Blurb from the Burbs

2009-07-12T13:54:00.007+10:00

Sapphire's eyes

Travelling with ten year old Sapphire is always a joy and more often than not it is she that is scolding me rather than the other way around: "Mum, why do you always end up talking about farting?"

Travelling with Sapph in the middle of Australia on mostly un-sealed roads in a truck-ish 4WD with a motley group of tourists and camping out under the stars in swags has been an even more rewarding experience and one that I've been privileged to view (partly) through her eyes.

When we arrived in Alice Springs on the very first night, we were in a nice resorty-hotel, wearing our then dust-free Melbourne clothes and about to order dinner in a nice restaurant. As we perused the menus inevitably peppered with kangaroo, camel and (presumably frozen) barramundi, Sapphire opened the conversation with "I remember the first time I saw an old lady's beard up close."

Oh? Turns out it was when she went to church with Grandma. "Yeah, I saw a few that day." Over our shared pitta and dip entree platter, I made Sapphire and Love Chunks swear on their eternal souls that they would ensure that I never, ever grow a beard. Not even when completely gripped by Alzheimers or Dementia and wearing my knickers around my neck in a locked ward. "No matter what the cost or the inconvenience, please promise me that I won't end up looking like Billy Goat Gruff - hell, let's talk up starting up a savings plan for my post-retirement grooming fund!"

Geriatric whisker issues aside, Sapphire has noted my heartache about the cholesterol situation with interest, pity and a healthy dose of 'Well, what did you expect' pragmatism but kindly informed her father that "Mum has been really good, hasn't she? She even gave me the mini-Toblerone we got on the plane."

That's right readers - I have been good. However, I'll admit to ordering cappuccinos lately purely due to the sprinkling of chocolate powder they shake over the frothy milk but Sapph seems to have joined me in avoiding cholesterol, telling the waitress, "I'd like to have the kids meal of spaghetti bolognese but please don't give me the chips but a green salad instead."

"Okaaaay," said the waitress, giving me the This-Is-A-New-One-For-Me raised eyebrow look. Hunger and laziness prevented me from talking about the time when we were in Coles going over the fruit and veg when Sapphire spotted a kilogram-sized back of brussels sprouts and came rushing over. "Look Mum, a whole bag of brussels sprouts! I LOVE these - can we have some please?" Another woman wheeled her trolley over me and whispered out the side of her mouth, "Did I just hear that or dream it?"

As we visited, walked, climbed and photographed Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), King's Canyon, Palm Valley and Ormiston Gorge, she studiously wrote down all of the Aboriginal art symbols and bush tucker plants in her tiny notebook. When our tour guide Geoff cooked up some kangaroo bolognese for our first meal around the campfire, she tasted it, smiled and said, "I think that this is your signature dish, it's full of flavour."

On our second night, we found ourselves at a cattle station camping ground, with a wood-heated hot water system feeding a shower open to the elements. The black bottle-shaped heating contraption needed heaps of handfuls of spinifex, wood splinters and team effort to get going, but careful planning (ie yelling out "Is anyone in there?") ensured that no-one was caught imitating the full moon in their exposed nudity.

Sapph and I were the first in on the basis of her youth - get the kid clean and in the swag first. Love Chunks stood guard outside and pulled his cap over his ears to soften the impact of our screams of agony as the 'hot' water - roughly air temperature or 4C - rained down on our bodies. Sapphire was gasping for breath as I squealed and apparently those sipping their tea peacefully around the fire a few hundred metres away suddenly decided to forgo a shower that evening.

Later that night was a snore festival like no other. Two couples were all snoring, somehow cruelly timed so that at any given moment those of us still awake were always treated to the leaf-blower volume of an inhalation and the angry walrus sounds of exhalation. Soon an additional percussional element entered the fray - kind of like a sweeter, softer version of Donald Duck - wallah wallah wallah wallah wallah. Lying there in the spotlight dazzle of the full moon, I couldn't help but start giggling at the irony of 'getting away from it all' and yet being surrounded by a cacophony of ear-nose-and-throat emanations to rival anything that inner Melbourne had to offer during rush hour.

A minute later everyone else who was awake sat up and started laughing - eleven out of sixteen of us were all sitting up in our swags and wrapped in our sleeping bags, cackling louder and harder than the snorers yet woke up none of them. Perhaps they'd already deafened themselves.

Sapphire made friends with Toughie, a barrelly blue heeler who lived in the Oak Valley Aboriginal community. He lay beside her at the fire and lifted his front paw to guide her hand towards his stomach, insisting on a tummy scratch. Hours later he waddled away, sated with love and left over BBQed steak.

There were tears on the last morning when the hot air balloon had inflated enough and the imposing wicker basket was ready for us to climb into. Her anguished face looked up at me as she grabbed at my jacket, "Mum, I don't think I can do---" before being drowned out by Franz's call to us all, "GET IN NOW!" She did and she loved it.

On the flight back home, we buckled ourselves into our seats and got out our respective books and newspapers. Tapping me on the arm she said, "I just don't think I could ever marry anybody called Rupert."
"Why not?"
"Well, you once said that it was a ridiculous name for a man."
"Did I? Oh, but I was only joking - what if he was nice and----"
"No Mum, I'll never say yes to someone called Rupert."

We opened up our books and read for a minute or so before she tapped me again.
"And Mum?"
"Mmmm love?"
"He can't come from Footscray either."
"But what if he's kind, smart, funny and rich?"
"Then he won't be living in Footscray."

She bowed her head back down into the John Marsden, smiling.

2009-07-10T22:12:00.009+10:00

Ain't got nothing but love, babe.....

....EIGHT DAYS A WEEK!

If you've ever been on the road for a long drive or five, you'll understand the importance of having some music to listen to.

Add to this the individual tastes of seventeen other passengers whose ages range from ten to seventy and things can get interesting. Geoff, our fearless, camel-lovin' tour leader passed around his iPod for us to select a song each for an 'on the go' soundtrack and the resultant sounds that accompanied the rainbow desert landscape of Central Australia were a strange mix indeed. Think the Beatles, Kaiser Chiefs, Black Eyed Peas, Midnight Oil, Mozart, Abba, Moby, David Gray and Red Hot Chili Peppers just for the first session.

By the fifth day my notebook was being used more to write down songs to search out myself to download than to record any decent diary details. However, I learned a lot of things on this trip; none of which were mentioned in the brochure:

Being warm is far more important than being stylish. However, I did take off my beanie when a camera was around because it makes me look as though a big blue donger is growing out of my scone. If I was wearing my head torch as well, I might as well have been a walking advert for circumcision.

Apples and meusli bars taste like MasterChef manna from heaven when you're roughing it and have just done a seven kilometre hike through rock and rubble. Almost-frozen champagne also tastes delicious even when it's 4C, windy and dark and you're standing in front of Uluru and the Olgas (Kata Tjutu).

Carrot cake (with the lusciously, cholesterol-ly, cream cheese icing) featured in my dreams. Every single night. Not chocolate - why?

Dutch, Canadian and German backpackers use musk lifesavers as a dare in drinking games. It's apparently a rite of passage to buy a pack and see who can keep it in their mouth the longest before gagging. First one to spit it out has to skol their drink. "I thought they were mini urinal cakes," said Reinier.

Large milkshakes enjoyed at a road stop soon turn into intestinal cottage cheese when enduring a bone-shaking 2 hour drive on an unsealed track.

I actually have bum bones. After days of sitting on rocks, dirt and swags, they made their presence felt.

It is easy to horrify Italian kindergarten teachers. Making innocent conversation as we did the dishes, I said, "So, your husband tells me that you two first met at a nightclub?"

"No! no no no no no!" Her eyes were wider than the plates she was stacking. Her husband and translator, Alain, wandered over to ascertain the cause of her distress. They chatted rapidly in Italian.

He smiled. "She thinks you meant a Strip club."

Ah.

Some things at Uluru are more shocking than the price of coffee and souvenirs in the gift shop. One bloke stood behind his open car door, pulled down his trousers and sprayed his Kyber Pass and Dangle Twang with deodorant before hitching up his pants and going to work on his armpits. Most passersby were spared this scene but I unfortunately was approaching from the rear.

We had a competition one night around the campfire to see which of us had the best porn name (first pet you had + first street you lived on). Penny won with Pussy View. Lord knows what she thought of our bawdy hoots of laughter because she revealed to us the next day that she's studying to be a Uniting Church minister.

Robbie, our guide from the Oak Valley Aboriginal community says he likes to eat Witchety grubs raw and at the base of the bush they live in, "but my grandies turn up their noses. They take 'em back to nanna to cook."

Hygiene standards become incredibly lax. By Day Five I was wiping a knife smeared with homous onto my dusty jeans, then using it to cut up some chicken; wiping it again on my legs before cutting up some tomatoes and giving it a final swipe across my upper thigh. There. Nice and clean and put straight back into the cutlery box.

And I finally found the perfect place to fart without detection or disapproval by offering to hold the balloon strings as it filled up with hot air.

Best holiday ever.

2009-07-02T08:00:00.004+10:00

Sulker on Safari

Love Chunks, Sapphire and I are heading out into the great Aussie outback for an adventure this school holidays. Granted, we'll be forgoing the hellish week-long drive along the dull and dusty plains and instead be flying on the big silver bird into Alice Springs, but then we're saddling up for a 4-wheel-drive camping trip sleeping out under the stars in swags.

Cool, hey? We want Sapph to see the awesome magnificence of Uluru (Ayers Rock), the Olgas and King's Canyon and to visit an Aboriginal community and get a feel for central Australia. Plus, unbeknownst to her we've booked a hot air balloon ride on the last morning, which will hopefully be rather memorable (at least, until LC said, "Isn't this where that balloon crashed ages ago, killing and mangling all those poor people?" Er, yes).

I'm going for all of those reasons (except the balloon disaster situation) as well, but and also for a personal one of my own - to silently apologise for my behaviour of some time ago. Way, waaaay back in the deep, dim mists of time to 1985.

I wasn't exactly a 'handful' as a teenager because as a teacher's daughter and all-round academic goody-goody in a big bad high school of 1500 students, I was too timid for anything approaching rebellion. The closest I got to being a Wild One was skinny dipping in the Murray River during a girl's camping weekend when I was sixteen, but luckily it was poor Marie who was caught doing a bold starfish leap into the water when a speedboat full of yobbos zoomed past and I was mercifully in the poo-brown water right up to my chin, and at least the smoke from the campfire disguised the three Alpines that I wheezily attempted to inhale instead of 'bum suck'.

Anyhow, by 1985 I was sixteen-and-a-half, deeply into my final year of school and - more importantly for me at the time - experiencing my first real taste of love. Reciprocated love.

Therefore, to be unceremoniously dragged away from our netball grand final - which we won and I was captain of the team!! - and to be reduced to reaching out of the car window and scrabbling to catch the premiership medal as it was thrown to me by the presenter as Dad pulled out of the carpark in our packed-to-the-gills 4WD was distinctly not needed in my hormonally indignant teenaged opinion.

I'm the one with the shocker perm, top right - Dad just leaned out of the car, took a quick photo and said, "Good onyer, now GET IN, we're going!"

Neither was the four day drive up to Alice Springs where a can of warm coke was all that gave us any respite from the choking red dust, David's sniffles (a combination of asthma and suffering from a broken collarbone after running back for a mark and donging into the points post) and the toyota's cassette stereo that played every tape a few beats slower than normal so that Mum and Dad's collection of Nana Mouskouri, Roger Whittaker and The Kingston Trio sounded even drearier, if that's actually possible.....

The only highlight I recall was seeing a sign - literally in the middle of nowhere and not even against a wreck of a building or fence post - that said, 'Lesbians Are Everywhere.' I proudly posed for that photo, wondering just why Dad insisted that it be me and not Mum who did it.

The rest of the trip saw me sulking in every single photo. My reasons for this were immense and numerous at the time:

Not being able to spend two weeks hanging around the heaving metropolis of Murray Bridge (pop 10,000) with my boyfriend

Having to set the bloody tent up every night because David had his arm in a sling

Running out of batteries for my walkman

Getting a very bad cold that saw me nearly heave up a lung when I finally reached the top of Ayers Rock and have an old guy hobble over and ask, "Are you all right, dearie?"

..... only to see an empty coke can and cigarette butt at the summit
My folks befriending some large - and overtly Christian - family at the Uluru camping grounds with my only refuge being to hide inside the tent at the card table doing my biology assignment by gaslight and having it corrected later by Dad in red biro
Knowing my new perm was going disastrously wrong when the hair mousse wasn't packed and electric dryers weren't able to be plugged in
Being forced to eat meusli with powdered milk for breakfast ("But Mum, the bark chips by the toilet block would taste better than this"); and

Seeing the walls of the tent dangerously collapse in and out in time with Dad's leaf-blower-like snores every night.

So, this time, I want to forget about my hair or setting up an infernally complicated tent, shaking up putrid powdered milk in an empty mayonnaise jar, chatting to religious campers, missing my main squeeze, worrying about the music or dying of swine flu when admiring the Olgas.

Wish me luck. Or should that be, wish Love Chunks and Sapphire luck?

2009-06-30T17:27:00.009+10:00

The demonic Doctor Checks

Walking into my local medical centre isn't a welcoming experience. Several coffee cups have been squashed on the steep front steps with their sticky contents dribbling down the grey tiles and making a nauseating soup when mixed with cigarette ash and butts. The graffiti scratched onto the glass doors doesn't enhance the atmosphere either.

Inside the over-heated waiting room, I'm given the luxury of time to observe my fellow patients and to consider just how the very worst of cheaply slapped-together 1990s architecture has stood the test of time. Answer: it doesn't. The once-white ceiling tiles are blooming with latte-brown water stains, the huge green formica reception desk is so gouged that the chipboard underneath has become a crazy-paving feature and the once-proud 'Chemist next door' enamel sign has been covered with a torn piece of paper with handwriting informing me that the 'Neerest chemist is 300m walk further up the road.'

A three year old boy and his mother sit beside me. Well, she does: he's busy doing lap after lap around the low coffee tables, saying "When can I see Dr Checks? When can I see Dr Checks?" over and over.

Dr Checks? Dr Cheques? Is his mother running some kind of blackmailing scheme...? I put my boring novel down and am rude enough to raise one eyebrow at her quizzically. To her credit, she doesn't say, "It's none of your pharkin' business," but laughs and says, "Hugo likes ---" she looks around, sees her target and points "-----that doctor over there, the one in the houndstooth jacket."

I see a stooped old man in glasses slowly shuffle behind the reception desk to reach for his next file. He most certainly would have been around to see the celebrations at end of World War One.

Hugo rushed over to tug at his mother's skirt. "See Mum, Dr Checks is here! Dr Checks! Dr Checks!"

Hugo is shushed by Mum, and I go back to my book. Both of us still have to wait our turn and she tries to ease her son into the idea that it might be Doctor Blue Shirt he sees instead of Checks. "His grandfather has the same jacket," Mum whispers to me and says brightly and in a louder voice to Hugo, "But blue is your favourite colour, isn't it sweetie?"

"Ye-e-e-e-e-sss...." Hugo's voice had now moved up an octave to a high pitched whine that was starting to rattle the windows. "But I wanna see Dr Checks!"

It was time to plough back into the dull book on my knee and let the mother of Hugo try to cajole him with a trip to the water fountain, the tatty community brochure stand, the toilets and shooshing him again when he saw the enormous nose ring in a punky-emo hybrid guy who'd just sat on the other side of him: "Why is he wearing a bangle in his nose?"
"Um, it's a nose ring, Hugo. Some people wear them as jewellery, like you sometimes like to wear my bracelets and necklaces."
Nice response, I thought, but not Hugo. "Yuk, it'll get boogies on it."
Fair point too.

Dr Checks came back out into the foyer.
"Yay!" yelled Hugo, "It's my turn, Mummy!"

Dr Checks smiled - or was he merely airing his dentures - and said, "Mrs Lockett?" I grabbed my bag and left the room to Hugo's anguished sobbing.

Three months ago, at the urging of Love Chunks, I underwent a cholesterol test.
"We'll call you if something's serious, so no news is good news," said the doctor filling up the test tube with my red stuff at the time.

No phone call was received, so I was in the clear: my cholesterol test was obviously OK and I could continue to inhale chocolate, cheese, chips, meat, pastries, pies, eggs and donuts with greedy abandon. Especially chocolate.

Today however, found me there to get my tumour checked up on - keep an eye on those pesky prolactin levels and have a wee whinge about the unwanted and increasing visits from Mr Migraine. He was becoming the medical equivalent of a stalker.

"You look very fit," Dr Checks said.
"Oh, I am", I sat up straighter, beaming with pride and huge spadeful of vanity. "I run at least three times a week, power walk twice and am a good girl and eat lots of fruit and veges and-----"
"But," Dr C looked down into the folder. "Your cholesterol level is much too high."
"Wha-a-a-a-t?" My smugness disappeared up the anus from whence it came. "But I was told by the other doctor that no news is good news!"

He affected that pose that's so infuriating because you just know you're in for a lecture and you know it's probably deserved but you just don't want to hear it: he lowered his glasses and looked down his nose at me. Pompous git - and look a him sitting there with his old man moobs sweating in crescent marks on his too tight business shirt, about to lecture me, an educated, intelligent, responsible adult about diet and exercise, the nerve..!

"Your cholesterol level is 6.5 and it should not be anything higher than 5.5. The doctor here has made a note saying, 'Discuss this with the patient when she arrives to collect her test results'."
He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose to deliver the final pompous, know-it-all, you-can't-handle-the-truth barb: "That was THREE months ago. Surely you must have wondered what your results were?"

As intended, it was now my turn to play the part of the sheepish, admittedly ashamed and naughty patient and the role fitted perfectly. "Well, um, I just assumed that if it was really bad, one of you would call..."

Dr C held up a tired, I've-heard-it-all-before-young-lady hand. "You're not about to be carted into an ambulance, but you need to do something about it now. Seriously."

And the next fifteen minutes involved talk of cutting out full fat milk, cream, butter, cheese, red fatty meats, chicken skin, animal fats, coconut milk, palm oil from my diet entirely. Yep, okay, fine, nod nod nod, can do all of that. Sure, absolutely.

And no cakes, eggs, bacon, biscuits, donuts, pastries, pies, tarts or quiches. Ye-e-s, okay, it'll be a struggle but yes, my health is important.

Of course I knew what was coming next.

I knew it, he knew it and you know it, don't you?

"How much chocolate do you eat a week, Mrs Lockett?"
"Oh call me Kath, you already know so much about me, inside and out, heh heh, although I don't want to have a pap smear today. Did you know that I'm a chocolate reviewer and writer and manage to look only slightly chubby instead of Jabba the Hutt-like due to my dedication to exercise and the proper intake of vitamins and min--"

"How much chocolate do you eat a week----" he paused, to let his authority and moral detachment sink in more fully "-----Kath?"

Like a mathematically challenged eight year old, I went through an average week, listing each block, truffle and bar and counting them on my fingers. "Well, I had lunch at San Churro - so it was a meal really, not an additional snack, but then there was the two Nestle blocks which were a gift from Helen and M&Ms have released an orange flavour that is only currentlyavailable in the 200 gram bags and it's greedy I know, but it took me three blocks before the willpower to photograph it emerged in order to write the review for the daggy but delicious Cadbury Tiramisu dessert block and just this morning I finally got a hold of the new Lindt Classic flavours and...."

I just can't write the figure here. It hurts too much. Let's just say that if Dr Checks had any hair left, his eyebrows had risen high enough to have hidden amongst his fringe.

"You have to cut that by at least ninety percent or you'll be in serious trouble."

He might as well have yanked my heart out with barbed wire gloves and plonked it into a tupperware container and slung it in the staff fridge to rot amongst the ancient sweet chilli sauce sachets and yoghurt tubs.

A few minutes later, I slowly walked home. The morning sunshine was too bright and harsh, and my backpack was heavy. Love Chunks opened the door and the moment he saw my face, said, "Oh my god Kath, what's wrong, has your tumour grown back again?"
My eyes were blurred with tears. "But I love what I do...."

I hadn't dared show Dr Checks what I'd purchased from the supermarket before my appointment with him; just a few treats to see me through a week in central Australia on a 4WD camping trip that was not likely to fully cater for my specific needs:

Still, if I get to eat ten percent of it....?

2009-06-27T14:10:00.008+10:00

Sleepover at Sam’s

Samantha Phillips was my best friend all through Primary School. From the second I clapped eyes on long white hair and wowser-yowser glasses-that-magically-changed-to-sun-glasses in the heady days of ‘reception’ in 1974, I fell into deep and abiding LIKE.

As the years progressed, Sam’s glasses turned into the cooler, silver-edged ones and her sensible uniform gave way to cork-soled sandals, three-tiered skirts and oodles of crushed velvet. Needless to say, for a kid whose mother made her wear the voluntary school uniform at least 95% of the time, Samantha was also my sartorial hero.

Where we did disagree was regarding who was going to be Agnetha during our ABBA lip synch events. I was the bossier one and tended to win, but Sam had the dead straight blonde hair and would have been a more obvious choice: Oh well, in our version Frida had clearly overdone the bleach and tinted contact lenses….

My fondest memories are of the sleepovers I had at her place. Whilst my family home was a monument to all that was fashionable when my parents got married (ie 1964 complete with black vinyl and green fabric lounge, lunar module legs on everything, a crystal cabinet and florally lurid axminster carpets), Samantha’s parents were fully committed to everything that was fashionable and fun about the 1970s.

Their white, rectangular house looked unassuming from the outside, but as soon as you stepped into the cork-tiled hallway and got a glimpse of the pool room with ‘Abba in the Moog’ on the turntable and a beaten copper wall plaque, you knew you were in for a visual treat.

The kitchen was bright red and blue formica and glossy paint accessorised by a yellow semi-circle light that swung precariously over our heads as we worked the electric popcorn machine on the bench. The lounge was mostly brown, with a modular that was so soft and velvety that your butt cheeks eventually sank to the floor so that you were staring at the Rank Arena at a lower angle than even the cord bean bags alongside.

Going to the toilet there was always a bit of a drama for a shy petal like me because the loo was open and only divided by a bamboo screen that was a merely decorative nod to privacy and certainly not an effective one. With the ferns alongside it, I half expected to see Molly Meldrum in there conducting an interview with Jean Paul Young and the Countdown crew.

Samantha’s room wasn’t particularly restful; not that such an issue was important to two girls aiming to chat and giggle all night long. Plus, we could look through the window at the Murray Bridge Look Out next door and see cars pull up and young couples in there smooching. It was as entertaining and as enlightening as leafing through her mother's stash of Cleo magazines.

Sam's curtains were huge diagonal stripes of dark purple and sunburst yellow – a theme that also extended to her furniture, floor coverings and bed. My envy of the colour scheme was only eclipsed by the fact that Sam had her own record player and we played ‘Take a Chance on me’ ceaselessly.

Or at least it must have seemed so to her brother Corey, whose adjoining bedroom was done with similar furnishings but in a retina-burning tomato red and riotous tree frog green scheme. I’m sure he saw the reverse colours against the back of his eyes when he finally closed them at night.

Corey was only a year younger than Samantha and even though I loved her dearly, she wasn’t the best when it came to a good sibling scrum. In fact, she was pathetically weak. So, when I came over to stay, he pounced on me, itching for a good wrestle from a tomboyish girl who had two brothers and therefore knew how to punch, give (or receive) a dead-leg, hen-peck or a stinging flick of the earlobe.

We were pretty evenly matched, but being unofficially scheduled as Corey’s physical entertainment used to wear very thin when I had double that amount available to me in my own home and was in fact looking forward to staying in another home for the weekend that had other, less strenuous and far less violent things to offer.

Things such as hearing and being part of what her parents did for a living. My Dad was a high school teacher and Mum was doing her matriculation via night classes and home duties during the day, but Samantha’s Dad was running a Music Bus and her mother was setting up a take-away shop in the main street called ‘The Hungry Bunyip.’ It was the first establishment in our riverside town to sell cappuccinos and I’d sometimes return home on a Sunday afternoon wondering just why I felt like bouncing on the back of Dad’s trailer sending the harvested dead corn cobs he'd stacked ready to take to the dump catapulting up and into the nearby incinerator on only an hour’s sleep and a stomach full of buttered and icing-sugar encrusted popcorn….

The Music Bus was a funky idea, but perhaps not a practical one. The thought of several children undertaking music lessons on a moving bus at the same time might have been a tad cacophonic rather than euphoric. I never found out personally because that was the year I decided that learning the piano was not for me.

Back to Corey. He leapt at me from behind just as I was placing ‘Abba the Album’ reverently on Samantha’s little record player. Sam had dressed their maltese terrier, Danny, in an old black leotard so that he resembled a fluffy liquorice allsort and we were about to take some photos of him ‘dancing’ on their Polaroid.

Corey’s impact sent the needle scratching over the entire music unit, Danny was cruelly squashed under the speaker and Sam nearly dropped her Dad’s new camera. I saw red and blindly reached for whatever weapon was handy.

Unfortunately for Corey it was a stray coat hanger. I hadn’t even turned around to sight my target (Corey’s shoulder, leg or arse would have been fine), but lashed out in fury. Judging from the ‘dangle, stretch and snap’ feel of the wire in my hands, I’d obviously succeeded in snagging something fairly soft and precious residing below his belly button that saw him scream in a pitch that out-howled their 12 breeding beagles outside, and slowly back out from the room, bent double in agony. I didn't see him again for the rest of the weekend.

Whatever: Sam and I had to work out just how the dog was going to dance to a song that now never moved beyond Bjorn and Benny's background bleats of "Take a chance, take a chance, take a ch-ch-ch-chance….”

2009-06-26T13:01:00.007+10:00

Mystery Five is solved, now for Number Six

Those pink dots, dear reader, were sprayed only at selected houses, not every single house in my suburb.

That's because we pink dotters are special. And really, really good, because we didn't have any of these in our gardens:

The Queensland Fruit fly: about as unwanted as a Queenslander human in these parts. Presumably one of these little insects (and a few thousand eggs) decided to stow away in an illegal orange hidden in the depths of a cabin bag so that they could visit the colder place with the much better coffee, culture and Aussie Rools footy 24/7.

Apart from the rural fruit growing regions, it was our weeny suburb that also attracted a fair bit of attention from the Department of Primary Industries, who issued a media release.

Soon after we arrived and my attention was finally diverted from how to cram a households' worth of moving boxes into a fortnightly recycling bin roughly the size of *one* of the 2469 boxes I had to get rid of, I saw four utes pull up and a pack of green and silver suited DPI crew climb out, with backpacks and spray nozzles. They kind of reminded me of the Ghostbusters guys except that half of them were women and there were no special effects or dodgy synthesiser music accompanying them.

One came over to say 'G'day' and give Milly a pat. She explained that the pink dots, which had been sprayed a couple of weeks earlier, showed them which houses they didn't need to spray at because fruit fly hadn't been found there. "You'll find a tiny trap hanging in your tree though."

She was right - they came through to double check the trap which was essentially a clear plastic jar with a sticky bait in it to attract any stray fruit fly. It hadn't been disturbed, so they took it away and said, "See, that's why you've got the pink dots: we don't have to bother you again."

See, told you I was special.

I rang my 'Mystery Number Six' subject, who breathed a sigh of relief so loudly down the phone it ruffled my hair. "Well thank god for that," she said, now prepared to reveal herself as 'Mary'. "I'm seeing a few mates tonight so I'll set them all straight."

"So, Mary, your mystery has been solved. Will you meet with me to explain this sign in your window?"

There was a long pause. "Okay. But on neutral territory. You, Me and ~~there was an inaudible mutter~~ at Pepper. 10am. Don't be late."

"I won't be - I'll be the one wearing pink dots."

2009-06-24T16:33:00.007+10:00

Mysteries Five and Six

As regular blurb lurkers know, my Jorgi dog Milly and I scour our neighbourhood for things that puzzle, amuse and bemuse us. This is even more convenient if they're on the way to the post office, corner shop or school and sighted during a Flemington Association letterbox drop.

For Milly our investigative process normally means using her wet nose to sniff and hopefully work out which dog left their liquid mark on a nearby tree trunk or tyre and for me it means using my much-larger protuberance and a business card with a message scrawled across it to produce the answer to our present problem.

However, this is an unusual one, because our next chosen subject firstly wanted - no, insisted and very firmly I might add - that we solve another mystery before they would cooperate with our request to reveal their secret in full. To be fair, she sounded worried and anxious.

"Kath, before I meet with you, I need you to do something for me."

"Excluding storage of anything illicit up my colon, just name it," I replied.

"W-e-l-l, a few of us in my street are really worried because these .....

.......... have popped up everywhere."

"Ah, yes," I said, smugly. "I do know what they are for, actually. And maybe you were thinking that you were being marked for a future robbery, a future rape-n-pillage party hosted by overly-medicated fairies or ~shudder~ a televised visit from David Koch?"

"Yes, something like that," she said, voice quivering over the phone. "Can you help me?"

Maybe. If I feel like it. If you bend to my (increasingly nosey) will.

Can you, dear readers?

2009-06-23T13:42:00.014+10:00

Nightmare on Bourke Street

It's a wintry afternoon and I'm thirsting for beer and yearning for a handful of greasy, hot dim sims.

The longing is powerful enough to send me out of the house, onto the dodgy Number 57 tram alongside a man sniffing paint from a plastic bag until I step out again into the flotsam and jetsam of Bourke Street Mall.

I don't recall seeing too many pubs around here: a few cafes that are probably licensed, but tucked away into discreet alleys and not on the mainstream shopping strip itself. As for dim sims, they'd be more than likely sitting in some bain maries in noisy food courts, skins hardening and drying the longer they're in the salmonella-graded, not-quite-hot-enough heat of a stainless steel tray atop an ancient element.

I keep walking and idly wonder if I should just buy a bottle from a wine store and roll it in my hands so that it becomes warm. Yeah, I want it to be room temperature, Old English Inn style, with the yeasty smell mingling with the post-binge vomity bile that soaks into the carpets by the pub's fireplace, forming a lasting reminder of what makes beer the unforgettable drink it truly is.

I want the dim sim to be inhospitably chewy on the outside but moist and pink on the inside, tasting uncomfortably raw with a lingering after taste of fatty pork, sweaty chicken meat and a few slivers of unidentifiable bone fragments. A flaccid little snack with dubious nutritional value and an unnaturally yellow skin. Yeah, that's what I need....

I see this Dream Boat sleeping and nudge him awake. "Hey fella," I ask, "Where can a girl like me find a good warm beer and some dodgy dimmies?"

The rude git flicks me the bird and settles back into his phlegmatic snoring, leaving me to keep searching the mall on my own. My stomach is grumbling in complaint - it needs its fix and needs
it now.

Maybe I should just get back on the Number 57 tram and ask some of the fairly malodorous occupants where they'd go to find----- wait a minute ----- what's Love Chunks doing here?

He's seated on a toilet right in the middle of the mall, situated rather precariously between the two tram tracks; trousers and jocks bunched around his ankles and flanks exposed to the elements. He doesn't see me as he's too busy grimacing and concentrating on what he's - ahem - producing and is also oblivious to the shoppers crossing the tracks around him.

Then I spot my daughter. "Sapphire! Sapphire! Sweetie, can you help me with Dad, because he's-----"

She looks up vaguely because her attention is on the banana she's avidly unpeeling and eating. Our adored dog Milly is beside her, cleaning her own teeth with colgate mild mint, her tail wagging happily. What the hell-----

It is then I sit up in bed and note the evilly acidic bile angrily flippity-flopping in my stomach. This is what warm beer and dim sims must feel like.

Groping for the side table as a lever, I slip out of bed and brokenly feel my way towards the dark bathroom, cursing as the bubble packing refuses to budge and then pops wildly, pinging all the pellets of Panadeine to the edge of the bath tub. I scrabble around the floor and eventually find a couple that, whilst covered in a bit of stray towel fluff and pubic hair, get shoved rapidly and gratefully into my dry mouth.

It all makes sense now: Mr Migraine has arrived again, and is focused on using his new hand-powered screw driver to burrow a clearway between my left eye socket and right temple.

Goody.

2009-06-21T16:45:00.001+10:00

Forty going on Four or Eighty Four?

I can drive, drink, vote, read and breed and am occasionally able to cook something using more than one pot but there are still so many more things I do that are really, really immature.

Such as:

Eating a banana and half a 250 gram packet of marshmallows for lunch. Starting with the whites first and leaving the pinks (my favourite) until lucky last.
Flexing in front of the mirror after my shower. Did you know that bikini supermodels pose like Egyptians? If you don't believe me, try shoving your shoulders forward and twisting your waist and butt around to the side. Then push out your hip bones and throw your arms back behind you like a troubled ape (or Paris Hilton) and voila, you've lost ten kilos and should be auditioning for the 'after' picture in fat busting advertisements.
Laughing till I cried at seeing the search phrase "Ashleigh's Peanut Butter Farts" and wondering if I should send it on to him.
Substituting four-syllable words to replace the 'Mu-nu-mu-nah' that Animals sings in that classically catchy Muppet song. Recent winners have included the Kath & Kim's bat-wing arm fat descriptor 'Foo-doo-bah-dahs' and pornography (but only after explaining what it meant to a horrified Sapphire), simplicity, undoubtedly, unbearable, exaggerate and, most appropriately, 'inanity'.
Still writing my name or 'Kath loves LC' inside a lop-sided love heart in the steam on the bathroom mirror.
Knowing that my chances of winning the lottery is about a billion to one, yet feeling absurdly disappointed when the slimy piece of paper is handed back with 'Not a Winner' on it. Refusing to touch that slip, saying 'Oh you can put it in the bin,' as though it'll damage my fortune in other aspects of my life.
Painting Milly the dog's toe nails (paw claws?) shimmery purple.
Popping a Lindt Ball into each cheek and letting them dissolve slowly as I read in-depth, thought-provoking articles in The Age. And doing it again for the next article. And the next insert.

And yet there are other times when I'm swear I'm looking towards eighty four instead of four. These are all true:

Avidly reading the freebie community newspaper from cover-to-cover and then joining the local ratepayers association. And attending the council's community consultation session. Willingly.
Consider googling where I can find a spiked litter pole thingy to ease the agony of continual bending over to pick up rubbish in my street, the local school, the poo lane alley adjoining the corner shop and the dodgy old flats next door.
Looking forward to eating soup as the weather gets colder.
Laughing at the re-emergence of eighties fashions being touted as 'Defying the recession with bright colours and bold optimism'.
Noticing that the flesh on my neck doesn't turn in time with my head, but instead wobbles and stretches like a hesitant raw pizza base.
Wondering why antimacassars aren't in vogue anymore.
Discovering that I have a permanent pink tattoeed belt around my middle - even first thing in the morning - from years of wearing high-waisted elasticated underpants and jeans.
Following and actively participating in discussions concerning politics. And realising that I'm actually a bit interested.
Acknowledging that my most frequent thought and deed is determining where and when I can sit down.
Doing a passable impersonation of a duck's mating call just by farting when I cough.
Spending a longer time on the toilet and appreciating the solitude.
Appreciating the fact that there's not one pair of heels in my wardrobe and 10% or less of my clothes need be be touched by an iron.

So yes, I insert the dog's name into ABBA songs and serenade her during the day ("Milly-mooster tell me what's wrong..."), have tried to photograph Skipper's tiny disapproving bunny lips from a weird angle and licked the chocolate cake mix bowl with Sapphire but have also noticed that my face has the imprint of the pillow left on it until long after lunch time and my legs are the physical representation of the blue and red streets of the Melways directory.

But most importantly I am that age - whatever mental, emotional or psychological number is assigned by the relevant experts - where coolness and a posh car don't matter. Just clean clothes and my loved ones. Oh and finding chocolate on special.

2009-06-18T16:01:00.004+10:00

Tha Goodest Spellinkt bloggee Thingo

Blogger Helen from Bonding with Lizards nominated me for an 'Awe-Summ award' and Sandi K nominated me for a Kreativ (sic) Blogger award. No hefty cash prizes or bars of gold accompanied the honours unfortunately and really it's just a sneaky way of forcing me to write a meme but it also makes me smile with pride.

Both allow me to to blow my own trumpet in that I have to mention seven things that I'm awesome at - spelling not included.

When I sit here and think about it I realise that it's much harder than I thought. Sure I'm not the biggest loser in the land, but I aint a champion either and there's loads of things that I can claim to do competently (ie fold up the washing, make sure that bottle tops don't get flung into the recyling bin and never buy milk that's less than two days away from the 'best before date') but to be awesome is another level entirely.

The Collins Concise dictionary defines awesome as 'inspiring or displaying awe.' Okaaaay, so we'll look a bit further up the column to awe: 'overwhelming wonder, respect or dread.' Hmm, let's leave the seven dread bits until the very end, shall we?

So let's get the ball rolling on this anal gazing malarkey.

1) Hedonistic Hypocrisy. Picture my morning today, dear reader. The dog and I have just spent a couple of hours roaming the neighbourhood inserting flyers into letterboxes regarding the aims and exploits of our venerable local residents association. The cold winter sun is out and we both feel energised, happy and..... I'll be honest, a bit pleased with ourselves. I see what can only be kindly described as Michelen Man's girlfriend in a pale pink velvet tracksuit shoe-horning herself into her car and think, "She should be walking like us." I then see a Medibank Private employee sucking down on a cigarette so intently her eyes bulge and think, "She should be inhaling the fresh air, like us." Annoyingly justifiable, no?

Less than half an hour later, I'm at San Churro enjoying this as my lunch:

The only savoury thing there is the salt sprinkled on top of the peanut butter truffle and yet I still managed to look disdainfully at two spotty teenagers sharing just a plate of the churros (the phallic-shaped donut sticks) and think, "Oh that's not going to help their skin," before hoeing right into this like a blind basset hound lapping up porridge.

And then, what did I do? Popped into Rebel Sport to get myself a new pair of running shoes.

The other six things I'm good - nay, awesome at are:

2) Working by myself to a deadline. Having a mere four metre commute to work from the kitchen in one direction and the bedroom in the other means that public transport or car crashes can't be blamed for delays and non-performance. Instead my only way of procrastinating actually benefits the family: the house becomes very tidy. No dog fur clinging to the felt squares under the chair legs, no toothpaste splats on the mirror and Milly's butt nuggets are (mostly) removed from anywhere that human feet are likely to tread.

.....which sort of leads me to Awesome skill number 3) Wielding a Chux Superwipe. It's become second nature to have a damp cloth within an arm's length. In fact, Sapphire's first recognisable form of imitation as a nine month old was to cling to the edge of our ancient coffee table, whip off her bib and use it to wipe over the surface. Sure, the magazines went flying and my tea got spilled but she was learning about the importance of having a surface that is less like velcro and more like a top you'd be willing to rest your elbows on.

Now I'm struggling and lucky for me, Sapphire's just walked in. So sweetie-darling-sweetie, what's your old ma awesome at?

"Look Mum I'm really busting to go to the toilet and I only came in here to ask if I could have a muesli bar because I'm absolutely starving and the sausage sizzle before the school's junior string concert tonight isn't until 5:30 and I can't wait that long, so----" She left the room, but not before calling out, "So I'll have a think while I'm on the loo, OK?"

Er, fine. Thanks.

Bless her little heart because she did bounce back several minutes later, still reeking of the loo spray that she squirts liberally around the room so that the next occupant enters a blinding lavender fog, and came up with these ones:

4) "You run really fast." I'm OK, but I'm not that good. Sure the distance isn't shabby (eight kilometres) but at five minutes each I'm not troubling any Olympian - or para-Olympian for that matter. "No but I've seen you and it looks fast and you never give up."

I've been running now for nearly nine years and hope that I can continue for many more to come. I'm proud of getting out there even when I don't feel like it, it's too cold; my shins ache; my shoes rub; my toe nails get bashed, turn black and fall off and my bra cuts into my rib cage and makes me bleed. This has happened more than once but the last time I was wearing a black one so it didn't have the same, um, 'pictorial piquancy' shall we say.

5) "You're actually quite good at singing." WHAT? NO-ONE has ever said that to me before and I sing only when I'm happy and think that I'm alone or safely out of earshot. "I hear you sometimes just singing away to yourself in the kitchen when you think I've got my earphones on or are too far away in my room and you sound quite good." She sees me puff up with pride as I begin to deeply inhale and prepare to burst into ----and says hastily, "But not all the time." Shuddering, she repeats it, "Oh no, not all the time, no." Ah.

6) "You're able to turn boring, everyday things into something I want to hear about and read about." Oh dear, but there's a fair bit in my blog that I don't want you to read or hear or know about just yet. The farting themes alone are a bit too 'out there' for you and.... "No but when you said how you ran up to the stage to get the actor to stop kissing your Mum in the play I laughed a lot. You do swear a bit though and didn't Grandpa tell you - and you tell me all the time now too - that using rude words just means you don't have any imagination to think of anything more clever to say?" Er, yes. So now I'm not sure if this quality now qualifies me as 'awesome' or just rude and lazy.

7) "You're very Motherly."

This one warranted a fair bit of further discussion, revamping and clarification about all the times I've embarassed her by talking to the high school kids on the way to her school in the morning and picking up papers on our way back home and her criticism of my sartorial selections and rushing over to pat any dog that walks within a 200 metre radius of us but this next line she said absolutely word for word: "You do all the things that good mums have to do, but you're like my best friend because you do also things that you want to do for me and we have a lot of fun."

Oh bugger it; I didn't think this Awesome shindig was supposed to leave me in tears....!

2009-06-15T22:00:00.006+10:00

Litter Ninja

I have become something that all reasonable sane and aspiring-to-be-cool teenagers everywhere dread and despise - no, not a social studies teacher, a public litter collecter. Or is it picker-upperer? Socially-aware Scavenger? Trash Tracker?

.....Loser? Well, I prefer the term 'Litter Ninja'. Whatever the title, my mother is proud that her genes actually have started to make themselves known in my own mix of cells and synapses as she's been a regular power-walking litter-picking mini-skip at the picnic reserve near her house for many years.

Mum's habit finally awoke in me after too long trying to resolutely ignore the rubbish everywhere I went, saying 'I didn't do it, so I'm not taking care of it,' and pretending that the pathway leading into the kiddie's playground was lined with barkchips instead of cigarette butts and the twinkles in the hedges were fairy lights and not the ring-top pulls from beer cans.

Every single home we've owned - even after moving cities four different times - have always found us within walking distance of a McDonalds. Under-utilised Physics undergrads could be invited to determine the factors that influence the distance from a take-away establishment and the time taken to eat the food whilst walking drunkenly home and dumping the bag, wrappers and soft drink bucket-with-lid directly in front of our gate.

In Adelaide we only had the local Maccas to deal with but being sandwiched here in Melbourne with Red Rooster and Pizza Hut on Mt Alexander Road and Subway, KFC and the Golden Arches on Racecourse Road, our little street resembles the inner-city equivalent of a waving field of Edelweiss if cruelly replaced by half-squished sauce packets, straws and paper napkins. Throw in at least two kidnapped trolleys from Safeway, abandoned sofa cushions wet by rain and beer cans dumped by late night punters walking back to the drying out centre and you'll get some idea of the lovely urban ambience we've been enjoying in our little corner of the world.

It was high time to take a stand, be a member of my community and take some pride in my surroundings. Unlike my mother, my de-littering occurs under the cover of darkness (oh OK close to tea time because it's dark by 6pm) or on the weekends when the school yard is deserted.

Sometimes Sapphire - who at ten is beyond her teens in terms of insight but is still mostly willing to hang around with her mum - will accompany me, but usually it's just Milly the dog; in mad passionate love with anyone holding her lead and saying 'Wanna go for a walk?'

Cold Sunday afternoons/evenings just before tea sees Sapph zooming around the bitumen triangle on her scooter or trying her hardest to throw an adult-sized basketball through the adult-sized basket at our local high school. Milly gleefully trots around sniffing the bushes, finding ancient sandwiches wedged into the gaps of the plank seats or rolling in the sticky patches left from crushed Red Bull cans lingering only two metres away from empty rubbish bins.

Another father arrives with his young sons and he throws a basketball to them and involves Sapphire in their game. The 'dong-dong-dong' sound of duelling basketballs reassures me that she's happy and I can continue my embarassing quest for cleanliness.

I'm a pitiable sight - bent over like an old crone with a plastic shopping bag in one hand and an old pair of BBQ tongs in the other with my snot green eyes focussed solely on the ground, quadrangle, indigenous garden and canteen queue-space for anything like chewie wrappers, fruit boxes, clear plastic straw covers, egg sandwiches, styrofoam coffee cups, coke bottles, chip bags and meusli bars half-eaten and rejected for Mars Bars.....

....and sneakily-squashed cigarette butts, broken lighters, socks, ripped-up assignments, Chinese take-away containers, alfoil balls, clingwrap strands, shoelaces, condom wrappers* and mandarin peels.

An hour later, my work is done. During that time, a group of bored teens walk past, with one who looks like a chubby Zac Efron calling out, "Hey you missed a can over there," as the others snigger; Milly takes offence at the friendly overtures made by a Spaniel puppy ("Sorry about that, she loves people but considers her fellow species as slobbering evil incarnate"); get hit in the back of the scone by one of Sapphire's stray basketball shots and, for some reason, a bloke in a commodore yells out, "GET A JOB" as he's idling at the Mt Alexander Road traffic lights.

As I clip Milly's lead back on and signal to Sapph that it's time to leave, the father smiles and says, "It's a nice thing you're doing."

My back cracks as I stand up and accept the compliment gratefully. "Thanks. Well, it's our neighbourhood and it's going to be the high school that our kids will end up at isn't it?"

"Oh no," he shoots back instantly, pursing his lips in distaste. "No way." He turns his back towards his children and their game again, instantly dismissing me. I guess they'll have paid ground staff to do this kind of dirty work at the college he'll be sending his kids to.

* I suspect that even in these groovy times, most teens use condoms to inflate like obscene party balloons at school than the slightly-more-fun and adult purpose they were originally intended for.

2009-06-12T16:21:00.006+10:00

Fanning the flames

It would be safe to say that for most successful relationships and marriages, your beloved partner gets to see you at your absolute worst, yet still stays around and puts up with it. Right?

Is it any wonder then that Hollywood marriages only last the standard time that intrigue and passion does - about twelve months. Is it then that these overly-cossetted celebrities realise that the daily indignities of morning breath, smelly shoes and farting is not at all acceptable within their unrealistically sanitised concept of long-lasting love?

Even a mathematical numbnut like me could figure out that the average length of a stars' marriage is miniscule compared to ours in the real world. My own relationship is going on for sixteen years, thirteen of 'em married. Whilst Love Chunks and I are proud of this achievement, we also accept that there is very little of the intrigue and romance of our first twelve months together. But would we have it any other way?

My foggy brain thinks back to my dating days: when we thought River Phoenix was a drug-free vegan, Seinfeld was new and those crazy Branch Davidians were a bit over-zealous with their pop guns. The pre-date preparation always involved a shower, cleanly shaven legs, nice perfume, a hint of make-up and a new outfit.

And today? LC leaves for work by 7am and sees me in my once-white towelling robe, ugg boots, matted hair, dragon breath and a face not yet unfolded from the shape of the pillow. He's still willing to kiss me goodbye and is even kind enough to say "See you tonight."

Alas for him, in the first fourteen years of our together, my effort was mostly shovelled into enhancing the work persona long after he had departed for work - styled hair, subtle mascara and lipstick, snappy suit and the latest boots. When I got home, that gear was immediately thrown aside and replaced with tracksuit pants, the ubiquitous ugg boots and a shapeless windcheater that was able to hide the bralessness. Now that I'm a work-from-homer who drives a desk in the spare room, this is get up is my work uniform all the time and is what the lucky LC comes home to every night.

Bedtime in the heady first days? Too x-rated, fun and exuberant to mention with no concerns for the lateness of the hour, comparing our states of exhaustion or having to keep an ear out for the baby.

Today it seems as though I'm doing everything I possibly can to appear as unattractive and as 'nocturnally unavailable' as possible, but not intentionally so. After cleaning and flossing the teeth, locking all doors and switching off the lights, I drag my now aching body into the Marital Magic room. LC's already in bed, reading. I hang up the dressing gown, kick off the uggs and slather lavender cream over my cracked hands (soaking stained school uniforms in napisan will do that to you) whilst my wheat bag is being nuked in the microwave. This hot bag now smells like an over-used horse trough and is draped around my neck which seems to be permanently cricked.

I give my snozz one last full-throttled HONK into a tissue and spray two squirts of Rhinocort up each nostril. I then pop in a valerian tablet to help me sleep and slip on my mouthguard. This infernal contraption makes me lisp, so dear old LC is treated to a slurpy "Goodnight Ssshweetie, Sssshleep well," as he turns out the light.

To be fair, there is a bit of surreptitious fumbling in the darkness: I can't find my bedsocks and it's freezing in here!

But wait - there's more. Even in our unconscious states, we 'treat' each other to aspects of our physical selves that don't exactly leave us smelling of roses. Dutch ovens, for a start. I can't help it - if that's what my digestive plumbing needs to do, then so be it.

Love Chunks gets his own back via his snoring; so sonorous our blinds rattle. Many's the time I've lain there in sheer wonder at the incredible noises his throat makes and him such a quiet person during the day....

If our marriage was a movie, we'd wake up attractively entwined in each other's arms - his manly torso on display, my chest discreetly hidden under the sheets. We'd gaze adoringly into each other's eyes, kiss passionately and get right down to business. Yeah right: how could you contemplate doing any of that before going to the toilet or rinsing out your mouth for gods' sake? What about those cornflakey boogers that have formed around your eyes? The dried white drool marks on your chin?

At least the morning shower gives me a chance to clean up, wake up and tidy up. Not that any of this is a mystery to LC. In our one-bathroom house, he's busy cleaning his teeth and scraping away his whiskers whilst I'm surreptitiously trying to blow my nose in the shower and shave my armpits.

Then our darling daughter bursts in, has a giggle at my soapy backside and pokes me with the ornamental back scrubber: "Hey Mum, remember you said I could order my lunch from the canteen today!"

In the movie High Fidelity, the Rob character (played by the gorgeous John Cusack) bemoans that his live-in girlfriend only wears sensible underwear and not the sexy, lacy stuff he'd see when they were just dating. LC laughed at that scene, commenting, "I should be so lucky." On fat days or full-laundry basket days, the old maternity knickers get dragged out - purely to flatten the tummy, mind. The dag in me likes to put on my socks before my trousers, so LC's had many conversations with me only clad in nanna pants and those knee-high tights that make the tops of my legs look like a mini mushroom cloud. Yet still he says, "See you tonight."

He's been kind and helpful to me too, at times when I've been less than my best. "Pssst - you've got one of those dangly boogies in your nose," as I gratefully fumble around for the cafe's napkin to wipe it away. Or, less quietly, in a fluorescent-lit chemist, "Hey, here's the thrush cream you want!" He's emptied my sick buckets during migraines and tactfully told me that "Um, there's a couple of friends that you haven't flushed properly."

What mystery? We have NO mystery in our marriage, and it goes both ways. I've politely pointed out that his nose hairs were long enough to hang beads on; have plucked out some scary Robert Menzies-like long eyebrow hairs (you do not want to have eyebrows that will join up with your fringe); and nearly fallen to the ground in airless agony after visiting the loo too soon after he's been. Yet I too, say, "Yes, I'll see you tonight. Have a great day at work!"

He's the first person I clap eyes on in the morning, and he's the last person I touch, kiss, talk to and see at night. I wouldn't want it any other way. Although he could lose those pongy old slippers of his......

2009-06-10T16:46:00.002+10:00

Cake-hole Chaos

We've all had 'Dyslexia Days' where whatever we type comes out lal worgn and causes a tol of imstsakes or had embarrassing bouts of 'Erroneous Eyes' when you'll see one person but be thinking of someone else and greet them with, "Hi Tracey - sorry, I meant Neil, honestly I did, but y'see I was just talking to Tracey on the phone and ..."

......Haven't we?

But have you ever had a Mangled Mouth Day?

No? You're probably shaking your head and wondering, 'Kath's a bit odd at the best of times, but this time I have absolutely no idea what she's on about and am going straight to Cute Overload to clear my mind right now.' If so, let me tell you about my morning so far.

I think my lips have gone on strike. No, before my husband Love Chunks interjects and says, "YOU - SILENT? That'll be the day," a bit more explanation is required. By going on strike I mean my actual lips seem to have forgotten how to drink things properly.

Several times this morning whilst expecting - as per every other morning of my lengthy adult life - to absent-mindedly slurp my coffee and remain dry, the exact opposite has happened. Like a root-canal victim still under the influence of dentist chair anaesthesia, the hot brown liquid splashed all over my top like a shower head. And not just once.

Later on, I decided to treat myself to a glorious chunk of almond nougat. It goes down a treat for morning tea when my sugar levels are merely at Diabetes Level 2 Lose-a-Limb stage and not at the Optimum Working Conditions for Kath Lockett range. Chewing away happily, I sang along to the iPod - "I am Milk, I am red hot kitchen; I am cool, Cool as the deep blue ocean" until twinkle time. As I washed my hands, I did my (sadly) usually jokey muscle flex at the mirror, only to discover with horror that partially-masticated almonds and white nougar had inserted their ugly selves into every single gap in my teeth.

Oh Jeez, no wonder the parcel guy was leaning so far away from me as I signed his receipt pad and Stuart next door now thinks that not only am I a terrible singer but also enjoy rinsing my my dentures in oatmeal.

No matter, a quick do-over with the floss and I was sparkly white and socially acceptable again. Now, where was the rest of that nougat.....

Did I tell you that it was rolled in a generous sedimentary layer of Bolivian cocoa? And that when I popped out to the shop to get some milk and had what I thought was an engaging chat to Narelle I got home to discover that the dust had settled on my upper lip, making me look like an Albino Mexican bandit in dire need of electrolysis? ~*Sigh*~

Clearly it was time to stay inside and away from innocent civilians. Besides, I'd discovered an ulcer in my cheek, and whilst tapping away on the laptop I had another touchy-feely festival going on inside my head as my tongue continually flicked at and worried the ulcer. Why oh why couldn't I just leave it alone?

Actually, I did, because it was then I noticed that my tongue had one of those annoying little pimples on the end. I then wasted a fair bit more time, effort and imagination by trying to bite the little bugger off by wedging it between my top and bottom front teeth. This was not successful and just succeeded it making it swell up and hurt a bit more. Now it's impossssssible to ssssssay anything with the letter Ssssss in it without ssssssound like SSsssssir Hisssss from Robin Hood. And it hurts too.

Then the blister on the roof of my mouth started to sting and throb and reminded me of the dangers of inhaling hot coffee straight from the kettle instead of being patient and waiting for it to cool, as I neglected to do so earlier in the day. The crinkly, wet skin that remained protested painfully as my pestering pimple tongue started to explore it.

And thus, here you find me, suffering from a Mangled Mouth day. Stuff It: I'm off to create total mayhem by cleaning my teeth with ultra strong mint and then glug down a glass of unsweetened orange juice..... Living on the edge baby, the Edge!

2009-06-08T19:54:00.005+10:00

Lizzie's Long Weekend

Despite a Pommy monarch literally living half a world away who actually had her real birthday in April and most of us wanting a Republic, we Aussies are still never going to knock back a day off.

Our three days were spent doing activities that avoided the rain but still:

Allowed us to clean up the litter in our street, respond to some lip given by loitering teenagers (yes, to one boy - at least I think it was a boy - I actually curled my lip and said, "Pull UP your pants, fool") and give Milly the dog some nice walkies at the same time ("That's right sweetie, you can chase those friendly kids away, that's right....")
Taught us that Footscray Markets are to avoided at all costs if such issues as the odouriferous fug of fermenting fruit, pre-WW2 prawn heads, overly-elastic hygiene guidelines and the beauty of decaying Soviet-era concrete design are of concern
Showed that home-made pasta is fiddly and time-consuming but very delicious. Especially if done by Love Chunks and Sapphire whilst I am reading the paper and patting the rabbit.
Proved to me that blowing on cooked and freshly served food is essential before greedily inhaling. Hot caramel sauce studded with chunks of banana with lava-like tendencies will steadfastly stick to the roof of my mouth and create a painful blister that protests against any food hotter than refrigerated chocolate for days afterwards if I don't blow.
Allowed us to witness the Crows defeat Essendon in Melbourne. One Bombers bloke in a newsboy's cap saw my wild clapping further along his row and, in frustration, he yelled something about my having a 'Far Cough'. I feigned indifference and added to the maturity level of our shouted discussion by poking my tongue out and showing him my grandmother's gold ring on my middle finger. Sapphire was shocked, LC resigned.

However, in amongst our various activities, I was subtlely trying to get a photo of the three of us together; looking casual: an informal portrait, having fun, just being a contented family enjoying each others' company. I'd noticed that our photos tend to feature only one or two of us in them and a Lockett Triple was becoming rarer than a happy marriage in Hollywood.

I had been asked to submit a good quality, high-res picture for a magazine article I'd been interviewed for, but trying to take a photo in the evenings when we were all together meant that the flash and automatic timer thingy made me look whiter than usual, LC more tired and Sapphire more recalcitrant.

In addition, like the badly-timed and later-regretted re-telling of jokes at dinner parties, we three tend to be folk who are best viewed 'live', as in "You had to be there." The camera doesn't seem to flatter us much, let alone cast us in an optimistic light.

No, I'm not being overly harsh. These photos below were taken at the footy by a kind bloke who sat directly in front of me and even offered his M magazine (containing the essential TV guide for the week) to help me mop up the Diet Coke that I'd dropped and then opened only to have it fizz directly down the neck of his parka. They clearly illustrate how difficult it is to get the three of us photogenically acceptable:

I tend to resemble an elderly potato, Love Chunks is obviously sitting on something excruciating (or just did something excruciating) and Sapphire is at that oh-so-helpful 'let's make a funny face' stage. *Sigh*

I didn't feel like asking my soggy Diet Coke victim to take a seventh picture, especially when his three mates were standing impatiently nearby rocking on their heels kicking at crumpled beer tumblers and muttering, "Come on Trevor, this is our last bloody night before we fly back to Adelaide and our wives."

But how was I going to obtain a recent family portrait that exemplified the ideals of work/life balance and not the less attractive ideals of facial tics, self-abuse, uncomfortable stadium seating, disrespect and too much sugar?

Perhaps the Star Wars exhibit at Scienceworks would help?

Hmmm. At least posing with a gender-reassigned Senator Palpatine and Luke 'This is my Warwick Capper hair' Skywalker made me feel a bit better about myself. There was a Princess Leia in her Planet Hoth (the icy place) outfit that made me wonder if she'd enjoyed too many hot toddies at the rebel base, an Obi Wan Kenobi who was channelling Marlon Brando rather than Sir Alec Guinness and the less said about Darth Vader and Leia as the bikini-clad slave the better...

A smaller and slimmer Darth was found in the gift shop, slumped forlornly against the wall. After an hour of queing to get into the musuem followed by another half hour queue at the cafe for lunch before the final half hour queue to get into the Star Wars exhibition, he was feeling as tired and emotional as I was.

So the fabulous family foto will just have to wait for another day. A day of soft lighting, forgiving camera work, a malleable child and comfortable husband, a tan for me and a graduation course in Photoshop and Picasa. Cross your fingers and hope that the force will one day be with us.

2009-06-06T17:13:00.009+10:00

Shifty Swifty

Our neighbourhood frequently sees a blonde old bag seemingly permanently ensconced in polarfleece accompanied by a smiling orange dog walking at a fairly slow pace as she (the dog, not the old bag) sniffs at every drive way they pass. However, that's merely a very clever disguise.

Some of you might remember the latest local mystery that Milly and myself are in the process of uncovering for your edification:

Just why is this car painted this way and who or what is 'Swifty' and 'The Operatives'?

As luck would have it, the other day Milly and I were walking past the cutest Post Office in the world, see:

....and Swifty the car was there, with a real human bloke inside!

Casting aside all fears of being considered insane, nosey or as potential rape-and-pillage opportunity, I rapped at the passenger's window and got Swifty's attention.

Swifty is indeed in reference to the car, a Suzuki Swift, which was painted last year by a visiting international graffiti artist rapper, beat-boxer, home dawg, free-stylin', rumble-in-da-jungle, keepin' it real chap. I think. The owner of the car, Jerry, runs a business called 'The Operatives' who - according to the postcard he gave me, combined themselves with Funktion to run an event called 'Recloose', featuring Dexter, Dizz, Curse the Machines, Kano, Dan Motive and JPS. Held down in Brown Alley, unless that's a euphemism.

All clear now?

Since then, young Jerry has been busy setting up other kinds of events, most notably once featuring Shamik the Human Beatbox from Vancouver. No, that's not a form of torture involving cardboard and moose horns, or I don't think so anyway. I'm sure your Nanna's heard of him.

Like Karen Carpenter, Shamik "hears music in his head" and uses beatboxing (well, Karen played the drums, didn't she) to bring it to life.

"He has performed in Canada, USA, Czech Republic, India, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Philippines. With crushing basslines and crisp rhythms, Shamik has captivated audiences from nightclubs to outdoor festivals by creating a DJ set with his mouth. After performing alongside artists like Q-Bert, Bassnectar, Method Man & Redman, Skream, Thievery Corporation, Z-Trip, Freq Nasty, Killa Kela, Tanya Tagaq, Sub Swara, and The Glitch Mob, he continues to spread the artform of his vocal percussion."

Okaaaaay, I feel about a million years old now and am dying for a cup of tea and a fast opening Jason recliner. But look, there are local people featuring on the bill as well, so maybe I'll run into some of them at Safeway on my Friday morning grocery grab:

Simon Wrinkler - I wonder if he's works part time at the dry cleaner's on Pin Oak Crescent?

Inkswel - Tattoo artist, Dandy or Stationer?

Rambl - Allergic to 'e' or an ex-student of the studiously ignored Debney Park high school?

Dan Motive - Thank goodness his mother didn't call him 'Ulterior' or 'Obvious'

Ms Butt - celebrating her best asset presumably, unless she's the jollier-sized one of the two young girls who fry up the bacon and egg rolls at the cafe next to the tattslotto shop?

As it says, it's "Music for and from our generation!!! Upfront, Upclose and personal...."

But a tad too late for me. Bless them for trying, but Shamik isn't on until 2:30am when I'm already three hours into (hopefully) a good REM snooze session.

Nevertheless, for your sakes dear reader, Milly and I will keep on doggedly trying to catch Jerry again for more information even though he's clearly a Man of the Night and I'm a Moron of the Morning.

2009-06-04T11:37:00.015+10:00

Broken Toe

Last week I'd just enjoyed a nice long run, had cooled down, let Milly lick a bit of sweat from my ankles and was ready for a refreshing shower.

Ours being a small house with a tacked-on bathroom the shower and bathtub is a one-and-the-same space-saving affair. I leaned over the tub to switch on the hot tap and then, like the Hokey Pokey suggests, put my left foot in.

Unlike the Hokey Pokey, I didn't take it out again but left it there and as the water became warm enough for me to want to step into it instead of squealing and shrinking back up against the far wall with the towel rail digging into my arse, I absent-mindedly flicked my right foot in.

Or thought I did. Instead, the fast flicking motion and my distance-defining dyslexia meant that --- CRACK --- my toes forcefully smacked themselves against the edge of the solid ceramic edge of the bath.

I was in a painful quandary: did I sink to the bottom of the tub in the foetal position to fully immerse myself in the spiralling maelstrom of twingeing agony, or blindly stagger to my feet in order to turn off the hot tap which was now sending scalding jets of water down my spine and into my butt cleavage? Neither option was attractive and both involved a fair bit of swearing, crying, yelping and moaning.

My middle toe had turned an angry maroon colour and whatever pulse I had left was concentrated within that dented digit as it spasmically throbbed in a monotonous but regular heartbeat of pain. Letting the shampoo run into my already teary eyes, I gingerly bent down to touch the toe - PHARCK! It looked wonky; as though it was leaning on a lamp post; the lamp post being the second toe.

I - yes, me, the woman who cries during Master Chef eliminations and likes to watch Sparrows pick at discarded lunches in shopping malls - actually yanked at it to straighten it. It crackled and crunched like a cocoa-pop-lined gravel driveway under a moving car and hurt like jammed jackhammer might if it landed on your toe and worked its malevolent magic for mincement and misery.

But I did it. Somewhere in that hellishly horrific self-inflicted torture I remembered that medicos don't do anything to broken toes but tape them, so I turned off the water, stepped over the edge of the tub like a foppish flamingo playing hopscotch in ultra slow motion and taped it up.

Oooo Oooo Owww! But it was done. And, to be honest, was a nice excuse to have to wear ugg boots all day instead of sneakers or leather shoes.**

And as I settled in front of my laptop attempting to write a scintillating article on how to achieve

work/life balance during a recession and my toe felt as though it was imprisoned inside a TicTac container, my mind started wandering away from the task at hand towards something far more urgent, more intimate, more compelling.

Being Injured Whilst Completely Naked. How grateful I was in this instance to have been able to treat myself and not have to call for help!

Who amongst us hasn't occasionally imagined some of the more humiliating ways that we fervently hope we won't find ourselves in, desperately requiring assistance? My mate Jill and I have said in the past that even if we slipped on the wet bathroom tiles, snapped both hips into smithereens, smashed our foreheads on the vanity unit and had our eyes unpleasantly poked out by the taps there would be no way we'd call - much less whimper - for help until we'd covered our rude bits up.

It's true. Would you really want to find yourself spread eagled and nude yelling out for your house mate, nanna or parcel delivery guy to come in and give you a hand? When all you meant to do was reach for a towel but somehow misjudged and ended up paralysed from the waist down as you slid into an ironically perfect demonstration of the splits; albeit on beige tiles lightly sprinkled with dust bunnies and stray pubes?

I thought not.

** That's right, reader dear. Even though I write at home, I've been making an effort to always wear some kind of outdoorsy, socially acceptable shoe. Sure I'm overly fond of elasticated tracksuit pants and polar fleece, but wearing slippers or Crocs all day is just giving up altogether.

2009-06-02T07:00:00.002+10:00

The Pitch

Growing up in country South Australia meant that sport was everything.

In a small town, if you didn't play, coach or watch sport the only social life to look forward to was the interminable Sunday sermon and the homemade scones topped with butter and grated cheese afterwards. Or worse: having to help in the in the sportsclub's canteen serving tepid meat pies, slices of fruit cake and washing dozens of tea cups.

My father loved pretty much every sport every invented and fitted into country life with ease. Cricket was his most favourite and he recalled trying his utmost as a child to whack the balls over several house blocks so that he could make up an excuse to peer into Don Bradman's garden and catch him in there ("Hello there young man. What a brilliant cover drive you displayed. Please let me be your personal coach!").

Frank the doctor was Dad's best mate (and cricket team mate) and helped my mother give birth to two out of three of us children. When I arrived a week overdue in November, before doing the usual checks he looked at my long, ET-like fingers and said to her, "Oh, this one can field in the slips."

One of my earliest (and perhaps strangest) memories is of him returning home after spending all Saturday afternoon on a 43C day fielding out on the oval at Mypolonga. It was about 1972 and the only sun protection was his wide-brimmed hat. The rest of him not covered by cricket whites had been mercilessly sun-fried blood red. He slumped on a chair in the kitchen, unable to form a coherent syllable let alone a greeting.

Dad and Mum were never the most physically demonstrative couple, instead tending to give each other a quick peck hello or goodbye over the cacophony of three wrestling children, but this time Mum came over to his side, full of love and concern and, most importantly, non-judgmental silence. She handed him a glass of iced coffee with a generous blob of vanilla icecream and ice cubes bobbing in it and bent down to gently untie and remove his spiked shoes.

How long he sat there I don't know, but the evidence was clear: too much cricket was barely enough.

The passion for cricket was also beating strongly in my older brother Robert who pock-marked our corrugated iron water tank with six-and-outs and was always found outside practising his fast bowl technique or begging us to have a game. "Come on - I'll bowl underarm to you and I'll use a tennis ball if you like!"

And thus it came to pass that our half acre block was ready for our own cricket pitch.

In addition to cricket, Dad loved a handyman project and in the spring of '77 it was all systems go preparing the backyard pitch. He even welded a rather sturdy set of wickets which made a deliciously satisfying 'B-o-n-g' sound if you bowled someone out and the side nets saved the orange and nectarine trees from getting an almighty hammering.

Dad willingly played batsman to Robert's thousands of bowls and patiently bowled over after over to improve Robert's batting skills as well as continue to play cricket himself, see Robert's team play and coach another side for the high school. As I sat inside my room listening to ABBA records, reading Gnid Blyton* books and sneaking Sox the cat under my bed when Mum wasn't watching, it was always punctuated with the background 'Thock!' of cracking cricket balls.

One fateful afternoon the inevitable happened. SMASH went Robert and David's bedroom window. I ran outside, dying for some drama especially when it had nothing to do with my own good self getting into trouble. Little brother David had already scarpered over to Cowham's back garden and disappeared up their walnut tree. We knew this because of the nervous sobbing emanating from the upper branches.

Being aged seven to Robert's eleven had many disadvantages, not all of them physical. Despite Robert being the one who had hit the ball into the window, he'd successfully convinced David that it was his fault for the breakage because of the way he bowled the ball.

The poor little bugger refused to come home until Dad assured him - via a whispered conversation through the brush fence - that it was okay, he wasn't in trouble and that he could help Dad make some metal grille guards for the bedroom windows.

After that, his passion for the game wasn't as compelling as Dad or Robert's and he even misspelled 'GERG CHAPEL' in the fog of the car window and was reminded of his folly forever afterwards.

For the remaining twenty years my parents owned that house, they'd invariably be asked the same question by new visitors: "Do you get lots of burglaries here?"
"Nope, just cricket balls."

* Oh come on - we all thought it was 'Gnid' instead of Enid Blyton because of that stylised signature the marketers shoved on every one of her books!

2009-06-01T08:05:00.003+10:00

I'm KNIHLing my laptop

That's a silent 'n' in the blog header, by the way. I've had my laptop for four years now and I've worn away the K, N, I, H and L keys. Sure, they're holding together with a combination of dropped chocolate shavings, crystallised coffee sploshes and stray eyelashes but my touch-typing 'skills' mean that I know where to find them even if my eyes don't.

I'm sure it's because I frequently type out:

Kaleidoscopically kleptomaniacal kidnappings of Kalashnikovs kicked in the kidneys

Naming the nadir of suffering a Neuroendocrinological necrosis

Illustrating the Inconceivably, indefatigably, inexplicably incomprehensible incidents in irrelevancies

Handling the hegemony of horrifically hypersensitive Humanitarians

Lamenting the lackadaisical Legislative liabilities

...or is it because I frequently tap out the words

K ath, knowledgable, knit-wit, kid, knave, knickers, knuckle, knock out, Kama Sutra, Kamikaze, knockers.

N No, Never-Saying-No, nonsense, nude, nobheads, nerdish, noteworthy, normal, numb

I Inspirational, itchy, irritable, ink, ill, industrious, intelligent, idiosyncratic, inimitable

H ell, Haigh's, hog, high-school, hot-head, hopeful, hatred, heartache, humungous

L Lockett, Love, Love Chunks, lurk, laugh, like, learn, look, lick

.... instead?

And try as I might, I can not think of a word that uses all five letters... Can you?

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2009-05-30T17:52:00.004+10:00

Firsts

Meme time and this one's been made up by yours truly. A list of Firsts. Calm down, I won't nominate any blogger personally; anyone can do this if they like, but if you do, can you please be kind enough to let me know you're doing so via the comments field and then put a link to your site?

First Job - babysitter, at the ripe old age of fourteen, to two boys aged seven and five. I shudder to think what a fourteen year old would have been able to cope with during an emergency situation, but in 1982 this one was able to hold her own playing Donkey Kong, Galaxian and Pong and still get them to bed before Dynasty started.

First 'real' job as an adult - a 'Graduate Trainee' at the ANZ bank in 1989. Twenty two thousand dollars a year to be an assistant bank manager during the time when interest rates hit 17.5%. Was bored and miserable and wondered just how my English and Roman Art & Archaeology subject choices had managed to convince their HR heads that I'd be a success in the role.

First love - MH from primary school, aged five. No boy picked their nose and wiped the slimy contents on the lino floor of the all-purpose room quite like he did. Why that impressed me, I still can't quite understand - or want to delve too deeply into - to this day.

First TV show - 'Here's Humphrey'. He narrowly beat out the other Aussie-made show 'Fat Cat & Friends' because Patsy-bloody-Biscoe always had to whip out her guitar and annoy us with a song and Fat Cat looked creepy instead of cuddly. I did have a hearty laugh last Christmas when, out in the kitchen making a cup of tea with Mum, I heard whoever it was hosting the 2008 Carols by Candlelight that "Coming up next is Humphrey B Bear!" Mr B Bear is a mute with three fingers on each hand who never wears pants. What the hell was he going to do to entertain the punters squashed on picnic blankets?

First Actor Crush - Greg Rowe, lead star of the movie 'Storm Boy'. I even pestered my parents long enough to for them to give in and take us to see Mr Percival the pelican at Marineland. It was there that my father crushed my fantasy balloon by pointing out that it could have been any damn pelican shoved in front of a wonky hand-painted sign ready to pose for paid photographs.

First Actress Crush - Lyndsey Wagner as The Bionic Woman. She was a beautiful school teacher with jazzy taste in clothes, the ability to hear the beat of a butterfly's wings in a nuclear shelter nine miles away and could do something cool with her leg but I forget what. Or maybe it wasn't G-rated and my parents didn't want to explain it to me.

First book - 'Go Do Go' by PD Eastman is the first one I remember reading over and over again to myself. I loved looking at the dog party scene at the end of the book, but these days I identify more closely with the sole dog in the crowded bed with its eyes open, sleepless and alone in its suffering.

First record - 'The Best of ABBA' in 1975. Lovingly played on the radiogram and danced to in the pool room on orange shag carpet many, many times. After looking at the cover so many times I noticed that Agnetha wasn't wearing any shoes - her bare toes were peeking out underneath her long tablecloth dress.

First cassette tape - 'Complete Madness' in 1982. Played on my mono-cassette and radio thingy as I rolled over the waistband of my tartan school skirt to make it look shorter and decided that wearing pink plastic Australia-shaped earrings was the height of coolness.

First CD - ABBA's entire output, all purchased in one go in 1989 when I spent my 21st money on a stonkingly huge black stereo system with a five band 'graphic equaliser'', turntable, CD player and double-tape deck. Oooohhhh.....

First purchased iPod song - Plastic Bertrands 'Ca plane por moi'. I always liked it and wonder where he is now. A translator for United Nations perhaps? ("I am the king of the divan! Ooooo-eeeeee Eeeee-ewwww")

First car - 1971 Renault 16TS bought for $1600 in 1989. Poo brown in colour meant that it was referred to as the 'Flying Turd' and very easy to find in car parks. Couldn't go faster than 80km per hour which is probably why Dad so strenously encouraged me to buy it. Home to a various scary assortment of Huntsmen spiders who liked to make their acquaintance when I'd lower the sun visor and have them almost stretched across my face.....

First sport played - tennis. Started learning at age eleven but came home after the first lesson telling everyone that I didn't need to go to any more lessons because I knew it all. Dad reckons sat ever-so-haughtily at the tea table and announced, "I've already learned my backhead, my forehead and my swerve."

First concert - Dire Straits, Footy Park, Feb 1986. Most of it was spent in silent agony whilst having to stand up for three hours with a full bladder bitterly regretting the 600ml of warm iced coffee I'd slugged down beforehand and enduring the crotch of some strange man grinding into my back as the crowd kept surging forward closer to the stage.

......Or was it seeing my mother in the lead role in the musical 'ShowBoat'? She was about to kiss the leading man, and I broke free from sitting on Dad's lap in row three and ran up to the stage yelling out DON'T YOU DO THAT TO MY MUM! Dad hurriedly scooped me up and escorted me home to bed, relieved to have left the performance not due being embarrassed by his child's behaviour but due to his severe loathing of musicals in any form.

First overseas country visited - Scotland, 1981. Dad got a job as a teacher in Aberdeen and the teacher he replaced took Dad's job in South Australia for a year, swapping houses as well. I couldn't understand a word the kids were saying to me for the first couple of weeks, and dreaded having to say any answer with the number 'eight' in it due to having the class cack themselves with laughter at my Skippy accent.

First encounter with a famous person - 'World Safari' adventurer and cornball doco-maker of the 1970s, Alby Mangels, was a Murray Bridge boy was rumoured to be attending the high school fete day in a helicopter, throwing out twenty dollar notes. TWENTY DOLLAR notes! Huge crowds attended, only to find that twenty ONE dollar notes were rather unenthusiastically scattered about in a Mangels-less oval. Dad tried to console me by saying that Alby as a student was dumber than a hatful of crackers.

Years later we saw Robert Morley in London (wearing a bowler hat) in 1981 and I served Fergie and Nick Faldo a drink at a Cartier event when I worked at the Savoy Hotel in 1991. It was one Bolly for the customers, and one for the staff *hic*....

First brush with death - well, maybe not death, but certainly rape. I was dumb and naive enough to sit in the front with a minicab driver in London, 1991, on my way to a job interview. He pulled over in the dark, said that he couldn't find the address in his A-Z and reached over to grab at my.... Years of wrestling with brothers gave me better reflexes than expected because somehow my clenched fist angrily smacked him right on the nose. He clutched at his face and I leapt out of my seat and got the hell out of there, running around the corner. I asked a passerby where Kingsgate Avenue was and was told it was in the next street. I walked in, did the interview and got offered the job. Hopefully there's a driver out there with a nose like a busted sandshoe and a pathological fear of female Australian backpackers.

First house owned - Heidelberg Heights, 1996. Just off bustling Bell Street and within earshot of drunken bogans and/or police helicopters giving chase to miscreants making their escape after burglarising Heidelberg West houses. It cost us $103,000 (ooooh, over one hundred thousand!) with spongy floorboards, chandeleirs, different patterned wallpaper in every room and brown carpet in the kitchen (yes, the kitchen) that was so stained that the dog used to lie on the floor and lick at it whenever she was bored or hungry.

First radio station listened to - 5MU. Adelaide stations were just too crackly. The sr-e-e-e-e-etch of the screen door opening and banging shut on Saturday nights as sports captains popped into the studio to hand over their tennis and cricket scores to be called out was distinctly audible and the homemade jingles were hilariously bad. They had phone requests on week nights, and I always got on first call. First song requested? (blush) 'Harden my heart' by Quarterflash. My defence is that thirteen is the worst age for taste, maturity or common sense.

First kiss - Ian Penn. 1978, at the oh-so-romantic location that was the South Primary School's incinerator. He'd clearly done it before (many times, apparently) but it was a first for me and I ran out of there afterwards like a roadrunner on acid. It was several more years before I tried it again, and not with young Mr Penn.

First shag - Nope. Can't go there. Just. can't. How anyone can write a sex scene - let alone reveal their own participation in one - befuddles me. I'd die blushing, slumped over my keyboard.

First heartache - Brenton W. We dated for three months when I was twenty and he a hugely mature twenty five. He dumped me just before heading overseas for 2 months, so the thought of my charms not being sufficient enough to keep him 'nice' during that time was, on reflection, probably more galling than no longer enjoying his company. It hurt like hell at the time though and I cried many tears over it. Bastard.

First hospital stay (apart from being born or having a baby) - sinus operation in 2004. There were polyps inside my nostrils that were snotty versions of stalagtites and thus made any cold or sniffle headed my way automatically mutate into a hellish episode of fluoro green phlegm, throbbing nasal cavities and a honking nose blow that frightening sleeping dogs and small children. Any bruising or swelling was a small price to pay for being able to lift my head up without any grunting effort and smell things again.

First disappointment - Sunday school, 1974. The teacher told us that if we prayed to God, he'd give us what we asked for. I went to bed that night, thinking hard. God was a busy deity, so it would be best to ask for something small; nothing that would trouble him too much. But was it there the next day or the day after or the day after that - HELL NO! All I wanted was a Big Sister Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding in a tin!

First victory - Best Costume at the Murray Bridge Centenary in 1979. Sure, Mum sewed the costume but I had to wear the damn thing. The prize was definitely a completely un-fun product that the local toy shop couldn't sell to blind Freddy or his evil Aunt - an enormous box containing thousands of used match sticks and a bucket of glue. Despite placing a heavy emphasis on good manners and being grateful, even my mother said (when we were home and away from prying ears), "Oh, that really is crap, isn't it?"

....which was the first time I'd ever heard Mum swear.

2009-05-28T07:00:00.003+10:00

Bonza Baino

When I started blogging .... actually that sounds a bit rude, doesn't it, as though I decided to treat myself to a regular post-breakfast enema but let's move away from bowel movements and back to blogging.... (ahem)......

(Puffs out chest proudly and affects a pompous tone): When I started blogging nearly five years ago, the aim was simply to play with some web technology that even I could navigate on my own without ending up in crying in the corner rocking to myself, and also to try and keep some writing 'fitness' up by posting at least two or three times a week.

Never did I realise that I'd actually make friends on it as well. Friends whose lives I'd eagerly read about and visit daily just to see what they were up to. And this has been the real bonus for me. The other night, Sydney blogger and all-time Awesome Kick-Arse Mother and Techno Tart Baino was holidaying in Melbourne with her daughter ClareBear. Did I want to meet up for a drink on Monday? Do fish pee in the sea?!
*

Baino's on the left, looking younger and slimmer than she tells us she is on her blog. Next time I hope I can convince her that Love Chunks, Sapphire and I aren't axe-wielding psychopaths who knit knee rugs from our own belly button fluff (or not very often anymore) and that she's welcome to enter through our Gates of Hell and have dinner. Or stay. Any maybe help us knit....

Afterwards I got home, started yelling at my visiting parents (three glasses of wine on an empty stomach and I think I'm whispering delicately) over dinner and started thinking about the other bloggers I've met in person.

Franzy - Funnier than seeing Malcolm Turnbull in a Centrelink Queue. Smart. Quick to tell me that he's disappointed if some of my bloggings are lazy. New father, sleep-deprived; still suffering the shock and wonderment of it all but able to work up a good rage every now and then. I hope to buy his best-selling and critically-acclaimed works of fiction when he finishes them.

Ashleigh - Quirky. Intelligent. Passionate about the ridiculousness of finance, enviro-greenwashing and actively querying just why (oh god, why?) his local council won't allow boobies or willies to be shown as artworks in public places. Challenged me to a blind chocolate tasting that showed we both have a lot to learn, which is a damn convenient way of allowing us to eat more of the good brown stuff.

Delamere - Warm. Friendly. Sharp as a whip. Mother of three, career-woman, home renovator, rabbit and cat wrangler and - to highlight some cruelly bad timing - she used to work at Cadbury Schweppes before we met. Being ensconced in a telephone company just doesn't have the same ring to it (boom boom). Intense love of all things Jane Austen but possibly not their corsetry or whalebone devices.

Red Cap - Hilariously dark writer who's been rarer than Pamela Anderson in a polo neck in the blogosphere of late. Brain the size of a planet. Snarky but with a beating heart of gold. Brilliant writer and photographer. Keeps her chin up during even the darkest times (and some of those involved being spat on and groped by a drag queen during a festival revue).

Deep Kick Girl - As John Cusack-obsessed as I was. Clever. Generous. All kinds of interests ranging from wearing silly hats proudly in public to rigorous fundraising. Has a tattoo of her favourite band in a very special place that might also get a Sydney Swans logo to accompany it. Deftly survived the rigours of South American travel (twice) with the same dignity she possesses during a fight for a car-parking space outside a childcare centre.

Go East Young Woman. Determined. Bright. Observant. I'd say 'glamorous' until she opens her mouth and makes a drunk Collingwood fan blush and cover his defacto-on-parole's ears. Has more stamps on her passport than I have pairs of shoes. Fashionable and computer savvy. Devoted mother to two cats who have travelled to Holland, Australia and Dubai. Not too shabby with a camera either.

Lessons Learned. Fearless. Astute. Tenacious. Single-handedly takes on the health system on behalf of hearing-impaired babies and children everywhere. Black-belted karate teacher that patiently put up with my explosively embarrassing farts and still managed to teach me something. Should apply those killer skills to budget advisors because everyone's afraid of an angry scientist with the ability to crack a gonad in a single kick.

Myninjacockle. Hilarious. Ingenious. Witty. Met him the same night I met Franzy and knew him straight away just from his descriptions. Bought his book despite considering poetry about as accessible as modern interpretative dance, but thankfully (and not surprisingly) loved his. After all, how many blokes can pen a poem about marking a block of Bega cheese like a football? I selfishly wish he'd put his kids and study books down and write more.

Simply Natural - My ex-boss. Intelligent. Graceful. Kind. Strong. Has endured more than her fair share of sadness and challenge over the past few years but survives and thrives far better than she thinks she does. Should consider moving into interior design professionally because it's clearly her passion and her talent. I often wonder if she keeps me as a friend for the sole reason of being her 'BEFORE' case study for all things decorative, stylish and elegant.

All of them are as fabulous in person as their blogs which detail their loves, hates, frustrations, laughs, bemusements and opinions. All are hugely witty and wonderful writers and I envy them their unique way of looking at the world and their place within it.

Thank blog for this freebie online device that we can so easily tap at in the privacy of our lounge rooms or at the work desk during lunch hour or I'd never have known you. Same goes for those bloggers I haven't met yet. Your absence would make my world a lesser place.

* Sapphire read this sentence over my shoulder, furrowed her brow and said, "Well, do they?"

2009-05-26T12:16:00.004+10:00

Turning Ten

Sapphire is now ten years old. A decade. Double digits. Able to move her chronological age from a unit into Tens and Units (“Actually Mum, that’s not correct because a ‘zero’ in the units column doesn’t really count.”)

She was born on the cusp of the fake millennium but the one that sounded more exciting as it changed to 2000 instead of the mathematically-correct 2001. Itwas the year we were all busy panicking and project planning for the dreaded Y2K bug, feeling utterly shocked at the tragedies at Columbine and Kosovo and emailing each other dodgy Monica Lewinsky jokes. Wondering exactly which way the Backstreet Boys wanted it, how to avoid the irritating Venga Bus and realising that watching ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ whilst eight months pregnant meant the urge to pee was far stronger than trying to work out just what the hell it all meant.

Sapphire sneaks a look over my shoulder and sighs. “Oh Mum, you’re not going to blog about me are you?”
Sheepishly, I turn around, and nod, about to say something like it’s because I’m so honoured to be your mother, you’re a huge part of my life and it’s second nature to be inspired to write about the things that make me utterly happy and I’m always dazzled by------ before she says “But you’ve told me that I’m not allowed to surf the internet because there might be weirdos with diseased minds who are pretending to be other kids that might want to kidnap or look at me but you’re now sitting here telling the whole world about me.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my readership wasn’t as wide as all that and she was eventually comforted with a cup of hot chocolate, witnessing my genuine admiration at her crocheting skills and participation in a SingStar duet challenge of ‘Fernando where my arse was thoroughly kicked in the musical sense. Later on, she said, “I reckon if we were the same age and went to the same school at the same time, we’d be best friends.”

I wonder……. How would a pretty savvy ten year old girl today compare to a ten year old from 1978?

LOVE

As discussed previously, most of my school romances were conducted under the red steamy haze of violence and misfortune. Playgrounds were hotbeds of injury, pain and blood – perfect for young love to blossom. If they’d broken their arms on the whizzy, split their skulls on the adventure playground pipes or allowed me to give ‘em a dead leg at recess time, I was in love.

Sapphire, on the other hand, is decidedly more picky. “I’m not into doofuses, show offs or boys who swear just because they want to be cool.” She told me that one boy in her class told her that he loved her when nobody else was around. Does she love him back? “No, I’m too young for that kind of stuff, that’s for teenagers, but I said I could be his friend. And I didn’t run around telling everybody because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings when he’d been brave enough to come up to me.” I can’t say that I would have done that – I took great delight in intercepting love notes (Do you want to be my girlfriend – tick ‘yes’ or ‘no’) or pointing out a wino ambling along Rundle Mall and saying to a mate, “There’s your boyfriend.”

CULTURE

In my tenth year I decided to quit ballet and piano. Possessing the grace of an inebriated wart-hog and, after three years still unable to read music, I wasn’t exactly begged by either teacher to rethink my decision or rue the decline in the Australian arts scene. Instead, I continued to play my scratchy ABBA records on the ancient radiogram (in glorious mono), tried to hide my terror at seeing the Jaws movie poster on display when we passed by the drive-in and wondered why Dad would never allow me to watch ‘Blankety Blanks’ on the telly but Paul Hogan playing Leo Wanker was OK. ‘Benji’ was the only thing I saw in the cinema that year and even then it was only memorable because I’d scoffed an entire packet of lemon chews by myself and felt painfully thirsty, incredibly nauseous and couldn’t have cared less if the scruffy dog escaped his evil owners or translated the Dead Sea Scrolls.

My daughter tells me that she chose the viola as an instrument because “It has a richer sound than a violin and I don’t have to be the star out the front but a very important part of a large orchestra. Plus I love the music that we get to play.” And the recorder? “You and Dad always say that it sounds like a happy bird when you hear it, and that’s how I feel when I play.” Sadly, the guitar lessons are going to end after this term. “I know you’ll be a bit sad about it but I don’t love it like the other two instruments and I’m busy with tennis, homework, play-dates and being in the junior string ensemble and I still want to have time to spend with Skipper. I hope you don’t mind.” Mind? It will save us $250 per term!

What are your favourite movies and TV shows? “I love watching the ‘Frasier’ DVDs with you and Dad – Niles is so funny. ‘Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog’ is hilarious and has great songs. ‘Master Chef’ is OK but it gets dragged out far too long which is annoying. I still love watching ‘Wallace and Gromit’ anything, ‘The Corpse Bride’ and ‘Flushed Away’. Do you like the slugs I made?”

Songs? “At the moment it’s ‘Funhouse’ by Pink but it changes every couple of days when I use your old iPod and recharge it. When Pink sings, ‘This used to be a Funhouse – Now it’s full of evil clowns’ I think it’s a really good and clever line.” What other ones have you been into? “Abba anything. You know, for a group that was around in the olden days, they still have songs that are better than anything Lady Gaga, Katy Perry or Taylor Swift – who I also like – can do.”

CAREER ASPIRATIONS

In 1978, my beloved ABBA didn’t release an album, which gutted me. Their latest record was always my November birthday present, so that year I had to content myself with a 45 single featuring ‘Chiquita’ and a purple vinyl beanbag which I had started pestering my folks for in March when our classroom got three lime green ones for the reading and pom-pom making corner. The beanbag in my own reading corner at home (ie my bookcase moved at a rakish 90-degree angle from the wall) encouraged more day-dreaming than usual and I was convinced that I’d be able to fill in for Agnetha if she needed to take some time off to look after her kids. I knew the words, had blonde hair and the equivalent level of dance skills – what else did BBA (Bjorn, Benny and Annafrid) need? Failing that, growing up to be a world-famous actress who married the kid from Storm Boy would have been fine too.

“Maybe a teacher,” muses Sapphire, “Even though you told me that you hated being a high school teacher and Grandpa said that after thirty years of it he was utterly sick of it as well.” But you’re artistic; could you see yourself doing anything with that? “Yeah, I like watching the ‘extra features’ on my DVDs that show how they do the plasticene and computer modelling for the movies and the cute sets for Wallace and Gromit. That would be great fun.”

GOING FORWARD

Turning ten at the end of 1978, I could already see that mastering stilts, trampolines, trying the intriguingly named lollygobbleblissbombs and disco roller-skating were things to aim for, as well as hoping I could save up the eleven dollars plus postage and handling to join the UK Abba fan club. We’d had some brief discussions in class about nuclear bombs and World War Three, but my aspirations were more centred on whether I’d ever beat Robert at a game of Monopoly or be brave enough to throw a can of Mum’s old hairspray into our backyard incinerator.

For Sapphire, it’s less about things and more about people. “I don’t know, Mum. I’m just happy that it’s May already and I’ve settled in and made some friends.” I squeezed her hand as we walked along to school. “They’re friends that I can tell anything to – they listen, they understand and we always have fun. I just hope that it’s always like that.”

Then, she said it, the sentence I’d been dreading all along. “Do you still need to walk to school with me? Juliet and Sarah get to do it by themselves. Can I walk on my own now?”

My steps slowed as I kissed the top of her warm, soap-scented hair and whispered that yes, of course she was responsible and mature enough to walk on her own, but Milly needed a short walk two times a day and the school was the perfect distance and she so looked forward to it and….. and….

..........“Sapphire?”
“Yeah Mum?”
“It’s the highlight of my day. I love laughing with you, finding out about your friends, your class, your lessons, your thoughts and walking alongside you. I love holding your soft little hand as we make up silly song lyrics together and then stifle them as we walk past the high school and don’t want anyone to see how strange we are. I love waiting for you after school at the gate, seeing your blonde halo of hair from across the yard, smiling at me. Let me walk with you. Please.”

She smiled, half-twisted in her self-conscious way of trying to hide how pleased she was with the situation. “Oh alright then Mum, I don’t mind if you still want to walk with me.”

She took the viola and music bag I’d been carrying out of my hands, kissed me on the cheek and ran off just as the first bell rang out. Thank God she didn’t see the tears.

I love you Sapphire.

2009-05-21T10:52:00.015+10:00

Mystery Number Four

Time for another deep and essential investigation, readers.

On this roller-coaster ride of riddles that I like to euphemistically refer to as 'Walking the dog to the shops', we've also discovered that:
1) Mr P is a beloved local legend with a generous owner who has just taught me how to make Brigadeiro truffles;
2) The Big M on the commission flats is an architecturally designed lift shaft based on the famous chapel in South America built by modernist Brazillian architect Oscar Niemeyer and;
3) The Liberace-inspired Fairy Tree was saved by the council's plans to cut the tree down by public outcry and violent demonstrations.

Fine. It was just a public outcry - am I never allowed to embellish for entertainment? No, wait - don't answer that.

Back to Mystery Number Four. This car has 'Intrigue' written all over it.

OK, so that's not entirely true: it actually has 'Swifty Color' (American spelling here in Australia, tsk tsk) on one side, 'The Operatives' on the other and just 'Swifty' on the far end.

The car's owner/s live a couple of streets away from me in what is loftily (and somewhat optimistically) referred to by overly-ambitious real estate agents as 'Flemington Hill.' Said 'hill' mostly features beautifully-restored 1890s weatherboards and, most commonly, late model VW golfs, Volvo S40 station wagons or Peugot hatchbacks parked out the front.

As such, this car stands out a mile which, considering the camouflage paintwork, might not be what the driver/s intended. Even colour-blind Milly gave the wheels a sniff and ignored the tabby sunning itself on top of the wheelie bin nearby. I guess having arthritic back knees and collapsible hips means that she's smart enough to choose which objects or animals to be interested in and checking out the hubcaps is easier than sproinging up to get her nose scratched by an irate moggie and have her legs fold up underneath her like an ancient card table on a camping trip.....

As Milly continued to sniff and then - ahem - drop a couple of Andrew Bolts' off in the gutter (yes, I cleaned them up), I pondered deeply.

Questions arose, such as Who is 'Swifty' and should I notify the police of his/her whereabouts? Is 'Swifty Color' a mobile hair styling service or provider of cheap photocopied flyers? Are 'The Operatives' a group of urban freedom fighters, a clutch of second-hand car dealers or a hard workin' garage band?

Any thoughts?

2009-05-19T18:59:00.005+10:00

Mole in front of a Mountain

Cadbury have now recently repackaged their family-sized blocks of chocolate by slipping them inside slimline cardboard boxes, presumably to add an extra air of sophistication (because Lindt and Nestle are doing it too) and perhaps to stop rows from snapping loose and trying to make a break for freedom in their foil packs. Truly front page news if ever there was, particularly if sticky leaks are involved.

The trouble is, it's too easy for loser low-lifes in the supermarket to prise open the back flap, eat a row or two, tuck the flap back in like a reusable envelope and put it back on the shelf still looking brand new, inviting and untampered-with. Then, an honest, upstanding citizen and trusting, unsuspecting shopper - such as my good self - innocently pushes her wonky trolley along with the back wheel that jams so firmly I have to lean in with all my might on the far left side like the insane captain standing alone on the foredeck in a life-threatening sea storm. Despite this physical challenge this steadfast shopper - ie me - still manages to notice the chocolates sitting there on special for the week.

Last night, Love Chunks and I were comfortably blobbed on the sofa settling in to watch 'Good News Week' and of course, that most satisfying primeval urge, the one that continues to consume us every single night, was stirring again. We looked at each other hungrily and I knew what was about to happen. His eyes were dilated in anticipation and I eagerly leapt up and left the room, leaning on the doorframe to whisper throatily, "I'll be r-i-g-h-t back darling, don't you go anywhere."

And I was back in a flash with the block of Cadbury in my hot, trembling hands.

Love Chunks paused. "Hey, did you crack into this beforehand?"

I affected my most haughty and indignant tone. "Chocolate may be my lifeblood and the reason for getting up in the mornings, but I do not tell lies and I'm not desperate enough to sneak it."

Love Chunks scoffed. "Of course not - not with the way you shop each week."

OK, that was a fair point. Especially with the lot I’d brought home that day:

My Note To Self remains the same every single time: Don't Shop When You Are Hungry.

Still, despite having a truckload of other brands and flavours available we still eyed this particular block critically. "Maybe we could just snap off the first row and have a go at the rest underneath," I suggested.

"Maybe.... but what if it was done by an insane psychopath with a grudge against society who then injected the rest of the block with something deadly?" Love Chunks flung the block from him as though it was a flat-packed Andrew Bolt carrying swine flu.

"You mean carob?"

We sat there, hands clasped in our laps, thinking hard.

"Plus we have no idea where the perpetrator's hands have been before this most un-Australian act of sabotage, let alone anything about their personal hygiene...."

"Or lack thereof."

Feeling all self-righteous the following morning, I went back to the shop with the offending block and my receipt, ready to ask for a replacement. For equivalent of three dollars and forty nine cents, as per their weekly advertised special.

Despite having a fairly ‘loud mouth’ on this blog, my method of operating largely unnoticed and unmolested by the general populace at large is due to going to great lengths to avoid making a fuss. Tampered chocolate however, was a serious matter. I stood uncertainly by the smokes counter being studiously ignored by a young man packing something underneath it. He snuck a quick look at me and ducked underneath again. Surely I didn’t look too much like a crackpot?

I stuttered, "I'm a regular customer here, y'see, and bought this block yesterday and found out that someone has tampered with it and put it back on the shelf. And um, I need this new flavour to review because, well, it's my job, and..."

He gestured for me to hand over the offending block so that he could study it closely. "OK," he sighed, "Go in and find a replacement block and I'll ring it up on your way out." Yep, another crackpot sent in to waste time that could have been spent sorting through out-of-date risla papers.

This cringeing scenario reminded me of other times I'd been disappointed and short-changed enough to complain, but they had all done by post. Such as the dodgy packet of menstrual pads that instead of being lightly infused with a 'shower fresh scent' were squelchingly marinating in yellow, greasy liquid that must have been destined for an entire suburb's monthly needs and not in ten small white surfboards. As such, any ‘absorbency’ strengths boasted in pink letters on the front were null and void as the merchandise within was already ‘full’ and didn’t have any more room for either the blue fluid used by advertisers or the vermillion favoured by nature. Avoiding any blushing at the Returns Counter, I sent them off to the 'If you are not satisfied, please contact us....' address listed on the back of the packet.

Several weeks later, an enormous cardboard box arrived with what appeared to be at least three samples each of the entire company’s product range. Conspicuously absent was the product I'd sent in to complain about and there was no letter acknowledging mine inside the box. Perhaps they were even more embarrassed than I was. Still, the three x 120 metre rolls of waxed mint dental floss more than covered the costs of postage and the three unplanned days missing that special ‘feeling of confidence’ that all ‘women of today’ expect with a small packet of ten ‘heavy’ strength.

It spurred me on to expect better quality from my purchases. Those Tut-tut Tea bags with staples but not the string and tag attached were considered Just. Not. Good. Enough. Off went an indignant letter of complaint and offending product enclosed in a padded postpak. Again, a large box arrived with a year’s supply of bags – all properly tagged and strung and a heartfelt letter of apology for ‘any inconvenience caused.’ Lord knows what kind of multi-million dollar payout the company was fearing should I have decided to press for legal action.

Having experienced the despair of opening a twelve-pack of ‘fun sized’ bags to find that the twelfth was not filled with salt-and-vinegar chips but air resulted in it being posted back in a box of styrofoam (so that they could see that it wasn’t just an empty bag that had been eaten, flattened and sent back, but was still puffed up with air and not falsehoods) with a letter describing in intricate detail my outrage, suffering and utter disappointment. Again, a box that dwarfed my refrigerator turned up with enough bags of chips to keep me and my flatmates snacked out for months. Perhaps Samboy would be cheered to know my thighs that summer quite truly reflected their generosity in rectifying their original packaging error.

Dad heard my stories and was similarly inspired. His favourite milk flavouring and hot night-time beverage of choice (rhymes with Silo) had changed their lids and he was angry. He read out his letter to me over the phone: “They are fiddly, contain extra packaging to seal properly and make opening a frustrating waste of time and energy. Why did you change what hasn’t needed to be changed and has worked perfectly well for at least the past thirty years?” Go for it, I encouraged him: let ‘em know that you’re not happy. You’ve paid your money!

He did but went a step further than I’d ever be prepared to go. No, he didn’t front up to their head office or factory or post them back a big tin with pellet-holes in it to frighten them. It was far worse. He rang the 1800 ‘Any Questions or Comments’ number listed on the back of the tin.
I shrank in shame. “Oh Dad, please tell me that you didn’t.”
“I did and I’m proud of it. That’s what those numbers are for.”
“Dad, I love you. You’ve been a wonderful father to me – still are – but you’ve now entered that dreaded Zone.”
“What ‘zone’? What are you talking about?”
“That zone where you move from being a fairly normal human being with needs and wants that fall into the acceptable range into the forbidden territory beloved of the Stark Raving Mad Loony Tune who feels sad, lonely, bitter and twisted enough to read that phrase on the back of a packet and actually decide to ring in!”

For the first time in living memory, he didn’t have a comeback or a justification. There was just silence on the end of the line for the longest time. “Er yes, I used to wonder who’d actually be bored enough to bother to have a question or comment on something like Sard Wonder Soap, cup-a-soup sachets or Chux superwipes and now ----" there was a muffled sound, almost a whimper ---- "I did it.”

“Hey Dad, don’t worry. At least it wasn’t to rant at a harried call-centre employee trying to pay their way through uni about the uselessness of the Deeko paper serviette holder that you won as a consolation prize instead of the first-class-round-the-world holiday you entered on SMS on twenty separate occasions." Now that was baring my soul….

“Yeah but---" *sob* “I gave them my real name and address.”

Oh.

Update Thursday 21st May:

I phoned the Cadbury Consumer Services line and spoke to Eunice.*

Who calls in to the Cadbury phone line?

"Anyone and everyone. People are very passionate about chocolate."

What do they mostly complain about?
"How dare we change things is the most common one. They're also annoyed right now that the blocks are only 210g instead of 250g but we're charging the same price--"

Sounds like a fair issue to me.

"Yes but we've reduced the price of the block we sell to the supermarkets. It's them that are marking up the prices."

I discussed my tampered chocolate issue with her. Anyone else said the same thing?
"No. Maybe it's just your supermarket that has those kinds of people who do that sort of thing."

What? Steady on Eunice, that's being a tad judgemental don't you----

"It'll change as people like you get more familiar with the packaging and check that the back 'Cadbury' oval hasn't popped out. If it has, you know it's been opened already."

Yeah but I was trying to raise the issue of safety, like when a few years back some psycho injected packets of painkillers and now they're sealed so that no-one can get into 'em without it being noticed....

"Oh I don't think that will be a problem."

I applaud your optimism and loyalty to your product line but it might just be a tad misplaced just because I'm the first person to ---

"Recycling fans love the new packaging because it can be put out with the cardboard and paper."

Fine, I give up. Let's change tack - what's your favourite product?

"Cadbury Old Gold Peppermint Cream. Plus we have to be 'familiar' with all of their brand lines, so it's readily available to us to have whenever we feel like it."

Any stonkingly strange calls you can share with me?

"No, sorry. We're not allowed to tell anyone that kind of stuff, but we do have a good laugh amongst ourselves after some calls." Eunice sounded as though she might actually now be smiling over the phone.

Is the rumour that the Full Moon brings out the crazy callers more often?
"I don't really notice until I've had a really bad, weird day and then yeah, I realise that it has been a full moon. Still, it's better than my old job working in retail where the weirdos approached me directly and there wasn't any chocolate to eat!" There was a hint of a giggle. Maybe Eunice wasn't so bad after all.

* Not her real name.

2009-05-16T13:26:00.005+10:00

Silly Signs

I'm a big dopey fan of Fail blog because there's a huge, throbbingly unhealthy-but-thriving streak inside me that loves a good whallop of hilarious misfortune - especially when it happens to others. Yes, it's sad and bad and ultimately unsportsmanlike, but I'm the first one to cack myself to tears if someone goes arse-over-feet in the street - even if it's me.

And, as much as I adore high-brow comedy and clever wit if there's a well-timed fart or an innocent trip out of the tram doors I'm literally anybody's.

Even Sapphire is aware of her mother's weakness. Just the other day she saw a tender young toddler do a fabulous face-plant on the school oval as he was staggering after his elder sibling. Looking directly at me with her (all too frequent) disapproving Nanna Face on, she said, "Go on Mum, start laughing 'til you cry."

I hung my head in shame. At least, that's what my daughter thought; really I was just struggling to keep the chortles inside and ended up somehow pushing the repressed air up my nose causing an implausibly loud sneezing attack that embarrassed Sapphire as much as my mirth-at-a-minor misfortune would have.

So these days I'm trying harder to repress this evil tendency and focus on a more visual - and private - pastime that I can scoff at in the relative security of my study away from family or wider public censure. It has meant that I now have my camera in my backpack in case I see signs that amuse me and I can have a silly, immature giggle at them later.

Here's a few I've found so far:

I'm sorry, but WHO can't spell the three-letter word 'nod'?

It was Love Chunks who pointed this one out first and before I'd even reminded myself to give him a 'That's not a very mature thing to say in front of our child' stare and then surreptitiously sneak out my Canon, I was already sniggering like a school girl.

"He's a bit over-confident, isn't he?" And is it really much of a sell when he tell us that his nuts "are the best for less?"

"Should I go in there and say, 'Show us yer best nuts, Ray'?"

Har har har. I know: it's pathetic, shamefully low-brow and utterly childish and I wish it was something I could stop.

This one was spotted whilst sitting on the tram one evening, so the flash had to work fast. Some clever-clogs had neatly cut off the latest religious advertisement to reveal the Nando's one underneath.

After all, if we're now sin-free, why NOT share a peri-peri chicken platter?

Sadly, taking random snapshots through the window and giggling to myself on public transport meant that nearly everyone got off at the next stop.

This one had me doubled-over by the dairy case at Coles supermarkets. Would you really want to eat a 'knob' for lunch? I didn't dare turn it over to peruse the ingredients to discover which poor male beastie had given up the most valuable part of themselves so that human cheapskates could add it to the cheese in their sandwiches.

And, does Coles really believe that buyers are 'smart' for considering it? Actually, don't answer that.

This parking sign is in our tiny little Flemington Street. I'm not sure why, because no-one ever bothers to park here and residents aren't exactly struggling to find less-restrictive spots considering that there's four blocks of flats with their own parking and a grand total of nine houses that look out onto our wee street.

Where the 'Thug Life Army' comes into it I'm yet to discover. Surely the grittier elements of Collingwood, Springvale or the city alleyways would be more attractive to any hoodlums with the ability to spell words of four letters and wield a felt tip marker in good working order?

On a recent walking tour around Melbourne, we were led into the 'United Order of Oddfellows' building that was constructed during the great depression by a large insurance company and banking firm. Inspired by Greek mythology and imagery, they had a series of marble panels that depicted how they would 'help' the modern Aussie borrow, save, live and prosper.

At first glance however, the above engraving looks more like a transaction for gay sex has been made. In fact, what's written underneath in faded writing is that they'll lend money for a home. I didn't realise that you had to be naked in order to get any. Money for a home, I mean.

There were a few more but often I'd pass by before remembering to snap them. One disappointment was the sign at the pub on Number One Flemington road that used to proudly boast having 'Probably the Best Beer Garden in the World' until it was painted over last week or the 'Persin-ality' Trophy Shop in Maribyrnong that, unfortunately, recently closed down. Perhaps they'd both been proved wrong.

'Whatever' as the corrugated iron fence dividing Shields and Princes Streets tells me each day as I pass through....

2009-05-14T02:52:00.001+10:00

Hot Pillows

Right now, at the very moment of typing this, I hate my family.

With a seething white-hot passion that stems entirely from jealousy and loneliness.

Why?

Because they're all sleeping peacefully - and have been for hours now - and I'm out here in the study wide awake, feeling the bags under my eyes gather and multiply like rings inside a coffee cup and wondering just why there aren't any notable scientific studies done on how pillows can become so hot and itchy no matter how often you flip them or how come Kylie Minogue's excremental song, 'Hand on Your Heart' is on repeat-play in my brain or where the hell it came from in the first place (the song, not my brain. Although, that's something else to ponder as I lay in the dark, trying not to laugh as I hear Love Chunk's fast-asleep farts in a noisy-so-safe little staccato rhythm - Parp Parp Parp!).

Yeah yeah, I've tried the 'wind down slowly' at least an hour before you go to bed routine. I never drink caffeine after lunch; don't do any vigorous workouts in the evenings and when it's time to pull back the quilt cover and flop into bed, I honestly feel physically and mentally drained. Love Chunks kisses me and says "Good ni----" and he's already in dreamland and forgotten to give me the map to follow him there.

It's not as though I woke up at midday, lay around in a hammock and toddled off to bed when Sapphire did, nooooo sirree. I leapt out of bed at 6:30am, tapped away at the computer for an hour before waking up Sapph, got her breakfast made, lunch packed, Milly and Skipper fed, bin emptied, dishwasher stacked and put a load of washing on.

After walking Sapphire to school, Milly and I came home and I did an eight kilometre run before cooling down and cuddling the rabbit, eating a decent breakfast, having a shower, hanging out the washing and going for a walk down the street to the Post Office, green grocer and bank. Then I worked for several more hours at my desk completing a chocolate review (and photography session), a book review (harder than it sounds), some background info-gathering for three articles on-the-go for the 'My Career' section and rustling up a hopefully utterly educational yet entertaining and compellingly unforgettable powerpoint presentation and notes for a session I'm doing on work/life balance next week. I idly note that my ACDC-loving neighbour has finally learned - in four months - how to change his CD player, because Green Day is being played at number eleven instead.

Being easily immersed, my watch beeps at 3:15 to remind me to stop what I'm doing and go and collect Sapphire from school. At this insistent 'Peep-peep, Peep-peep, Peep-peep' sound, Milly bounces out of her (usually) red-but-now-orange-due-to-her-shedding beanbag, races into the laundry and stares intently at the cupboard, tail wagging. This is the Magic Cupboard. The Keeper of the Lead; that magnificent device that, when fastened onto her collar; means a WALK.

Half an hour later we're back home with a now-limping dog, a hungry child, her guitar, a schoolbag weighng possibly more than the dog (13kg at last count) a handful of newsletters of varying vintages and another handful of rubbish that I've picked up from our street thanks to the high school kids who use our street as their thoroughfare and disposal site.

My hands get cleaned, the wheelie bins put out, the mail collected and read, Sapphire provided with a snack and Skipper the rabbit gets released from his hutch and put in his portable 'playpen' on the lawn. I leave Sapphire out with bunny boy and go back into the study to chat with Bernadette Young on ABC Radio Perth. Off air, I point out to her producer the irony of moving further east only to be discovered by the west.

Afterwards, I successfully manage to convince Sapphire that practicising her viola might be a better use of her time than holding a SingStar ABBA duet with me. She looks surprised at my decision until I explain that there are ten shirts, five pairs of jeans, one poncy and easily-wrinkled designer t-shirt and some posh linen napkins from the dinner party the other night that need to be ironed; preferably in front of a taped episode of 'Master Chef' rather than trying to put a decent crease in Love Chunks' work trousers whilst also holding a microphone singing along to 'I Have A Dream.'

When this is done, I do the weekly Poo Pick-up Performance that is essential when living on a sliver of real estate that is less than one-third the size of our previous one. Milly has a preference for scattering her nuggets at precisely the most public and commonly-traversed places - right by the front gate, Skipper's hutch entrance, the shed door mat, directly under the clothesline and by seven days we're all find ourselves performing a perverse doggy-dung dodging dance that isn't much fun when it gets dark now by 5:30pm.

I'm still ironing when Love Chunks gets home on his bike. He prepares dinner as I take in the washing, put the clean stuff away, give Skipper some cucumber chunks and Milly some god-knows-what meat-and-jelly-from-a-can-chunks and again read through my seminar notes for the twentieth time. We three eat our spaghetti and salad companionably together before LC leaves for his piano lesson and Sapph and I watch 'Thank God You're Here'. Milly is stretched out in front of the sub-bass speaker, snoring. For a creature with hearing that is twenty times greater than ours, I still marvel at her ability to zonk out in front of a booming surround sound system that is only 30cm away from her head.

Sapphire goes to bed at 8:30pm, LC and I go to bed at 11pm. My day wasn't too slack, was it?

Sitting here now at 2:49am there's nothing on my conscience that's weighing me down. Oh alright, except for the fact that I ate two bars of chocolate as part of my review today (it's work you know) and tonight when LC bought out a block of Lindt Swiss Classic and said, "Fancy a bit of chocolate," I nodded eagerly as though it was the best and most unique suggestion ever made because I hadn't eaten any of the magnificent brown stuff for so long and truly deserved some.

What am I, made of stone? I didn't lie to him exactly; I just omitted to explain that I'd already enjoyed some chocolate earlier today. That's not a crime!

No, but neither is insomnia, bugger it.