baby teeth

For some time, I've been having dreams about baby teeth. As has another friend. 

Allan has a dream analysis book, which as a precis, states it's a sign of outgrowing old things. I don't recall having the Baby teeth dream until very recently, but it reminded me time moves on. 

Prompts=Generations in Jazz, recent holiday in Hobart, realising you have a thread to something that isn't needed anymore. Work has been the biggest reminder of this, inadvertently, as current role has brought me into contact with people from a decade ago, whilst a new guy I work with is the brother of a guy I long ago dated, who he talks about every day, and I can't recall who I was at the time.  It's been interesting reflecting on the blank canvas provided when I moved away to other places, not only 'anonymity' but learning how to drive in heavy traffic. 

Last week in Hobart, I looked around to try and understand. On the Friday, I'd met up with S, en route to UTAS, we met at Hamlet (not Horatio) as I thought it had free parking and watched on, amused as she did laps of the carpark in her Subaru. The good thing about her, like other friends, is she is so focussed, assertive and diplomatic. She wants a decent superannuation account, fix up the university curriculum so we have decent graduates (I feel the same!).  Anyway, she went on a dating site, matched up with a guy she knew of IRL (must be an occupational hazard in the Apple Isle), a mutual friend said OMG, he's a catch, you have to say yes, so she said yes, and they dated for 6-12 months, long enough to share good times, before she decided it had run its course, so they broke up, except he wouldn't break up with her friends. And now she has to hang out with him all the time, because she invested in social capital, he invested in economic capital, and he doesn't have any friends. 

Then I expressed my concern that C is going to turn up on the doorstep of his latest interstate crush wearing a three-piece suit, aviator sunglasses, bearing flowers and completely mess it up. But maybe someone who names their offspring after a former British PM, won't mind. It was interesting what he admired, about his crush, and her occupation, wasn't something I valued, the way I'd admire a person doing a PhD to decolonise medical education and he'd think that was too intellectual. Maybe I've outgrown him? He had some interesting insights about parenting and exclusive tennis clubs. 

When I arrived back on home soil, my fave WA aunt and uncle were in town, and they'd been caravanning around the state and excited to recommend Little Blessings, in the mid north. I was embarrassed that Dad STILL will only socialise with others between 3-4pm and only at Muffin Break at West Lakes Mall which he still calls it Muffin Break, but it's changed ownership, and name. 

Then I went to P's birthday and met her brother-in-law, who said hey, he'd been at West Lakes Mall on Saturday too, where, oh, Muffin Break (Back story-has a kid who does rowing, the weather was bad, wanted to get a head start on Xmas shopping, has a child same age as mine, changing from public school to the same private school I tried to persuade my child to move to, but now I'm glad I put it off because he got into an orchestra you can only join if you go to public school, plus he gets educated with 80 other cultural groups, but as I said, I'll be able to afford to send him on ski trips, but guess what, public schools don't have ski trips). Reminds me of Little Women, when Marmee persuades her daughters to give up Xmas presents, because a family have been widowed, and children going without food. Or Flambards, when Dick loses his job, sister falls pregnant, mother in workhouse. 

So, back to Hobart, after S left, I went downtown, then walked via rivulet, up Wentworth Street, where I encountered A on a mission to extract nails from wood and to clean up bricks, so his house was renovated with recycled materials. Said it was going to cost him a lot in tip shop fees, but felt compelled, the northern English in him and I'd assumed he was a spooner because he wore stylish sunglasses, but he told me his granny was a single Mum who'd built her house on weekends. I told him about grandad building his first house with friends, that's what everyone did, post war, and how I recalled his shed as bigger than his house, and A pointed out his neighbour's shed, said Ron was in his nineties and out there tinkering every day. What a legend. Aaron told me lots of people are converting vans/caravans and styling the interiors sofa chairs that turn into beds, etc, and he's found a person that knows how to do this, a tradie, on marketplace and snapping up his work and I was all "who, and how" re the algorithms and he said he'd send me the deets, but I didn't swap my deets to allow for these deets to be swapped and now I wish I had. A also said intelligent things about floor plans-like 'houses are too big" and 'floor plans were better in housing trust' and 'too many bathrooms', PLUS he'd converted a one-bedroom flat into a home for a family of four. But really, the compelling thing is that A is described as treating the annual "Open House Hobart" as an opportunity to zero on a "foci of interest". Have to love that word. Like us all, mid-century modern is passion and another friend shared a story, similar to the story I'd heard at the art deco forum, that male architects of the mid-century era, felt quite comfortable getting female architects and emigre architects, to do the hard work and take the credit. So wrong!