In which Ditz Stares down her audience....

"I like to feel the burn of the audience's eyes when I'm whispering all my darkest secrets into the microphone." Conor Oberst.

We were carpooling yesterday & then I went to help pack up an apartment while Ditz & her ensemble rehearsed. We trotted back into town about 6ish for hamburgers before wandering over to QPAC to pick up our various children.

They were not on time. We attracted a lot of attention wandering round the empty foyer ~ every one else being inside in the theatre ~ but eventually were able to ask someone if the choir had sung yet. Oh no, we were assured, there was no choir singing tonight.

People poured into the foyer for interval while we hunted up staff to ask if we could watch the monitors for the kids performance. Shock! Horror! Gasp! There was no choir tonight! Are we sure we didn't want Joseph & his techni~coloured coat? Quite sure. They weren't real happy but we were allowed to watch the monitors & lo & behold the kids filed out on stage promptly after interval, a long nervous row of them looking like black & white blobs on the screen but they sang beautifully. One little section sounded a bit shonky to me & Ditz just said disgustedly that they were all singing at a different tempo because people weren't watching the monitors but as they got it together pretty quickly its probably only people like me, who register nothing except it doesn't sound quite like it usually does, who even noticed.

The kids were practically sitting in the audience's laps & Ditz, who does quite a good Death Stare as a regular thing, was busily out staring her audience one by one. Anyone who looked at her for longer than 2 seconds was eyeballed until they shifted their gaze. I don't think that's quite what is meant by connecting with your audience! However everyone was as surprised as they were meant to be by the ensemble performing; special birthday performance for the composer Ian McKinley , whose version of the 23rd Psalm the kids were singing. I think only the backstage crew knew about it. lol.

The kids wandered out closer to 9 than 8.30 which meant no way were we getting the 10pm boat ~ which meant we didn't wander in our own door until almost mid~night. Ditz, who was very wired when she came off stage, was silent by then, so very, very, tired & I'd cat~napped on the boat home. No rehearsal this week but after the month we've had I think we can all do with the break. We might actually get some of the other school work done!

Saturday, Saturday.

I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. ~Ruth Stout

Spring is here ~ a little early but definitely on its way! The air has changed & the days are definitely warmer! And where am I spending the day? In Brisbane of course. *sigh*.

Ditz is performing with the QLD Youth Orchestra at QPAC tonight but today they are rehearsing with the orchestra. They are only doing the one piece so it's not worth purchasing a ticket & sadly rehearsals are closed. This would be worth being a fly on the wall for. The theatre is very intimate & because they are sharing the stage with the orchestra the kids get to line up single file along the very edge of the stage where you can see the whites of the audiences' eyes!!! That's nerve wracking enough but the acoustics are such that you can't hear the performer beside you so it's as if you are soloing. If they keep the same format they had Wednesday Ditz will be plonk in the middle of the stage. *snigger, snigger.*

The movies aren't inviting so I guess its walking through Southbank for me. I have a book & coffee is available so I will lack for very little.

I really need a weekend at home though. I have never seen a spring like this before. We have so much gum blossom in great creamy drifts my yard & verandah have turned white with the stuff & the lorrikeets, rosellas & cockatoos have been stripping the sails till there are great twiggy branches lying all over everything as well. The bats, which feed on the blossom, have arrived in droves too, screeching & crashing through the treetops all night long. With the hotter weather the birdbaths are more popular & I am having to check them more often to make sure they are topped up with fresh water. We always get the little birds ~ honeyeaters, flycatchers & fantails ~ but as the temperatures skyrocket the bigger birds get desperate & there's nothing quite like the sight of a friar bird, magpie or kookaburra trying to squeeze into a contraption meant for something much, much smaller. They are not in the least self conscious about looking like prize idiots!

Ditz & I are getting very, very tired. All the travelling takes its toll & more often than I like I have been scheduling easy school days but then yesterday Ditz took a whole 20 minutes to do her science instead of the all morning drama I was expecting & our history reading is finally aligning with her extension project on Gypsies though, naturally, we are behind on her math. If we must do math I wish we had the math brain to cope with it but we do not & it continues to be the fly in our ointment, which is a shame as everything else rolls along quite nicely. Thank goodness Ditz has brains & to spare or it would all be a much bigger drama than it is.

Meanwhile Liddy is down to her last few needed hours for her driver's licence. I can't believe she's been driving for over 12 months ~ or how scary she was those first few weeks. Now she is very, very competent; if anything a little overconfident but she lined up the first of about 3 lessons with a driving school ~ one of the better ones with a good first time pass rate & sound preparation for the test~ & came home over the moon. Her instructor was very pleased with her driving habits. I rather let the air out of her balloon by remarking I must have done a pretty good job! She looked confused for a moment then got it. Yes, dear heart, mummy did a good job teaching you! *swipes at brow in relief!* Another licenced driver round her would be very handy!

A longstanding love affair

Australia is about as far away as you can get. I like that. Andre Benjamin




My mother was the sort of parent who gave books as birthday presents. I was the sort of child who anticipated the luxury of much new reading material come birthdays or Christmas. I was perfectly happy to forgo new clothes, fancy toys or make~up kits for a wealth of good books. Consequentially I have a very large children's library to this day.



When I was about 10 I recieved the first Billabong book I ever read, Bill of Billabong, & began my love affair with the inhabitants of Billabong Station.. Unless you are Australian you will never have heard of these ~ & even then maybe not. They are older books dating back to the early 1900s but what I love about them, & what made them so popular, is the humour. Billabong Adventurers has the funniest pre~nuptial scene I have ever read & when I am in need of a good laugh I will drag the book out just to read that one scene & laugh till I howl.



For the time they were written in they are remarkably modern in outlook. The central character is Norah Linton, the beloved daughter of David Linton & sister to Jim. Her home is the cattle station in Victoria, Billabong, which gives the series its name. Finding himself widowed & knowing nothing of raising girls David Linton raises Norah as he would a son. Don't let this put you off. Norah is definitely a feminine character with many womanly accomplishments. In the early books she is tutored at home & learns her household skills from the family housekeeper while still participating in the daily running of a large cattle station.



Mary Grant Bruce writes well but her most enviable skill is her ability to infuse the ordinary with the extraordinary. She writes about the daily round of everyday chores & activities in such a way that they seem fresh & exciting. As a parent I admire the attitude with with everything is approached. Work is seen as good & to be enjoyed as much as possible. Friendship is valued. Duty is to be done lovingly. Everyone is to be helped as best you can.



As an Australian much that is unique about these books is taken for granted. I've travelled through the countryside so lovingly described. I understand the heat & the flies & the attraction of cool water & gum shade on a scorching hot day. There is a subtlety to these books that was often missing in children's books of the era & there is surprisingly little moralising. However nothing does justic to an author like quoting their own words so here's a little snippett from my favourite passage:



He paddled hard for a few moments, standing up in the boat. Then he uttered an exclamation.



"Seems to me my feet are getting damp. Golly, the boat is making water hand over fist. That bump must have started a plank. Bale, Norah, as hard as you can, or we'll be drowned on our wedding day!"



Norah sought hurridly for a bailing tin, & finding none, did the best she could with her hat, which being of a porous nature, made little headway against the inrush of water. The boat filled rapidly, & presently sank gracefully beneath them. The water closed over their astonished heads. Billabong Adventurers ~ Mary Grant Bruce.



Some titles are now a little hard to get but many are still available though I would not recommend the very first as it is episodic & a little stilted & originally written for magazine installments but they are funny & wholesome & extremely readable.

Setting foot on foreign land...

“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” ~ G.K. Chesterton

I am starting the research. Even if I can't go there's no reason to remain ignorant. Ditz may actually go but is far more likely to learn nothing. lol.

While Ditz & I were at choir last night Dearest watched a doco on Singapore & is now far happier about the whole venture. It is safer than he assumed. He didn't tell me anything I didn't know but as I couldn't tell him, having never actually been to Singapore, I'm glad he found out for himself. God has a very well developed sense of humour!

I will hit the travel agents too though it is unlikely Ditz will have much opportunity to see anything but the insides of concert halls: the Esplanade Concert Hall & the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory to be exact! They will perform Holst's the Planets with Orchestra of the
Music Makers. Soprano & alto voices only. It does my head in. I hate to say it but Ditz is quite, quite mad. Fancy going all that way just to sing like a canary! They will work hard too. I don't need any crystal ball to foresee that!

And this is why God gave my Ditz such an excess of energy. If I had to do what she does I'd be dead & buried faster than you could say Jack Robinson. Interesting is the word to use, I think.

A week in retrospect...& don't come back!

May you live in interesting times ~ Chinese proverb.

I have found the last week so difficult I haven't been able to pull order out of chaos enough to write about it. It has been emotionally draining. Let's face it, every job I've ever held they sent me along for assertivness training because I find confrontation so difficult I avoid it at all costs. This is neither wise nor beneficial so a week starting with major confrontation has done absolutely nothing for my headspace ~ especially as that was just the beginning.

Finally we had found an electrician who had time to do our water heater. Yes, we have been without hot water all that time. The downside was I had to do the running round to pick up the new element & some light fittings as we were doing lights at the same time. Ditz & I left early & managed everything nicely ~ which is almost unheard of. I had just pulled out of our parking space & was completely stopped ~ as you do to: change gears; put on your seat belt; respond to the child going, "Waaaait!" beside you. I don't know but we were stopped for one or all of these reasons when a young woman slammed into us as she backed out of her parking space.

Now I wasn't happy; it's not my car, after all, but I am a civilized human being & accidents happen so I pulled back into a parking space [can't clutter up the road, now, can we?] & got out of my car to check our damage & that the other driver was ok. Damage negligable. Liddy wasn't going to be happy but it could have been so much worse.

Then the other driver accuses me of backing in to her. Pardon? We were stationary! I point this out & ask her to check with Ditz. She then says Ditz will lie & just say whatever I tell her to. What planet does this girl live on?! I began narking up. It takes a bit but when it happens it's not pretty. This girl is in full tirade & abusive. Fine, only don't accuse my kid, ok. I gave her my details but as I pointed out, not my car & I have no idea who it is insured with.

I ring Dearest & check with the police that I have done as I should & was not in the wrong & head on to choir ~ which was an extended rehearsal for Saturday's concert. We missed lunch, afternoon tea & dinner. Ditz & I were upset & starving by the time we got home but whatever.

We think the other driver rang Monday & got Ditz but asked for someone who doesn't even live here; total confusion on Ditz's part. There is a reason for that nickname. Meanwhile the Sparky arrived & unpluged all our electricals: no phone, no inter~net, no nothing & ever since we've had no phone at all. Dearest says it's the phone. Liddy & I say it's the line. The phone company people have been up & down the street for weeks trying to fix a problem. Whatever it is this rude individual has not been able to reach us & as I don't deal with rude individuals I have made no attempt to contact her. If her insurance company contacts me, fine, but I'm betting she doesn't want to pay her excess, which will be a good bit higher than mine, & I see no reason for us to pay for her mistake ~ or rudeness. Steam still coming out my ears on this one.

Ditz spent several days playing electrician's apprentice. She was a good little goffer but there is a reason that child does music. Our electricity is old & a simple job became a major hassel that involved us finding & checking every power point in the house. On being checked half had dead ants clogging the wiring. Those had to be replaced. We're lucky we never had an electrical fire. Yikes!

And just to round my week off the costing came through for the Singapore tour. Aaaargh! A good bit more than anticipated. Dearest is adamant Ditz needs to go but we can't afford me as well. None of us real happy about that given Ditz's personality & that the child is barely 14 & that she has been relatively sheltered & rarely away from home. Even then it's been with family or friends who are like family.

I am feeling worn & frazzled & frankly, God, what do you think you are doing~ish?! I don't think we are improving my personality here. Should be, maybe, but somehow it doesn't feel like it. I have anger management issues. I have control issues. I want the script re~written, the one with the happily ever after ending. Oh, you've done that already? Oops. My mistake.

Tuesday's Trivia.

"Something old, Something new, Something borrowed, Something blue, And a silver sixpence in your shoe". Traditional

Most of us do it at least once in a life time. In the west we do it in the name of love but most cultures are far more practical about it ~ marriage that is. I fall into that small percentage of women who didn't wear white, covert a diamond engagement ring [I abhor diamonds so that is no hardship! lol], or walk down an aisle. All that fuss for an hour or so!

We say things like, " They're tying the knot," with no idea of what we're saying. At Celtic marriages [& Hindu & Egyptian weddings] the bride & groom's hands are literally tied together, hence tying the knot! Mind you, the Celts at least had so many marriage variants, including the fairytale *for a year & a day*, it's something of a worry.

If you wear a wedding band on the usual 4th finger of the left hand then you are imitating the ancient Egyptians who believed the vein of love ran from this finger directly to the heart. Gold is the usual precious metal for a wedding band ~ 17 tonnes a year are needed in the U.S.A alone to make them! Mind you, while I rather like snakes, I'm adverse to wearing them & the earliest wedding rings were snaky with little ruby eyes because the joined coils signified eternity. We've kept the symbolism but ditched the snaky bit ~ & a good thing too!

Most of us know the veil was originally for warding off the evil spirits [Roman ladies wore virulent fiery yellow ones!], that the white wedding dress is for virginity/purity, & throwing rice or confetti is to confer fecundity on the happy couple but what about the kiss at the end of the service? In the good old days, & aren't I pleased they're long gone!, the bride & groom consummated their marriage there & then under the eyes of the whole village!!!! The chaste kiss is all that remains of this particular practise! Whew!

For centuries June was the most popular month for weddings. I understand that's summer in the northern hemisphere & there is a good chance of fine weather but June was also the month dedicated to the Roman goddess Juno, patron of home & hearth & all that goes with it.

And when all the shouting & the tumult dies & the newly wed couple departs with a trail of rattling tin cans tied to their bumper [to ward of more evil spirits] they are usually headed for an exclusive secluded retreat for a wonderful *honeymoon*. Umhummm. What I bet they didn't know is where that term comes from. Yes, more of the good old days, really old, good days. When men were men &...oops, probably the wrong story. Well, when men were encouraged to indulge their Neanderthal instincts & capture a bride by force he would carry her away [good grief this sounds like a bad fairy tale!] & hide her away where he though family & friends wouldn't track her down. There, in this secluded & hidden retreat, he would ply her with wine made from honey [to encourage her to accept his amorous advances] & keep her for the length of one moon phase ~ hence honeymoon!

I'm so sorry I got onto this topic. I'm going to stop now. Yikes! The medieval idea of women being a *little exchange of property* is starting to look attractive!

Monday Memories.

The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character. ~Peter Devries

I used to own a skirt. I even wore it once ~ to a cousin's wedding. It was some wedding but what I chiefly remember it for is Liddy.

Liddy was about 18 months or so, give or take. My memory of numbers is never particularly reliable. Liddy's Ma [my mother] is something of a seamstress & she had made the most adorable dress for her first grand~daughter. It was unbleached cotton with a little ruffle at the hem & sweet peach coloured ribbon threads. Liddy looked absolutely adorable in it; just like a little porclein doll.

My family is baby obsessive. Everyone adores babies. Hugs & kisses are par for the course & people are liable to say things like, "Oooh, I could just gobble you right up," but even as a very small child Liddy had a mind of her own & being gobbled up by these unknown relatives was not on Liddy's agenda. Liddy was very much her own person & very definitely her mummy's girl.

All day stray relatives would swoop Liddy up exclaiming, "Aren't you adorable!" Followed by an ear~piercing shriek as Liddy demanded to be put down & bolted for mummy. She was prepared to be adored from afar but worshippers were required to keep their distance because being petted & patted was undignified. Liddy wouldn't let anyone near her but her beloved mummy.

This is the same child who would have nothing to do with her own father until after she turned 3 & distressed him no end by weeping copiously when he attempted to nibble her toes. Poor man exclaimed in bewilderment, " Boy, girls really are different to boys, aren't they!" So pleased he noticed!

The MBC Concert.

If I live to be 90, and I'm planning to, I'll always love performing for a live audience. Lawrence Welk

Saturday. Showcase performance at MBC. The kids have been rehearsing this stuff all year.

The girls & I left the island early Saturday morning with Liddy driving; scenic route. We were nearly late because Liddy went the way she knew ~ which was nothing like a direct route! And then the whole MBC thing rather did her head in; that & the whole arty thing. She just shook her head at how kid after kid arrived & just came & stood quietly in the foyer without a word to anyone. They're like that but it's performing at all these high~brow venues~ they can't yahoo about the place like the sports yobs do. She & the caretaker commiserated together on the strangeness of the music officiandos! So not going there.

Lid & I helped set up & then 1/2 way through the morning we discovered there was no water in the loos. A little investigation showed there was no running water to the kitchen either. No running water in the whole district. Dis~as~ter! Liddy & I drove into Manly to pick up 15L of water so we could at least fill the urns & we redirected the loo traffic to the older loos that run of tanks but we had musos looking to fill water bottles & no water.

We did eventually get our water back just as people started arriving for the concert. My mum arrived down from the Sunshine Coast about 1/2 an hour before show time looking stunning in a bone top & skirt & yellow jacket. She always looks beautifully put together & we can always pick her out of a crowd because of it whereas I always look frumpy no matter what I do. I can wear strange & feel perfectly comfortable but if I doll up not only do I feel incredibly uncomfortable, there is no appreciable improvement. A little while later Dearest's mum arrived & I hunted up a program:
Australian Vocal Arts Ensemble [Ditz is part of this]
Sound the Trumpet Purcell
Ave Maria Faure
Serve the Lord With Gladness Handel
Solo: Sea Wrack Harty
solo: Sweet Chance Head
Vox Totz: I’m Late Fain
Come to My Farm Folk Song
solo: Castle on a Cloud Schonberg
solo: My Dearest Dear Novello
Vocal Manoeuvres Ensemble
Just the Way You Are Joel
Can’t Buy Me Love McCartney
INTERVAL
Vocal Manoeuvres Chorus [& Ditz is part of this]
The Lord is My Shepherd McKinley
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough Ashford/Simpson
solo: Being Alive Sondheim
solo: Over the Rainbow Arlen
solo:Don’t Cry Out Loud Allen
solo: At Last Gordon/Warren
solo: Anthem Andreson/Ulvaeus
Australian Vocal Arts Ensemble [Ditz again]
Little Fishy Holland
Esti Dal Kodaly
solo:Summertime Gershwin
Vocal Manoeuvres

Abide With Me Monk
Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel Spiritual
Entire Company Now We Are Free Zimmer/Gerard [& again]

As you can see it's a pretty interesting & varied program & particularly interesting for me because I'm parked up the back in a corner most rehearsals & don't pay all that much attention. The kids are just background noise but I think something must be going in because I listen to this stuff differently now. I hear mistakes. lol. I know which passages are sounding overworked because they've given trouble. I know when something has come together really, really well & over time I've become very fond of certain pieces. The Purcell & Handel is just stunning but neither the girls nor I are very fond of Little Fishy. It is one of those pieces it is far too easy to make mock of & though the kids sing it well the visual image of some brawny hairy sailor with an image of his true love tatooed all over his hairy chest is too much for me! Esti Dal is a Hungarian piece & sung in Hungarian! It is really lovely but the time those kids spent wrapping their lips round the Hungarian! Now they've nailed it it will be a regular part of their repertoire I should think, as it should be. It is unusual as well as lovely.

Sea Wrack I'd never heard but really liked. And the young man who sings Anthem has the biggest voice. Last time I heard him do this it was in one of the small town studios & he just about blew the walls out! He is amazing! Great voice; great personality. The spiritual was another I really enjoyed but although I understand Aint no Mountain is a difficult arrangement I just don't like it. I particularly dislike our boy soprano going for the high A or G or whatever it is at the end & go to protect my ears. I'm a Neanderthal. I really, really dislike all that operatic screeching. I don't hear music in that. It just hurts my head. Besides he never sounds as though he's nailed that note properly to me ~ but what would I know?! Ditz is disparaging of my musical discernment. Actually it's only the high notes I can't cope with. I'm fine with all the lower registers but someone should strangle those high sopranos! Especially when it's Ditz doing it. In the car of all places! Just joking.

This was a really high quality performance; so nice for the grands, who suffer Ditz at her ditziest, to see all that noise & exuberance channeled into a constructive outlet. At one point my mother turned to me & said, " I can hear Ditz!" She sounded quite thrilled. She was also impressed with how disciplined the kids were but for where Alison wants to take this ensemble they need to be disciplined.

The bonus for the kids like Ditz having the whole company showcase like this is they can see what time & hard work can achieve. Every single one of the soloists, every single one of the older members, started where she is, learning the basics, learning stagecraft, overcoming stage fright. It's really encouraging for them to see how far the older ones have travelled & the older ones are pretty good with the younger ones too.

One more concert this month & I can breath again. Temporilarily. It's always temporarily.

Gyver's story.

" There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats."- AnonymousAs Leo Dworken says, no amount of time can erase the memory of a good cat. Gyver was a very good cat. The very best. I still miss him...but shhh, don't tell Issi!

Like most of our animals Gyver had personality & to spare. He was half grown when we got him, already at the gangly, adolescent stage. Our neighbours found him on their waterfront, half starved, with a fish~hook through his tongue. Obviously he'd been hungry enough to scavenge anything ~ including bait! They removed the hook & fed him & that was about it. The wife didn't like cats & though he did he was looking for another home for the cat to keep the domestic peace. I'm a sucker for cats, particularly blue~eyed cats, especially anything with Siamese in them. Yes, I know they are loud & raucous but they are incredibly smart animals & Gyver was a very smart cat.

Being Siamese he was not adverse to taking the long walk to the point with the boys. He knew jolly well there was bait in their buckets & that before too long there would be fresh fish as well. He would prowl from child to child keeping them company, chatting in the way only a Siamese can & reminding them that he was available for the feeding of tid~bits. When he was sated he would curl up in the warmest available spot & go to sleep for the day. When evening came I often had to hike down to the point & carry Gyver home myself.

He had the sweetest nature. He was not a cat to bite & scratch, no matter what the children did but he had a wicked sense of humour & never was it more evident than with a friend of Liddy's.

Liddy has always had friends who were boys. Something to do with having lots of brothers I guess. Anyway when she was about 5 her very best friend was a boy & I used to have the two of them regularly for the whole day.

Liddy's friend was a very nice little boy but he had a Siamese cat himself so he promptly & incautiously began teasing Gyver. Gyver, being a sweet natured cat, spent the morning with his fur on end from being lept out at from hidden corners & surprised. In the end I decided Gyver needed a break & the children needed to expend some energy in more constructive pursuits so I took the children for a walk.

We walked all the way to the end of the road then we began wandering home through the mangroves along the waterfront. A mangrove walk is always something of an obstacle course, especially if you have a mix of mangroves, as we do: buttress roots, spiky roots, cathedral roots, hoop roots. The children were well occupied just negotiating a path home.

All of a sudden a white shape lept out of the scrub. All 4 feet spread wide Gyver bounced up at his tormentor smiling manically then streaked for home! Seriously. The child nearly died on the spot. He let out an unearthly shriek then tore after the cat but the cat was smarter than he was & was nowhere to be found.

I stumbled after the kids nearly paralysed with laughter.

I acquired Gyver for me ~ & Joss promptly snavelled him ~ though Gyver was pretty impartial in his affection. Everyone was loved equally [unlike Issi who adores me alone!] but in his older age he was very much Liddy's cat because she wanted it that way.

I dream about him sometimes: the silkiness of his fur; his raucous greeting; the volcanic rumbling of his purr & I miss him in the mornings. He was always the first one up & he greeted me with delight, mewling about my ankles while I prepared his breakfast. Issi thought Gyver was a god & adored him lavishly, mimicking some of Gyver's quirkier habits. Losing him was really hard & though Issi eased the pain somewhat he is a very different cat. Gyver understood deprivation & he understood gratitude. He loved impartially without reservation. I learnt a lot about unconditional love from a cat.

Tuesday's Trivia.

Wednesday: Your work is puerile and under-dramatized. You lack any sense of structure, character and the Aristotelian unities.

The most bizarre bit of trivia I have turned up in some time is about homeschooling. You've seen the lists; read the e~mails; downloaded the sites that list all the smart, famous, funny people who were homeschooled. Up~right citizens every last one.

What I bet you haven't seen is the trivia about the very first homeschooling t.v family. Have a think about all the t.v familes we've got to know ~ & yes, I know the Little House people were homeschoolers but they weren't the first on t.v.

Give up?

It was the Addams Family. There was an episode that went to air on Sept., 4th 1964 with a traunt officer arriving to investigate why Wednesday & Pugsley had never been to school. Gomez is horrified at the thought of *regimented schooling * but he's a law abiding citizen so Wednesday & Pugsley are dutifully packed off to school .... until Morticia discovers what they are learning in Grimm's Fairy Tales!

Cracks me right up! It doesn't do to take ourselves too seriously!