These Vacuum Baggies are Crap

 

 

 

 

So the spare room has become a dumping ground for those weird bits and pieces you just can't live without, but will routinely forget to pack when you are in the final flurry. When I walked in there this morning, I saw an explosion that might well be what is disturbing Dog.

 

The carefully packed and suckered out topper had marshmallowed out of the bloody suitcase and when I tried sucking it out again, I heard a whizzy noise and discovered that there was in deed a leak not in the zipper bit but in the flat part away from corners...Not a bad effort for a $20 bit of plastic.

 

Steve got up me cos I had been bloody minded and refused to get a bag from Howards Storage after the bullshit service over the kitchen rubbish bin, but that's another story. He rather naively suggested that if I had spent 20 bucks there the baggie would have been a good one. Lucky he wasn't standing by the stairs when I told him that I HAD paid 20 bucks for this piece of shit from Target. He'd have taken a tumble and we haven't got insurance to cover that. I reckon his silence might well have been covering his calculation of the cost at Howard's if Target are charging 20 bucks.

 

So I have had to reconsider the taking of the topper and I know this saga has been ridiculously long and on going, but instead of thinking of me, imagine the Princess and the Pea story, except that it is not lumps that worry me as much as the concrete type lack of lumps.

 

I'm gonna try inverting the bedding and will pop the doona on the bottom and sleep on top of it all. Not sure how the sheets will fit, so the logistics of this will need some practical investigation, but the really exciting thing about this revelation is that I can take another 5 KILOS of stuff, perhaps another handie and definitely another pair of shoes or 2, and some extra boredom fighting clothes. Yippee!

 

So there is the silver lining... there nearly always is one.

 

But I am left wondering if I can be arsed trying to return the faulty piece of poo. I would have to take the topper out and then try to fold the plastic as it was before. Yeh that'd be like trying to re-fold a large map sheet, something untested by the Sat-Nav generation, and then take it back and have the 12 year old stare at me like I am some sort of devious retard who purposefully misused the baggie, or maybe I have swapped it for an old brittle one, which could well resemble my demeanour.

 

I haven't read the small print on the box but I would not be the least bit surprised to find that you are in fact prohibited from putting something soft into the bag and vacuuming out the air with an electronic device. Perhaps I was meant to suck it out with a straw? Or maybe I was not supposed to pop the baggie into a suitcase because it is claustrophobic and has a fear of flying so it shit itself on purpose to avoid travelling further than to the linen cupboard. 

 

Anyway I am guessing that it might be pretty obvious that a return is not on the cards.

 

It's a good thing that I am more flexible than the 'Original Space Bag'

 

 

 

 

How clever are dogs?

Only 5 more Sleeps!

And things are getting a bit manic.

I started the day shoving the mattress topper into the big plastic bag and  then stuffed the walloper thing into my suitcase and then suckered the shit out of it. Yep it fits even if it takes up all the space. I am re-considering the whole idea.

However, as soon as I was phaffing with shit instead of taking her out to play with her bally, then Dog knew something was up. She definitely knows something is going on as soon as the cases are taken out of the cupboard and popped onto the spare bed. Yep, Dog knows something is up.

If I believed she spoke doglish then I reckon she might have a better than fair idea that she is being left behind. Or maybe that's just my mummy guilt speaking.

Steve has spent the day doing all things plumbing, fixing the dripping rain catcher gauge pump thing which was buggered and dripping and driving him a bit nuts. He was just gonna turn it all off, but then discovered that none of the loos would work and neither would the washing machine. Don't reckon the 2 Js - our sitters, would have been best pleased.

Just as an aside, isn't it interesting - read shitful, irritating, that a few years ago the government insisted that we put in a water tank and that it be permanently plumbed into the loos and the washing machine, cos god knows everyone wants their new loos to be grubby brown and they want to wash their clothes in less than clean water, yeh that's really smart. So dutifully that's what we did at stupid expense and now just a few years later it is no longer necessary. What sort of a dick comes up with these regulations?

So that's done and dusted and he's also fixed the leaking loo up stairs, and McGyvered a plumbing tube to carry his beloved golf sticks across the miles.

Sheets have been washed and I have sorted 2 bathrooms, and I have packed away all the sewing bits and pieces strewn all over the studio, and the deck area has been given a bit of a lick and polish. Yep there has been quite a bit of activity and Dog notices things like this. She is used to a quiet slothful existence, so when there is enough movement to register on one of those FITBIT things, and the radio has been blaring and her parents have been bursting into intermittent song, you know when you only really know 2 or 3 words from a song and you wait around for that bit so you can belt it out, well she definitely notices. She has not been too far away all day.

It'd be very cool if we could just sit her down and explain that we are going away but that we love her and that we will be back. I hope she has enough faith to believe it even if our dogspeak is not what it should be.

The Countdown has begun.

It shouldn't come as any great shock, but it seems that not everyone in the world gets ready for a holiday in the same way I do, and really that's just nuts, cos my way is the best way. Oh yeh, I guess Steve reckons his way is the best way too, but he'd be wrong, oh shit there it is I said it out loud!

We are both getting ourselves sorted for 2 months away. I am making sure that my feet are scraped and my toes look pretty, and I've even found the courage to book in for a waxing of the face YUK, I really hate that. My hair is dyed and the split ends trimmed and I've manicured the nails ready for a swipe of clear lacquer sometime soon if I can stand it. In my mind I have selected a range of clothes that hopefully will mix and match so as to not leave me bored shitless having to wear the same stuff all the time. I have 25kgs to take cos I am taking my mattress topper which needs to be stuffed suckered and it weighs in at a lightweight 5kgs. I know this might seem like an odd priority, but 2 months is a long time to wrestle with an uncomfortable bed, and yeh I know I could buy one there, but it wouldn't be as good as the one I already have, unless I went to Harrods and parted with 700 quid - yeh I looked into it, before I opted for a $20 vac bag.

Steve took himself off for a haircut. I don't reckon I am a high maintenance type of gal, but in comparison to Steve, I sure as shit am.

I have a schedule for the washing and the ironing and cleaning so that we can leave the house all spick and span for the house/doggy sitters, and so we don't have to leave a pile of festering undies hidden in the bottom of a cupboard for our return...Wouldn't that just be lovely little homecoming pressie. Steve reckons he might pack his dirty bits so I can wash 'em while we are away. He is very good to me like that. ( Perhaps this is not a bad idea, I mean you pack to come home with dirty stuff, so why not?)

The fridge and the freezer are about as empty as they are gonna be and I have sorted the pantry so that old shit has been binned and nearly out of date stuff has been delivered to Belly - I am good to her like that.

Today Steve decided that the time was right for a dry mopping, and a wet mopping of every hard surface in the big house, and that's a lot. Perhaps lucky for me, I am allergic to the smelly shit which is his preference ( he noted today that not only does it do a damn fine job on the floors, but it also kills bugs - this doesn't surprise me cos it about kills me too) so that means he has to do it all. To be truthful, the floors have always been his job - yippee for that! Anyway, I always make myself scarce when he's about to set loose with the mop.

There were a few things that I needed to pack so the shopping was a hotch-potch of bits and  bobs. The woman at the register, whilst she didn't come right out and say anything about the oddity of it all, couldn't resist a comment about how much she liked the bog brush I had selected, ( The old one had seen better days and would not have been much use in the loo scraping department, so this was the least I could do for our visitors) this all the while shoving it next to my new lippy and a vacuum storage thing into my Target placcie bag. I got Steve some new socks cos it's always nice to take away some new ones, and cos it was on sale, some choccies that should just about stop us killing each other as time counts down and I get more stressed. Oh and I needed some asparagus for dinner too. I got 2 copies of 'Red Dog' to give to the pommie kids so they can keep a little taste of Down Under, a new eyebrow pencil which sort of screws up instead of needing to be sharpened, and a lovely purple toe nail polish that will match just about everything. So it was in deed a strange assortment of stuff. 

I am hoping that that is the end of it.

Do you go a little nutty while getting ready for a holiday?
What can you just NOT be without ?

Hand Washing Woolen Jumpers

I am going for the Chinese Laundry look with this photo. Mm very attractive.

Can it be that I am the last person on earth who still washed woollens by hand?

Surely in this day and age, someone aught be able to invent a woollen fabric that you can just chuck straight into the washing machine along with your jeans and knickers.

I used to sort the washing...you know the old story of whites over there and blacks here and the bits that were hard to decided on in another bundle, and then I'd dutifully wash each pile separately and my clothes line was colour matched...not to the point where I would worry about colour coding the pegs, you will be pleased to know. Oh don't laugh too hard, cos I know a number of gals whose clothes line could be inspiration for a colour between the lines catalogue.

But then we got this huge fucking machine that can do almost a whole week's worth of clothes in one bash and so sorting went by the wayside. Now it all gets tossed in at once and if occasionally some thing dark marks something not so dark, well I just squint and pretend I can't tell.

But I haven't been able to get to a point where I chuck all the jumpers in. It's not because they are expensive to replace, cos they just don't seem to be. And it's certainly not cos I enjoy rub-a-dub-dubbing the bloody things in the sink, and then carefully lying them out as flat as possible for days at a time until they are dry enough to iron.

I think it's Martha's fault really. Martha Gardener that is.

The only possible thrill one can get from hand washing jumpers is that you get a nose full of that lovely eucalyptus form Martha's.

If you read the bottle carefully you'll soon see that Martha's is not recommended for front loading machines...it just must be too sudsy. BUGGER! So even if I was tempted to run a short cut on the jumper washing race, and I bloody am, it's not possible to chuck 'em with a bit of Martha's in the washing machine.

I reckon it must be time for Martha to address this issue.

I think I should write to her immediately.

Dear Martha,
I am the laziest cow in Queensland and would love it if you invented a Wool washing mix for front loaders. And after that if you could petition for all clothing manufacturers to start making machine washable jumpers pronto, I would be very grateful.
Yours sincerely,
Lazy cow Sue

I hope I have now finished with the 'special' and I don't mean that in a good way, washing, so I can start working out what 30 kilos of clothes is gonna make the cut for London.

Do you still hand wash woollen jumpers?

Spring Cleaning can be a Bonus.

Because I a perennial whinger, I have not made a secret out of the shitful failures of my body over the last couple of years. All up, I have been pretty lucky, though perhaps not quite as lucky as I was today.

Over the weekend I was doing a bit of a spring clean and stumbled across 2 brand new bras, still with the swing tags and then a little later I found the online dockets from Myer. They weren't the right size, or maybe my boobs are not the right size, who knows anything, except that they didn't fit.

Seems in some sort of madness LAST YEAR, I ordered these things, online, in the wrong size and instead of sending them back, or taking them back, I hid them under a pile of other clothes and put it all in the too hard basket. I am a real bugger for doing this. Steve reckons I should win a medal for never returning online shit that is faulty or doesn't fit. So I probably just buried it all away so he couldn't say, ' I told you so.'

Anyway, even though it was a long shot, I took 'em back today with the paper work and my sad story about boob cutting etc. I just popped into Pac Fair because the place I park is right outside the Myer lingerie department.

I like to think that women who have not been lucky enough to have breast cancer would be allowed to return stuff after such a long time too, but I reckon that the yarn cannot have hurt.

The staff could not have been more helpful and I was able to exchange the tiny titty ones for wallopers that fit. How very cool and just in time to pack 'em up for my little holiday.

I was patient and pleasant and truly thankful for their help.

Of course it is no skin off their collective noses if they exchange stuff, it's not like there is a financial penalty, or Shylock is gonna come along and slice off a pound of their flesh, but it's my experience that in lots of places, all too often you get a hard time, if you try to return something, or if you complain about something. Yeh I know I have whinged about the misnomer that is customer service often enough.

But not today, not in Myer.

A girlfriend in the UK was lamenting last week that she had gone into Debenhams recently. She was looking for 'pretty bras'. I am only surmising that this might be cos she is getting sorted for her upcoming nuptials. Anyway the staff there gleefully told her that they don't have pretty bras in big sizes and she spent time tossing up whether to cry or smack someone in the head. I advised that slapping was in order.


Debenhams is a large UK department store similar to Myer and David Jones, and it seems that they must be missing the boat only catering to wee petite little titties. Good to know, so I wont bother heading in there any time soon.

If the lovely Jess was in Oz, I would send her to Myer in a heartbeat, cos they do have some pretty bras in all sizes. Yes the selection shrinks in direct proportion to swelling of the boobs, but there are some very pretty things there.

Now I don't expect that I will have any other exciting finds if I continue to spring clean, so I reckon I might just about be done til next year. Yippee for hiding things away and yippee to Myer at Pacific Fair for getting me sorted. Ta very much Ladies.

Are you planning on springing into cleaning any time soon?

The Gold Coast Show

I am a Brisvegas girl and going to the Ekka is what all Brissie kids did. It didn't used to cost a motza to go and we would all wander around getting sick on the rides and from all the hydrogenated fats we threw down our throats. We'd buy more show bags than we could reasonably carry and had a lunch of bits of cheese and sausage and stuff from the sample place.

I remember going with my lovely Dad and as a mad punter, he would hold point position at the U turn in Side Show Alley where there was an enormous lucky envelope stand. He would stand there and we kids would come and go and he would not be ready to leave until either his pockets were empty or he had won something from the top shelf. He didn't consider all the other dross he won on the way, A Win, so inevitably he was surrounded by all sorts of crap until he won the biggest bit of crap. You've gotta love a bloke who will bet on this sort of nonsense. I am pretty sure it was the Red Cross Stand, so I reckon they might have loved him too.

My Nanna would always go on People's day and take a thermos and a sanga and sit and watch the grand parade. I always wondered what was so exciting about cows.

I haven't been to the Ekka in more than 30 years. This year I felt guilty for not being a good Ma so I made a deal with Zig that I would take him next year but in the mean time I would get him a Show Bag from the Goldie Show. He asked for a WARHEADS one - I had to google it to find out what it was. Done and dusted!

So that's where I have been today and a bloody damn fine time I have had.

The crowds were not too terrible and the place not too big, it was all Goldilocks 'Just right'.

There is something quaint and old fashioned and at the same time buzzy and exciting about the place.

The celebration of local talents in the way of painting and crafts and cooking was fab, and I am pleased that people still enter into the spirit of trying out for the best scone at show. The CWA should be looking over their collective shoulders for competition from the blokes, who it seems can whip up a damn fine fruit cake or a  sponge.

I particularly enjoyed having a good look at the display of Wearable Art by St Stephen's College students. Their teachers and parents must all be very proud.

As luck would have it, or not, I was in time for a fashion parade of gear by local designers and from the front all the beach wear was fine, but I reckon one of the designers ran out of fabric and so the view from behind left nothing to the imagination, although in truth as all the models had their nipples covered, I suppose they were more fully dressed than is often the case at the beach.

I was reminded of an Ekka date - perhaps that last time I was there, when I was 15. He was a strange one alright. His surname was LUCK and I reckon he was hoping to prove that it was Luck by name and Luck by nature. He was disappointed. Ho Hum. I wonder whatever happened to him. One night he had 'borrowed' his bosses car and came for a visit. There was an enormous smash and crash and the whole family ran out onto the road, Dad was in his PJs ( he figured it was intimidating to the young fellas?) A drunk driver had collected the bosses car and all but wedged it into our house. Mister Luck was none too lucky and neither was his boss, cos the coppers came and the drunk was documented, so an insurance claim went by the board. Not much Luck anywhere that night.

The Side Show Alley was frantic and full of people of all ages either having a go or standing around trying to keep down their lunches. I thought that marketing people had had a field day re-branding rides from a different era. My old Cha Cha Cha is now the Cyber Party, although the good ol' Dodgems are still Dodgems. Reckon they might have gone with the idea that if it ain't broken don't fix it. Kids were having a hoot and the hot dates were on even in the afternoon. Romance is still on the menu at The Show - good to know.

The Piglet races was a wonderful addition. It's a great way to raise funds for charity and very good fun to watch, more so I imagine if you had been lucky enough to score a piggy in the lucky ticket dip. They are just so bloody cute - hard to believe they grow up to be bacon.

The How Much Wood Can a Wood Chuck Chop was entertaining and sweaty. Boy can those fellas swing an axe! It was such an education! I thought they just flung the metal around and the tree trunk flew off, but there is a lot of measuring and hammering of nails and drawing stuff, and then there are golfer type practice swings and then they are off and chopping. The commentators could give the NRL fellas a run for their money too.

There are concert stages and animal petting and a free circus - more than enough to keep the kids entertained and there was something going on in the main drag up ramps and stuff and I guess that could have been cars or bikes or skateboards. I am sure that details for this would be online, but I didn't stop for that.

I am looking forward to the crackers tonight, cos we get a first class view from the balcony here at the Big House, and yes of course Dog will be cowering under the bed like the coward she is. Crackers for 3 nights on the trot, I think it's Christmas but she will be packing up ready to leave by the end of it all.

I didn't hear a cranky voice or a whingey kid all day, and people were rocking along with all manner of carnie type food and Show Bags were weighing down every other arm, so I reckon it must be a pretty good show this ol' Gold Coast Show of ours.

Amy from Gold Coast Show Marketing was kind enough to toss me a free entry ticket and so I have had an even better time than had I had to pay to get in.

Birkenstocks AHH

Almost a year ago when I booked my knee in for it's major service, and I swapped the calcium for titanium - I might have made that up, I made a small error in judgement in going to a Physio bloke who ended up making me cry, but before I kicked him into touch, obviously with my 'good' knee he told me my feet were rooted and that I needed to buy these Birkenstocks immediately.

Well Stevie marched me straight down there to the thong shop cos he figured that it was all a false economy to fix the knees if the feet then were fucked.

I bought the fabulous bright red pair that Stevie has still not tired of calling LOUD, and I happily admit that it took about a month of wearing 'em for a little while each day, to get to a point where the blisters had healed and my body was not rejecting the very idea of popping 'em on.

And since then I have worn 'em ALL DAY EVERY DAY. They are just bloody brilliant. My feet don't hurt and because they are bright I can usually find 'em regardless of the strange places that I find to leave 'em.

So as I am packing at least in my mind I had to have a good look at 'em and admit that they might have seen better days. I can hardly complain about the way they have stood up to constant wear and tear.

Never one to hesitate to go into a shoe shop, I trotted off happily today to just pick up another pair, so I can break 'em in before we go. There is a great range of new season's colours and I tried 'em all.

I like the way the red ones match everything I own. The new ones needed to be as versatile. The blue ones looked a bit shit on me - skin colour matters even with thongs so it seems, and the black ones were ok but a bit boring. There were pink ones which wouldn't look crash hot with red, and the new brown ones were skinny minis so no bloody good to me. I was about to give it away and get the black ones when I tried on the purple jobbies and was instantly sold.

The real beauty of these thongs is that if you have naughty feet, the thongs will train 'em up, just like obedience school for puppy dogs. There doesn't seem to be any need to wear these newbies in. They are already good to go.

Or maybe it's my feet that are good to go.

How are your feet?

(Carol I know!)