In a gadda da vida, honey, don't you know that I'm lovin' you (Iron Butterfly)

SWMBO has been getting regular night shifts of late which has, amazingly, coincided with me purchasing MAD MEN Season 6 on DVD. What are the odds eh?

SWMBO doesn't like Mad Men. I love it

Have I blogged on this before? Of course! Every time a new season emerges on DVD I have to have it immediately.

Why do I love it?

The advertising world fascinates me. I used to love thirtysomething (haven't bought that on DVD yet - it's very much of its time - the eighties, and I get stuck on the hair and fashion).

Mad Men is set in the sixties - so the hair and fashions are part of the shows appeal. Harry hasn't had a word to say yet (I'm about 3 episodes in) in this season but his hairstyle marks him out in every scene he's in.

The women characters are amazingly well written. Joan is an amazing presence in the office; Betty (January Jones) is all ice cool blond. The scenes where she tries to find her step daughter in a junky haven tenement were brilliantly written. The sub text at work in her acting was incredible.

The characters are an interesting mix of goodness and badness - Roger, Don, Peter - the power men of the show are not stereotypical, nor are they black and white. Only one show on TV would have the nouse to have Roger Sterling metaphorically curl up into a fetal position at his mother's funeral.

I've started off a colleague on Season one and he's hooked already! If you've somehow avoided the show until now - climb aboard!

Love and peace - Wozza

I'm like a one eyed cat peepin' in a seafood store (Big Joe Turner)

Okay - confession time - I've always considered the Gluten Free aisles of the food market to be the ones the trendy poseurs go for.

I've built up a stereotype in my teeny tiny brain of the tree hugging mung bean brigade making up the clientele for the Gluten Free products.

Wrong wrong wrong!

Such ignorance!! Unbelievable!!

They aren't alternative types looking for a healthy option. Gluten (and the removal of it) doesn't work like that.

What is Gluten anyway? Well children: Gluten is a protein found in grains such as wheat, barley, rye and triticale (a cross between wheat and rye apparently).

Why do I know this and why is it confession time?

Because I have joined the ranks of the Gluten Free. Not because I've been diagnosed with celiac disease but because I wanted to see if I have a non-celiac gluten sensitivity/ intolerance to Gluten (means I feel bloated after eating 'normal' meals which over time has increased my weight into 12 stone territory for the first time - scary). 

This has been going on for years. SWMBO knows this. She has told me about this stuff. Before. Apparently.

Why have I finally listened to her? Well, you see, I have a pair of trousers that I would love to get into again. I bought them while I was working in the Middle East. I was thinner then because of the diet there (mainly caused by the heat - I didn't have big meals but ate dates and Arabic coffee on a daily basis).

The me I want to be

Anyway since returning from the sandpit in 2012 I haven't been able to get near them (the trousers? Yes the trousers). I try them on from time to time but denial takes over. Like a David Crosby style crack addict who needs to bottom out completely before they change their ways, it's taken me a while to realize that - der - something must change for me to get into that pair of trousers.

It's been three weeks so far and so early days but I feel better already. I have GF cereal for breakfast, a GF lunch at school (Woodford House caters for all sorts) and I've been trying to keep to as much of a GF evening meal as I can. I'm avoiding things I love - potato chips, fish and chips, chocolate and sugary drinks as much as I can.

Here's a list of stuff that doesn't contain that nasty protein:

• Beans, seeds, nuts in their natural, unprocessed form
• Fresh eggs
• Fresh meats, fish and poultry (not breaded, batter-coated or marinated)
• Fruits and vegetables
• Most dairy products

Other stuff I'm aiming to avoid:

• Barley (malt, malt flavoring and malt vinegar are usually made from barley)
• Rye
• Triticale (a cross between wheat and rye)
• Wheat

Wish me luck and look forward to seeing me in that pair of trousers soon! I tried them on this morning and - yes - progress has been made!

Love and peace - Wozza

Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible (Francis of Assisi)

The F of A quote is my March 2004 quote. If that makes no sense to you you'll need to read this blog more regularly!

I don't like the quote much - it doesn't make a whole lotta sense to me. As if you can 'suddenly' go from the possible to the impossible! What's that about Frank?

It's accompanied by a caveman cartoon showing the evolution of a wheel from a bolder to a car 'tyre'. Huh? That's only possible in the Flintstones fer crying out loud.  

Living on Red Phoenix Farm has its moments and many of them revolve around animals. Last week we sold off last season's lambs, continued to learn about our new cat - Rocky, and moved the horses apart after Max kicked a couple of fences to bits. Oh what joy!

Rocky? But I thought the cat's name was Seven! Sadly Seven couldn't deal with being among dogs - in particular Dookie. The SPCA staff had assured us that she was dog friendly. Ar - no! The weird thing was Seven decided that attack was far preferable to defence (poor Dookie just wanted to make friends) - no backward steps! As SWMBO observed - Seven rolled up her sleeves and went for it.

So we took Seven back to the SPCA and picked up Rocky (having tested out his dog friendliness carefully). So far so okay. He's no Waffles but then again - no cat is. The good is that he is friendly, the bad is that he's learnt from somewhere that it's okay to use a sink (or bath) as a toilet, and the ugly? Well he's not named after Rocky Balboa for nothing!

As for the fencing...well that was something of a mission too but SWMBO and I pulled the broken rails off on Saturday and rebuilt them on Sunday.

Sounds easy huh? How to play the flute - blow in one end and move your fingers up and down on the outside bit. Easy peasy.

Love and peace - Wozza

It's such a feeling, my love I can't hide (The Beatles)

After a shitty week, being at school for 12 days in a row didn't help (last week + Saturday swimming sports + Sunday chapel + this week), I came home after school on freaky Friday and decided to play some loud music and do a workout.

Music (in this case a live Coldplay CD) and hard exercise usually does the trick. 

I had a shower and turned on the TV and it was Sochi Olympics figure skating. I reached for the remote but then stood in amazement, watching a Russian figure skater - 17 year old Adelina Sotnikova - do her stuff.

It was breath taking - literally, and EXACTLY what I needed after purging the week via Coldplay and the cross trainer.

She was amazing. Free. Sassy. Effortless. Carefree. A thing of beauty.

I also loved her emotional moment of release after her performance. She gave it her all. She never gave up, never surrendered. That's inspirational people!

I notice today the usual suspects are on social media (and American news shows) saying the Russians fixed the result, that the silver medalist (Kim Yuna - also amazing) was robbed. 

I know nothing about judging figure skating but I still figure I have the right to say, I'm sorry, but, "Fiddlesticks!!!!"

Have a look at this (not her Gold medal performance at Sochi but the next best thing on youtube) and tell me she's not a glorious freak of nature.




Love and peace - Wozza

Motion (Lee Konitz)

Boy on a bicycle

I am thinking of one of those photographs you see: a pan shot, a boy on a bicycle. The world is a brush stroke movement, a set rolled by to indicate the speed of another who passes on wheels. It is time passing on paper. The boy, although the viewer knows his feet are furious with motion, is absolutely stilled. He is in a moment of intense relaxation. It reads like grace. And this grace bleeds ‘now’ with ‘before’ and ‘after’; denies the isolation of the moment, insists on continuity.

You can no longer make the separation between stillness and movement in the boy. Understand that motion is this grace, this point of eternal departure that is the boy.

So much knowledge is required to move those wheels, those limbs. Yet it is all granted to the boy. It is inside his body. This small movement is precipitated by this body of knowledge. And death entrances through this knowledge-motion, this boy. And there are no stops no freeze frames in death. Death itself is precipitation.

Love and peace - Wozza (brother to the boy and btw - he's on my bicycle and I took the photo with my Kodak Instamatic)

Ketchup, pretty name for a girl (Jerry Seinfeld)

Sadly Waffles has not returned home. It's been over two weeks since we last saw him. We have no clue what has happened to him but clearly something bad has. 

We're searched Red Phoenix farm and all the roads around us, contacted all the neighbours to check if they've had any locked buildings, reported his disappearance to the SPCA and nothing.

Being somewhat resigned to the inevitable, SWMBO and I decided to rescue another cat with the open plan idea that if the Waf returns we'll have two cats from the Waipukurau SPCA to look after and so... please welcome Seven to the whanau.

Seven is very like the cat we had before Wafi - a smokey grey and white female - which we called Soda.

Why Seven? Simple - watch the following clip from Seinfeld.



In the same episode Soda emerges as George's second favourite name so given the similarity in the cats' colours - Seven seemed like a perfect choice. 

Watch out for Ketchup (or Mug) next time!

In life, as in football. you won't go far unless you know where the goalposts are [Arnold H Glasgow (sic)]

It's February and that means a couple of things, first, a new page and quote from my 2004 calendar.

This month it's the one in the post title. It kind of makes sense but it's not phrased brilliantly. I don't like that phrase about moving the goalpost and. I guess, it must be aligned to Glasgow's quote.

Sidebar: Who was Arnold H Glasgow anyway? No one seems to know much.

Turns out his name may be misspelled on my calendar. According to Wiki answers it should be Glasow without the 'g'. 

Here's the sum total of web information on him (and I'm not sure how reliable it is): 

Arnold Henry Glasow was born in Fond-du-lac, Wisconsin, USA, in 1905, and died in Freeport, Illinois in 1998 age 93. He graduated from Ripon College, and started his own business when he moved to Freeport just after the Great Depression. His business was a humour magazine that he marketed to firms nationally, which firms would turn into their own "House Organ" to send to their own customers. He ran this business for over sixty years but didn't publish his first book until aged 92. The book was titled "Glasow's Gloombusters", one of the many titles he put to his work during his career. He was cited frequently in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Chicago Tribune and many other major publications. He was a regular contributor to the humour sections of Reader's Digest. Sixty years of productive work. Many accolades. A real American thinker, self-effacing and generous of spirit, he shunned the national spotlight.

Anyway I didn't really want to get into the actual quote but instead focus on the other thing about the move into February - that means it's Superbowl time, which is on Monday in New York. 

Wahoo - a superbowl NOT in the sunshine of Miami is very welcome.

All of the hype around the game is always amazing - it's just a game of American Football afterall. At least this year the two best teams will be meeting in the final.

The Seattle Seahawks go up against The Denver Broncos. I'm hoping for a Seahawks win. I have no allegiance to them beyond the fact that one of the whanau is a Seattleite, and, although Clay is not a big football fan, that's enough for me.

But there's more: there's the fact that the pissed off, I'm gonna getchew, seahawk icon (left) is way better than the Denver's slightly manic bronco (right)... 

...and there's Derrick Coleman. He's a Seattle Seahawks safety who also happens to be deaf. He wears hearing aids and lip reads the plays from Russell Wilson. Amazing and totally inspiring.



Besides which Peyton Manning, the quarterback for the Broncos, kinda rubs me up the wrong way. It's his whole mucking around at the line of scrimmage that gets me, plus his whole Tom Hanks aw shucks good ole boy personality. VERY unfair of me I know - but no one is that nice (apart from Tom Hanks that is).

Yes I'm really that shallow.

So - GO SEATTLE!!!!

Love and peace - Wozza