Weblog of Lois and Dougie - the daily musings of a lady and her cat

Though my generation of siblings and cousins seem to (almost always) marry once only, my parents were more inclined toward serial monogamy (I think).  My mother has married twice, and lives with a new partner now, my father is twice-married too.  In the case of both my parents, I was not expecting to be step-parented.  My mother moved in with her (later) husband when I was 16, so I left home.  My father married the new lady in his life when I was in my early thirites.

The contrast between the two approaches from my parents could not have been more different.  My mother never expected me to acknowledge her new man as someone significant to me.  We (my sisters and I) were happy for her - though her man was a domineering kind of character, he treated her like a princess, no doubt manna from heaven for her after some years of emotional neglect.  He, for his part, did not expect to be parenting us, and it made life alot easier that this was the case.

My father, later, encountered a very strong-willed woman, with whom he fell in love.  I met her on a visit back home, and, initially, liked her.  But she insisted on referring to herself in later letters as 'the wicked stepmother', and would try to talk to me rather than let me speak to my father when I phoned.  This irked me greatly, particularly as we, Dad and I, needed to work through some difficult issues arising from my childhood.  His wife was not there at the time, and I didn't feel it was her business.  But she became his gatekeeper, and eventually I just 'lost it' with my Dad - I threw my rage at him, and was never allowed to have contact with him again, unless I agreed to negotiate to do so through his wife.

I though about this all recently when I saw an article in a newspaper about this very subject.  There was mention of how difficult relations can be, if the new person (husband or wife) insists on being included in family life.

It is sad what happened.  Now my father is in a rest home and I feel loathe to pressure either of my sisters to reveal where it is, although one of the two might relent, the one who is not interested in the gate-keeping behaviour.  What do readers think?  My father is suffering from the early stages of dementia and seldom comprehends that he is being visited (I  have heard he sleeps alot).  Should I try to go there on my own terms (i.e. without checking with the gatekeeper)?

The visit of the Lions rugby team, painful as it was for their fans to watch (three comprehensive losses), was a great event for New Zealand.  Although it was hyped up a bit much, I have to say it was a pleasure having the fans around.  The streets of Auckland were buzzing, red-jerseyed fans around every corner, bars enjoying good trade.  And this is despite the fact that some fans (supposedly) went home after the first two losses.  We should enjoy this kind of event more often.

On a less happy note, would like to belatedly convey condolences to any readers affected by the tragic events in London on the 7th of July. 

I know I haven't written much about the object of my affections, 'my angel'.  I never intended this weblog to be confessional at all.  But sometimes he is uppermost in my mind and I want to think about him.

I could feel a little chapter of my life coming to an end, when, on saturday night, I enjoyed the evening with my angel and a lovely friend.  We have been enjoying watching a series of rugby games together and now the series has finished.  We celebrated together with a fabulous meal (cooked by yours truly) and watched fireworks and warmed ourselves with rum.  I felt quite close to my angel that night.

But it also occured to me that soon my lovely friend will go back to her own country, and my angel will move to another country too, to fulfil his destiny.  Like the fireworks, I will remember the colours and the sounds of this time, but this vision will be no more.  I cannot be with my angel, and he cannot be with me.

On a more positve note, the fact that I found my heart slowly opening to this man, makes me think I am ready again now to let a man close to me.  That, at least, I can look forward to.

Lois

 

 

 

I suppose every generation has its peer group-promoted trends, good or bad, whether it is chopper bikes and schoolyard bullying behind the bike sheds, iPods and Red Bull & vodka-fuelled partying and so on.  A reader has responded to my thought on the word 'cowardly' with a comment about 'Happy slapping'.  For anyone not familiar with this term, it involves an act that is essentially a planned assault, which is 'filmed' on a mobile phone, and often then displayed on the Net. 

I can't help but feel that, as far as trends of the day for young people go, this is a pretty sinister development, along with the use of mobiles to photograph other teens undressing or in the toilets.  All assault is a crime, so of course the schoolyard bullying was just that too, but now the Net allows the technologically-savvy youth of today to display records of their experience of all kinds to a worldwide audience, the implications for deep psychological damage, especially in the case of the dressing room/toilet photos, is immense.

Can anyone offer any insight into where it all started to go horribly wrong in terms of losing the moral plot?

 

 

I suppose one of the great things fantasy is that the less you know someone, the more you can theorise about them, endowing them with wonderful qualities.  I have had a couple of chances to spend some time with my 'angel' and what a spooky character he is.  A friend of ours took a photo of me, my angel, and a special friend - I am looking at my friend, she is looking at the camera, and the angel is looking... off somewhere into the distance.  I am convinced it is because he is Pisces.

I had a Pisces boyfriend in the UK and there were certainly times where I'd be talking to him and he seem to be in a dream world of his own, which I found very frustrating.  On Yahoo's astrology site the compatibility of Aries and Pisces is noted as "You are Yang and the Pisces is Yin. It's the ultimate meeting of the polar opposites of the cosmos! You're brash and sometimes full of yourself; the Piscean is wise and all-knowing, with nothing to prove. You complement each other perfectly: you go out on your missions and when you get hurt, the Pisces catches you; Piscean fears are salved with blasts of your optimism and bravado. This relationship is sealed where it counts: in the bedroom."  Now I think about it the bedroom side of tings kept us together as much as anything else!

Unfortunately my angel is taken, so he will live only in the bedroom in my mind.  Never mind.  My new friends wants a boyfriend too so I think it is time to go hunting!  Watch this space for the lastest in our search.

Lois