The best medicine...

The best medicine for the current world craziness is to take a temporary, yet all incompassing, Lock Down. I talk of course of December, and all that it brings. The Jelly Bean and I are in Lock Down for today. I have gone outside to put rubbish in the bin and hang out some washing. I may take him across the road to the school park later if it stops raining. But that is IT, my friends. We are not goin anywhere. We are not calling anyone. We are not seeing anyone (not counting Mum and Dad that dropped in for a cuppa earlier today).

This entry may be a little stream of consciousness due to afore mentioned December and my resulting lack of normal brain function. Let's just go with it, yeah?

I have discovered, through facebook status updates, that although December has been a tad stressful for me, other people are in way deeper than I am. People are at major shopping centres before I've even had breakfast - and with a Jelly Bean, breakfast in our house is a pretty early affair - even on weekends. People are in a mad rush to buy all their Christmas presents on one day. They are spending and stressing and freaking the fuck out.

I really don't like shopping. Particularly at shopping centres. I'll go to them when I have something specific that I want or need. And often if there is something specific that I want or need I can get it cheaper online anyway. I do like shopping in supermarkets, I love buying ingredients to cook yummy things. I like shopping at markets and op shops because the things at the stalls are interesting. Or crap. But they're usually different from the things at the shops. And I don't like how you see people in groups of friends that all are dressed the same, irrespective of their fashion choices, colour schemes, sizes or shapes, they all look the same.

Sometimes the reactions from others akin this to me being a traitor to my gender but I find it tedious. I get nervous. I buy things I never had any intention of buying. I'm not saying I have no will power, but there is a reason that capitalist societies flourish financially. Advertising. It costs businesses a lot of money to advertise and there's a reason for that. It works. I hate shopping centres because I inevitably always buy something on the spur of the moment, and to tell you the truth, I'd rather save my money for overseas adventures.

While eating my early breakfast today, I was looking at a Christmas card given to me from a lovely friend. On the front was a big cartoon-y Santa with his arm around an equally cartoon-y Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Santa had a present wrapped in the convetional way, box, ribbon, colour co-ordination, killer perfect bow on top. They both look so happy. The box was not big enough for a PS3 or a new tv. It was not big enough for a vase or a bike or a new handbag. It was too small for an outdoor setting. It wouldn't fit a new hat or a painting. I suppose it would have enough room for a new iPhone or iPod or some jewellery. But I think Santa was giving Rudolph something more special than stuff.

Maybe it had a Treasure Map folded up inside, and Rudolph had to go on a midnight hunt for the treasure. Or maybe a photo of the two of them for Rudolph's desk at work. Or it might have held a small shell, pebble and coin that Rudolph looked at and teared up because Santa had remembered that special day they had spent together at the beach in Norway many years ago. And Rudolph was absolutely going to put these on his desk at work.

But they were happy.

I don't think that Santa is giving the Jelly Bean many presents this year. There are a few, I assume, that will make the Jelly Bean light up. There are a couple of educational ones (Santa knows how much the Jelly Bean's mama values education) and possibly some new pants. But they will all fit into the magic Santa bag that I made when the Bean was a baby.

It's giant and made of red and white stripy material. The first year I hand sewed his name on the bag in Giant green letters. The second year I sewed on a Christmas tree with buttons for decorations. Last year I sewed on a jelly fish that was reminscent of the jelly fish christmas tree decoration that he had made at creche (the others made paper link tinsel stuff, my spunk made a jelly fish). This year I asked him what he would like, he's getting a dinosaur.
'An Apatosaurus please, Mama.'

I'm not religious. I feel spiritual stuff from time to time, I believe in the soul and the nature of humans and a bit of a collective consciousness, but I don't abide by a set of dogma, except for maybe a strong sense of Karma. I participate in Christmas now because I have a little person, because I have parents and I like cooking and eating yummy food. I've been making friends presents now for a few years and that way I can afford to give many of them something, whereas if I had to go shopping, only a very select few would get anything. That is just the nature of things.

I think if Jesus was around today, saying the things that he said, someone would put him in a centre for the mentally unstable. No one would believe his prophet/son of god thing, and that's ok. We can all choose to believe what we want. I'm happy to say happy birthday. But we don't get around going crazy and spending heaps of cash for the Queen's birthday. We all get a bit pissed on the Sunday night or go away for the long weekend or have a bbq or hang out with friends. And she's still alive.

So during Lock Down we have ticked a few things off the list of items on the crazy December list (to be perfectly honest, I keep losing my list, but the things that I remembered from the original, are slowly getting ticked off). Today already we/I have had breakfast and later lunch, vaccuumed, made White Christmas (one of the fab presents!), done the dishes, washed and hung out a load of washing and folded and put away another load, taken out the rubbish, wiped the bench, gotten the paperwork sorted for our trip, set up future dated payments rent and bills for while we're away and dusted behind the TV. We did this while we listened to The Doors, Credence and the Forrest Gump soundtrack - as I was inspired by the awesome soundtrack of the film I watched last night - The Boat That Rocked.

The Jelly Bean has since confided in me that he doesn't like 'that woman singing that song about "Blowing in the window"' (Read 'wind' and assume Joan Baez) but he does like The Doors especially 'LA Woman' and especially not 'The End' (heathen) and he does like Credence for dancing to on the Turkish rug.

I have also listened a little more closely to the lyrics of some of these rockin' songs from the 60s and 70s and find that if written today, many others may have been hang with the J-Man in the centre for the mentally unstable, and I note -

Three Dog Night - 'Joy to the World':
'Jeremiah was a bull frog, he was a good friend of mine
I never understood a single word he said, but I helped him drink his wine'

B.J. Thomas - 'Raindrops keep falling on My Head'
'So I just did me some talking to the sun,
And I said I didn't like the way he got things done,
Sleepin' on the job'

And my favourite and absolutely the most puzzling,
The Byrds - 'Turn! Turn! Turn!':
'A time to dance a time to mourn,
A time to cast away stones,
A time to gather stones together'

The Jelly Bean is now having a nap because he's exhausted. I've called to order the need for the Lock Down because the poor dear keeps falling asleep at weird and extended intervals. He needs a day in tracky dacks listening to some killer tunes.

In fact, we all do.

Things The Bean has said:

I was doing Yoga on the Turkish rug.

TB: Wow, good job, Mama.
Me-(upside down, doing downward facing dog, getting quite red in the face and exhaling all at the same time): Thanks baby.
TB: That's a very good grasshopper.