Doggie Heaven

Posted on February 22, 2008 by borysSNORC

With the Small Child going to Catholic school nowadays, I’ve been thinking lately about how the church and I kinda parted ways. And from what I can remember it wasn’t the usual Evolution vs Creation debate…. it was something altogether simpler that didn’t gel with my young brain. Sr Mary-Clare (God bless her cotton frocks) used to teach us Religious Education (and everything else come to think of it) when I was in primary school in a time when we still used to get sent to the Principal’s office for ‘the cuts’ if we perpetrated one of a gazillion ill-defined infractions. She did her best I guess with a bunch of kids who would yawn rudely as she tried to beat some catechism into us. No doubt it was our blatant boredom that caused her to frequently retaliate with her own special weapon of mass dysfunction – that uniquely Catholic torture known as the Liturgical Dance 😐

I recall one day when I was in Grade 3 one of my classmates, Libby Free (there’s a name I haven’t thought of for a few decades) had come to school upset because their family dog had been run over by a car and her parents had told her that Rover/Fido/Fluffy (insert generic dog’s name of your choice) had gone to heaven. Well Sr Mary-Clare was having none of that. So she set the record straight… “We (Catholics) do not believe that animals have souls – only humans have souls….. so Rover/Fido/Fluffy can not go to heaven.” Which being ever a laterally thinking little miss (Yes my teachers often had that slightly hesitant and fleetingly exasperated look about them whenever I raised my hand with a question ) caused me to say “But Sr Mary-Clare… last week you said humans ARE animals” or something of that ilk.

Whatever explanation she offered for this glaring contradiction is long forgotten and likely irrelevant. Needless to say it didn’t satisfy my young curiosity and being spoon fed Catholicism throughout my entire education rapidly became something to be tolerated but eventually deemed to be irrelevant and even fanciful. As I got older the Evolution vs Creation argument definitely cemented that particular sentiment and by the time I was paying attention to international news and/or politics as a young adult most other organized religions were firmly added to the list of “Stuff Borys Wants Nothing To Do With”.

Yes I know… I’m going to hell (if it pleases you to believe in such a place).
.

School Daze

Posted on January 30, 2008 by borysSNORC

It was the Small Child’s first day at my old primary school today and I was admittedly curious to see how he would adapt to all the changes… new uniforms, new surrounds, new classmates… new teacher… new everything. And while it was new everything for the Small Child, it turns out it was old everything for me. Walking into his classroom took me on an instant trip down memory lane, it was the exact same room that I was in for Grade Two (and here I’m carbon dating myself) back in 1978. Sure it felt like the room had shrunk and the black boards were replaced with whiteboards, and the desks were no longer those lift up wooden ones that you had to hold up with your head or else they’d fall down and crush your little hands, but it felt exactly as I remember it!

BigSal, Borys and LittleTish (c. 1981)

What an amazing coincidence that he was going to be in my old classroom… and it gets better. His new teacher Mrs W looked vaguely familiar when I walked in…. and lo and behold, turns out to be the exact same teacher that I had when I did Grade Two in that exact same classroom exactly 30 years ago! Only she was Miss S back then. 🙂 Which is really totally cool…. and at the same time a little creepy. 🙂 Can’t wait to tell Equinom as she was in my class back then too.

So it seems like he settled in quite well and had a pretty good first day – he tells us the teacher asked lots of questions and he knew most of the answers, so he was very excited. Now all I have to wait for is the day he ‘outs’ us as bad little Catholics by saying something like “God? What’s that?” (Ahem…. is it getting a little warm in here?) I did try to carefully explain to him (okay… it felt more like I was warning him) that at his new school, the teachers may on occasion encourage the entire class to … well… pray. His response was (predictably) “Huh??”

So yeah…. I’m thinking the Godless heathens tag will be stapled to our file sooner rather than later at this rate. :S

Better to be known as a sinner than a hypocrite.

Posted on January 23, 2008 by borysSNORC

This morning myself and the Small Child went to his new school to complete his enrollment and to purchase all the relevant equipage associated with starting at a new educational institution… you know the drill. Anyway, as I tortured the small boy with the trying on of uniform shirts and shorts and even the ‘compulsory school art smock’ … I found myself pondering the following question:

Are there levels of hypocrisy?

Because here I am…. enrolling the Small Child in a private Catholic school. Now I’ve often felt I had a fantastic childhood and part of that I’ve always attributed to having had a pleasant childhood educational experience. I was never subjected to bullying or social ostracism, never had difficulties with learning and I loved going to school – with the notable exception being when they lined us up to go to the bloody Qld Health Dental van where the apprentice dentists used to torture us … but that is another story. Anyway, I am fairly certain that my predominantly positive memories of my early schooling was in no small part due to the fact that my parents shelled out the extra dosh to put me and my sisters through private Catholic schools where we had smaller classes, excellent teachers and better resources.

Now in my case… the whole Catholic thing didn’t really take…. so much so that I probably fall neatly into the atheist category (sorry Sister Mary). So exactly how much of a hypocrite am I for enrolling Angel in Catholic school knowing that he’s going to be indoctrinated with a whole pile of shit I don’t believe in myself? And given that it was totally premeditated – yes, I had him Christened Catholic when he was 6 months old anticipating that this is a prerequisite to getting into private schools. Are there… degrees of hypocrisy? Like maybe Hypocrisy in the First Degree is like when you’re anti-abortion and pro-death penalty, and Second Degree Hypocrisy is being publicly against gay marriage, but you’re actually a closet homosexual and are married with three kids sort of thing? And so on and so forth…

And if so… what degree of hypocrisy is it for a lapsed Catholic who is anti organized religion to be sending their Small Child to Catholic school? It’d have to be way down the list right? Only a little teeny weeny Degree of Hypocrisy yeah? Maybe 12th Degree or something huh?

Mom: Wow! Angel, you’ve grown so big lately, I think we better get the next size up!

Small Child: I’m growing bigger every day Mom. Except Saturdays obviously.

Mom: Obviously 😮

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

Posted on January 21, 2008 by borysSNORC

It’s been a year today since my father passed away and in hindsight, I don’t think I’ve ever been affected by something quite so much and yet quite so little at the same time. His passing filled me conflicting feelings from grief, sorrow, sadness and loss to relief… and guilt for feeling so relieved that it was over for him… but also for us. Dad had MND (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and it was a desperate thing to watch him slowly deteriorate and ultimately die from it. People who’ve suffered this particular indignity describe it like being buried alive in your own body, and my father went from being a strong fit man who hiked the Himalayas and white water rafted the Zambezi to being a wizened shell of his former self and totally dependent everyday on my mother to bathe him… dress him… feed him…

My Dad was the strongest amongst us throughout the entire ordeal – he displayed a quiet internal strength in the face of this insidious disease that you couldn’t help but admire his unwavering fortitude. He was always one to accept what life dealt up and handled everything in his life with dignity and aplomb. He was the insightful, sensible and calming influence on all of us… always the peace broker in a house full of women 🙂 Even right up to the end, his primary concern seemed to be for how we were all coping with his condition, and never once did he seem to concede even an iota of self pity. I wish I could have been there more for him – and more for my Mum – but to be honest… I felt so helpless that I often just tried not to get in the way.

I miss his ridiculous inability to tell a joke without cracking up before getting out the punchline. I miss seeing him up a ladder or under the car being all masculine and useful and hitting things with a hammer. I miss him sending us off to ‘stick your head in a bucket and make yourself presentable before coming to the breakfast table’. I miss his lopsided smile and his inexplicable enjoyment of crap British comedies like The Two Ronnies, Auntie Jack and Benny Hill. I miss the way he always tried to temper or softly interpret my often vociferously stated opinions over the dinner table. I even miss his disapproving looks at our pathetic efforts during the ritualized anal retentive Saturday morning clean ups that we all abhorred and tried to skive out on at any opportunity.

I never told him often enough how much I loved him, and how lucky I felt to have a father like him.

You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.

Posted on January 18, 2008 by borysSNORC

Small Child: Mom… I want a webcam.

Mom: What do you want a webcam for babe?

Small Child: So I can talk to you through the computer.

Mom: Honey… your PC is in the next room… I don’t think you need a webcam 😐

It is usually around Christmas time each year that I start assessing the ‘stuff’ that the Small Child has been accruing over the year and I hate to admit it, but he’s kinda spoiled rotten (though perhaps not quite so indulged as his Dad would have him, seeing that I’ve refused to let a Wii into the house 🙂 He has a small TV and a DVD player/mini stereo system in his room, a not totally crap PC with a 19″ LCD monitor (in my defense it was cheaper than the 17″ one I set out to buy), there’s also a Nintendo Game Cube in the house with about 20 games and he has access to a DVD collection consisting of approximately 97 Disney cartoons and family movies. He also has his Dad’s hand me down iPod mini (battery is a little unreliable) several remote control toys, a couple of push bikes, an overflowing toybox and more books than you can poke a stick at.

Anyway… the webcam request came after a recent request for an Eee PC like Mom’s and I also recall a tentative enquiry about getting his own mobile phone!!! Oh what unrealistic expectations the Small Child does have! He’s already amassed more toys than I had throughout my entire childhood. So I sat him down and started to tell him about all the great things he has that I never had when I was a kid….. and I sounded like my fucking grandmother!!!

I told him when I was little that we had no computers.
When I was little we had no internet.
When I was little we had no video games.
When I was little we had no DVDs or even CDs.
We also had no mobile phones.
We had no remote control toys.
We had no iPods, webcams, laptops or even colour TV for crying out loud!

We didn’t get a colour TV until I was about 8 I think and only had a teeny black and white thing up until that. We got a VCR when I was about 12 and it may well have been the first one on our block. Hell… we didn’t even have a telephone in my house until I was 6 or 7! I shared my bedroom with my elder sister, BigSal, until I was about 14, which meant we had to share all our toys and often clothes too. And most sophisticated thing I’d ever owned (up until I bought myself a $300 Sony CD Walkman at 19) was a hand held Nintendo game of Snoopy Tennis that I got for Christmas when I was 15!

* Just for the record – I can’t play Star Wars Lego for shit on the GameCube, but I totally rocked at Snoopy Tennis!! I was the Snoopy Tennis Queen! Things were so much simpler then…. Oh good Lord I sound sooooo fucking old!!!!!! I guess in some way it’s just the same…. Angel is wanting all the cool stuff he sees around him and I did too I guess. I remember envying kids from school who had one of those fancy Simon Says games… oh yeah – how I wanted one of those…. they were the ducks nuts! That and a Speak and Spell!