Photo:  The Teenager enjoying a boat cruise at a luxury resort (c. 2004)

1. Child-free days off:  Gotta love ’em.  I’m off work today but The Teenager had to go to school.  Significance? I am totally and completely free! I can guiltlessly do whatever i want for the next 8+ hours!!! Plus! no demands, whining, backtalk or moodiness will interfere with my good mood until approx. 430pm today.  Could a dedicated mommy ask for more? 

 2. I often think in glass rod colours: Doesn’t matter where I am, if anything (usually some passerby’s colourful outfit) catches my eye, i’ll start to calculate how i can recreate that design and which colour rods i should use: oooooo… that lovely abstract blouse? Hmmm…i think a clear base, with a Moretti white and Lauscha blue latticino and an assortment of Gaffer pastel frits, perhaps as a focal, in a barrel shape – or should i use a press…?

3. Bad piercings:  On friday’s bus ride home, there was a young woman standing directly in front of me with a lip piercing.  Now normally i don’t have an issue with piercings (some are quite attractive) but this one just looked painful.  It was in the corner of her bottom lip, with the metal weaving three times in and out through her skin.  I kept trying not to stare but really?  i wanted to lean over and ask her:  “Sweetie, would you like me to help you take that out?” 

4. Karaoke madness:  Saturday night I found myself in a cheesy piano bar with some friends enthusiastically belting out Barry Manilow’s Copacabana to a room full of dancing strangers.  Once the adrenalin wore off it occurred to me that a piano player, a mike, a binder full of lyrics and a cheering audience can delude you into thinking (just for  a moment) that you can actually sing.