Friday is pyjama day

Due to some minor cash flow problems, my work has opted to put everyone on a 4 day week for the forseeable future. I will not actually sit around in my pyjamas - I'm going to try to make it a productive day at the drawing board, and I'll still go down to school and do Chess Club. I'll probably add a dressing gown for that, and perhaps a cravat and pipe.

Over the last few years our small business has come to depend on sales of our online learning activities to school boards over in the UK - since the election in May we haven't sold a single one. The new government halved the education budget.

Losing 20% of my work was a bit of a shock, but better than if they sacked three people, which was the alternative. If it hasn't turned around by the end of February I will have to go back to go-go dancing in clubs. Lucky I didn't throw out the spangly pants.

Mashed Potatoes

Years ago Matt K lent me James Brown's autobiography The Godfather of Soul. It was pretty hilarious. No-one has ever given himself more self-important nicknames since perhaps Mussolini. Minister of New New Super Heavy Funk, The Original Disco Man, Soul Brother Number One, Mr. Dynamite and The Hardest Working Man in Show Business. According to himself he invented soul, disco, funk and rap. My favourite line is from a story about bandits making off with the box office takings at one of his shows. From the stage James saw someone with a gun menacing the front-of-house guy. Without stopping the show, he danced over to his bandleader Bobby Byrd to tell him to play something slow, and then saved the day in some way I can't recall. The dance was called the "mashed potatoes".

"So I mashed potatoes over to Bobby..."

According to Wikipedia:

The dance begins by stepping backward with one foot with that heel tilted inward. The foot is positioned slightly behind the other (stationary) foot. With the weight on the ball of the starting foot, the heel is then swiveled outward. The same process is repeated with the other foot: step back and behind with heel inward, pivot heel out, and so on. The pattern is continued for as many repetitions as desired. The step may be incorporated in various dances either as a separate routine or as a styling of standard steps.

Try it!

Michael bending fire

This was a repeat of an earlier performance. I snuck off to get the camera and subtly prodded him into going again. Little did I realise I was in for twenty-six seconds of genius. I particularly like the end - "I'm feeling a little shy now so I'll pretend to be interested in the sticky tape".

Roast chook & ballet

Last weekend we had an afternoon at Cam and Sarah's house, and stayed for roast dinner. Marcus and Jasmine get on very well, they were in the same room at daycare in their youth. At one stage I heard Marcus say to Jasmine "Hey - let's knock each other over!" I suggested Jasmine might instead teach Marcus some of her ballet moves. This was quite successful and they spent some time balancing, pointing their toes and generally bolshoi-ing about.

A few days later Elf took Marcus to a dance class, (she had been thinking of it for a while) and he really took to it. He often bursts into spontaneous tap-dance routines around the house, so perhaps channelling that tendency is a good thing.




Michael got to know Jasmine's little brother Tommy, and they shared their love of magnetic letters. Michael is obsessed with spelling out a few specific things at present: Sticky Heads (seen here), Monsters Inc, Dreamworks, and most recently Cats. He has been building letters out of Lego for some time, and lately has pestered us to help him build letters and assemble words out of Mega Bloks. M O N S T E R S I N C takes a long time and occupies most of the loungeroom floor.

A couple of days ago he made a quantum leap by assembling the letters himself and arranging them to spell C A T S. He announced what he had done, and while we all oohed and aahed and wowed, he did a neat little bow, like a conductor. We just don't know where this stuff comes from, but we love it.