Archives for posts with tag: character traits
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

The end of dharna

November 17, 2012 //
1

We went to a function at the biennial exhibition NZ Sculpture OnShore last night. I really wished the Dedes could have seen it. But they are not the outdoor type. They can’t stand the rain. The exhibition is at Fort Takapuna, a disused military space high on the cliffs overlooking the sea, a perfect location for a sculpture show.  The evening was balmy with a slight sea breeze. The light wind and the setting sun played whimsically with many of the sculptures. It felt like art heaven… and on a more mundane note… we had the best fish and chips ever. I couldn’t stop thinking the Dedes should be there as well. I have to find a way to water proof them. They really should be allowed to enjoy the gorgeous view from Fort Takapuna one day.

When we arrived back home, a light drizzle had set in (heavy rain is forecast for today) and the Dedes who were on their dharna shift were huddled together at the front door. There is an alcove which gave them a little bit of protection from the elements. I felt sorry for them but didn’t want to give in just yet. Personally I think I haven’t done them enough harm to justify a dharna. So I just stepped past them to unlock the door.

Socialite held on to my trouser leg and asked: “Could we come in and sit on the window-sill inside to continue our dharna? It would be dry and people could still see us.”

I had to laugh “Nice try” I said “but no, that is not how it works… Maybe it is time we talked.”

As Philosopher didn’t want to be involved they had elected Witch as their mediator. She was more than ready to come to the table. In fact she was already there when I came into the kitchen. We closed the door so that nobody could hear what was said. Witch told me in confidence she thought everybody overreacted a bit and I immediately said I was very happy to apologise. I had already said so on Buchalov’s Blog. Buchalov was so kind to dedicate a post to the Dedes, and in a comment I said that it wasn’t a good idea for me to have told the Dedes they should learn a lesson from Buchalov. He is a very nice chap, but not a role model for the Dedes. (By the way, Buchalov, lovely drawing of Mrs Esta Blished, the fairy godmother).

“From now on, cross my heart, I will let you be who you are. You have some strong supporters out there in the big wide world!” I finished my speech.

“Only time will tell” Witch mumbled, but I chose to ignore this.

Then we continued to chit-chat about the exhibition for a while. We didn’t want the others to know that we were in agreement right from the beginning.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Not this fellow again!

November 15, 2012 //
9

Bad Conscience was waiting up for me last night to have a chat when I came home from sports. Nobody else was around. Seeing Bad Conscience is never a good sign. He was blobbing out on the sofa with his bloated tummy, burping away. Generally he doesn’t say much. You have to start the conversation, otherwise it is just an awkward situation. He sits in one corner regurgitating. You hardly see him, but he makes sure his presence is felt.

“So what’s up?” I tried to be cheerful, knowing very well he had a major concern and I could expect some unpleasant truth.

“You behaved like a girl today” he said and shook his head “Like a girl, girl, a childish girl”

“What do you mean?” I replied, as I really didn’t know what he was trying to say to me.

“You tried to change our behaviour – all the Dede’s behaviour”

“No I didn’t”

“Yes, you did…you did….you are not happy with us, so you want to change us to conform with your worldview.”

“No I don’t”

“Yes you do, you want us to be more intellectual. You said so!”

“Maybe a little” No point denying it, he knows anyway. But once Bad Conscience gets a little foothold by you admitting he is sort of right he goes off like a rocket…

“When will you learn that not everybody can be everything to you! It is not going to happen, Missy! If you need to discuss art, don’t go to Pig, see L’artiste or make a new Art Critique… You can’t make us all intellectuals. Forget it! If we can’t be who we are, we will disintegrate. There will be nothing left of us. pfffffffff” He made the sound of a deflating balloon.

“But…”

“Pffffffff”

“But…”

“Pffffff”

At this stage I gave up. I know him too well. He said his piece and left me to it. No more discussion!

Tags , , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Long awaited outing

November 11, 2012 //
4

Yesterday was the big day. Some of the Dedes went to a workshop. (Of course some of the puppets complained afterwards, as it was more work than shop. Actually there was no shopping at all. It was only work. But overall, they thoroughly enjoyed it). The photograph above shows Monkey waiting for someone to adopt him for the duration of the workshop. It looks suspiciously like he is holding his left hand open to accept a bribe.

I was really pleased with how it all panned out. Everything seemed to be just right: the length of the workshop, the activities for the participants, the size of the group and the make-up of the group. I have to fine-tune my introduction though. This was the only part I was unhappy with. Devil wasn’t in good form at all. You might remember I grounded him for a week (for trying to send Daredevil into the sky with a Guy Fawkes rocket). But then yesterday I packed him into the box to work with me at the workshop. He complained as he thought grounded means he is not supposed to work either. We had a long argument in the car and therefore the introduction didn’t go too well. Okay, it is a lame excuse, I should be able to put this aside if I want to be a professional!

The elephant was extremely lucky with her puppeteer. These two were whispering and laughing away. In the photo below, the elephant, who had taken on the name Elemate for the session, was asked by Mouse what her little pet hate was. At first she was a bit shy and asked her puppeteer how to phrase it so not to offend anybody in the room, but then she trumpeted it out in the open: She hates gossips. You should have seen Mouse, she went a paler shade of grey.

It was very hard convincing some of the puppets to hop back into the box and travel back home. For the participants I had made postcards with a photo of the puppet they had adopted, so they have something to remember their little friend by.

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Monkey as police?

November 10, 2012 //
0

I went to the pub with Philosopher last night. After all it was Friday. I was so annoyed with Bobby that I couldn’t stop talking about him. I went on and on with blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah. You know the story. Philosopher is not the right person to have a rant to. He just sits there, lets you get it all out, but doesn’t respond. And I have to admit that gets boring very quickly. If you have a rant, you want to have someone who tells you that you are right and who understands your problem, not someone who just sits there with his eyes closed, smiling mildly. So in the end I started to get annoyed with Philosopher. This doesn’t happen very often.

What he finally said – though infuriating last night – makes sense the light of morning. He said: “So far, Bobby has done a fine job in my opinion. If you want someone to bend the rules for you, you should have employed Monkey as a policeman, not Bobby. But then, Monkey would bend the rules for anybody who gives him a banana, not just you. So what use would that be?”

Tags , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Poor Puppy Day

November 7, 2012 //
4

I should declare the 6th of November “Poor Puppy Day”. We all know fireworks scare the wits out of animals, but Lou has taken Guy Fawkes particularly badly this year. While Cat and Mouse are back to their usual business, Lou is still lying on the sofa under the blanket and feeling sorry for himself. He has done so all day yesterday. Okay, he is young and he suffers from mood-swings: One week he is totally over the moon and it is all happy, happy, joy, joy.  The next week he is lethargic and doesn’t move an inch from his chosen patch.  I have to be honest with you here, seeing the young puppy like this makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, as I don’t know what to do when he is down. Shall I just leave him to it or shall I talk to him? I haven’t figured it out yet.

Tomorrow Bobby and Clay Head will come around and interview us about the email. Maybe I should ask Bobby if there is a chance to train Lou as a sniffer dog. A bit more routine might help.

Tags , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography

Guy Fawkes

November 6, 2012 //
0

Yesterday was “Guy Fawkes”, a bonfire night, an English custom celebrated in New Zealand – mainly because it is the only time of the year when you are allowed to have private fireworks. In previous years nothing much happened in our neighbourhood. We live in what some might call a lower socio-economic area (and love it). But recently a lot of houses around here were for sale and we got a set of new neighbours. It looks like the area is starting to gentrify. One sure sign was the amount of fireworks we had here last night. The street went to town!

Much to the pleasure of some of the Dedes, but not all. While Devil, Sunny and a bunch of others ran out in the garden to watch, Cat, Mouse and puppy Lou huddled together under a blanket and were visibly uncomfortable with the goings-on. Mouse pleaded with me to make them stop. I pretended I would do something about it, knowing very well that I couldn’t. But I hoped it would be all over in half an hour anyway.

When I came into the garden the Dedes were standing around in a circle and Devil was daring Daredevil to use one of the rockets as a jet pack. You should have seen me… I turned into a human rocket… This was definitely one step to far. Devil is grounded for a week!

Apologies that I didn’t get a photo of this incident. It was over all too quickly.

Tags , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

New Entrants

November 5, 2012 //
2

Clay Head told me I should give Bobby a break and let him do his job. Fine by me. I have other things to deal with this week. Next Saturday is the puppeteer workshop I am running with the “Older Women’s Network”. It has been on my mind for weeks. The duration is 1.5 hours and I have arranged and re-arranged my approach on how to spend that time at least a hundred and fifty times. I haven’t developed a formal outline yet. Instead I have made new puppets. I thought puppet making will clear my mind, unfortunately I came up with more silly stories.

The picture today shows the latest entrants, bar Bobby. He is doing his rounds with Clay Head trying to find out who cancelled the party. So he was too busy to attend the photo shoot. Cash Cow is a bit slow, she hasn’t got her colours yet. In fact she is Cash Cow V2. The first one didn’t work out, so I remodeled her into a monkey. Cheeky little thing pushed himself to the front to get his skin first.

The new entrants are (in the back row from left): Rob Daylight, the daylight robber and Daredevil the wannabe hero. In the front row: Cash Cow with the empty udder, Monkey (no explanation needed) and Harvey, the rabbit with a gambling problem.

These puppets I have made especially for the workshop – they are members of the Touch Troupe. The idea was to have this troupe as a set of public performers who might not pop up on the blog much. But then Cash Cow has already moved into my garage, she needed a cheap crash pad. She is so broke she can’t afford to pay rent anywhere else.

Here goes this idea!

Tags , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography

Oh, Bobby…

November 4, 2012 //
0

Bobby got his colours yesterday. It was a very nice ceremony. Congratulations, I say with a smile …and gritted teeth. I can tell you guys, I am very disappointed!

Yes,we all knew Bobby will become a policeman one day… He looked like such a fun guy while he was still at the Academy and we were all looking forward to having him on neigbourhood watch. But now that he is finished he turned out totally different.

Have you ever experienced this? You give someone a tincy whincy bit of authority and overnight they turn into real pricks and start terrorising their old friends – only because they can do it, because they have the power. Bobby seems to be one of those.  Yesterday he cried tears of joy for winning the election,  thanking everybody and shaking hands with every single puppet. Today he is a stickler for rules. He stands upright and has this “don’t-mess-with-me-look” on his face. All the fun seems to be gone. He is like a brick head.

I certainly hope this change of behaviour is because he is young and inexperienced and has to prove himself to the world… He takes his new job seriously and doesn’t want  to muck it up… – not because he is a red-neck idiot!

Only time will tell.

Maybe it is my fault, and I was a bit too hasty when I  said to my reader Whichwillitbe that if Bobby stuffs up he will be out of his job faster than you can say “boo”

Tags , , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Election Result

November 3, 2012 //
6

The voting for the head of the investigation into the cancelled email has closed now. There is a big surprise! We got another vote last night from far-away India and after counting all the votes, there is a tie…. Two of the candidates, Bobby and Clay Head have exactly the same amount….

This is unprecedented – there is no rule about this situation in the Dede Puppet Voting Handbook. So what to do? My first idea of course was that I should have the casting vote. But on second thought, this is not the best idea. The Dedes resent me already for making up all the rules. If I had the casting vote, the whole election would be rendered a mockery, wouldn’t it? I could have put forward my candidate in the first place and not gone through the whole  election process.

In the end I discussed the issue with Philosopher, who has a really good head on his shoulders. I was hoping he would go for Clay Head, after all he had put him forward.

Far from it!

“There is no doubt,” Philosopher said, “Clay Head, as an outsider will do a great job.” But he also agrees with the reader Whichwillitbe, who voted for Bobby: The young ones should be given a fair chance. How can they gain experience when the old farts always get the best jobs? So his suggestion is that both of them will head the investigation together. This will take the pressure off Bobby as it is his first job outside the Academy and he can learn a lot from Clay Head‘s expertise. Clay Head will get some recognition and a foot hold back into the Dede world (We all have the feeling, he regrets converting into a clay head.)

By the way, Bobby will get his colours this afternoon.

Tags , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Aftermath

November 1, 2012 //
0

Wednesday night is sports night, so I left the Dedes to their own devices. When I came home, they were lying on the sofa with stuffed tummies. Obviously they had been out collecting lollies, despite my explicit veto. I have to say, I didn’t feel sorry for them. Sunny’s permanent grin was gone, he looked like he was close to throwing up.  He didn’t in the end, but I hope it taught him a lesson. I am soooo happy that Halloween is only once a year.

Back to normal… We still have a vote going on, to decide who will get the job of heading the investigation into the cancellation email. It is a very close race… Bobby (the newcomer) is at the moment one vote ahead of Ducky (the dye in the wool politician) and Clay Head (the external consultant). ––  I love statistics :)

Unfortunately, like any other election, participation is pretty poor and to be honest we have only had one vote so far. My official statement of course is: “We are not releasing the figures”. If we don’t get any more votes by Friday (New Zealand time) when voting closes, it will be Bobby, who will head the investigation.

Tags , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »