, it’s all about compromise.

Happy Friday. :-)







Thursday 21 March 2013

ONE MAN'S BOWL IS ANOTHER MAN'S TREASURE


I love this story. Truly is one man’s (or woman’s) trash, another man’s treasure. Recently a bowl that was bought at a yard sale for $3 sold at auction for...wait for it, $2.2 million dollars. I’m not mathematician, but that is one tidy profit.

As it turns out, this small white bowl with some detailing on it turned out to be a rare Chinese artifact referred to as a ‘Ding Bowl’ and is an example of Northern Song Dynasty pottery. Obviously when the purchaser bought it from the yard sale they had no clue it was over 1000 years old. But after possessing it for a while and becoming curious about where it came from, they took it somewhere to be appraised. And voila, a bidding war later, the past owner of this little bowl is now sunning him/herself in Barbados getting their feet rubbed.

It does raise some interesting questions about the worth of things and more importantly the worth we place on things. If this owner had never been curious, to them this little artifact would have been stuffed full of sushi rice or sat on the shelf and been a nice little trinket they picked up from a yard sale. I’m sure the owner thought it was beautiful and some of her neighbor pals may have remarked upon it when entering the room ‘what a pretty little white bowl,’ but I’ll bet you $2.2 million dollars no one thought it was worth that.

Funny thing is, once we put a price tag on things and more importantly attach a history to something, suddenly mere bowls become ancient relics. I’m always fascinated when things like this happen in terms of how it changes how we perceive things. The 'sweet' become 'beautiful', the 'unique' become 'rare' and 'priceless', the 'innocuous and mundane' suddenly find themselves being called rare works of art. You see what some history can do to an item.

I know I’m not the only one suddenly going through their piles of so-called trinkets and junk (not that I have piles, OCD folk don’t do piles of junk. It’s well ordered) wondering if they too picked up something valuable at a yard sale. Then again, we went to a nearly new sale last weekend, but I’m pretty sure that the trough of Lego we picked up and large plastic truck the King clung onto with all his might is not going to cause a bidding war – okay, perhaps amongst toddlers, but not rare art dealers. 

Tuesday 19 March 2013

I TWEET, THEREFORE I AM


[One from the archives ladies and gents. New blog tomorrow]

Tweeting. Twittering. One twatted. Don’t get me started! This is definitely up there as my least favorite entry into the world of social media and connectivity  (as you can see I'm still on a bit of a disturbed streak). What bored individual came up with this total mind-numbing act of narcissism? Seriously. Facebook was bad enough, encouraging all of us (and don't worry, I'm woman enough to admit when I succumb to things) to post what we are doing at any given moment. And of course some people take this to the extreme just to ensure that we know they're still breathing, dating, eating, shopping, showering and then some; "Jenny is  buttering her toast with a very dull knife, but man does she love butter." No offense, Jenny, but I don't really care. 

Then there is the celebrity tweets announcing their moral and political opinions, their tirades at other celebs (Courtney Love should just surrender all of her electronic devices. Although her rants while high do have comic value), and of course their break-ups. Cause that is what I always feel like doing when my relationship has just ended, tweeting about it, and making sure the whole freaking world knows how it went down (cause you know how truthful celebrity tweets are). "It's fine, we grew apart, but we're the best of friends and she'll be in my heart forever."  Please, just stop.

I think the real kicker for me was when half of congress was tweeting during one of President Obama's speeches. Seriously, we realize the government is drowning at the moment in a sea of partisan dysfunction, but can you at least pretend to show some respect for us the taxpayers (ahem, and your employers) your job and leader of the free world? Then again, perhaps it's just as important to let the world know what Senator Webb thinks of Senator Dodd's punchy red tie.

I realize that this is slightly hypocritical as I am in a sense being revealing and narcissistic by blogging, but I figure, we have to draw a line somewhere. [And you can be rest assured I will never tell you about the toast that I am eating]. As I see it, the immediacy and monotony of tweeting is leading us down a path where every single moment of our lives is deemed important enough to put out there. Note to mass public: it’s not. I know the human condition is to fear being mundane and ordinary, but people, it's okay, we are all stewing in the boring pot together. So don't be afraid to butter that toast in silence.


Copyright © 2014 Anthea Anka - Delighted And Disturbed