Vindicated

The guy from Lube Mobile just left...and as I predicted the car is purring like a kitten. HOWEVER, the timing was OK - I hadn't stuffed it. The rotor button was shorting and two of the spark plugs were shot. If I had continued to fiddle with it I would have worked out the plugs, but I would never have guessed the rotor. Fortunately the guy they sent was over 40yo and had seen a distributor with points before and knew how to fix the rotor - with nailpolish. As luck would have it we have stumbled onto one of the few mechanics in Canberra who has worked on pre 1980 cars, in fact, he used to restore Morris Minors and Austins when he was younger; needless to say he is my new best friend.Now all I have to do is source a new rotor button, get some new plugs and adjust the tappets and we should be going good. It was nice to have a bit of validation and reassurance that I was doing the right thing, I just needed a bit more information.And he wasn't a high school drop-out. He went to tech. Read more!

Automobiles

It's been quite a while since my last rant, life has been hectic. An update on recent events:..
My husband's car died. It has shuffled off this mortal coil and is resigned to the car afterlife status of "good for parts". We have a 1962 Vauxhall cresta that we bought with the intention of doing up slowly over the next few years. It has now become a matter of urgency.
Having (mostly) always owned an old car I am somewhat accustomed to the trials and tribulations that go with old car ownership. The Vauxhall is 45 years old and has sat unregistered in somebody's backyard for several years, we bought it sight unseen. As far as I'm concerned we are lucky that it isn't a rust bucket with shot rings and burnt out valves. My husband isn't so optimistic, he's more of a glass-is-half-empty type. So far we have replaced ALL of the brakes, which cost $1200. The exhaust needed replacing (common for cars that have sat for some time) that was only $200; various bushes and seals associated with the steering and suspension have also needed replacement. Not totally unpredictable. Overall we will probably get away with around $2000 for the car to get roadworthy. Then we have the leaky transmission and getting seat belts fitted. On top of all that are the cosmetics of a re-spray, a stereo and an alarm. I'm betting we will eventually have forked out at least 12 grand for the whole deal, including purchase price. OK, we could have gone and bought a brand new little chaff cutter for not much more, had a problem free and economical car – but it would have been a characterless, boring little box made of plastic which blends into the background.
Instead we will have a gloriously sexy, winged and sleek car that's made of actual metal and that is unique. It will suit us. In the mean time the husband had almost lost the plot, the loss of his motoring independence and the fact that I have been the one dealing with various mechanics and beurocrats has been frustrating for him. He feels powerless and is convinced everybody is ripping us off. Meanwhile I have been in close contact with all the mechanics, the spares guy from the Vauxhall club and the RTA and I know what's going on. Unfortunately when we took the car back for what should have been its final inspection the mechanic actually found a new fault. The husband is ready to pick up a semi-automatic and climb a tower, I'm still of the opinion that we have managed to buy a good car and all will be well. I predict the car will be on the road (legally) by the end of January.
When I owned a Morris minor I did much of my own mechanical work – I had no choice, I was a student and it was either pick up a spanner and work it out or walk, and you can't be a proper Goth in Birkenstocks. So I learnt how to do the timing, the points and plugs, change the oil and do a lube job (which is a lot less fun than it sounds). I arrogantly assumed that since I could handle a Morris I could also handle a Vauxhall – same vintage, both English. Important distinction: the Morris was a tiny 4 cylinder, the Vauxhall is a massive 6 cylinder with extras.
So far I have managed to take off and replace the manifold without too much drama, but attempting to adjust the timing has brought me undone. I've gone from having a car that was running roughly to a car that is only running on 3 cylinders and has no power. I have raised the white flag. Lube Mobile are coming on Thursday to sort things out (hopefully).
This sort of situation annoys me no-end. I am an intelligent, educated, competent person. I am capable of mechanical work – I have proved this. Yet for some reason I am unable to get the timing right on the Vauxhall. And the thing that really annoys me is that some bogun bloke who dropped out of high school is going to come along and get it right first go. He is going to adjust the points and the timing and the fuel mix and have the car purring like a kitten without so much as raising a sweat.
In my efforts to tune the car I have skun most of my knuckles, caused myself much back pain, aggravated my husband and discovered a whole new world of profanities but actually achieved very little.
Why is that? Why can't I manipulate a machine to run as it should? In my previous job I manipulated proteins at the molecular level and was (usually) able to make them do what I wanted – could a mechanic do that? I doubt it. I guess it is my ego that trips me up – I should be able to do what a mechanic does, given the correct set of instructions and the right tools, but I apparently I can't. I don't understand why.
I will continue to try to learn how to fix my own car and I am sure that one day I will be able to wield a spanner with the best of them, but for now I admit – I'm not that good. Read more!

Boobs and High Heels

I am a feminist. I say this with full sincerity. As far as I'm concerned, a woman who is not a feminist is a masochist – end of story. I have never allowed the lack of a penis to stop me from doing anything except weeing standing up. I can change the spark plugs in my car, hammer a nail, use power tools, channel surf and burp as loudly as any bloke. I can also cook almost anything, knit, crochet, make my own clothes and go to the toilet without half of it ending up on the floor. On the weekend I installed new locking door handles on two of the bedroom doors while my husband pruned the roses. Life is as it should be in this home; we both do what we are good at, not what traditional gender roles dictate. I am glad my daughter is being raised in such a balanced household. I also like Barbie. I like her glamour, her shoe collection and her independence – I mean really, Ken was an afterthought, right?
When I was twenty I was struggling somewhat with the whole feminism thing. I had read The Female Eunuch several years before and thought I had the whole deal sussed out. Then I moved into a share house with a woman who challenged me to become a "real feminist". She wanted me to disregard my male friends, stop wearing bras (easy for her, she was flat chested) and stop wearing make-up. But I am a Goth, and cleavage, long high heeled boots and elaborate make-up was what I did. Yes I understood the implication that stiletto heels cripple you so you can't run away, that revealing clothes distracted from your intellect and that hiding your face under make-up was like wearing a mask and hiding your true self. I was torn.
Then I met a woman, twice my age, a fabulously strong, determined, intelligent, deeply feminist woman who lived her life on her own terms. She had done the whole hippy thing in the sixties and drank and smoked and took drugs, laughed loudly, told dirty jokes and had sex with whoever she wanted. I was totally enamoured with her, I wanted to be like her, I wanted her to be my mother. She also had a husband, a degree in mathematics, a house in the suburbs and a huge Barbie collection. What a revelation!
Feminism is not about following a particular doctrine, about burning bras and hating men. It's about living your life on your own terms, it's not allowing the lack of a penis to stop you from having a go at changing the washer in the bathroom tap. It's about doing things because you want to do them, not because some overbearing male tells you to. If you want to dress like a slut then go for it, but do it because you feel good about yourself when dressed that way and you better make sure you have the guts and the grit to defend yourself if you have to.
Nothing makes me angrier than excuses for removing self responsibility. When I hear that a woman who was raped "deserved it" because of the way she was dressed or where she was I get so outraged my head almost explodes. I don't care if the woman was stark naked in a bar at 3am, no-one EVER deserves to be raped or bashed or murdered (except maybe my ex) and the simple truth is that men are responsible for their actions. I don't care if you're drunk or if your father molested you when you were a child, we make choices. It is a conscious decision to hurt another person and I demand the right to say and wear whatever the fuck I want without repercussion. I know that's not a reality, but that's why I'm a feminist – it damn well should be. The fight isn't over, until a woman can walk alone down the street in the middle of the night without fear we need to keep up the battle.
And as for Barbie, well, there are a few very sick women who have tried to emulate her physically with ridiculous breasts and bleached hair, but generally – what harm has she done? She has many careers, she has been a single parent, she has her own house and car and campervan. She is an accomplished equestrian and she has a killer wardrobe. I'm fine with her and I don't mind that my daughter has dozens of Barbies and a huge box of clothes for them. What I do mind, and what I am very fearful of are the Bratz dolls and their associated merchandise. With my above argument in mind – they dress like strippers, even the babies. There is no glamour, not a single outfit influenced by Hepburn or Taylor or Armani, it's all street trash garb. My husband innocently brought two Bratz movies home from Video Ezy the other day, thinking the girl would like them. I'm sure she would, in fact I have had an all out screaming match followed by a full on-the-floor-limb thrashing tantrum in said store with her previously because I wouldn't allow her to hire a Bratz movie.
I refuse to buy into the sexualisation of children. I will not buy the girl a bra until she has breasts to put in it – even though bras are available for toddlers! She will not wear fishnet or high heels or get pierced until she is old enough to understand the implications and able to deal with them.
Apparently the average age teenagers start having sex these days is 14. That's outrageous. Not only is it detrimental physically, but what sort of psychological damage is it doing? Why can't kids be kids anymore?
I watched a few minutes of one of the Bratz movies, just so I could have an informed opinion, I barely made it through 5 minutes. A bunch of stripperesque girls sitting around saying "what-everrr" and flipping their hand in the air, tossing their hair and bitching about other girls. No. No, no, no, no and no. It's wrong, it's bad, it's obscene, it's far too American and my (almost) 5 year old girl doesn't have the sophistication to see it for what it is. A few weeks ago the girl discovered Cartoon Network and switched from ABC kids. The change in her behaviour was apparent almost immediately. We went for a bike ride and she shouted "looser!" at one bunch of cyclists and then "do you want a piece of me!" at another. After I stopped laughing I was horrified. Suddenly I had "ruined her life" because I wouldn't give her another chocolate biscuit, and she now says "awesome" and "aw maaan!!". I don't like it. Cartoon Network is being discouraged. I don't want to have to deal with a teenager until she is chronologically a teenager. At 5 she can stick with kiddy stuff.
Bratz are banned in this house. Read more!

In sickness and in health

I am sick. Although most who know me would instantly associate me with an Alice Cooper type sickness, at the moment I am physically unwell. Not severely, I have something of a cold, starting as most do in my throat and now settled into my lungs. Basically, I feel like shit. After a horrendous shopping trip this morning I convinced the girl that she needed to look after me and let me lie in bed and rest. Soon I was tucked under a sequined purple piece of fabric, clutching a teddy bear and eating a pear that she had massacred for me. Bless her. I even managed to read a few chapters of my latest Bourdain acquisition (A Cook's Tour) before she got bored and demanded attention.
I am not a traveler. I have been a few places, but I don't really enjoy it. I am a homebody to the core. In my own home I feel safe and comfortable, I can relax. But reading Bourdain's accounts of exotic lands and even more exotic food I imagine that I could enjoy traveling; all it would take is an unlimited budget and the license to eat anything I wanted – this would mean a get-out-of-jail-free card in terms of calories and dysentery inducing micro-organisms.
Bourdain's descriptions of Vietnam brought back many memories of my trip there several years ago, in fact, he was there the same year I was. It was pre-bird flu and Vietnam was still finding its feet in terms of the massive tourist rush that was in progress. I had never been to any Asian countries and I was totally unprepared for the poverty and the constant harassment.
But back to the start…
At the end of 2001, after more than 18 months of trying to get pregnant and two miscarriages I walked into my doctor's office and asked her to try to find out why things weren't happening for me. She shrugged, reached for one of those big books doctor's have on their shelves, and commenced to write an order for every test imaginable. I had blood work done for hormone levels, vitamin and mineral levels, anything that may have been a factor, including genotyping. She ordered all the same tests for my husband. Weeks later we were back in her office as she explained the findings: my husband had a genetic mutation, a translocation of a part of chromosome 8 with chromosome 10. There was a chance we would never be able to have children. We were gutted, the rug pulled out from under, hit by a truck and several other metaphors for devastated. We walked out of the doctor's surgery, turned right and walked straight into a travel agency. "Send us somewhere nice, with beaches and good shopping, nothing too touristy but nothing too primitive, even a bit of luxury" was our request and we handed over our credit card. $8000 later we were booked to go to Vietnam for two weeks. Now anybody who knows anything about travel in Asia will immediately exclaim "$8000? That's outrageous!", and it was, but we had neither the strength nor the will to argue, we just needed to get away and have somebody else organize everything for us. And we did what I called the "rich white bastards" tour of Vietnam, we stayed at the best hotels, had guides and a personal driver for all commuting. We had several stretches of independence so we didn't feel like totally useless tourists, but these proved to be only opportunities for us to argue over what to do.
One of the drawbacks of attempting to run away from problems is that they invariably follow you. After two weeks of bickering our way around Vietnam it should have been obvious to us that our marriage was doomed, but we were both pig-headed idiots and soldiered on. A few months later I was pregnant with the girl.
I brought back with me from Vietnam many things – a gorgeous lacquer dinner set (which we gave to friends as a wedding present), a few lacquer photo albums, many clothes, hundreds of photos and an embarrassment for the excesses of my rich western lifestyle but also a deep seated shame for the damage my country helped the Americans inflict on people who basically just wanted to be left alone.
Also I think the seeds of hatred for my then husband had started to sprout, he was the worst traveling companion I could have imagined and turned what should have been a great adventure holiday into a grueling ordeal.
Anyway, I have decided that when I don't have anything utterly riveting to blog about, e.g. what I gave the cat for dinner last night, I will write an episode of a travel blog from my trip to Vietnam. Read more!

Shortbread and Bitterness

Well, it's been a while since my last blurb….so what's been happening…..We had our first go at making Halloween pumpkins, which went quite well. They looked great at night with the candles going. We had one bunch of trick or treaters knock on the door – in their casual clothes. So I told them their costumes were shit and gave them some of the overcooked shortbread I was in the middle of making. They seemed pretty happy with their brown biscuits. The pumpkins are now sitting in the yard going mouldy and no doubt the boys went home and told their mums that I make really bad shortbread.
The shortbread was for the pre-school stall at the primary school fete. I cut it into Christmas tree, star and bell shapes, and put 9 pieces into a little cellophane bag and put some curly ribbon on it. It looked very naff. I haven't heard how much they sold or how much for, but I can feel good about having contributed.
The veggie patch is going well although for some reason the bok choy, parsley, rhubarb and rocket have all bolted to seed. This needs research and remedy. I am battling some little green caterpillars for ownership of the remaining bok choy and the weeds are just starting to encroach but otherwise it's all good.
There was a rather unexpected and tragic death in the immediate family that lives abroad. The circumstances of the death have rattled us quite badly. My husband has had something of an epiphany as a result and is promising to be the world's best husband and step father from now on. Meanwhile, he had to wear Speedos to work under his jeans because he didn't have any clean underwear. My efforts towards domestic goddess status are not going well.
On the weekend I took the girl to the big city to stay with her father and I spent the weekend catching up with friends and family. Over the past few months the girl and I have traveled south a couple of times due to my grandfather's illness and as such I allowed the X to spend time with the girl without asking him to contribute to airfares, which is our usual arrangement. So to reward my generosity he refused to take the girl on Friday night as he and his wife had tickets to Phantom of the Opera so he picked up the girl from my hairdressing appointment on Saturday morning. This caused several logistic problems with accommodation and travel and ultimately cost me extra money. When he informed me that his wife's sister was staying with them (and I extrapolated that to could-have-baby-sat) I was not amused. Later in the weekend he informed me that his wife was pregnant. Now this is something I have been anticipating and I actually am glad that the girl will have some siblings, but I was very unprepared for just how much the news triggered me into bitterness and pain. Don't get me wrong, I'm not jealous of the new wife, in fact I pity the poor fool and feel little but compassion for her and her naivety. But I feel cheated. I am unable to have more children, my age being a contributing but not the only factor. The X gets to simply marry a younger woman (much younger) and he can go for family no. 2. He carries a genetic mutation which caused us problems when we were trying to conceive and I had two miscarriages before getting pregnant with the girl. It took two years and was heartbreaking. By the time my third pregnancy reached viable status I was already exhausted physically and emotionally from the previous miscarriages and spent the entire pregnancy in super-paranoid mode being totally fearful of more loss.
My pregnancy was relatively easy physically, the usual nausea at first, sinus problems and then reflux/heartburn later and some intermittent sciatic pain and perpetual tiredness. Nothing too bad, yeah? Now, I'm not precious and I'm not a princess but making a person is hard work and puts an enormous strain on your body. A little bit of pampering, sympathy and compassion would have been nice – in fact, it would have been wonderful.
But the X thought it was hilarious to grab my oversized boobs and squeeze them, and when I cried from the pain he would laugh and do it again. He refused to allow me any indulgences, if I was tired or my back was hurting it was just too bad. If we went out at night he would refuse to come home early and at one party stayed until after 1am and even teased me with the car keys and laughed at me in front of his friends when I started asking if we could go. He even started competing with me and I would come home from work (so tired I was almost crawling) and he would already be in bed because HE was so tired/back hurting/not well leaving me to walk the dogs and organize dinner. I wanted to eat well, nutritious food, do the right thing etc but X refused to cook so if I was too tired to cook we had take-away. I used to joke that the girl was made of pizza.
The labour was difficult and ended with an extended episiotomy and forceps. I was badly damaged and actually totally incontinent for days after. The pain lasted six months. I was determined to breast feed as I had bought right into the "breast is best" propaganda but of course the baby had other ideas and fought me all the way. After 10 weeks of every feed being a fight I finally gave up and I was heartbroken and felt like a failure.
For the first month X was great, he helped with preparing formula and bottles and would even do his share of night feeds, I wouldn't have coped without him. But then he went back to work and the help stopped. He would put in token amounts of help but was basically emotionally and almost totally physically absent. The more I asked for help the more excuses he came up with to stay out at nights. Due to our financial problems (not entirely X's fault, but largely) I returned to work when the girl was only 3 months old. I was still only getting 4 hours of sleep a night and after six months of this I reached breaking point and considered suicide. I was diagnosed with Post Natal Depression and put on medication, which helped. Did the X change his ways? Did he offer any help, support, affection, compassion even a cup of tea?? No.
I was very isolated, ashamed and scared. When the girl was almost two years old I had finally had enough of his bullshit and told him to leave. My life hasn't stopped improving since.
The point of this tirade is to say – I didn't get to enjoy being pregnant, I didn't get to feel special. And I didn't get to enjoy having a baby. It was an ordeal; I was constantly stressed, deeply unhappy and very, very lonely. I blame him for this. If he had just helped me more, if he had just loved me as he said he did, if he had just shown some concern for my welfare if he had just BEEN THERE then things would have been quite different.
I now have a wonderful husband who loves me very much and I'm sad that I won't get to experience pregnancy and a baby with him, that my only experience was with a totally selfish, heartless bastard who ultimately didn't care if I lived or died.
So on Tuesday when they returned the girl to me, I looked at them and knew I should say congratulations, but I couldn't. I know it's wrong, but I resent their happiness. He doesn't deserve to be happy; he doesn't deserve a second chance. I do, but I don't get one. There is no justice here and it hurts me.
Shit happens, get over it, yeah? Yeah.

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Watching Waistlines

I have fallen in love with Anthony Bourdain. He hosts a travel/food show on Discovery. It's basically just him, traveling and eating. He is a New Yorker and has that droll New York sense of humour, but is also very intelligent, cynical and world weary. The only thing I don't like about him is that in spite of the fact that he seems to drinks heavily, smoke constantly and eat enormous amounts of high-carb/high-fat food he is stick thin. I've always maintained that old adage "never trust a skinny cook" and while I probably wouldn't trust him I certainly wouldn't turn him down either. He has that bad-boy thing working for him with a razor sharp wit, and even though he is cynical he also manages to maintain respect for the country he is in and the people with whom he interacts. He seems to only make disparaging comments about his countrymen and their food/lifestyle choices. A scene from his restaurant showed him reading an order which said "no butter, extra béarnaise", he ranted "No butter? What the fuck do they thing béarnaise is made out of? Morons." A very attractive man.
Unlike Bourdain, my love of food and my passion for cooking is very well reflected by my body shape. I am perpetually on a diet, living in depravation (no, not depravity....well...) and lamenting my vast wardrobe of clothes that no-longer fit.
I've always been a fatty, to varying degrees. I was a skinny little kid that developed into a fat little kid, turned into a lean teenager then became a voluptuous but slender adult. If the roller coaster had stopped there, I would be happy. But the combination of my Honours year and a job in a bakery had me spending hours studying and eating bread and pastries. I did Weight Watchers and lost the weight. But I didn't keep up my active lifestyle and soon chubbed up again. I went back to WW and worked incredibly hard at the gym and jogged, cycled and swam for about 12 months and managed to look HOT on my wedding day. But a crap marriage and 2 miscarriages soon turned to depression which turned into blubber. After the girl was born I hit my all time record fatness (and coincidentally depression) level. This time I went to Sure Slim and low-carb/starved my way down again. The past 2 years with my new love have, unfortunately, due to the distance thing been focused on food and wine and my weight has gone up again. I tried to drop some weight for our wedding and spent a fortune on a personal trainer and tried to stick to the Sure Slim diet again. I was eventually able to row 1000m in about 4 ½ minutes, but didn't loose a gram.
I have since moving here been trying to follow either WW or SS eating and have been going to the gym at least twice a week – again, I haven't lost a gram.
So today I embark on the Tony Ferguson diet, again low carb but with protein shakes and more flexibility than SS. By mid-morning I was craving a cheese sandwich, but I have been good and have made it through the first 6 hours OK. Apparently after 48 hours I will stop being hungry and the weight will start dropping. Fingers crossed.
I have no desire to be thin, I like curves and I like softness, I just want to get rid of the double chin, beer gut, wobbly arms and thunder thighs. I don't care if I have a big bum or big boobs, I can live with that, but my goal is to get from the wrong side of size 16 to the other side of a 14 (bordering on 12), that will do nicely thank you.
So Bourdain has now become porn for me: watching an attractive man eating. Like Vogue Travel and Living magazine (of which I have many): gorgeous places I will never go and sumptuous food I will never eat. At least I get to watch. Read more!

Old cars and escapism

The girl and the dog and I ran away from home last week, temporarily. We hired a car and took off to the coast and stayed at a really nice b&b near Milton. We spent a day at Mollymook beach, which after the initial screaming episode caused by my not making sandcastles "properly", was fun. I buried the girl up to her head (was going to go further but people were watching) we splashed in the water – even the dog joined in – collected shells and made sand sculptures.
The b&b was set in lovely gardens with lush lawns so we ran around, kicked the soccer ball, played tag and hide-and-seek. After I worked out that I wasn't allowed to get possession of the ball, catch her or hide effectively it was loads of fun.
The past month or so has been very stressful for the husband and I. I've been dealing will all the stuff with my grandfather, the husbands car (and hence his independence) died and he has been getting quite a bit of grief at work and from his younger son. None of these issues involved the other except when it came to venting. Unfortunately the venting turned from healthy letting off steam to many fierce arguments and much finding fault. I needed a break, I decided the husband did too, hence my decision to bugger off for a few days. The annoying thing is, once I was gone our relationship improved immediately. I was reminded that ours is a relationship founded on distance: we spent almost two years 700km apart with only brief visits every few weeks. So over the phone we work brilliantly, face-to-face we aren't that great. But we are learning and getting better all the time.
The death of the Mercedes has spurred us into action with the Vauxhall. We bought a 1962 Vauxhall Cresta last year, it is black, has fins and is all curves and chrome and is total gothic glamour. Currently it is unregistered and needs minor work but it runs well and hopefully we will have it roadworthy and registered before too long.

In other car news I joined the old Holden car club last week and attended my first meeting. Typical boffin types, pleasant and very enthusiastic people. I will no doubt attend a few club runs and show off the EK and spend time admiring others. http://www.oldgmh.org.au/

On the drive back from Milton I passed the vintage caravan touring club. Magnificent. I have an early 60's caravan which is semi-restored. I am now inspired to complete the job so I can go touring in my gorgeous car with matching van I shall, of course, have to go in costume with a circle skirt and ponytail, Gothabilly style.
This afternoon I am going to do the veggie patch, version 2. The weather has been quite hot so I'm sure it's safe frost wise. It'll be snails next.

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Spring

My first spring in Blandberra.....so far so good. Only one crippling sinus headache and minor sneezing attacks, lets hope November is this good.Yesterday I hooked up the tandem bike for the girl onto the back of my husbands bike (my bike is temporarily out of action) and we rode to the video shop for our Wednesday movie exchange. About 6km round trip, not too bad. The girl is getting the hang of pedalling forwards, although she stills prefers to pedal backwards as she can go fast with no effort. But, to her credit, she did contribute to our momentum several times and was a small amount of help on the hills. The bad part is that I found myself yelling "pedal!!" when she was slacking and eventually realised I sounded just like my ex when we put in one of our very few attempts to share a pastime. I was very into cycling at that point in my life so he went and bought a bike. Now when I say "into cycling" I mean I rode my bike often, used it to commute, I didn't do it recreationally very often. So I wasn't into going as fast as I could or beating anybody, I just cruised. I wasn't interested in arriving at my destination puffing and sweaty and glowing red. My philosophy on hills was that down hill coasting was reward/recovery from the hard slog up the hill. My ex's philosophy was that going down hills is an opportunity to build up more speed. Our inaugural bike ride consisted of him racing ahead then doubling back to yell at me to pedal faster. When he found me coasting down a hill he was furious and screamed "pedal!!" We didn't ride together much after that. I apologised to the girl and she is keen to go again; I will endeavour to improve my behaviour.
Riding along we encountered several clouds of white fluffy stuff floating about, as if some tree or plant had suddenly dumped all of its seeds at once. No doubt it was this stuff that later caused my headache. It is actually very pretty here at the moment, the trees are blooming and sprouting new leaves, many flowers are appearing in gardens and on nature strips, the weather has been fine and sunny but not too warm. Quite lovely really, I may even become brave enough to replant my veggie patch. I am starting to appreciate more about this city; I can understand why some people enjoy living here. As long as you don't want decent live music, restaurants that are good AND cheap or any sort of alternative theatre or cinema then this place is great. I'm still keen to get back to the big city and I promise I will never take being spoilt for choice for granted again. Read more!

Coffins and Flowers

I didn't recognize the little old man in the coffin, until I looked at his hands. They were my grandfather's hands – gnarled and twisted from arthritis and covered in sun spots from years of farm work. Distinctive and instantly recognizable. Looking at his face I eventually saw similarities between my grandfather and the old man in front of me. He was so emaciated, eyes and cheeks sunken and there was no smile, none of his naughty boy cheeky sparkle. Yet it was him, and he seemed peaceful. I know it's a cliché to say "he looked peaceful", but he did. He could have been sleeping, except for the unnatural stillness.
I reached out to touch him, I wanted to stroke his forehead, hold his hand – but I couldn't. I reached out a few times only to pull back at the last minute. I couldn't bear the thought of feeling him cold, the final confirmation that he wasn't sleeping.
I distracted myself by investigating the quality of the coffin, peeking under the lining to pick at the chip board and tap on the plastic handles. I approved of my Grandmother's sensible money saving – why spend thousands on something you are going to bury? But I was also glad my mother had insisted that my Grandfather be dressed; he was wearing the suit that he had worn to my mother's first wedding instead of the pjs he died in which his wife was happy to have him buried in. She refused to put shoes on him though and I giggled at the thought of his bare feet under the satin shroud. My Dad and I debated the correct etiquette for coffin apparel – does one wear shoes or not? I thought since he was in a suit then he should also have shoes.
The service was very respectful and short, perhaps not as many funny stories as there could have been and I missed my chance to contribute because I misunderstood the invitation. Only one of my cousins from the whole family actually did contribute. But that's my family – verbose to the extreme if it is meaningless, but faced with an emotional situation we clam up. We then drove for 3 hours to the cemetery for the grave side service. At the end everyone was throwing flowers in the grave, I eventually did because I thought I should, but I really didn't want to. Not letting go? Maybe. Watching the coffin descend into the ground was bad, really bad. I was very grateful for the presence of my little princess and my husband, they were a great comfort. I am quite sure we have got this whole death thing wrong, it's too difficult. There must be a better way. A process that doesn't make you feel like you've had your guts ripped out.
So now he is gone. He was a character: a man of endless wit, great strength and in his own way – much love. One of the corner stones of my family is gone. I'll say good-bye in my own time.

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Pride Goeth

A week ago I uncovered my well mulched veggie patch and began planting.Over the past 7 days the following seedlings were planted:
20 tomatoes, several varieties
8 beans
16 varieties of Asian greens
8 red chillies
8 basil
8 Thai basil
10 coriander
1 lemongrass
1 Vietnamese mint
4 snow peas.
With the seedlings settled in and mulched to the eyebrows with pea straw, residual weeds hoed and no sign of snails I thought I had done well. I watered, congratulated myself on a job well done and looked forward to the coming bounty.
They are all dead. All brown and shriveled. All (I don't want to add up how much I spent) of them.
I miscalculated and underestimated the tenacity of the Blandberra frosts. The days have been warm for well over a month, all the trees are blossoming and spring is well upon us. I thought it was safe. I thought the frozen earth was thawed sufficiently. I was wrong. They are all dead. Fuck it. That really pisses me off. Read more!

Cigarettes and Alcohol

My grandfather is dying, as grandfathers tend to do. He has been dying for some time, years in fact. He quit smoking at 50, but after 36 years of inhaling tobacco smoke emphysema had already taken hold. Now, at 88 he has malignant tumours in his bladder, shoulder, chest and lungs.
He is currently recovering (unexpectedly) from pneumonia. He is bed ridden, unable to walk or even stand unaided and has developed many pressure sores on his back and bottom. He is totally incontinent and can't feed himself. He is almost deaf. He has had at least 2 strokes. Yet he lives. He hangs on. Is it grit, determination, constitution or simply that his wife won't give him permission to die?
What is it that keeps someone going when their bodies are broken and damaged beyond what seems possible? The medicos are in awe of his perseverance, his death has been predicted by them several times over the past 12 months. Yet against all odds, he lives.
My mother, sister and I lived with my grandparents when I was a child, my sister an infant. My grandfather was my only male role model for my formative years. He was a farmer, all brawn and work ethic. My grandmother was the brain, that was obvious. My grandfather is no doubt responsible for my staunch feminism – I was told he was the head of the household, but even as a small child it was clear to me that he wasn't. He was compliant, he did as he was told. He still does. Every night my grandmother leaves the hospital saying "goodnight, see you tomorrow" and he hangs on. She tells him to stay and he does.
My grandparents' marriage was not an easy one. They had to get married, she was pregnant. They have never celebrated a wedding anniversary (not even their 60th) in case somebody did the math and worked out their oldest child (my mother) was born only a few months after their wedding. Their life was made difficult by his catholacism and alcoholism. Too many children, not enough money – an old story. A life filled with many arguments, much resentment. But finally a bond that neither has the strength to break. Love? Habit? Fear? Guilt? Only they know the ingredients that hold them together (maybe).
I look at my own husband. A smoker for 32 years. Is what my grandmother deals with now what lies in my future? If so, do I have the strength, devotion and depth of love to deal with a husband wracked by lung disease? I don't know. As an asthmatic I know first hand the ordeal and pain of lungs that refuse to work. To struggle for breath is terrifying. It's not a state I would ever wish on anybody. I hope that if the time comes I have the strength, devotion and depth of love to say to him "Goodnight and goodbye, my love. Don't wake up tomorrow".


Since writing this, my grandfather has been sent home for his final days. He is apparently calm and peaceful, which is a great comfort to me as he was scared and confused in hospital.
And now we wait….. Read more!

To Boldly Go

I am happy. I am porcine in excretum. I have a grin on my face that the husband finds quite disturbing. I have Star Trek, The Next generation, all of them. Every one. All the drama, all the action, all the monologues and all the skin tight uniforms I can handle.
Now here is my dilemma: I am an atheist. There are no Gods or Deities that I pray to. I believe in the randomness of the universe and of self responsibility. Yet herein lies the quandary – why is it that so often things seems to "fall into place"?
On the weekend I saw an add for box sets of Next Gen and DS9 for only $280 each. I already have all of DS9 on VHS, as much as I would love to upgrade and save some space as well, I couldn't justify the double up. But owning all of Next Gen has been on my wish list for some time. I looked at the add and lamented my unemployed status, my lack of financial fluidity. Six months ago I would have simply gone straight to the shop and bought both of them and given all the DS9 videos to the Salvos. These days $280 is a truckload of money. So I lamented and dismissed. The next day I received a cheque for $405.45, an adjustment for some shares from my previous employer. Today I own Next Gen. Coincidence? Of course. Or is it a case of "ask, and you shall receive"?
In previous blogs I have typed about the drama of losing my "precious things", my engagement ring and several important items and I have blamed unnamed universal powers for their loss and subsequently their return.
Was it a coincidence that when being faced with the question of my obsession with materialism I should be forced to deal with the loss of that which was most precious – materially and emotionally? Was is also a coincidence that the loss of my engagement ring acted as a catalyst for many fights between myself and the husband and that these fights forced confrontations that while momentarily traumatic exposed vulnerabilities to each other which ultimately brought us closer together? Only when we had both given up all hope of finding the ring did I eventually find it. Life lesson learned - reward given. The Gods spoke thusly. What Gods? Are there Universal powers? I actually prefer to believe in randomness. It is the only way to deal with situations such as two children in a cancer ward – one lives, the other dies. Why? Religious belief would argue divine intervention on the part of the survivor and "mysterious ways" on the part of the child that lost the battle. I'm sorry, but that's not good enough for me. Random variables and the action of chemotherapy answer both. But then we are left with those in our lives that behave in abhorrent ways (for some reason my ex-husband springs to mind) and the only way I can remain sane when thinking about such things is to summon up a belief in Karma. Therein lies the rub: my belief system changes depending on circumstance. I am a hypocrite.
So when the Mormons, excuse me, Latter Day Saints or Jehovah's Witnesses knock I am a pagan (gets rid of them real quick), when faced with mortality I am an atheist and will deal with my own shit but when faced with a bargain and an unexpected cash flow I will thank any and all of the Gods that I can find.
So thanks. Live long and prosper. Read more!

Faith

At the age of 16 I had never seen a frozen lake. The sight of one induced both fascination and terror. It was the mid 80's and The Omen films had taught me to fear Rottweilers and falling through ice. The lake that lay before me was small, more a pond really, about 50m across. It was surrounded by forest; the moon shone bright above the lake and the trees reflected on the ice. It was one of the most beautiful scenes I can remember. The boy that had brought me there took my hand and tried to lead me out onto the ice. I was too scared, I pulled back and yelled my refusal loudly. He picked me up (I was a tiny 54kg, not the fatty I am today) and carried me out to the middle of the lake. I screamed and kicked and protested yet over the noise I was making I could hear the ice creaking and cracking under us. When we reached the middle he put me down and I stood, still screaming, but now also crying from fear. The boy took my face in his hands, forced me to look at him and said very calmly "I have told you that I love you but you still think I would do something that would put you in danger. How can I prove to you that you can trust me?" He then moved away from me and started jumping up and down. The sound of the ice cracking was almost deafening, the splitting sounds rang out and echoed through the forest. I couldn't understand what the boy was doing, why he was trying to kill us. I was crying and begging him to stop, eventually I collapsed to my knees and just cried, my face in my hands. The boy stopped his stomping and sat down beside me. "You need to learn to trust people, you can't live your life alone." He paused for a moment then looked me in the eye "this isn't a lake, it's a flooded field, the ice is no more than 50cm deep. Now will you please relax?" We looked at each other for a second, he laughed and I punched him in the chest as hard as I could, knocking him over, I was furious. I started walking back towards the edge, trying to be as dignified as possible while slipping everywhere. The boy caught me from behind, dragged me back to the middle of the ice and we chased each other, fell over, ran around and screamed and giggled as only teenagers can.
The impact and the significance of that night didn't really occur to me until much later. I had lived my life totally emotionally disconnected from each and all. Partly due to being raised by an emotionally absent mother but mostly as a defense against the bullying I had been subjected to at school. I didn't trust anyone and I would certainly never admit to feeling love. That lovely, charming, funny boy would teach me many things in the eight months that we knew each other. For his mere 18 years he remains one of the wisest people I have ever met. I owe him my emotional sanity.
We lost touch less than two years after I returned to Australia and for the most part I am happy to leave him to the realms of my romanticized youth. Events in my life at this moment have given me cause to reflect on what (indeed who) it was that made me who I am today, why I am able to remain relatively calm and objective while my family rip each other apart. Why it was that a disgruntled young would-be punk ended up with a degree in Biochemistry rather than a heroin habit. The people who influence us, the paths we take on our journey, are many and come in all shapes.
It is easy to look at a young troubled person and tell them things will be OK, it's much harder to look at an old, dying man and tell him the same. We can only speak from experience. Read more!

Shoes and Buses

This morning the girl showed me a badge she had found (somewhere in the house) and wanted to wear to pre-school. It was a pretty pink badge with a fairy on it. Nice, just the thing a cute little girl could wear on her jacket. Except this badge, apart from being very cute, also happened to say "click your heels together three times and go fuck yourself". So I considered her request: the fact that she can't read, none of the other kids at pre-school can read – actually the majority of them can't even speak English – was working in her favour, but in the end I decided it probably wasn't a good idea for her to wear it. I tried to explain that it had a bad word on it and wasn't appropriate for pre-school and eventually she relented.
After I dropped her at pre-school I headed out to Belconnen to go to a shoe shop, the Foot Locker to be precise. I have been doing quite a bit of exercise recently, going to the gym and stuff, and since I spend so much time in exercise gear I decided to upgrade to something half decent. At the Foot Locker store at Woden I found some gym shoes that were black (oh my god!) and had a very subtle gold design in the stripes and were actually quite attractive. Of course they didn't have my size. So I rang the Belconnen store and asked about them, unfortunately I didn't know the brand or the model number but I figured since they were the only black gym shoes (probably in the southern hemisphere) it shouldn't be a problem. Blandberra has a strange staffing thing going on where it seems to be illegal to employ anyone over the age of 15. This is across all areas of retail and hospitality – wherever you go, whatever shop or café you venture into you can be 99% guaranteed to be served by a small child who can barely see over the counter. So speaking to the sales person wasn't so much as akin to speaking to a surly teenager – I actually was speaking to a surly teenager who informed me that his shop stocked several different black women's gym shoes and he couldn't possibly help me with so little information. I said to the husband "I bet they don't have ANY black women's gym shoes" and decided to go and look for myself. I was wrong, they had one pair of cross-trainers that were black, had fringing on them and were hideous. They didn't have any gym shoes at all.
I wandered about the shopping mall, a Westfield (aren't they all?) and marveled at how they can perfectly reproduce shopping malls, much like McDonalds stores, no matter where you go they are all the same. I guess this is supposed to be comforting, the safety of familiarity and all that, I find it unsettling, disturbing and quite sad. One thing Blandberra does not seem to have in any form is strip shopping (stripPER shopping – yes), every shop is contained within a shopping centre. Boring.
Driving back home to collect the girl from pre-school I was following a bus that had a poem in the back window, promoting national poetry week. The lettering of the poem was large enough so that I could read the first bit of it while we were stopped at an intersection, but then had to chase the bus down the freeway and tailgate until I could read the rest of it. It was a nice poem, the first line was something like "he knocked on the hard wood of the casket", so you can understand why I had to read the rest. Needless to say that I was concentrating so hard on tailgating the bus and reading the poem that I missed the turnoff I needed and had to take the very scenic route home. It was worth it though, a nice poem does wonders for the soul, and indeed lack of sole.
Tomorrow at pre-school is a birthday party, the girl needs to wear party clothes and take a present and party food. She will no-doubt go dressed as Snow White or a fairy, I bought some fruit sticks (domestic goddesses have days off too) and the present is a big red spider that has one of those little traction wheelie things in it so it will scoot along the floor. Like the badge says… Read more!

The King

When I was a child I lived with my mother and my younger sister in a flat in Ballarat. My mother was attending teacher's college and she spent long hours at school and longer hours at home studying. I was often left to care for my sister and I soon discovered that if we wanted dinner before 9pm and something of edible quality I had to make it myself. I moved a stool up to the stove and did so. I was 9 years old.
The weekends that weren't spent driving 3 hours to my mother's parent's farm to stock up on food were spent in our little flat watching television. Back in thoose days Elvis films were routinely shown on Sunday afternoons and my mother and I would watch them. Usually she would be in the background doing something else, but we watched together in some capacity. It was just about the only "quality" time I spent with my mother. This began my love affair with Elvis. After less than a year of this lifestyle Elvis died. I remember listening to the news reader announcing the details, I was sitting on the floor in front of the telly and I stretched out my hand to the image of Elvis that was on the screen and felt utter grief. I felt that the loss had diminished the world somehow. My mother was totally nonchalant and insisted she was unmoved by the death. Years later she would claim no memory of having ever watched Elvis films with me at all. I didn't really care if she remembered or not, it didn't change what was. I have maintained my love of Elvis films, my adoration of the sound of his voice, his looks, his eccentric life and eventually the whole Elvis phenomenon. In fact, my first husband (may he die slowly and painfully) bore a very slight resemblance to Elvis and could almost sing like him. I have wondered if this tenuous link to a comfort zone in my childhood was what attracted me to him (fuck knows nothing else makes sense).
So I love Elvis. Elvis's voice has a quality that is soothing and sexy, his face was very sexy but in a non-conventional way that I find very appealing. I have never really gone for the Hollywood poster boy types, I like men that have character: striking and unique faces. Something interesting about them. Elvis was certainly that. As tragic and ultimately as sad as he was, his life was incredible. As a child I cried when I watched his last concert in Las Vegas, when he was fat and unhealthy and forgot the words to Unchained Melody. In hindsight, it would have been better for him to die before he got to that – like Marilyn or James. It is sad that he is remembered as a fat drugged out weirdo who died on the toilet. I prefer to remember him in that sexy leather gear he wore for his comeback special when he was young and gorgeous. Before all the drugs and deep fried peanut butter sandwiches and before the karate instructor started shagging his wife. When life was all about being glamorous and randomly philanthropic.
I used to work near the Carlton cemetery and I jogged through it on my lunch breaks. There is an Elvis memorial grave there that I would stop at, give my regards to, and then shuffle on my calorie burning way. One thing I adored about that fake grave – there were always fresh flowers on it, with cards (yes I read them) that said "I love you always". No other dead husbands or fathers inspired that sort of devotion.
Elvis was special, unique and more than a man of flesh and bones could ever be. He will never really die. I love him always.

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A Hill

I've struggled with making friends since moving here, mostly from lack of opportunity – as I'm not working the only people I meet are other parents at the pre-school or women at the gym. But also because I am not naturally sociable, I am the world's biggest snob and have a tendency towards arrogance. I do, however, do my best to internalize these negative traits and am generally friendly (I think?). But there have been weeks when the only adult I have spoken to is the husband and as much as I adore him I need other people as well. I have one friend here, who has kept me sane and I am enjoying getting to know her (Hi Jaibee!!) but it would still be nice to have a social life of some sort. Poor me, boo hoo.

Anyway, some of the women from the pump class I go to meet for coffee after the gym so I invited myself along and they seemed fine with that. Then they invited me to come swimming with them on Wednesday morning (today). I was chuffed and was looking forward to it. Anyway, I got up this morning and thought "I don't have anything in common with those women, I don't really like swimming and chlorinated water makes me itchy". So I decided to go for a walk up Red Hill instead.
I studied the map, put my ipod, phone and water bottle in my bag, dropped the kid at pre-school and set off. I had been told there was a café at the top of the hill so my reward for slogging up the incline would be a fabulous view and a nice hot coffee to recharge me for the walk home. It was all good.
I got about ¾ of the way up when the path split in two different directions. Either way led to a summit, I didn't know which way to go but I saw other walkers going to the right so I went that way. After an arduous trudge up a very steep hill I got to the top and all that was there was a bored looking kangaroo - and it wasn't selling coffee. So now I was faced with a dilemma: go back the way I came, take the other track and try to find the café or just keep going. I have something of a mental block about going backwards so I continued on. I got to a part on the track which was seemingly in the middle of no-where when I realized I had absolutely no idea where I was, which direction to go, that the battery in my ipod was about to go flat, I needed a wee and it was starting to rain. I got really cranky. If I had a friend to go walking with I wouldn't need to guess which way to go and I wouldn't get lost. So I stood on the hill, tried to figure out where I was from the buildings I could see in the distance and took a path that seemed to go around the bottom of the hill. Fortunately it took me back to the golf course near home so I knew where I was. The husband rang to ask if I was lost and stranded on top of the hill. Smug bastard. I continued trudging along the edge of the golf course, wondering when a stray golf ball was going to hit me in the head and kill me, when I realized that when I was packing my bag I had neglected to pack my keys. The coffee, hot shower and lunch I had been looking forward to evaporated. So to top off an all round disappointing morning when I finally got home (exhausted) I had to scale a fence, convince the staffy I wasn't a burglar, then climb in through a window. Hideous.


The girl is currently planning her birthday party (for December) and is heart broken because she only likes one of the girls from pre-school and she can't invite her friends from Melbourne. She said to me in a small, sad and lonely voice "we only need to make one invitation". I hope that's not true. I'm sure we will both make some more friends eventually, we have only been here a few months and these things take time. When the girl goes to school next year she will meet heaps of kids and I will start getting out more, doing more things that involve other people, maybe even go swimming. Read more!

Pinkness

Well, after the excitement of Alice Cooper my bland little life hasn't seemed worth writing about. Not much has happened. The girl and I survived the school holidays without too many dramas, only came close to murder/suicide half a dozen times. At the moment I can't think of a single thing I achieved during the two weeks she was with me 24/7. I guess it doesn't matter, we have food to eat, clean clothes to wear, everything else is a bonus.
Yesterday we went to the salvos and bought a little 60's cupboard to go in the girl's room, $25. We then went to Bunnings and spent $140 on paint and a spray gun. Enough paint, hopefully, to eventually paint her room as well as the cupboard.
The cupboard just fit in the boot of the EK and after getting it home I managed to get it out of the boot and into the back yard (perhaps slogging at the gym is achieving something after all) to sand and paint it. The girl wanted pale pink with a rainbow. So I sanded all the old varnish off and was busting to use my new spray gun but the girl was even more desperate to help so we used brushes. She didn't do too bad a job after I explained to her about 75 times how to load up the brush with paint, and we got the first coat done eventually. I prayed it wouldn't rain and left it to dry. We cleaned up, came inside and got out the pencils to work out a design. I favoured the pink background with a very dominant rainbow diagonally across the front and top. The girl has decided on a rainbow just on the front, with love hearts, butterflies and stars and a moon on the top and sides. I honestly don't think I could do that without vomiting. I'll need to wear some sort of Goth talisman while I do it to protect me from the forces of all things pink and fluffy. At least she didn't want dolphins.
So today I sanded it back again and fired up the spray gun. I've always wanted one and it was only $40 so I thought I'd indulge (haven't bought a gadget for weeks). I read the instructions, carefully thinned the paint, sacrificed a pair of pantyhose to strain it, then blasted the cupboard. It looked great, for a few seconds, then every insect in the ACT landed on it and the paint started to run. Bum. So it was back to the brush to remove the flies and midges and fix up the dribbles. Lesson learned – use a finer spray and less paint. So now I pray it doesn't rain and will hopefully finish the pink tomorrow. I wish I could talk the girl into a more subtle design on it, just silver stenciled stars would look great, or a few mirror mosaic tiles scattered across it.
Regardless of how it looks it will ultimately mean the girl has more storage space in her room, which is the most important thing. Actually, with the macabre décor in the rest of the house, I'm not actually surprised she wants to go over the top naff for her room: a sanctuary of pink cuteness for a little girl lost in a sea of spiders, brutally murdered dolls, bats and blackness. I may, however, draw the line at the Ariel curtains she wants, I mean, can't she have pink spiders? Purple bats? I really wish I could steer her towards classic fairies and dragons and castles and away from the Disney pap but all my attempts have been woefully unsuccessful. I will persist.
So she dominates my life for now, that's OK, in a few years I'll be complaining that she never rings me or visits. She'll only be four once and I'll be a grown up for the rest of my life.

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Vincent Furnier

I squeezed into a brocade corset and the husband put on his mid-life-crisis-leather pants and we trundled off to the Australian Institute of Sport arena. I was curious as to what sort of crowd the countries most conservative city would produce for an Alice Cooper concert. As we were driving I asked the husband if he thought Alice would finish with School's Out or Poison.
We arrived and mingled with Blandberra's AC fans. Mostly middle class, middle aged and chubby public servant types surrounded us. Also quite a few slightly embarrassed looking people who had blacked their eyes (but wore their ordinary clothes) shuffled amongst us, I'm sure they all thought it was a good idea at the time. A few young 'uns and even a couple of gothy looking metal heads (as well as us) were wandering around as well. The highlight for me was a rather tubby guy with a ponytail wearing a T-shirt which said "no I will not fix your computer". Classic. We went to our seats, which were quite good as we had paid for grown-up seats in the stadium, not teenage seats on the floor and sat through what seemed like an eternity of a really boring support band. I was amused by the Dencorub billboard next to the stage.
Eventually Alice, in his white top hat and tails and cane, appeared. Then Alice in his black leather gear also appeared, stabbed the top hatted Alice and began singing No More Mr Nice Guy. Good start. Things progressed and I was impressed by his level of fitness (and cane twirling), unless you saw him in profile you couldn't see the jowls or paunch and he looked great and was energetic. His backing band, a rather gorgeous quartet of death rock boys, were excellent. He went through the standards, quite a few songs from Killer, before having a break. The boys played and impressed us with their talent while Alice did whatever aging rock stars do back stage (gasp into an oxygen mask? Have a cup of tea?) before re-appearing in a different costume and launching into more classic Alice. He did a rather violent dance routine with a life size rubber bride doll before swapping the doll for a dancer and going through a somewhat misogynistic version of Only Women Bleed. He then stabbed a baby through the heart, was put into a straight jacket and eventually gallows were wheeled out and he was hung by another Alice persona. The band played the chorus of I Love The Dead and Alice re-appeared for his final song – School's Out. After the obligatory few minutes he came back with Billion Dollar Babies and then Poison. His grand finale was Elected, complete with flag waving (US and Aus) and marching. The husband, who has excellent 20/20 hindsight, said "I knew he'd finish with that". Alice introduced and thanked the band, the dancer (who turned out to be his daughter) and then thanked us, and I am sure he said "Thank you Brisbane" but I could be wrong.
All-in-all we gave him 8/10 and drove home contented. Read more!

Found

A few weeks ago the husband found my video camera in a bag of clothes. This confused me. I distinctly remembered packing it with my rings before losing them all in the move. Anyway, I was glad to have it back.
This morning I was looking through a bag of knitting stuff that was under a coffee table, crammed into a corner and almost inaccessible, and I found a little cosmetics bag. I opened the bag and there were two ring boxes. One containing my engagement ring and my white opal ring and the other box contained my mother's engagement and wedding ring from my biological father. The significance of the find almost knocked me off my feet. Relief flooded through me and I cried for a bit and was teary for about an hour afterwards. I took the rings into the kitchen to show the husband. He was overjoyed. The loss of the engagement ring has been a sore point and the cause of considerable anguish for some time. The husband has used it as his right hook to finish me off during arguments. He took it as a personal insult that I had taken the ring off at all - I was merely trying to protect it. We had run out of boxes and bags to unpack and the ring had not appeared. We had both started to come to terms with the fact that the ring was lost. I was considering trying to find another (how do you replicate a custom made ring with a unique black opal?) and the husband was considering buying me a replacement. I guess we both had to let go before the rings could come back to me. Fucking life lessons. Praise be to the gods – many thanks.

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Gabba Gabba

Yesterday afternoon I was in a Ramones mood and put a couple of cds on the stereo. I bobbed around to the music for a few hours until the stepson emerged from his room "what's this?" he asked his father with a grimace. I was flabbergasted, this boy is hugely talented musically and has a broad knowledge of music from most genres. He made a mumbled disparaging comment and left the room. We called him back. "The Ramones are legends, founding fathers, don't you like it?" I asked "Nah" was the response. "But I've seen your friends wearing Ramones T-shirts, I thought you lot must listen to them" "They probably don't even know The Ramones is a band" he said and sauntered off. So it's come to this: one of the most influential bands of last century have become to today's teenagers merely a cool T-shirt design. Not only have The Ramones provided hours of musical listening pleasure, they have also helped me seduce for physical pleasure on two occasions. Years ago I used them as a topic to start a conversation with a boy I was interested in and more recently, I pretended the friend I was going to the Ramones film with was a date – thus causing the man I was pursuing (and boy was he playing hard to get) to become so jealous he not only showed up at the cinema but was in my bed two days later. The power of The Ramones is awe inspiring.
Old Fartery is not just creeping up on me, it is well and truly engrained. A few years ago my significantly younger brother and I were driving and Cyndi Lauper, True Colours was playing on the car stereo. He asked me who was stuffing up the Casey Chambers' song. I almost kicked him out of the moving vehicle. I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but one must give credit where credit is due.
Tonight the husband and I are going to see Alice Cooper. Now that is guaranteed to be an over 30's only event. We are very excited about it, having both spent our teenage years listening to Alice, in different decades of course - me being the child bride. But it proves his music is timeless.
I shall report on the musical extravaganza tomorrow. Read more!

Butane

I've done it. I've finally purchased the ultimate kitchen gadget. I've bought a little butane blow torch. It is the most indulgent I have ever been, kitchen wise. I mean, how often do I actually make crème brulee? And what else can you do with them besides melt sugar? I am cooking pork tonight and I was thinking I might try to crisp the crackling with the blow torch. I guess you could also use them to roast capsicum and peel tomatoes, but honestly – it would take a week and it's easier to do it with the BBQ. It took an eon to do the crust on the crème brulee and I was thinking maybe I should have gone to the hardware shop instead of the kitchenware place. It is quite woossy, a little flame that melted about 1cm2 of sugar at a time, but it was an enormous amount of fun.
I love making desserts. The more intricate and fiddly the happier I am. Unfortunately (for my waist line) I also love eating them. A well made dessert is pure bliss. I adore making elaborate decorations, sugar things and chocolate do-dads. I also love hiding the colour and content – especially with cakes – so once it is cut open a rainbow of colours and fillings are revealed. One of my favourite cakes is a chocolate cake done in the shape of a spider (of course!) but the body is filled with whipped green jelly so that when you stab the knife into its' stomach green goo oozes out. It's hysterically funny and looks great. I wish I had the opportunity (excuse) to do it more often. Unfortunately the child is entrenched in cliché at this stage of her life. For her last birthday I offered to make her a cake shaped like a castle, or a dragon, or a mushroom with fairies. But all she wanted was one of those cakes with a doll stuck in the middle of it. Yawn.
For my husbands' birthday last year I made, as well as the spider cake, chocolate covered Turkish Delight in the shape of skulls, several different kinds of bat shaped chocolates, many different biscuits and brownies shaped likes bats, ghosts and skulls. A myriad of Goth sweeties. I had an absolute ball making all the stuff and it took me several hours a night for over a week. Then we left it all sitting on the table in the kitchen and the damned dog ate most of it. I almost cried.
I would love to learn how to make sugar flowers; I have had a go just following instructions in book, with varying results. I managed to make decent enough roses to decorate our wedding cake. I made a basic sacher torte but with heaps of black food dye in the cake and ganache. The husband had found a cake topper that was a little bride and groom skeleton which was really cute and with the red roses and green leaves it looked pretty good. I would like to do a class to learn how to do flowers properly, but the only time they seem to be on in these parts is on a night that is unavailable to me. One day.
Tonight I have made the child a meat-loaf girl (biscuit cutter) which is currently going down like a lead balloon. It even had grated carrot hair. Apparently it is "disgusting".
Hopefully the boys will be more impressed with their blow torched pork.

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bbbbbbb

Tomorrow the pre-school is having a B-day party. The kids are dressing up as something that begins with B and we have to take a plate of food. I assumed the girl would go as a butterfly or ballerina or even, I cringe as I type this, a bride. But no, I was totally wrong. My beautiful little pink princess is going to B day as…..Batman!! And the biscuits we are taking are not butterflies but bones and bats! Praise be for the B. Dare I begin to hope that the pinkness is fading? These small victories give me strength...



p.s. there were 7 batmen, 2 bumble bees, buzz lightening, bob the builder, a brumby's fan, half a dozen butterflies and a couple of ballarinas.

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Every chick needs a shed

We purchased a garden shed from Bunnings, one of those kit thingamies. We figured, between us we have an Honours Degree in Biochemistry and an Honours Degree in Textile Design – so we should be able to put up a shed!
Have you ever read about those experiments that were done where the corpus callosum in the brain has been severed? It is radical surgery for people who suffer severe epilepsy and other seizer type afflictions. It severs the connection between the left and right side of the brain. The people who have had this surgery suffer some weird consequences, almost split personality type symptoms. Giving them a written question and having them respond in writing gives a totally different answer than if you ask them the same question and they respond verbally. One brain, two totally different ways of thinking.
I am, of course, almost completely left brained. The husband, I think, doesn't actually have a functioning left brain at all. Sometimes we have communication breakdowns of momentous proportions, simply because I can't understand what on earth he is trying to say. For example, the other day we were driving to the market and I asked which way at the roundabout, he said "you go szhut, szhut" waving his hand in the air. From this I was supposed to understand that I needed to go into the roundabout and take the second left. Frustrating to say the least.
So I armed myself with the instructions that were at times vague and other times downright contradictory, the husband wielded the screwdriver and two days later we have a functioning shed. At one point the neighbour, probably sick of listening to the continuous flow of profanities, leaned over the fence and handed us his cordless drill. This sped things up immensely. Now, it's not that we don't own a drill – I have a cordless one that can barely put a screw into pre-drilled plasterboard (a chick's drill) and the husband has an electric one that will rip your arm out of it's socket (a bloke's drill). He refused to use the drill initially because it was "too much trouble to muck around with extension cords". He also refused to let me square anything as we went, exclaiming "it'll square itself as we go". I was, of course, going nuts. It is a fundamental part of my nature to read instructions, measure and double check everything as I go. He is more inclined to wing it. Fortunately, after the initial teeth grinding and swearing we managed to see the funny side of what we were doing and by the end of it all were even managing to work together. So as far as I am concerned our marriage has passed one of the more trying tests – prefab kits. Read more!

The Husband

My husband does social type work, looking after the disenfranchised youth of Blandberra. The other day one of his regular clients, a rather colourful person, arrived at the service and demanded to know "is it fucken' true what they say about you?". My husband, not being one to ever admit ignorance shouted back "FUCK YEAH!". The young person responded "yeah, I fucken' thought so!" and promptly left. My husband is now left wondering who "they" are and what he has just admitted to. The array of crimes or personality traits to choose from are mind boggling. The punishment for being a smart arse.
One of his favourite jokes is…what do you call a youth worker who wears a full length leather coat and drives a Mercedes? A drug dealer. Hee Hee. (He's not, by the way. He looks very cute in his leather coat and the Mercedes is 33 years old).
He does an incredible job, deals with traumatized young people all day, five days a week, looks after them, solves problems. Then comes home to a basket case wife and a demented four year old and continues to take care of us.
Back in the olden days when I worked for a living I would be having a bad day at work because I'd misplaced a data file. He would ring, listen to my ranting and moaning. Eventually I would get around to asking how his day was going and he would tell me about a teenager who he just had to have admitted to the psych ward, or a girl who wanted an abortion because she had been gang raped. I would be instantly humbled; it is so easy to become self absorbed, to think your problems are earth shattering. More often than not they are trivial and not really worth getting so upset over.
At the end of my first year at uni, a year of drinking, drugging and shagging and not very much study I was faced with the prospect of failing. I was scared, upset, mad at myself and worried about disappointing my family. One of my housemates gave me a book of writings by Krishnamurti. I read it cover to cover in a single sitting. It wasn't earth shattering revelations or the secret to the meaning of life – just a reminder that life goes on regardless. It actually didn't matter if I failed Uni or if my local chemist stopped stocking my favourite lipstick colour – life goes on. I stopped worrying. I didn't fail, not very badly anyway and I was able to sit supplementary exams over the summer. I did fail physics, getting a measly 38 to be exact, so I needed to make up a subject. I ended up doing English Lit, quite an unusual thing for a science student to do, in fact the admin computer had to be adjusted to accept my enrolment. But it was brilliant and probably one of the better things I ever did academically. It never paid any bills, like biochemistry ended up doing, but it got a few of the cobwebs out of the right side of my brain, made me grow a few creative neurons. It was the silver lining. What was the point of this rant? Oh yeah, my husband is ace. Read more!

The Bliss of Motherhood

A day like Friday (previous post), in which the girl puts me on trial, wears me out. Days like that leave me feeling physically exhausted and emotionally gutted. I am constantly wracked with guilt over the fact that I am not a "natural" mother. I find the whole business hard work. I always considered myself a very maternal person, there was not a stray animal or human that I have ever come across that I haven't rescued, befriended or eventually slept with. I look after people; I am a nurturer by nature. I predicted that this nurturing instinct would be ten fold for a child I had borne. Not so.
Don't get me wrong – from the minute the girl was born my protective instinct was fierce. When she was a few days old and I was still in intense pain from the damage I had sustained during her birth I leapt across a room to rescue her when she did her first mega spew. I was actually unable to move without an extraordinary amount of pain and normal activity was performed very slowly and carefully. But the instant I saw her spew I was up and across the room and had her in my arms (ripped from the arms of another) and was tending to her in less than two seconds. It was only later when I realized my sudden burst of activity had burst something else and I was bleeding more heavily. I guess that story is to illustrate that from the beginning I was protector and carer extraordinaire, but I felt no love. I actually didn't feel any connection to her at all. I was waiting for her real mother to show up on the doorstep and take her back. There was certainly no correlation between the screaming, demanding baby in my arms to the little friend I had carried and loved passionately for 9 months. This disconnected feeling remained, interestingly enough, until I chucked her father out of my home. From that point my relationship with her on an emotional level began. She was two years old.
From that time I started to relax, grew to love her and started to allow myself to believe that she loved me. I still carry an enormous amount of guilt over the fact that I didn't actually love her for a long time. When I hear about women who fall in love with their babies the instant they see them I feel a mixture of disbelief, confusion and jealousy. These days I am passionately and blindly in love with my daughter. She is the most precious and wonderful thing in my life. But still I struggle. I just don't like playing Barbies and colouring in and playing hide and seek (which I am very good at – she never finds me even though I always hide in the shower). I have to force myself and feel hypocritical and fake the whole time. So on days when she really puts me to the test, takes all of my patience and tolerance and kicks the shit out of them, I feel an emotional and physical exhaustion that overwhelms me.
The husband made me stay in bed for most of Saturday. He has gaffa taped a TV and DVD player to the rail over the foot of our bed and I watched my newest DVD: Frederick Mitterrand's version of Madam Butterfly. It is a masterpiece, but in hindsight probably not the best thing to watch given my psychological state as I howled for ages. Cathartic perhaps.
I ran away from home for three hours on Sunday and today am feeling much better. It is almost 4pm and the girl and I have not had a single argument. We are pottering about, doing the laundry (first rain free day in weeks), trying to fix up her room which is in constant chaos and waiting for an electrician to come and fix the mess I made trying to wire in our new chandeliers. Whoops. Read more!

An outing

Yesterday I took my little girl to the zoo. There was nothing there but a dog. It was a Shi tzu. Read more!

Damned kid

I should have known it was going to be a bad day when I backed out of the driveway this morning and knocked over the recycle bin. The recycling only gets collected every two weeks here so it was full to the brim with wine bottles. As I picked them all up out of the gutter I managed to cut my finger. At kinder I was sitting on the floor with the girl doing jigsaw puzzles, as is the routine, when we noticed my finger was bleeding. I asked her to get me a tissue, instead she ran to the teacher with the dramatic story of her mother's injury and bleeding finger. So we had to go through the whole band-aid thing.
Once I got home I ran through the list of things I had to do – gym, grocery shopping, fix the heater in the car, put the training wheels on the girls bike. The husband had snored all night long and no amount of prodding, shaking or yelling could rouse him so I had ended up on the couch. Needless to say, I had slept badly and I was very tired. The husband looked at me and told me to go back to bed and get some sleep, which I grateful did after setting the alarm on my mobile. At 12:30 the husband rang to wake me, thankfully, otherwise after having slept through the alarm I most likely would have slept through kinder pick up time.
Now I had promised the girl that if she made it through this week without night-time nappies and without wetting the bed I would buy her a Prince Eric doll ( the ponce from little mermaid). This is her second week without night nappies and she has done brilliantly. She did wet the bed on Monday night, but she was mortified and denied doing it. I asked her why I had changed the sheets and her pyjamas in the middle of the night if she hadn't wet the bed and she insisted that I just did it without cause. I realized she was so desperate for the damn doll I let that one go. She has been really good for the rest of the week – even getting up of her own accord to go to the toilet – so I am very proud. And I think she had earned the doll. So when I picked her up from kinder we headed out to the big shopping centre where Target is as I figured that I needed new gym gear and she needed a doll and it was the most likely place to get both.
We entered the shopping centre through Myer, the toy department, which happened to be having a 25% off sale. The desired doll was sourced (actually the prince from sleeping beauty, but for now I can get away with that sort of thing since Disney princes are fairly generic and she can't read) and purchased. We then headed for a 'chino – mine a large and hers minus coffee. She wanted a large 'chino so I actually ordered her a small white chocolate. While we were waiting we ripped the prince's box into ten thousand small pieces in an attempt to liberate him from the ludicrous amount of packaging that they insist on putting children's toys in these days. By the time the coffees arrived the prince was parading up and down the table. Ten second later three quarters of the hot chocolate was all over the table, the child and the floor. This was cleaned up and ten seconds later the remaining drink was following the previous. So here I am, all I want is a coffee – my first for the day at 1:30pm – I am tired, I've got my period and my finger hurts. I started getting cranky.
"Do you want another drink?"
"NO! I didn't like it!!" (How do you know? Did some of it actually fall in your mouth??)
"Well then can we sit while I drink mine?"
"OK".
The prince, meanwhile, continues to parade around the table, eventually finding the wall, the chair and the chair of the girl (young woman) sitting at the next table…
"Stop it. Leave that girl alone. Turn around. Sit on your bottom. Now wait while I finish my coffee".
Ten seconds later…
"Get back in your chair".
Five seconds..
"Get the prince out of the puddle of milk".
"Clean him with the serviette".
"BUT THEY'RE ALL WEEEEET!!!"
I get more serviettes.
Five seconds…
"Pick up the princes crown off the floor".
Ten seconds..
"Get back in your chair".
Ten seconds..
"I'll get it".
"I said I'll get it, get back in your chair, sit on your bottom".
Fifteen seconds…
"If you drop his crown again I'm not coming back for it".
Ten seconds..
"Get back in your chair".
"Can I finish my coffee?"
"OK, let's get out of here."
The staff (and other customers) at the café breath an audible sigh of relief as we leave.
I attempt to get to Target….
"Stay with me".
Ten seconds…
"STAY with me".
This goes on for several minutes. Our progress is hindered by the child being distracted by every single thing she sees and wandering off and me having to chase her and convince her to come with me. We eventually reach Target. Out the front they have a sale table with black chandeliers on sale for $18.43. I ring the husband, discuss it, agree to get three. Find a trolley, load it up with chandeliers. All the while retrieving the child from various places. I attempt to shop for gym gear. After a few minutes of arguing and nagging at the child I give up and struggle with the stupid trolley to the checkout. At one point the child looked at me and said "Is that trolley giving you the shits mummy?". I agreed and laughed. It's not ALL bad.
On the way back through the shopping centre we go past a shop that is selling Le Creuset saucepans for 50% off. I recently paid off my credit card. I decided I deserved it, went in and bought a HUGE pot for $200. All the while running in and out of the shop, between signing sales dockets and such, trying to get the child to stand with the trolley at the front of the shop. After her almost knocking over their window display and ramming someone with the trolley I had my saucepan and get her out of there and into the car.
We then went to Bunnings where I shoved her in the playground and relaxed for five minutes.
On the way home we stopped at one of the local schools to pick up enrollment forms. Once we were in the school building she decided she was scared and started making a fuss while I'm trying to explain what year we are applying for – I'm still not quite sure about terminology in this state, I think they may call prep kinder. I dunno.
Then on the way back to the car she cried she was cold, so as soon as we got to the car she of course buggered off up a hill.
Finally we needed to go to the local supermarket to get a few things for dinner. She wouldn't get out of the car. I had to yell and threaten and behave like a psychopath to get her to come with me into the shop. She was vaguely helpful in the supermarket and even helped me find the chillies. At the checkout, however, they have the ice cream freezer so of course she wanted an ice cream. I refused - not after the afternoon's behaviour. She screamed while I was paying for my groceries and screamed all the way home.
By the time the husband got home I was almost ready for a straight jacket.
I acknowledge my mistakes: the doll should not have been purchased until we were leaving the shopping centre, that way it could have been used as a bargaining tool. Also, I shouldn't have gone back to bed, I should have sucked up my tiredness and gone out, done what I needed to do and left the afternoon clear to devote to the child. I should also have brought in the washing that has been on the line for a week before the rain that is currently pelting down commenced.
The heater in the car is still not working, the bike still doesn't have training wheels (but it's raining so it doesn't matter) but the girl is asleep, no night nappy, Ariel and Prince Eric are lying in the bath together (nude) and the husband has given me enough wine to help me calm down and relax.
Does anybody ever get the hang of this parenting gig? Just as I seem to have one type of behaviour under control a new one appears. Before I know it I'll be dealing with bras and periods and boys and drugs and booze and contraception. For now, Barbies and tantrums are enough.
When I put her to bed tonight she cuddled me, told me she loved me, kissed me on the cheek, cuddled me again, and made all of today's dramas fade into nothing. Read more!

Indulge me

Cute things my kid does....

Yesterday at the park we were playing hide and seek, she jumped out from behind a tree and yelled "you'll never find me" then jumped back again.

Today in the supermarket carpark a man said to me "that's a lovely car you have, ma'm". My little girl, all pink and golden ringlett 4 year old cuteness looks at him and says "it's a SEXY car!". Read more!

Career vs Motherhood

My life as a house wife…
Yesterday I got up at 7am, switched the telly to ABC kids, made a peanut butter sandwich and went back to bed. At 8:20am the husband told me (rather forcefully) that I should get up NOW and get my kid organized. I did. I got her to pre-school dressed, hair brushed, clean teeth and face, lunch made and totally organized. I however, walked in the gate (in my track pants and polar fleece jacket) and realized I hadn't brushed my hair. Got the kid settled and came home again.
Over breakfast, listening to Cat Stevens who is banned in this household, I decided what to do for dinner. I packed my bag and headed off to the gym.
10 minutes on the Stairmaster and 20 minutes on the cross trainer and I figured I had done my penance for the previous day.
Then I went and got my eyebrows done, then had a coffee. Luxury.
Came home, had my lunch – left over chicken tom yum – then went and got the little kid from preschool. She reprimanded me for being late (almost 2 minutes!!) and we went home and watched half of The Princess Bride.
I adore the fact that she likes Princess Bride, along with The Addams Family (old and new) and Edward Scissor Hands. For this I can forgive the Barbie as Repunzal and Little Mermaid faff I am forced to endure.
Just as Buttercup and Wesley headed into the Fire Swamp the little kid and I headed off to collect the stepson from school. We deposited him at music school and then went to The Warehouse (looking for a mat for the laundry, didn't find one) and High Country Meats where I mistakenly purchased a kilo of sirloin. I thought that at $10 a kilo it was a bargain. It turned out to be rubbish – very grisly and fatty. You get what you pay for.
Collected the stepson and headed home. Did some housework while the little kid trashed her room and the big kid watched telly.
I cooked dinner for the little kid and got her fed and into the bath. Cleaned her room while she was in the bath so she would have a bed to sleep in – she complained she wanted to sleep on the floor. Finally got her dry, pygamad, storied and tucked in.
The husband arrived home and took the big kid to Tai Kwando (he's on his red belt now – the little thug) and I started preparing the grown-ups dinner.
I wanted to do mash potato with parmesan, rocket and semi-drieds to have with our steak and red wine jus. I was informed that it was too fancy and just do plain mash and veg and no sauce for the steak. Which I did, albeit with a certain amount of resentful teeth grinding, and I made a creamy mushroom sauce for the steak to spite them.
Dinner was eaten, TV watched and the kitchen cleaned. I burned a couple of Velvet Acid Christ cd's for the husband, who is going through an electronica phase at the moment, and at about midnight fell into bed.
So my days go by. Today preschool is cancelled due to the teacher being ill so my morning gym class didn't happen. We are about to head to the supermarket to buy ingredients to make biscuits to take with us to our play date this afternoon.
Do I miss working? When I reflect on my previous life I am in awe of how I coped with working full time, parenting and juggling a social life and a long distance relationship. I was constantly stressed, tired and run down. I perpetually had cold sores and headaches. My house was a disaster, I ate badly and rarely exercised. The kid was always well cared for, always had clean clothes and good food and ample attention, but there was rarely enough care left for myself. I guess the answer to that question is I wasn't coping and it was probably only a matter of time before I fell apart.
Prior to giving birth I had always been totally independent and self-sufficient. I could cope with anything and was more than competent with anything I decided to do, whether it be making croissants from scratch or cleaning out the car's carburettor. I expected to deal with motherhood in the same efficient, competent manner. The problem is that motherhood isn't a task like fixing the car. There is no workshop manual to consult. It is an emotional, physical and psychological challenge with almost no discernable rewards for quite some time. It's hard work, harder than anyone who hasn't done it can imagine and impossible to describe accurately. Previously I was so tired and stressed that when the rewards did come – babies' first smile, her little arms reaching for me – I couldn't see them. Now when my little girl climbs onto my lap and we snuggle up to watch a movie I can relax and enjoy it. I don't have to be worried about washing or cleaning because there is time for that later. And if I run out of time my husband will pick up the slack. I have the luxury of being able to enjoy time with her. It's far from utopia; when she is lying on the floor in the supermarket screaming I would happily swap her for a biacore, but only briefly. The shopping centre dramas are usually forgotten the instant we are back in the car and she starts singing "my mummy wears black and her hair is black and white but her favourite colour is red.."
So my days are filled with mundane, seemingly trivial things. But all of these things add up to a constantly strengthening relationship with my daughter and a sense of self worth and achievement that is worth more than journal articles or pay rises. Read more!