The Luckiest Day

It was a 'student free day' today. Like two weeks of school holidays isn't enough? I know, I know, teachers have to plan. As do parents. I don't get customer free days so in preparation for my six year old daughter's day off, I booked her into an activity day at a local Anglican church, with many of her friends.

I should preface this with the fact that we're not church going people. But we are Catholic and I went to an Anglican school, so I figure it's not too much of a stretch. The event was 9am - 5pm, and included all food, drinks, and activities. All for $10. A far greater investment for the church than for me.

At that price, I figured there'd be a bit of attempted indoctrination. They have to get something in return for their effort. We can handle it. We have no beef with God so my kid doing a bit of praying, although a foreign concept for her, won't do her any harm.

When she got home, I asked about her day. Excitedly, she said there was a jumping castle, craft, face painting, dancing, drawing, a pirate show and more. She said she also spent a fair bit of time in the church. That was my cue. "So did you talk about God?" I asked. "We'll, we prayed twice." she said.

That seemed a little light on compared to what I expected. I imagined at least some attempt to embed the idea that they should return with mum and dad for a mass one Sunday. A couple of prayers didn't really seem like a lot of return on their investment. I enquired a little further.

"What were the prayers about?"
"One was funny. It was 'Thank you God for the food'. How funny is that!"
"And the other one?" I asked.
"I can't remember."
"So," I asked, "what was the best thing about the day?"
Her response was immediate, "The food."

I thought that was quite a curious response. Of the jumping castle, face painting, pirate show, dancing etc, the best thing about the day was the food?

"What did you eat?" I asked.
"Um, well, ah... I ate apples and oranges."

Hmm...

"What else did you eat?"
"Well, you know those things that are shaped like a saucer with a pointy end, and they're covered in icing and sprinkles? I ate one of those."

I have no idea what those are, but as she described more and more of the food on offer for the entire day, it became very clear that, besides some fruit slices, she only ate sweets. All day. I asked why she didn't eat the sandwiches. I assumed there would at least be Vegemite sandwiches. But she insisted there were no sandwiches. In her reality, the only real food on offer were the apple and orange slices.

As I argued with her that there couldn't possibly be no normal food, she said adamantly, "Mum, I had to walk the whole length of the table with my plate, and I didn't see one sandwich. Except for the apples and oranges, it was all junk. It was the luckiest day of my life!"

She then handed me a flyer on a positive parenting seminar being held by the church. "Mum," she said, "can we go? Please? They have a program for kids while you're at the seminar, and there's food!"

The Anglicans have it all worked out.

Mars, Marriage and Cruise Control

Albert Einstein was a very smart man. And of all the insights he shared with the world, none more adequately reflect his worldly wisdom than his observation on marriage. He said, "Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed".

How very true.

Is it Mars and Venus? Or are us girls just hard to please?

Some believe the contract was up for TomKat. I think she really was in love with him. Or at least in awe. My vote is that she just wasn't thinking. For the rest of us the evidence was clear from the get go. The minute he jumped on the couch, the warning bells blared for millions of normal people worldwide. Does Oprah get her money back for that couch now?

And really, how many people will agree to start a relationship with a guy who sends his religious posse to put the hard word on you? Interestingly, before Katie, he tried Jennifer Garner, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba and Sofia Vergara with a similar Scientology audition process. But unlike Katie, all of them ran for the hills dodging a bullet of Penelope Cruz proportions.

Not Katie though. Scientology knew they had wife number three stitched up when the elders read an article about Katie in which she mentioned wanting to marry Tom Cruise. She was ripe for the picking. She'd only recently taken down his posters in her bedroom. Fast forward five years. He continues to behave like a nutter and she gets sick of living her life on Cruise Control. Like the two wives before her, she made her exit at age 33. But unlike the other two, she seems to have escaped relatively unscathed; at this stage.

Mimi Rogers career was all but over after divorcing Tom. Nicole Kidman left her kids behind (I still can't get over that). Did Katie learn something from the Wives of Christmas Past? There's obviously some benefit to being wife number three. As with all break ups, how he treated the others is how he'll treat you. So she had to be smarter, more devious, and more organised. And clearly she was. Less than two weeks later, it's done and dusted. She gets the kid and everyone breaths a sign of relief. Makes you wonder what she has on him? Something good obviously, but we'll never know.

So the search is on for wife number four. My tip to Tom is to choose a woman who is older than 33. Wives that age just don't work for you. Ryan Seacrest is older that 33, so that might work?

Kim x