Would you go back in time?

Because I went through all the photo albums this week I have spent a bit of time in the boondocks of my history and I've been wondering just how much, if anything at all, I'd be prepared to part with to go back to that young skinny feisty brat of a girl, cos sometimes I really miss her.

At the Jumping Pillow with the Grandie today I got a glimpse of many generations all rubbing alongside each other. There were lots and lots, well all right, too bloody many babies, all squeaking and tumbling over, and a good handful of youngsters rough housing on the pillow with the Boy and then there were young mums and young dads and lots of Mas and Pas.

The mums really held my attention. They lugged giant bags - tardis bags which were filled with all manner of magic from food and drinks and baby wipes to changes of clothes and toys and more than likely a spare car and a volume of Romantic Poetry. They threw these weights over their shoulders and scooped up a kid on each hip, slapped on a smile and toted it all off to the next little adventure.

The dads on the other hand wandered with less purpose, often on their phones and randomly calling their kids' names as they popped along carrying a form guide and a packet of fags. The kids were happy regardless of carers, but you know what really fascinated me was that both mums and dads crouched down easily to chat and love their little ones, they stripped off their shoes and jumped on the pillow, like children themselves, and I missed being able to crouch and bend and jump and lift and carry and haul arse up off the ground. Yeh I sure do miss all the flexibility of days gone.

But I remembered the unmitigated shattering tiredness. I remembered the screaming irrits of rearing a willful teenager, and the awful worry that I was doing it all wrong. I remembered that cigar box with all the cash I had in the world and when it was gone it was gone. I remembered working all day and most of the night and sleeping and the  getting up and doing it all again. The life of a single parent - the all consuming banality and wonder of it. I might have been able to do back flips and play back to back games of netball, do some crocked legged splits, and direct 100 kids on stage, and cuddle my girl til my arms were numb and we were both cried out, but even though I am old and wrinkled and too fat and seized up, I am happy that I am wiser and content and sanguine and in less of a hurry.

I am pleased to have the memories like the photos, but I am pretty sure that I just simply do not have the energy to go back to being 30, and besides there is something really liberating about being in charge of a kid but being OK with him having Twisties and a Lemonade for lunch. If I had to go back to being MUM instead of MA, I would have to make a proper lunch and give consideration for the number of sugar units consumed in a day.

I do so love being MA. What a lucky woman I am. What flavour the ice cream is for dinner?

Will and Grace Vs Trump

My friend PINKY POINKER @ponkypoinker popped in today to teach me how to upload a You Tube video onto this little blog, cos I have been lamenting my useless techno status and she's a very clever little miss. And wasn't that just a very timely education cos almost immediately I was fed this wonderful clip of one of my all time favourite shows, 'Will and Grace', which was giving some advice about who to vote for in the American election. It only goes about 10 minutes and if you loved the show it will bring a smile to your face to see these familiar faces and the bitch in me was pleased to see that Jack might have stacked on a couple of kilos.

How fabulous that these actors just slotted back into their roles and the banter was as well written as in the original show. It seemed like they had never been away.

Anyway, I wanted to try putting something up here and this is a fab start. Enjoy.

I am a Winner!

One of my favourite bloggers, Mrs Woog@woogworld was discussing senior formals and the frocks girlies were wearing these days, and I was prompted to remember this outfit I thought appropriate for mine.
sue elliott • a day ago


I had a long brown and white searsucker jobbie that looked more table cloth than formal dress, but I was waffer thin with big tits and it all went with an attitude of 'don't fuck with me' Dress cost me 20 bucks! If only I could look so good today. ah!

Mrs Woog Mod sue elliott • 20 hours ago




Brown and White! Brave and interesting. Throw SEERSUCKER into the mix and we have ourselves a winner! Bravo Sue xx




Well fancy that, after all these years I am winner, and I like it, so I spent the rest of the day tracking down the bloody photo which I knew was somewhere, cos that's how I remembered the dress so clearly.




Because I am of an age, I have lots of photo albums, some of them in excellent order and some that have been picked over and abused, you know as happens with ugly fashions and old flames.




Anyway I was up to the last one and I was very sure that it wouldn't be in there, but bugger me there it was. So I snapped it on my phone and here it is 40 years later. I bloody love technology, even if the reflection of my sad old face in the computer screen is in such stark contrast to the sweet young thing in that photo.




I asked Stevie's permission to post the fella's face, cos I don't know what the protocol is even though I haven't named him nor have I seen him in more than 4 decades - yeh I am shit at keeping in touch. SO I have sort of vicarious permission, and voila here is my brown and white seersucker dress from 1976. We were an eclectic pair, me in my tablecloth and him in his cravat, we were sober amongst the drunks and arrived in his somewhat beaten up old escort which we thought was a damn fine chariot mostly because it didn't come fitted with a parental driver, and we danced til we fell and didn't go to the after party. It was a lovely night. I can't remember what shoes I wore cos no doubt I kicked 'em off early to go barefoot. I remember feeling comfortable and didn't spend even a millisecond worrying about my face or my hair or my dress, I just ate and danced and danced and danced.




It does shock me just what an industry senior formals have become.




At least one whole term of year 12 is now spent discussing dresses and suits and car hire and makeup rehearsals and when to get drunk and how drunk to get, and the money spent is now many times what I spent on my wedding dress and the 4 bridesmaids frocks too.




So things have really changed. That's not a shocker.




But there has been quite the discussion here, about how 'old' kids are today and I think we all reached at least a tacit agreement that an 18 year old today is considerably YOUNGER than in my day, even if this is contradicted by the glamour and sophistication evident at the formals.




Today's lot are more closeted I reckon. They are allowed to run less amok and they fend less for themselves, and that's rightly so due to all the extra dangers and the faster pace of life.




My girl went nowhere on her own, I wouldn't even let her catch the bus into town cos 'people get raped on the bus'. She had every protection device invented and I insisted she wear 'em all when out rollerblading, wrist, hand, elbow, and knee guards as well as the helmet - hmm she didn't go too often - no surprises there. But I used to travel from Wynnum to The Gabba by train and bus and run the gauntlet of dirty old men hanging out of The Gabba pub to get to Gymnastics twice a week. I stopped doing gym when I was 13, not because of the heckling but because the boobs got in the way. I would never have allowed my girl to travel like that, and now she is even more protective of the grandie boy.




I was married and had a mortgage when I was 19. I was balancing budgets in the adult world and planning meals and doing all the domestics and studying and working as well as burning the candle at both ends cos, well I was 19 and had all that fucking fabulous energy.




Your average 19 year old today still lives at home and enjoys the clean clothes and prepared meals that the parent/s provide, and of course if they are a little short on the readies, well Mum might dip into the cookie jar to help 'em out there too. They might leave home but it's very common to see 'em return once and sometimes more than once.




Yeh I know there are exceptions to this and there are kids who go out and do it for themselves but many many don't leave the nest until their middle 20s or later. This is why I reckon kids today seem younger than I was.




If I had my 17 year old body and that tablecloth, I would still happily run wild down the main street of Surfer's Paradise barefoot singing, 'American Pie' cos that was the song of my senior year.

Trust

We have been trooping over to the village for coffee almost every day for many years. There are 2 coffee shops and both are good but Bay Salt has the coffee we prefer. The Ducks' Nuts is the other place and the name makes me smile and we have been there too, if our place is closed. Anyway locals all seem to have their favourite and the 2 shops sort of rub along together pretty well.

The regulars all nod and smile and chat to each other. We take dog so some of the locals don't talk to us cos of DOG and well that's entirely their own problem, but mostly folk stop by and give her a bit of a cuddle and maybe some bacon and go on their way.

Now the thing about village company is that names are a bit light on the ground. There's a family who is there for breakfast every Sunday and we have a real good chinwag but I have no idea of their names. And there is a 'teacher couple' - retired I think that we chat to, and I have asked her advice about sewing machines and stuff and I don't know their names. There is a group of fellas who have breakfast every Tuesday and we stop and chat and have helped to socialise the new Dog who was a rescue girl and a bit nervy skittish, but now happily chats away to DOG, and out of the table of about 10, we know precisely NO NAMES whatsoever. And there is a family who is often there on a sunday and the lady always has treats in her bag for DOG and she gets right down on the floor with her and lets her lick her face and gives just the biggest cuddles, and we don't know their names either.

Until that was, a few weeks ago when, for reasons I am still not sure of, I asked her if she wanted to babysit DOG for us while we went to RIVERFIRE.

Shit that can hardly be considered good parenting can it? 'I don't know your name or anything about you, but can I leave me dog with you over night?'

She said yes and then we introduced ourselves, and swapped phone numbers and all that normal stuff, like we were organising a first date.

We had a few weeks to chat more and confirm the babysitting, and so on Saturday we dropped DOG off on our way to Brisvegas for the crackers.

Their place was pristine! White and new and beautiful and did I say PRISTINE? DOG sheds black hair at every little opportunity, infact she sheds some much fucking hair that if I was at all a greenie, I'd be gathering it up and knitting jumpers for refugees. There was gonna be a less white look after a day of DOG.OH dear.

All night I kept hoping that she wasn't disgracing herself by shitting on the white tiles or worse still the white carpet. I mean she's as good as gold at home, but you just never can tell what kids are gonna get up to when they are out.

The crackers for RIVERFIRE were just bloody brilliant and we had a wonderful time, shit I even put on a bit of lippy and kept my bra on cos I was in public, and it's been a while since I did that.

And on Sunday about lunchtime, Sue and Andrew rang the bell to announce the arrival home of DOG. They had thoroughly enjoyed having her stay. They had played and played and she was out on her feet. She was joyfully rooted.

So I reckon here's the tester for trust. Take your dog with you. If your dog likes 'em, then they are probably good folk. It sure as shit worked out well this time.

International CML Day... well who knew?

This is as close as I can come to the Orange Ribbon for CML Day

Yep I got wind of the CML day via my Facie feed, cos I drop in and out on a variety of CML forums and the DAY was discussed there, otherwise, rightly I would have known nothing about it. I mean there are just soo many of these fucking DAYS these days aren't there?

If we all had a ribbon for every day in every colour, well we'd be able to decorate a huge number of gay wedding arches, except that argument is still stupidly raging...ho hum. Anyway someone in their wisdom decided that CML DAY would be an orange ribbon, and I reckon this is a little misguided, cos no-one looks good in that burnt orange, baby shit colour, and that's why prisoners in movies, all wear orange jumpsuits cos no-one else ever wanted to buy that fabric. But regardless of my disdain for the hue, ORANGE it is.

Not that it has made any difference to me today cos it's been hectic in the Big House.

I have a girlfriend who has been feeding me for more years than either of us probably want to tally up. She's a wonderful cook and can whip up just about anything she sets her heart on and happily accommodates my little peccadilloes, like not eating any chilli even though that's one of the favourite household ingredients and not wanting food to touch on the plate, so stuff is served up separately in different bowls and we all help ourselves. The food is always a big part of the celebration of actually teeing up calendars for long overdue drinks and gossip fests.

Anyway, usually she says not to bring anything and that might be because she's ever so slightly a control freak or maybe it's because she is more than a little aware of my kitchen expertise or lack thereof. But in prep for the 'Crackers' on Saturday night, I gave her not much choice and said I would bring either nibbles or pudding. Pudding was agreed.

And then I just about shit myself, cos I am not a pudding baker/chef/cook. When people come for dinner here I usually just buy something in cos I reckon the other cooking counts. But taking up something 'store bought' seemed like such a cop out, especially given the mountain of food she has made for my tummy over time.

There's one Gluten free person coming along, and so I figured some meringue concoction would be good. I have almost mastered the meringues so I set to it. I thought I'd pipe 'em to make 'em look pretty. And I was just about to slop the stuff into the bag when the House Agent Bloke ( HAB ) rang to say he was bringing someone through in an hour. FARRRRRKKKKK!

Piping and slopping and spilling and shoving in the oven as fast as I could, cos I reckoned the house was gonna take an hour of running and juzzzing and it bloody did. Sweat happened.

I am pleased I remembered to turn the oven off, but if I am honest the little sweeties look pretty shit and I am not sure they are gonna make the cut. Fuck it.

Yeh they look a bit oopsie, but they taste good. 

So then the person came and looked and who knows how that went, and I thought maybe some coconut macaroons might be nice, even though I have never made one in my life. Yeh I have eaten many times my body weight of 'em but as it turns out that's the easy part.

I followed the recipe - which I never do and ended up with a fucking great mess and then the tireds hit me and I wanted to have a little cry.

But it's CML International Day and I am so much better than lots of folk so I sucked it up and had another go. This time intuition played a part and they look pretty good. I reckon I might drip some dark choccie on 'em and call 'em done.

The is the first mess. Stevie reckons they taste ok even if they look a bit mutanty.

Not too bad .

And then after a little sit down, I figured I had some cheesecakes left in me and ran over to the village for the stuff and got cracking. They don't look as lovely as I had hoped, but I think they taste good and I might top 'em with a strawberry, except that I will leave some plain cos fruit and veg are an issue for my friend.

Yeh OK, then,  but now they are all a bit flatter, Do cheesecakes always sort of shrink like poorly laundered wool jumpers?

I have cleaned down the kitchen 4 times today but the last time it was a rudimentary wipe at best, it's certainly not inspection ready.

I am rooted.

And I have resisted, wearing or cooking or eating anything that bilious CML orange.

What's Springing at Your Place?

Let's face it there is not much in the way of seasonal changes here on the Goldie. To quote the wonderful late Robin Williams in 'Good Morning Vietnam', 'It's hot, damn hot.' nearly all of the time except for a couple of nights a year when  you might need a wee blankey. There is no gradual dip into a big freeze or a slide into the sweat. It comes on all of a sudden like a menopausal flush.

In London there was a burst of daffodils in the most unexpected places like on round abouts and in little clumps in footpath gardens and sometimes in the middle of a field, and as these all popped up, people would put away their winter coats and wipe the mould off their summer sandals and make a start on booking a summer break where they can bake 'em selves, or at least find a spot in a public park where they might take off most of their clothes and soak up some rays on the one or 2 days of summer.

The thing about having seasons is the change up in the way you do stuff.

Summer in London meant not much darkness. The days stretch out til maybe 9.30-10pm and I recall very fondly, garden sitting sipping champers and forgetting all about dinner or shitful TV. Of course it might have been a nightmare trying to get the kids into bed, but I guess that is what black-out curtains are for.

And winter afternoons saw me driving home at 4 ish on the rare times I left with the kids, and I'd need the headlights on and the heater cranked up. The days just vanished. I often arrived and left in darkness.

My credit cards got a workout in summer at the pubs by the river and in the winter they were useful for scraping the ice off my windscreen in the mornings.

So yeh I do love a bit of a season.

But today I pottered in the garden and whilst I might not have noticed a change, my plants certainly have. I planted some flowers next to the herbs, cos I couldn't be bother trying for more tomatoes and they have all taken off like topsy and the tarragon bush that I thought almost certainly I had killed when I pruned it - oh fuck it, I didn't prune it I chopped it off at ground level but was too lazy to pull the damn thing out, well it has come back like some maniac triffid, and all of a sudden I am a parsley farmer and if you want some rosemary, well I'm your gal.

I might not be going through the London ritual of washing all my woolens in the pommie equivalent of Martha Gardiners and polishing up my toe nails to be thong ready, but the garden is singing summer's praise.

The Grandie boy is coming next week and there is very little doubt that he will christen the pool for the season, so that is about the most obvious and noisy sign that summer is upon us.

Thankfully Stevie has seen to the chemical formula and all will be ready for the little fella, who I should add, has been growing rampantly like my bloody herbs. There is no doubt that he will be taller than all of us by this summer's end and god only knows what size his feet will be, given that he's sliding those lumps of meat into a size 9 already.

Medical Tune-ups and Priorities

We have spent quite a lot of time in waiting rooms of late, and aren't they just shitful places to be? All that beige and uncomfortable seating and tellies with the sound turned down so that you can still sort of hear it, but you can entertain yourself reading the sub titles which are on a delay and are nearly always grammatically incorrect or filled with spelling errors or are just so bad that they are no longer funny cos you don't know what the fuck it is all supposed to mean.

Today's claustrophobic adventure took us into a windowless cramped space where the tellie news was playing. I know that parochial coverage is permitted, but there surely has to be a limit...There was a bus that clipped a crane and a couple of people were scratched, and then a second story, so banal that I can't even recall what it was and then there was coverage of the bombing in Manhattan NYC. I know it happened yesterday, but I reckon it might still be newsworthy today, ahead of a traffic bingle.

And then we waited. The front of house woman told us that we'd see an 'assistant' first. I asked why and was told that she would take down the history for the doctor, and all I could think was that he must be famous or really fucking lazy. I made it clear that we had hoop-hopped in their place in Southport a year ago and we weren't planning on doing that again. Everyone just wore their Stepford Wives' smiles, and it was like I hadn't spoke.

A year ago we popped into see the eye bloke in Southie and he refused to talk to us... he told the assistant to tell us stuff and when we asked a question he told her to tell us the answer. He was a round obnoxious old little American with perhaps the biggest god complex I have ever seen in a doctor. I told the Stepfords that we were not gonna put up with that shit again. The poor polite Pom did a bit of a crawl up his own bum, cos I verged on rude but sorry I was, that it was only a verge.

But put up with shit we did. We had waited more than a month for the appointment. Stevie wanted to know if what he was using to treat a recurring problem in his 'Shingle Eye' was dangerous and wanted to know what else might be useful, so we waited. Arrived at 10.45 and saw the 'Assistant' - who cares? and then finally got to the doctor a little after 12. They were running so late that the numbing shit that the girlie had slopped into Stevie'e eyes had worn off and the bloke had to shovel in some more.

Now the doctor was fine, he actually spoke to us both and seemed to know his onions, I just don't know why he ran so late, unless there was some sort of con going where by they were billing Medicare for an eye exam whether it was needed or not. It's the only thing that makes any sense to me, and when I asked point blank if Medicare would be bulk billed for the eye exam, no direct answer was forthcoming. Ho fucking hum. Except that this ripping off of the system just makes for a less efficient system for those who are relying on it.

It seems that Medicare will pay for 2 eye exams per year...I thought it was only 1. So it seems that everyone who goes there gets to pop in with the 'Assistant' to read the eye chart and that'll be 40 bucks from the government thank you very much.

Medicine, it's big big business today. And the aging population is just gonna make it even more profitable. But this bloke today could have been working out of a little office with one front of houser. Just the 2 of 'em could have provided the same service, except that perhaps he would have run to time. There were so many staff in this place today that some serious skimming of the system has got to be going on just to make the wages bill.

While we sat there waiting and waiting and waiting some more we chattered about growth industries today. Law, Accounting, IT and Medicine were what we came up with. Of course we have no foundation for our findings, but our qualifications might well be as bankable as those of  the 'Assistants' who's bullshit eye testing is costing the Aussie tax payer a fucking fortune. No wonder the Federal Governments always have so much trouble balancing the budget.

Bridget Jones Baby

I learned a few things today.

I realised I like Renee Zellweger's pommie accent. Not that I am an expert or anything, but she sounds pretty convincing to me, and I really liked that at 43 Bridget Jones was allowed to be not quite perfect in the smooth face department. Her life has moved on but she has retained the clumsy somewhat awkward mannerisms and she still lives in her East London flat and I like that too.

The movie is a great deal of fun. If you know London well, you can play, 'I know where that is', and if you don't that's ok too especially if you enjoy oldie worldie iconic backdrops. There was a slightly adversarial but slapstick chemistry between Mr Darcy and Dr McDreamy, and the love triangle sort of develops a bit like a lopsided soufle - it keeps you guessing and I am not gonna spoil the surprises for you, but there are some. I laughed out loud and left feeling satisfied and chipper enough to face a spot of shopping.

And that was an education too.

Did you know that you can throw your grubby old boobs into as many bras as you like while you are in Target, in their palatial change rooms,  but if you buy 'em and tuck your titties in 'em at home and the bras don't fit, you can't get your money back? You can buy a skirt or a dress or a jumper or a coat and take them all back for a refund, but not a bra. So I can only assume that Target Management feel that women's breasts are disgusting, not to be trusted, and that women must really dirty 'em up at home, perhaps while they are chowing down on a curry, using their fingers as cutlery, and their boobs as plates, slopping sauce all down their fronts. Target don't want any dirty boob transfer onto their pretty little bitties. But contrary to this weirdness, I reckon my breasts might be the cleanest bits of me, but I am probably the exception rather than the rule. I learnt all this after I had trawled through the racks to find 3 different bras that might have done, except that the poor girl at the register was obliged to tell me of the lingerie rule. I asked her if I could try 'em on in store and she said, 'Certainly', 'But you are worried me getting 'em dirty at home?' I asked. She was a bit flummoxed. We danced around a little and I asked her again but in the end, I figured the rule wasn't her doing so and she surely had better things to do than argue with some crazy old gal, and I just left her to return 'em to the racks. This was quite the education.

Then still with a smile on my face, I ran into Woolies cos Stevie wants to have a little go at a beef rib roast on his new Weber. I did well and ran back up to the checkout, and bugger me, there was an empty one. That never happens! Yippee! A bloke was there about to pay for his loot that had already been bagged up, and you know what, it only dawned on him at that moment, that he was gonna need his wallet to pay for it all, and his girlfriend had his wallet in her handie ( What the fuck?) He was on the phone to her calling her to be his knight in shining credit cards.  So it was reinforced into my consciousness that if you want to walk out with stuff from the grocery shop, YOU NEED MONEY OR A CARD, or be so fleet of foot that you can take on all those undercover thief catchers. I stood incredulous for a second and then still smiling ran through the self serve checkout - done and dusted.

But you know the biggest lesson form today? It's that if you must face the shit shopping, then it really helps if you can front up after a few hours of belly laughing.

Broncos V Cowboys

2

The pointy end of the Rugby League season is upon us.

Now I know some folk who watch every game every weekend, but I am not THAT keen. I reckon I have seen every Broncos game though cos I am a fan, have been since the very start.

Going to the footy was a right of passage for Wynnum Manly kids. We'd sit on the little hill and watch and cheer and snog whoever. It was a great way to spend the short winter weekend afternoons.

The year I was pregnant I had my Wynnum Manly Seagulls maternity dress (a loudly stripped red and green number which if I am honest was less than glamorous ) and I wore it for many of their games. It was bloody exciting when they won the local premiership! and then many of the players followed the iconic Wally Lewis to become a core part of the newly formed Brisbane Broncos in the National competition. For the first time there was gonna be a Queensland team in the big league. Yippee!

So I have been a Bronckey-Monokey fan since the very beginning.

When my girl was younger. she was a fan too. We'd hear about Sunday afternoon games when kids could go for nothing and we'd collect up a couple of her mates and off we'd go, picnic in hand, waving colours and cheering like mad. And because bonus money for teaching Prac Teachers, would mostly come in in time for the September holidays, we'd find ourselves driving down from Brisvegas to somewhere here on the Goldie, enjoying the beach and the Finals. Yep we might have been the only 2 females who locked themselves into a Goldie apartment to scream at the tellie as the final played out.

She's less of a fan these days and I guess it's possible she only cheered with me cos madness loves company.

But even though she is not a big fan, I have trained my Pom to be a very big Bronco's fan.

It's a shame that last year's grand final is being replayed tonight and that one of these teams is gonna miss out on a chance to grab that ring.

SO we have our footy dinner planned and our arses will be firmly planted for the game. And yes we will both be yelling for the Broncos, but I admit that if they fall at this hurdle, that'll be ok cos I quite like the Cowboys too.

Needles.

Yeh these are the only needles I can bare to touch. Lucky I am not Diabetic!

So today I learnt that I am just fucking useless in a needle crisis.

Stevie was at the specialist for a look-see at what hurts him and the bloke who was all very jolly and pleasant said that a big fuck off needle was called for and that he'd do it NOW. Well Stevie was all very sanguine about it and Dr T said it would be good if I sat in with him and held his hand, and I walked into the Needle room with best intentions, but when the ultra-sound machine was pushed in and the needle container was swished about, and forms were signed and all was in readiness, I bottled out. I wanted to steal some of the jelly beans from  the jar, but rightly figured I hadn't earned them.

Fucking useless wimp that I am.

Now I have had more needles than would be blunted sewing a canvas tent big enough to cover the Gold Coast and its hinterland. Yep, I reckon if all the times I had been punctured were done at once in the one place, say into my belly,  I would have just a great big hole in that spot, big enough for the doctors to shake hands through as they congratulated each other about how I had enabled them to send all their kids to private schools and then pay their HECs fees.

So needles are not foreign to me, except that I NEVER look at 'em. I don't watch 'em sitting in the little green kidney bowl waiting to be used, and I sure as shit don't look at 'em as they are shoved into my skin. I can't watch that shit in person or on the make believe hospital shows on the tellie. Really it surprises me that I can change the sewing machine needle or thread one to sew on a button. So unfortunately today, I had to do a runner....what a fucking coward! I sat outside, but could still hear the conversation so I ran further afield to the loo...Ah Escaped.
 
I hope that if push ever does come to shove that I will be able to 'woman-up' and look after him, but I reckon I will always need a bit of time to get my head around it all, and with any luck at all there might be time to do a proper reccie to source a perching spot where vision of the actual needle shoving procedure is hindered by bodies. Today I would have been closer than Stevie and it was going into HIS shoulder.....ooooh yukkie!

He was a brave little soldier! And I did what all good generals do, and that is cheered from the sidelines, far far away.

Plebiscite?

Well bugger me! Agreeing with Bill Shorten -this is something that I never in a million years thought I would write, cos I simply detest the man. I would take a giant golf umbrella and a rain coat outside, after I had bought extra flood insurance, if I heard his forecast was for fine weather, and if he said there was no chilli in a meal, I would fully expect to need hospitalisation if I ate even the smallest morsel. To say that I just do not believe a single word that falls out of his mouth is like saying Mick Fanning was only a little lucky when the shark came upon him, and that a crying baby on a plane is only mildly irritating.

But today - not before and I am pretty sure never again, I reckon he might be right. Yeh I know he has some political agenda and some lefty axe to grind that I do not care to waste brains cells deciphering, but calling for the government to do away with the fucking waste of taxpayer millions for the Gay Marriage Plebiscite just makes good sense.

I fired off my request to the Federal Member Steve Ciobo and the Queensland Senators, asking them to give it a rest. No I didn't swear but I sure as shit wanted to. For fuck sake, why would the government spend 15 million bucks to outline the 'Yes' and 'No' campaigns, and then insist everyone votes, when the decision is not binding anyway, so the pollies can still go their own sweet way and please 'emselves. Surely they can just do that now and save the cash?

As I understand it, if there is a Plebiscite and the Australian majority, vote for marriage equality, the parliament still needs to stick their nose in by re-defining marriage - so back to Canberra everyone goes, and they can all claim their rent and meals' allowances again. It's all so bloody tedious and expensive and un-bloody-necessary and of course time consuming.

For fuck sake, I just don't see who is harmed by allowing gay folk to marry.

Aren't there more important things for the government to be doing? New road anyone? How about another hospital? or maybe, somewhat controversial I know, maybe something could be done about the refugees?

SWELL is on again

Bloody perfect day for a little drive and a look see at this year's wonderful sculptures.

The sleepy old Currumbin Beach is alive and pumping with folks of all kind and it's lively without being cosmopolitan crowded, and there is a sculpture for just about every taste.

Parking is a bit of a lucky dip, but if you are just a tiny bit patient something usually opens up.

Of course Dog was going loopy in the car as soon as she could smell the beach so that had to be our first pit stop. When she had played the sand game and drunk enough water to see her wonderfully vomity, we headed in search of our favourites. Starting in the middle - cos that's where we parked, we wandered north along the beach with Dog doing a bit of a drag cos she was rooted.

Even without the arty attractions this is a beautiful beach to explore. At the northern end where the ANTS had made their home on the rocks you can take time out to watch some dare-devil surfers who were out today sans wet suits cos the water was lovely. The ANTS were pretty speccie and the other pieces along there were worth a look, I imagine that a couple would be quite serene at night under the lights.

Then it was time for this old bird to have a little sit down and a soft-serve cone. YUMMO!

The walk south was mostly along the footpath cos there are lots of pieces between the footpath and the beach dunes. Here are some of my favourites.

Chain links individually soldered to make these oversized masks. Photo is shit compared to the originals. Sorry.

Kangaroo made from odd bits of furniture. I had a pleasant time searching out old bits of chairs and tables that I could have owned. This was a bit of angry fella.

Little bits of timber individually cut and placed - such an effort in patience and exactitude that it made me feel slothful. Marvellous to rub along - in a G sense you understand.

Bread crates cable tied together to make a pyramid which seems to move before your eyes. Again photos is shit. Perhaps I am including them here so you get on your bikes to go have a look in person.

Neither of us have voted for our favourite yet cos we want to go back again at night for a look at the work under their lights. 

We chattered for a while with the maker of the Kangaroo - cos I thought that was my favourite, but then the masks came into view, and the beach chairs. 

Perhaps there were too many good 'uns to have a favourite?

Pop on down if you get a chance. It finishes 18th Sept.  

Mobile phone etiquette.

It's a source of wonder and irritation and amusement. If you just sit around and watch people on their phones you realise quickly that just about anything goes today.

I have watched people who I figure might well be on their first or second date, both intently swiping their phone screens, presumably looking for someone who is hotter than the person in front of them. But it must be an interesting conversation prior to drawing their phone weapons.

One: Well you aren't like your photo
Two: All that acne ..... what makeup did you use for your photo shoot?
One: You remind me of someone, hang on (grabs phone and starts swiping) is this your brother? ( swipes madly)
Two: (swipes phone)

There is no further conversation. They swipe away, they don't order, not even a cuppa, and then one of 'em leaves, and the other doesn't notice.

I silently wish 'em both better luck next time. Fuck I am glad I am not out there.

The selfie stick shuffle gives me the shits, and I just fancy suggesting to people to actually have a look at stuff, and remember it, instead of filing millions of poor shots in some cloud file never to be seen again. How they don't do themselves a mischief I don't know, and I have some sympathy for the yanky fella who posted footage this week of him chopping selfie sticks in half. I laughed up a lung when I saw it, but the stick wavers were not amused. If you have a few minutes I am sure you can find it on you tube. Yeh I am too useless to include the link.

Today I spent time in a waiting room, and we all know how much I might have been enjoying that! It was heaving with people and even though I had wandered out for an hour, Stevie was not done so I scouted the seating area and took up a corner position on a bench seat, popped my handie on the other side of me and hoped not to be touched or irritated by anyone. Kindle in hand I sunk back into my book.

Pop Pop, PLOP Bing Bop Plop. I looked up. So did another lady.

There was a massive tellie hanging on the wall and last night's 'The Block' was playing and I guess it was pretty loud.

I went back to my book.

Plippity Plop Bing Bop. What the fuck was that noise?

Then I spied her. She was wearing an ID necklace and was sitting by a lady in a wheelchair. The ID said she was some sort of care provider. I guess she was with the wheelie lady. But she clearly didn't have any interest in keeping her company, cos her head was nose deep into one of those shitful phone games. Blippity blop.

The lady behind her said loudly, 'What is that bloody noise? Is it on the TV?' I laughed cos that's the sort of gaff I usually make. I said, 'No' and pointed across to the games player. 'What?' She laughed out loud and so did I.

The lady in the wheelchair clocked it all and smiled at me and then raised her eyebrows as if to say, 'Don't you whinge too loudly,  I am paying for this shit.'

The games player ignored all this even though it was unfolding in a room smaller than most laundries. When her charge was called she fumbled about with her phone and hand bag and then finally turned her attention to her lady, whose feet had slid off the foot pedals of her chariot and so needed to be tucked back into place before wheeling her off.

The rest of us breathed a sigh of relief when the technician said she should come with the lady, cos otherwise I suppose she would have just planted her arse again and played more of the bloody game.

Any one of us could have asked her to mute the phone, but I suppose we were all of an age where we didn't think that asking that should have been necessary.

I like it when I see signs asking customers to hang up before coming to the counter to order. It's about time a stand was made. I reckon if I was a barista I'd be like the soup Nazi on Seinfeld, 'If you're on your phone, fuck off!'

Poor Dentist G man.

Yesterday was his and hers appointments with the lovely G. I had been very brave and made an appointment a couple of weeks ago. The conversation went something like this:

Me : I need to see G
Her : (new to practice and new to me) Is this for a regular reminder visit?
Me : Oh No You don't send that to me, I just ring when I am brave enough.
Her : What do you think is the problem? (obviously trying to ascertain the required time for the       appointment)
Me : I don't know, G just sits me down and gets on with it. I don't want to know.
Her : ( Finally cracking onto the crazy) OK 1.30 Tuesday.
Me : Ok

And then in the mean time Stevie developed some pain in a tooth and got himself into quite the panic about it needing root canal and a crown - not the royal kind, and he needed to see G too.

I willingly offered to let him take my appointment, but he really wanted me to go and so I managed to get him an appointment not long after mine.

Now my inability to cope with all things dentistry has been well documented here, but yesterday was different, cos Stevie was tagging along.

Usually I drive myself, park up, walk aways to the office, sit in deadly silence, concentrate on breathing to the pit of my belly to maintain some normality. Conversation is not possible. But Stevie, possibly a bit nervy himself, was all a chatter and somewhere amid the mounting panic, I told him to fuck off and then I reckon he realised things were not good.

I popped into the chair with no pleasantries, cos that's the was we both like it. The new girl thought this was all a bit odd and a trifle rude.

G went at it like a dentist possessed, cos he knows there is a very definite limited window of opportunity. He did an investigation and a scraping and told me I needed 2 fillings fixed cos of all the grinding going on and he wanted to know if he should do ONE. I think he began to shake a little when I said that we should get 'em BOTH out of the way.

He stuck the needle in and I wiped my eyes after round 1.

Eyes closed and face washing commenced for round 2. Drill noise, and the panic sets in, shaking and crying and a little bit of hyperventilating just for good measure. I reckon G should be on the Aussie Pentathalon team cos if he can hit the target even the moving shaking target, then firing a pistol while a little out of breath aught be no problem at all.

He goes like the bloody clappers. No chit chat, no pleasant requests, he shoves shit in shakes it all about, removes it, I close my mouth, 'OPEN' he commands and eventually I manage to prise apart my lips. Again and again, 'OPEN' and I sniffle and open my mouth, until I am fucking exhausted. God knows how G must feel. If this was a description of something sordid I guess some might find it titillating.

He doesn't tell me what he's doing, cos he knows I don't give a rat's arse what it is so long as it's fast and necessary.

And then he's finished! We all give ourselves a big pat on the back until next time. Seriously if I was him I would tell the receptionist to tell me to fuck off and never to make an appointment for me again.

Stevie was up next and I waited in the surgery with him while G had a look, just in case he was gonna deliver the shit news Stevie was dreading. But it was OK, well not OK that there was pain, but OK cos the rooty toot toot thing was unnecessary. Whew! As soon as I heard that I was outta there, paid the bill and buggered off to the beach, where I sat and calmed down.

There was supposed to be another patient between Stevie and me, but he cancelled. Apparently he used to see G at Tweed Heads, but had moved to Brisbane and rather than find a new dentist in Brisvegas, where there must be bloody millions, he decided to be loyal to G. He thought he'd save  3/4 of an hour's extra drive by coming to the Broadbeach office. Unfortunately he hadn't counted on the severity or number of stairs and was unable to make the climb. All this is ho hum, except that I reckon it gives an indication that when you find a good dentist you should stick to him or her. If I ever move away from the Goldie, I will have to come back to see G cos I just do not want to have to break in anothery.

So we are both a bit sore and sorry for ourselves today. The block injection has obviously worn off and left a dull ache on that side of my face and Stevie is walking around with a tube of Sensodyne Toothpaste which seems to be the adult version of Bonjela. I hope it is working a little magic.

I am fronting up to see G again in October to be fitted for another grinder shield. Mine is about ground through. This is just to make a little mould from alginate. Neither G nor I are nervous about this one. We might even be able to have a normal conversation, who knows, I might even be up to asking him how his holidays went.

I wish G and his wife a wonderful month off - god knows he deserves to leave all this crazy well and truly behind and look with wonder at whatever he beholds, at least I hope that it won't be some sobbing shaking sheila. Good for him!

Fuck off or Fuck It?

These are my kitchen scales, not nearly as pretty as an old balanced scale, but I tossed all that sort of stuff years ago. Maybe I should have kept 'em?

I reckon your 50's are a time for decision making, a time when because people seem to ignore or not see you, when you get to decide stuff and the consequences are somehow less significant, perhaps this social too old to be of any importance and too young  to be too much of a medical nuisance, helps.

So it's OK to spend some time sorting things into boxes. Not kitchen equipment type stuff, although I do enjoy a good 'chuck-out' of old broken useless, what the fuck is this? stuff. No I am thinking of issues and ideas and reactions and people and methods and more esoteric shit.

If you are packing up a house the experts reckon you need 3 boxes: keep, throw, donate. All pretty self explanatory.

But the esoteric stuff can be even more simply sorted, into FUCK OFF or FUCK IT.

The Fuck Offs are the things that drive you so mad that you end up in a dribbling spitting heap on the floor. They are the things that drive you to email overload or screaming banshee status while on hold AGAIN. It's the stuff that if you actually get to shout, 'Fuck OFF' at 'em, you know you will either be hung up on or the police will be around to arrest you for being too annoyed, or something.

• All government departments
• Noisy neighbours
• Real Estate Agents
• Telco Providers
• Business scammers.

(Yeh we all know this is not the limit to my list - I am pretending to be calm today)

Fuck Its are things that truly just don't matter:

• the weather
• the number of days til christmas
• broken nails
• another pimple and more wrinkles
• burning the dinner
• shit service or food at a cafe - maybe not, depends on mood and energy this one!
• barking dogs
• bad drivers
• broken things
• rudeness
• traffic jams
• stupidity
• other people's children
• just about anything that fits into the 'what ever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger' category.

I know, who'd have thought my Fuck It list would be so long?

It'd be excellent if the 'fuck it' list grew in proportion to the demise of the 'fuck off' list. I can't decide if training your mind to say, 'oh well never mind', instead of feeding the red mist of rage is a good thing, except that I am sure your bloody pressure would thank you.

So I think your 50s are years to spend time trying to prepare to launch yourself into the sanguine 60s. I have a good while til I am 60, and I am glad cos I am still fucking far from sanguine about things that give me the shits.

And I am not sure how to change the habits of a lifetime. I rather imagine that if I hit the actual truthful Sanguine State people will ask Stevie if I have had a lobotomy or if senility has set in. 

So I guess there is always gonna be a balance, unless you are a walking time bomb or Mother Theresa, and didn't the Pope just put her into a cannon?

Manners and Integrity Vs the Corporate LIne

Yeh this is the polite version of the thrusted middle finger.

I could never have been in the Army cos I don't do well taking orders. When told to do something, my first reaction - since I was a child, has always been to ask why. Unless of course the WHY is obvious, the house is burning down and someone tells me to RUN, well I am not a complete nutcase so I run without question. But, 'Move that over there.' 'Read this.' 'Go there.' 'Say this.' Don't say that.' 'Do this.' 'Don't do that.' My first reaction has always been to wonder WHY. And if I can figure out a good reason myself, then I will comply with the instruction, and if I can't work it out and so ask WHY and get a logical reasonable answer I will comply with the instruction. But if that answer comes back, ' Because I said so.' then I rather doubt there will be any compliance. If I feel like I am being coerced I dig the heels in, and I am not one who acts too often out of fear. The idea that I would comply with some irrational illogical, ill-mannered edict from on high because I had been told to fear the consequences, is foreign to me. I do not like being TOLD. See all of this is why I couldn't be in the Army.

I was telling the Grandie boy a school story this week. I was at the convent and not doing mindlessly as I was told. There was a nun there, Sister Francis, we all called her Sister Flopper cos she had the biggest swinging breasts I have ever seen. She was a  big fierce bully of a woman. I think she taught Maths. Anyway, I clearly got up her nose, all the time, maybe cos I wasn't Catholic or maybe it was just cos I was none too compliant. I don't remember doing anything purposefully to annoy her except for this one afternoon when she kept me back after school. This was quite a big deal, cos my travel home was tightly scheduled; walk the kilometres to the train station and then the train took about 45 minutes  which sounds do-able, but there weren't many trains so if you missed the proper one then the travel home was SLOW, and I was only 12 and there of course were no mobile phones and I suppose it could have caused the old woman some concern, if we imagined that she had even noticed. Anyway, old Sister Flopper had me corralled into a corner, hands on her impressive hips leaning in at me and spit dribbled and flew as she shouted, 'Suzanne you have bold written all over your face!' I remember backing away from her boobs and spit as far as I could, and I started wiping my hands all over my face, more than likely in a very theatrical manner, and then I locked on eye contact, in a very bold manner and said, 'Oh dear, is it gone now?' Well she went frantic mental and how I didn't get beaten I do not know.

I didn't run for the train which I possibly could have been in time for. I walked sedately away feeling very pleased with myself. It was one of only a couple of times I was cheeky to teachers at school, but I felt righteous. I wasn't a rude little blighter, will-full and opinionated and brave but not cheeky for cheeky's sake.

Manners nearly always won out. I mean manners are automatic aren't they? Well for someone of my vintage whose childhood was filled with, 'Respect your elders' 'What do you say?' 'MANNERS MANNERS MANNERS'

Even today I need to prime myself to be really rude to someone, cos like old Pavlo's dog, my training kicks in and 'Thank you', 'Excuse me', and 'Please' fall out, even when it's the last thing I fancy saying.

And so we get to the point of this post, I don't understand how the Grandie Boy's Head Teacher can consistently ignore email after email requesting information about the young fella's progress or well being.

The Head Teacher is of an age, similar to me and I can't imagine that manners weren't drummed fiercely into him, so he must be working against basic rote training of youth to be rude enough to continually ignore his correspondence. I just don't want to believe that he is so rude that this ignorant behaviour sits well with him. I don't want to believe this cos he has a hand in rearing generations of children and it would be dreadful to think that he has had a hand in training thousands of kids to be little rude turds.

So I imagine that Education Queensland has sent out an edict that staff are not to respond to emails in writing, cos heaven forbid, an educated, normal, level headed, staff member, would say something litigious. Better by far to appear to be the rudest ignorant fool than to use old fashioned manners and a few brains with a sense of propriety. And sadly he may have bought into this, without question, without wonder, and without deciding that the instruction was bullshit so he'll ignore it.

The systematic 6 years of bullying has not been addressed.

And this week some little thieving snot of a kid slunk into my darling boy's bag and took his Pokemon book full of all his favourite cards, which of course just happen to be the expensive ones, cards that he saved up for, cards that he had paid off 'lay-bys' on, cards that he has spent days showing me and telling me all about. He's been collecting them since before it was a trendy thing to do.

Both he and I had a little cry when he told me how he thought it might have happened, and how he knew he was never gonna get 'em back

And so the latest email asked for follow-up on the theft, but no response has been received.

This is just not satisfactory!

Back in the day, before it was all the rage to protect school reputations by with holding information when kids did shitful stuff, and dealing with it 'in-house', the police were called. So if there were drugs found, the police were called. If a teacher was assaulted the police were called. If a theft occurred the police were called. But now I suppose it's not kind to the school and the police are too busy with other stuff.

But what sense of justice do you think this crop of kids is learning. What my Grandie has learnt is that there is no point reporting bullying or theft, cos it just doesn't make any damn difference and the turdy snots have learnt that they can and do get away with all manner of shit behaviour and if they are caught, it's only by the teachers and the consequences are bugger all - maybe some time out, so they can have a real good look at their stolen bounty.

And the Head teacher has learnt that the Department line insulates him from the ire of the people he is meant to be working for. He must feel like such a winner.

Did I say winner? I meant weak willed wanker.