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Giving the gift of speech

21/1/2015

I don't want to brag, but this week I imparted the gift of speech on someone. Pretty cool huh? Not every day you get to do things like that. But before I get inundated with requests to hand out more gifts - like sight, bladder control, and the ability to transfer contacts, photos and music from an iPhone to a Samsung Galaxy, I'd better clarify this rather lofty statement.

The someone I referred to was in fact Roscoe, my ventriloquist doll. The mechanism that controls his mouth movement had been broken for months, and opening and shutting it by hand was detracting from my already poor act. So I fixed it.

And... while I'm making clarifications, I should also mention that the 'mechanism' was actually a piece of string.

So I'm not really a miracle worker, just a chick with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. (Sorry! But let's face it - you wouldn't have clicked through for a 'I fixed my doll' headline, would you?)

Mildly disturbing picture of Roscoe laid out, waiting for me to get to work.

Why do I have a ventriloquist doll, when at best I'm a ventrilomumblist? He sometimes comes on school visits with me, to demonstrate how listening to your 'inner critic' helps to make your writing better, and luckily, the kids don't seem to notice that I'm not very good!

Why 'Roscoe'? Firstly, because it's the sort of name that wants to be a 'cool dude', but is still guided by the rules (just what I need in an editor). And secondly, because it's easy to say without moving your lips! - You tried it, didn't you? Comment below if you did!

Ta daa! Roscoe can open his mouth again. And I need to learn to shut mine!

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Dedicated to the Dedicators

14/1/2015

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'To Alistair Frisby who told me I would never have a book published and advised me to get a job selling jellied eels. SUCKS TO YOU, FRISBY.' - PG Wodehouse (His 1957 autobiography, Over Seventy)
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'For Colin Firth, you're a really great guy, but I'm married, so I think we should just be friends.' -Shannon Hale (Austenland)
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'To my wife Marganit, and my children Ella Rose and Daniel Adam, without whom this book would have been completed two years earlier.' - Joseph J Rotman (An Introduction to Algebraic Topology) **And my agent tells me there's no market for a picture book about fun things to do with Nana's chin hairs - go figure.**
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'What can I say about a man who knows how I think, and still sleeps next to me with the light off?' - Gillian Flynn
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'I dedicate this book to George W Bush, my Commander-in-Chief, whose impressive career advancement despite remedial language skills inspired me to believe that I was capable of authoring a book.' - Pedram Amini. (Fuzzing: Brute Force Vulnerability Discovery)
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'For everyone who was ever mean to me in High School. Suck it.' - Sherry Ficklin (Losing Logan)
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'For my parents, even though they never bought me a robot.' - Prudence Shen (Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong)
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'Dedicated to two distracting little daughters, Pricilla, 4 years old, and Nancy, aged 2, who were no help in writing this book.' - Hillis Lory (Japan's Military Masters: The Army in Japanese Life)

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'Dedicated to the voices in my head - No, I flat out refuse to do that first thing.... and quit nagging about the second thing, I'll do it when the time's right and the place is perfect.' - Me (A yet-to-be-written (not-for-children) book)

Have you come across any great dedications?

I love dedications. Before you even start Chapter One, there's a whole other story to discover. Who is important to the writer, and why?

I dedicated my first book to my kids. 'To Daniel, Andy and Adam - the best kissers in the world.' When I wrote that dedication they were little, and more than happy to lay one on me. Now they're teenagers and have declared that my dedication is, well, distasteful is probably the nicest word they have used. Mwa haa haa - Payback for all those public shopping centre tantrums. I win - I've embarrassed them in perpetuity!

While my dedication is funny only to me, some dedications are so funny, creative and clever they deserve be collated into a book of their own. Here are a few of my favourites:

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I'm the butt of their laughter again - and I love it.

5/1/2015

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An incredibly wise and beautiful person once said, 'When you laugh at others, you make wrinkles. When you laugh at yourself, you make friends. And wrinkles.'

Nah, it was me, I said it, just a minute ago. But it sounds like something a wise person would say, doesn't it? That's because it's true, people who can laugh at themselves DO get wrinkles.

In every family there is usually one member who gets laughed at more than the others. In my family, it's me. Having three boys only 3 1/2 years apart makes for a lot, and I do mean a lot, of fights. So anything that gets them laughing is welcome. Even if it's at my expense. In fact, they are at their brotherly closest when it's at my expense. Luckily, over the years I have managed to rack up an impressive list of mishaps, mistakes and general dumb things. And they tend to get laid out with the tablecloth for every special occasion and gathering.

The favourite is my run-in with a roadworks stop/go man several years ago. With each re-telling the story has been embellished until it now has enough action for a Hollywood blockbuster.* By the way, Steven Spielberg, if you're reading this, I think Sandra Bullock would be great for my part, and Ryan Reynolds would make the prefect stop/go man. (Although that would change the ending, because if a Ryan Reynolds stop go man was running after me, I would have chucked a U-ey, kicked the kids out of the car, and surrendered myself to him.)

So anyway, when the 'Remember when Mum....' tales begin, and I am once again the butt of my family and friends' laughter, I happily join in (hence the wrinkles). Firstly, because they are pretty funny stories, and secondly, I look around and see how happy everyone is, and hear the warmth in their voices and weirdly, I never feel more loved.

*For the record, I did NOT mow the poor stop/go man down, he did NOT then use a bazooka to try to 'take me out' and the throng of cars I mildly inconvenienced were not full of hungry zombies. There was a slight issue with the grader, but it was NOT driven by Kim Jong-Un.

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Trudisms

Comments, thoughts, observations on life in general, by me, Trude.

This blog is like my house cleaning - sporadic, and not particularly effective.

If you've found this page, excuse the mess, it's just my life.

Giving the gift of speech

Dedicated to the Dedicators

I'm the butt of their laughter again - and I love it.

Trudisms

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