Hunger Games meets Oz

It occurred to me that there is a lot more in common between the Hunger Games and the Wizard of Oz than first meets the eye. So here is my top ten of why the Hunger Games is really a modern spin on the Wizard of Oz.

1. The Capitol is not unlike the Emerald City. It's big beautiful and overwhelming for our country girl heroines. Whether you follow the yellow brick road or take the Panam express, you'll end up right smack in the city centre.

2. Upon arriving it is evident that a bad taste fashion bomb has exploded in both city centres, although it is permanently St Patrick's Day in Oz.

3. Our intrepid heroes head out against all odds to overcome evil and bring down the trickster peers at the top, President Snow and Oz. On similar promo posters (cloudy), they are four abreast and marching bravely into the unknown.

4. District 12, where Katniss comes from, and Kansas are both grey, grey, grey where the hard working citizens eke out a frugal living in drab landscapes.

5. In Hollywood it is always about the frocks. Glinda and Katniss both sport perfect puffy frocks with spangles and tulle and wings- oh my! What's the point of a big skirt if you don't get a good twirl in?

6. Accessorise, accessorise, accessorise!  Whether it be ruby slippers, bow and arrows or a nice brooch, choose an accessory with secret powers if at all possible.

7. A girl can always rely upon a marvelous mentor, preferably one with big hair and bigger head gear. Keep in mind it is likely she will encourage you to undertake dangerous journeys while staying safely behind at home.

8. Los presidentes often tell lies it seems and Oz and Snow with their white benign locks are both set on sending their minions into dire peril to serve their own purposes. They also favor a pulpit like device for oratory purposes.

 9. Our girls are both airlifted out of the lost zones too- Dorothy in a hot air balloon and Katniss in a hover plane.

10. Of course when all is said and done, it is family that comes first and no matter where you have travelled there's no place like home. 

By the way, Lenny Kravitz is also in the Hunger Games in case you didn't know. He plays a hip and groovy fairy godmother/ stylist borrowing from another famous fairy tale. Note his magic wand. Does this man never age? Eat your heart out, Glinda!

(All sources from Google images.)

Hungry for Oz

Last night I took a couple of the teen boys to see Hunger Games 2. It was a rollicking, dramatic good show although crunching a long book into a movie means there were a few hands up for question time on the way home.

Ooh, ooh, I know this one….

The husband stayed home and watched the Wizard of Oz with the girl childs. The 11 year old dobbed on him and told me this morning he stayed awake for the whole thing and sang along to all the songs. She rolled her eyes at this point because she is eleven. They roll a lot and I have had them checked and, yes, she now has glasses.

It's hip to be square…apparently.

Back to Oz. This morning Shorty Divine asked to watch it again. Her dad had gone to a crack of dawn activity and I was up getting the other girl ready for a swimming carnival so I put it on for her and pulled up a chair to watch. It was more fun watching her watching the movie. Her face when they land in Oz ("the beautiful garden") was pure gold!

She tried to explain the nuances in case it was over my head. "The house went up in the wind. It landed on a bad witch. They have to go on the yellow brick road." You get it.

She also said with dreamy eyes, as Dorothy sang about the rainbow, "It's reeeally nice, Mum." Nobody said that after the Hunger Games. Sometimes it feels good to watch something reeeally nice.

She's taking Oz to Nanna's tomorrow. I'm sure she and Grandad will thoroughly enjoy it together. He'll sing along. Some things cross age and fashion and decades to still make you feel good especially if you are with the right person.

As the Wizard may well have said to Dorothy when he sent her to ditch the witch, "May the odds be ever in your favour."

Take Five

The magazines at the doctors have had some good stuff in them lately. She often catches me snapping the mag pages on my phone. At least the days of coughing and tearing are over.

There was a rather nice typographic style cushion. It cost $85 which is fair enough if you have more spare dosh than me.

Anyhow, I thought I'd show you a nice cheap alternative. 

If you have a silkscreen and squeegee handy, which not everyone does, I know, then you just have the cost of the blank cushion cover. I got mine from Pillowtalk for $6.95. You really couldn't get the fabric and zip for that. The squeegee and screen are not expensive from any art shop and then you have them ready for the ensuing printing frenzy you will undoubtably begin.

1. Cut out the number of choice. Mine's a five because I have five offspring and a girlfriend is turning five decades so I thought she'd like one too. It's also just a nice, fat, curly graphic. If you google your number and go to images, you'll find a lots of designs, then you print and photocopy to the desired size.

 2. Place the cutout on the case then lay the silkscreen down over the two. The edges of the screen are taped with masking tape so the paint stays inside the border of the paper.

3. Spoon on some fabric paint or just acrylic would do really. You can add some fabric emulsion to it or just never wash it if you have really, really clean children and flying pigs at your place.

4. Spread the paint through the screen with a couple of pulls of the squeegee on a 45 degree angle.

5. Lift it up, et voila, you have a typo cushion of choice for next to nix.

It's all a bit beige but you get the idea.

Some people are also turning five years in a few months which is possibly preferable to five decades.

Alive, alive....oh!

Around 6.30 am there was a crash which drew the Big Fella out of bed assess the damage. The dog was up and behaving foolishly running around chasing dust motes or some such thing. We all got up and proceeded to go through the morning "Where- are's".
Where are my rolls, where are my smurfs, where are my marbles...? That last one is me.

Pre- breakfast kit in case a flying fish should smack you in the noggin.

As he left he asked Lala to  pick up the pebbles scattered around the door.
She obliged, then realised they were from the fish vase that houses Miss Lulu, she of the wafty plume fins and big eyes, like a lovely blue burlesque queen. That is, it usually houses Miss Lulu when it is on the cabinet and not lying on the floor vacated in a pool of water!

Lala yelled for assistance and we all ran, stat, for the scene of the crime. Notably absent from the carnage was the victim. "Where-is the fish??," they all demanded of me simultaneously. Ms Lulu was nowhere to be seen but outside the glass doors, Lola, the dog was smacking her chops on her bed. Of course we assumed the worst. It must have been Ms Lola in the lounge room with her sticky beak nose jumping up on the new couch to reach the fish vase.

There were assurances that it would have been quick and we'd buy a new one, blah, blah....and we started to clean up the pebbles and water. I picked up the pillow from the chair the dog had jumped from and there, lying curled in the foetal position was a small irridescent blue clammy blob. The nearest mourner let out an unsympathetic,"EEEEW!" and then the fish twitched. Just a little twitch but it sent them running again. "Water!! Quick! She's alive!!"

I scooped her up amidst more eeews and plopped her into somebody's hastily refilled brekky glass.
She hung poised in the glassware then with a flick of her flaccid tail, she was off lapping the glass and refilling her gills like nobody's business.

After being off her food for a while, she has had a full recovery and is now up on the piano out of reach, tormenting the dog with her flickering fish moves forever.

So now they are all singing the "Alive" song around the house thereby providing another reason to be grateful to the universe. X- Factor is over and we have the TV back from the tween-2-teens. (HMMM- that's a good name for a girl band!)

"Alive!"