Timezone and traffic.

It used to be called GRUNDIES.

I don't know why.

I can't remember if it was air conditioned or if indeed I even felt the heat way back when we would visit this place with my lovely Dad or years later with my girl in tow. Maybe that is the clear and absolute evidence of global warming NAY sayers need. 40 years ago the heat was not a consideration of anything at all, and now this grumpy sweating old cow looks for that tell tale sign of dripping condensation which slides down the walls and windows yelling, 'The air is cold, so come on in.'

Now I reckon, the biggest attraction of Grundies AKA Timezone, is that the cold air is pumped out and if you stayed long enough a light cardie might be in order. Yep in this stinking heat this place is a god send.

The Grandie boy was due a treat. Yeh I know I reckon he is always due a treat, but that's cos he is the embodiment of all things treatie. Anyway a couple of hours of these arcade games, shoot 'em up, slam into 'em was in order, and I was not unhappy about enjoying the cold cold cold. Yummo.

As a Goldie Local, I do not often venture into Surfers Paradise. I can sort of see how visitors might be enamoured with the shit shops and the bars and the cafes and the touts selling tickets to all manner of attractions and tourist rip offs and of course the beach. But you know what, I can live without it.

We parked up and paid the maximum 2 hours - $7.20 I think it was and wandered over to the place.

Not surprisingly, we were early.

But we were first in line when it opened and we bought the swipe card and off he went to find his very favourite games.

I remember a more carnival atmosphere cos the games were manned by folk taking your money and if you won you got a toy or some piece of shit and years later maybe a handful of tickets that you could trade in for a piece of shit at the shit shop. My lovely Dad did like collecting those tickets!

But now it's all done with a swipe.

2 Hour cards give you a variety of stuff, 12 Red games - ticket winners - points make prizes, unlimited yellow games, and blessed be, these were Zig's choice and Dodgems and a Lazer force game which he said was very lame cos it was too early and so there were too few targets, and putt putt golf.

Well I started off like a good grandma. I watched him shoot the shit of stuff and then had to pop on my feministo hat and ask him what all that girlie posing bullshit was all about at the end of the shoot the bull game. I mean really what is that about? Why do kids need to have pole dancing girls celebrating the end of a shoot up?

What the very fuck is this about?

The lights and the conflicting noises seeped into my psyche and suddenly I needed to escape. Luckily we had already identified a meet up spot so I nicked off for a coffee and he continued on his spree of killing stuff and driving all manner of vehicles too quickly.

I found him again before his time was up and we played some of those old fashioned games together. He smashed some thing down with a gianormous hammer and we did target practice with cannons and I was shit and he was fabulous and then time had evapourated and he needed to cash in his swipey tickets and he came home with a whistle. Ah bloody marvelous and we made it back to the car with seconds to spare.

So this is this was the formula. Arrive at 8.30am. Park up and pay for 2 hours starting at 9am. Get a 2 hour ticket at Time Zone and then high tail it back to the car before the traffic warden arrives. Yep we were a well oiled machine.  

Until that is we were driving back to Brisvegas and came to an absolute dead stop on the M1.

When we could, we went off grid and he used my phone map and gave excellent directions.

2 and a half hours for a 50 minute trip.

My legs were sponge when we pulled up.

Next car is gonna be an auto.

Tech V Pillow fights.

Ahhh the Summer.

Again we are the very lucky ducks cos the Grandie boy is here for so much of the hols and you could be forgiven for thinking that this long time might be at least a little fraught cos where do you find the common ground between Marvel - The Contest of Champions game on the whats-it and an old woman sitting around wondering if she smells like an old woman while reminiscing about 70's TV. But you know what, we manage to rub along quite nicely together.

This morning, after a night of fucking road works and a closed up house and the heat and consequent no or at least very little sleep we are all feeling a bit precious. Stevie is off to golf - I truly just do not know how he does it, cos nothing could entice me to chase some little white ball around in the heat, but hey ho, good for him and it probably accounts for why he's so much fitter than me. SO the Grandie boy and I are just on a go slow.

Now I know that 'SCREEN TIME' is a constant source of conflict in modern families, and I know this cos I read about it all the time on social media while I am tapping away on my wee girlie machine. But I don't find it all that tiresome. He's happy to play for a bit and then we have never had an almost teen melt down about turning the thing off. When enough is enough, off it goes and we go on with the next part of the adventure for the day, or else he gets a book or he plays with Dog or sits on the back deck and just goes where his mind takes him.

I sure don't feel like I am in competition with the 'Tablet'

This morning he was playing a game and I started pegging pillows at him. Just one then another until I was outta pillows and he had 'em all and was therefore in the box spot.It was no trouble for him ditch the gadget and start chucking 'em back. It was too hot and we were both too tired for an old fashioned full on pillow battle combat, but shit got thrown around and Dog dodged all the incoming and we laughed and laughed. 

Now I am often accused of having rose tinted glasses when it comes to my Darling Boy, cos I almost never have a cross word with him and perhaps that's the way he likes it. Parents are not that lucky. I am aware perhaps cos I am a parent and I do remember the, 'Can I Can I Can I' era very well. There are no trade offs for screen time here. He doesn't need to have made his bed or cleaned his room before he can rumble, cos all that is not important here, but at home I can see all sorts of sticking points. Chores V Screen. Homework V Screen. Shower V Screen. All manner of usual stuff V Screen. But here where the spoiling standard, there are no such trade offs, so 'Can I' is nealr yalways greeted with, 'Of course', and I guess there is the adventure of being somewhere new with other distractions which might lessen the, 'Can I's.

Anyway I don't feel like I am doing battle with the machine. I don't pretend to know how much is too much, any more than I know how much is too much time in the pool or playing with Dog.

How lucky am I that usual parenting limits do not apply to Grand parents? 

Yep it is certainly calmer and easier being Ma than Mummy.

Sussan Ley - fucking Politicians

Sussan Ley preparing to give Australia the finger.

I have been writing to Sussan Ley Minister for Health, well maybe she is now or maybe she's not, I'm not sure cos I read this morning that she had been stood down cos there'd been yet another fucking fiddle with tax payers money for a little private junket to the Goldie to add to her property portfolio. Anyway I have been writing to her for a fucking year now and have never received a response from her or her department.

I have questioned why the drugs for Leukaemia, my specialist prescribes, need to be approved by some clerk in Tasmania, and also why this whole procedure needs to be carried out at a snails pace via fucking Australia Post. Yeh she's obviously too fucking busy counting her rent cheques and balancing the accounts to bother with a response. I would have been better off stalking her and asking her in person on one of her tax funded trips up here to the Goldie.

I am just not sure what allows politicians to think that they are so far fucking above the law that they need binoculars to survey all their little ant minions. I mean what made Sussan Ley think she was never gonna be found out?

How could she think that even though stories appear almost daily about the corruption of individual polies and indeed whole fucking governments, that she'd be able to fly under the radar?

There can be 3 reasons I reckon.

STUPIDITY

ARROGANCE

LACK OF INTEGRITY

And she might well be a cake mixture of all 3.

I used to think and have said many many times that you get what you pay for with politicians. Pay peanuts, get monkeys. But the money paid fortnightly is hardly the thing that is most attractive about being in this game. It's the expenses that can be and are fiddled harder than a teenager's bits. It's the pensions that are so fucking extreme and immediate and available even all the while these folk too often have another job, all the while also paid for from the public purse.

We - the country, just can't afford all this shit. 200000 bucks for some penny anti councillor here on the Goldie who is not obliged to account for fuck all and that's just the bottom of the bucket.

The politicians are only interested in reelection so governing goes by the fucking board.

I am so fucking far over all of 'em.

Sussan Ley has landed right up my nose because she has never addressed my concerns. I imagine she has never addressed anyone else's either. So she's lied and stolen and lived like she's above the law, and she's been arrogant in her belief that she was not gonna get caught, and she lacks basic good manners in that return correspondence is not a requirement.

And all up it really doesn't matter anyway, cos even if she gets the shove, she walks away with a fucking unbelievable pension which she can access straight away. A cynic might think she has done all this on purpose, cos she just can't be bothered campaigning again already for the next election and besides the rental income from her flash Goldie properties is a good top up for her pension, or is that the other way around?

I reckon it's time we started paying these fuckers at the end of their 4 year term, based on any good they have done while there, based on how many days they sat in parliament and how many times they presented a well thought out argument or plan of attack, and how much of their own money they spent in a bid to do this job. Yep maybe we should not pay 'em at all.  At least that way we'd get people with ideas they want to try out and people who really were interested in the job and people who wanted more than just a lifetime pension and the easy life.

Sussan Ley, under these terms would be leaving with the arse hanging out of her pants  and a hangdog look and an empty belly and good-fucking-ridance to her.

Puzzles

Chrissie loot awaiting construction

For some years now I have been giving Stevie a little Nano Puzzle of something iconic, like the Opera House or London Bridge or a kangaroo, depending on what nationality is calling at the time. And it should be said that he doesn't always jump right into building the thing. Yeh the mood needs to grab him. And I can understand that cos the pieces are so tiny and all too often the infrastructure is also part of the puzzle - well no the guts of the kanga are not included, but there was a great deal of the Opera House innards that needs to be built, so it can't be done in a flash.

He likes 'em sitting on his desk.

When I was cleaning up for the fucking open house inspections, well I figured that they should go away cos they are just too easy to steal - yeh that's where my head goes when I think of a tribe of pervs coming a knocking, so I popped 'em into a drawer, but bugger it all, I broke 'em up a bit. Shit! And if it wasn't a bit of a pain putting 'em together one a time, I can only imagine this will be truly shitful cos now all the bits are mixed up.

Oops!The Bus survived but the Kanga is unrecognisable, and poor old Big Ben and the Opera House need more than a bit of Spackle repair. 

I imagine that these bits might stay smashed until we are settled elsewhere and maybe even then.

Zig's eyes became saucer like when he saw the Mini Cooper box Stevie got from Santa. I reckon almost certainly he figured a mistake had been made. I thought maybe Santa had thrown a spanner in the mix and that he thought maybe the 2 boys could work together or that as it required EXPERT brains maybe Zig would make it and it could sit on Stevie's desk. Who knows how it will work out. It's still in the box.

But what I do know is that I won't be jostling for construction pole position cos I just haven't got it in me. I am far too fucking impatient and am dreadful at following instructions. Shit I refuse to read how much bubble bath is enough, and as for food recipes, well I might follow 'em for a minute, but then boredom sets in and I just make it up.

I have watched Zig spend a whole day building a Lego thingie. He gets a real kick out of it, and so does Stevie once the things are finished.

But I can spend hours or days playing word games on the computer and before computers back in the days of newspaper deliveries and such, crosswords were fun, so I suppose puzzles are horses for courses.

And then of course there is the puzzle about 'why is it so?' 

But I reckon too much time spent on this will see fine collection of belly button fluff and fuck all else.

Do you enjoy a puzzle?

Job Satisfaction

Window washing is right up there on my list of what I don't want to do for a living.

There was a story circulating this week about some worker at a childcare centre, suing the employer cos she hurt her back changing a nappy. I didn't read more than the headline, so there could possibly have been some slim justification for the ridiculous sum being sought, but I rather doubt it. Me, I reckon I would be more likely to go after 'em cos of the assault on the olfactory senses or maybe a pulled stomach muscle from the dry retching, but I have changed enough nappies to not be worried about back ache. I can only imagine that looking after other people's babies could not have been high on this gal's list of dream jobs.

So I was given to wondering which jobs I would LEAST like to do.

My Lovely girl was sent, presumably as some sort of disastrous punishment, once to slop out food prep bins with industrial strength bleach and shit. There was no provision of safety gear, not even a pair of gloves and she was told that if she failed to attend work, her benefits would be stopped immediately. It seemed in its wisedom, Centrelink had registered her with a job search agency which specialised in finding work for MEN on PAROLE, and whilst I am not saying these fellas deserved this sort of work, I AM saying that my girl did definitely not! I remember it getting all very ugly and blessed be, that fucking place was closed down. I like to think that all the letters of complaint I wrote might have had something to do with the lockout, but who knows.

Anyway that job might be close to the top of my list.

I also don't ever want to have to clean up other people's bum holes, or vomit or pee, although if I had to choose, I would opt for the pee. I must have lived a charmed life as a teacher cos not once did a kid ever puke in my room. That would have no doubt set off a chain reaction, and generally speaking there was only ONE department issue waste bin per room, so that could have filled up quite quickly - yep let's change the subject, and I taught my girl to make it to the loo as soon as she could walk, so puke clean up appears nowhere on my CV.

We had window washers in this week in preparation for the fucking open houses over the next 3 weekends. In general I reckon this would not be the top of my YUK list, until I saw Stewie hanging from the ladder 30 feet up whilst giving specific complicated directions to someone ON THE PHONE. Nope, I don't want to be scaling a fucking ladder and wedging my body into the rungs in such a ways as to allow louvre polishing and phone chatting. Truly my toes are curling at the very thought.

Hasn't Stewie done a fine job?

I am guessing there are lost more jobs that I would just hate, in fact as I am a lazy don't work cow, the list is too long for me to bother recording. But these are a good start.

So how about you? What jobs do you want to avoid?

Digital cameras = easy Porn

Yeh these are the bottom of a drawer cos I am lazy and just use my phone.

I am quite the prude. I've never been fond of flashing my bits, even when they were smaller and more pert. Oh sure when I was a gal and newly married, we had an Instamatic camera, but I honestly can't remember using it to take photos of anything other than pics of my lovely Dad at one of his birthday dinners. I am not sure why we had it really, cos it sure didn't produce rudey nudie pics, and I suppose that was what mostly they were used for so all that embarrassment at the chemist could be avoided. The film was stupidly expensive and so even pragmatically I saw very little point in having a gallery of closeups of that which I could see any old time, in the flesh.

But I have always had a good camera and I have chronicled just about every milestone. In 'the olden days' I'd have a camera locked and loaded with film and I was very selective about what to shoot, again cos the developing was so dear, and I can remember the excitement, of finishing a roll and finding there was enough money left at the end of a fortnight to take it off to the chemist. You wait around for a few days and then troop back in, fingers crossed and have a good peak through.

Occasionally there'd be NOTHING. Fuck! I must not have rolled the film on properly or some other glitch and all that cash and all that nervous energy in the waiting. Fuck indeed. And other times I would just sink into the memories of the images...Ahhh. I am so glad to have these photos.

Nowadays, says the old woman, photos are easy and seriously far less exciting. We mostly have thousands and thousands of images clogging up our electronic devices that we never look at. When it's as easy as taking 10 shots of the one flower or one plate of food, or one child sleeping, or one sunset or one whatever, then I reckon a lot of the magic is lost.

But the sort of photos that jumped into my mind this morning that prompted this post are nothing like these memory prodding jobbies.

Nope, I awoke with the thoughts of photos sent to hapless homeowners, from their bastard thieving house robbers, showing said robbers with the houseowners' toothbrushes sticking bristle end in up their bums.

Now this might have been a bit of urban myth, but the stories that did the rounds some years ago, detailing this sort of shitfulness have stayed with me. I mean can you imagine a month after a break in, when all the insurance shit is done and dusted and you have thrown out all the knicky noos that had been gone through and replaced your other bits and pieces that were nicked, and you were just about back to normal  and you get in the mail a photo of your toothbrush handle sticking out of some arsehole?

I reckon it would take a while to work out exactly what the fuck it was, but the dawning of it all would see you retching and crying and reaching for more than the Listerine.

Yep that's the sort of photography that was on my mine this morning, cos we have 3 weekends of Open Houses coming and seriously I have very little faith in people just coming in for a perv.

I know a deviant bloke who gets off going into people's homes and writing rude, abusive, disagreeable shit on the underside of their cupboards, or other obscure places, so when discovered the owners are left trying to solve his disgusting puzzle. I am pretty sure he has done it at my place, but as I caught him once, he may have given it up as a bad joke - here at least.

I am not looking forward to an onslaught of tyre kickers.

I hope there might be a couple of bonafide buyers.

And yes I am hiding the toothbrushes and putting in some movement activated surveillance cameras just in case.

2017 ?

Ouchie

I think we can all agree that resolutions are just bullshit, - banal choices made all too often after too many bubbles have popped and prior to the headache thumping.  As ever, the tellie is full of statistics for failure to stick to 'em. Oh sure these stats are made up over a bad cup of coffee after a big night at the company chrissie party where the boss was found necking the broom in the photocopy room. And anyway, even if everyone in the world had a 100% success rate, I still wouldn't bother cos, well mostly cos I am weak willed. But I can HOPE.

Hopes are the lazy person's resolutions. So I have a couple, and I am gonna mostly just sit back and see if they happen.

It's Stevie's YEAR this year. It's a biggie, and he reckons it's gonna be a fab one cos it has a 7 in it, even though no other year with a 7 in was memorable for him and he went through 'em all and he could remember anything spectacular. So the first on my wish list for 2017 is that this year with a 7 in is just bloody marvelous and he has a blast, and he gets to do exactly everything he wants to do and doesn't earn any more wrinkles worrying about me.

It would be so cool if we sell the big house and so have far fewer bathrooms to polish in '17. Think of the savings on cleaning products alone!

My darling grandie boy starts high school so my fingers are so firmly crossed that cramps have stiffened and numbness has taken their spots, that he has a smiling fun year, yeh also productive and all that educational stuff, but honestly I hope he just enjoys himself, cos fuck knows it's about time. And I am hoping that he spends just a month or 2 as tall as he is now, before he shoots up like a weed and takes over as the tallest in the family, although I rather doubt I can put enough weighty books on his head to achieve this.

For my Girl, I am hoping that she smiles more than she doesn't, and that she somehow manages to find those bright pink or purple steel cap boots she'd so love to wear to work. I am gonna start an ebay hunt as soon as I have finished here.

And for me, well I am hoping for better numbers.

Off shore Detention sorted - yep that'd be good.

Peace in the Middle East - yeh OK.

George Pell jailed - ho hum

Trump - oh who am I kidding

So hoping is all very well but unless it has to do with something you can actually direct, then you might as well just not bother, and so cut another bit of cake and shove it in your gob. Ah Lovely!

In the shortest term though what I am really hoping for is that the sunburn stupidly earned yesterday at the Recovery BBQ on The Mountain with Pinky Poinker and Scotto abates, cos it is bloody stingy, and I can hardly remember the last time I was burned cos I am usually so careful. Not a fucking good start to '17. Oh the BBQ was wonderfully cooked and prepared, what I mean is that I parked my brain somewhere else and I sure as shit hope it makes it's way back to me sometime soon, before I prune up altogether and forget my own name.

Cheers for '17