Time off

With the Girl safely in Melbourne with her Dad for the school holidays, the husband and I are trying to enjoy some adult time. Unfortunately the 'flu (oink oink) has also decided to join in. Just as I went into recovery the husband crashed. We did manage to get out on Saturday night to my friends (a Mum from school) 40th birthday party. I got wasted and sang karaoke for hours with another wasted Mum with a night off from kids. It was fun. The husband was mortified but showed good grace and didn't disown me - which would have been difficult as the only two Goths in a crowd of 50 middle class Blandberrans. I'd bought a new shirt, paid WAYYY too much for it, but it's purdy and shows off my boobs. I spent the next day feeling guilty, thinking about the other Mum that I had led astray and how bad her hangover must be. I was relatively OK, having the tolerance of a third generation alcoholic, but puppy school at 8:30am was something of a chore.
The dog training school we are going to uses the clicker method of training. Basically, every time the dog does as it's supposed to you click the clicker then give a treat. This worked fine until Bela realised that he could either work for a tiny bit of dried liver or he could partake in the duck poo smorgasbord all around us for no effort. So I stood there in my hangover haze while he wandered about eating poo. The trainer was not impressed and I had a flashback to the back row of physics in high school. Unfortunately Bela gets car sick so on the way home he sprayed the backseat with a mix of semi digested duck poo and dog food. It made me thankful for the faux leather upholstery in my car.
During the week I watched the latest Torchwood mini-series. Damn it's good, but unfortunately the last one since most of the characters have been killed off. On Saturday we went to the market and bought all our favourite foods: the husband bought oysters and steak and I bought 4 cheese ravioli and a duck breast. We had a gorgeous meal and enjoyed each others company. This morning I woke and thought "well, I better go to puppy school" but looking at the clock discovered that puppy school was over, so snuggled back for several more hours sleep. What a fabulous luxury. We eventually emerged from the house and went out into the world to go see the new Transformers film. It was utter rubbish, but highly entertaining. Apparently it was nuclear family night at the cinema and we were the only couple there without a disgruntled child with them. But we enjoyed the film and saw ads for the new Where the Wild Things Are film (one of my favourite books as a little kid) and Coraline, which look good. We struggled to find a bottle shop and take away that was open, I mean, it WAS after 8pm (my gods this place shits me) but managed to arrive home with a bottle and a semi decent chicken laksa.
So life goes on. We are well rested and well fed and have new movies to look forward to. The dog isn't learning much but the backseat of my car is very clean and I can add "unresolved classrooms issues" to my list of neurosis.
Read more!

Eventually

Why is it, that whenever I find something really, really good it suddenly ceases to exist? I spent half my adult life searching for the perfect shade of purple/black lipstick - I finally found one - in the discontinued stock bin at the chemist. The tiles on my hearth in my little house in the city are the perfect art deco tiles I wanted - also from the discontinued bin. There was just enough to do the hearth but heaven forbid if one ever gets broken... And as for finding parts for my car, well that's just a nightmare. My favourite restaurant in Fitzroy dissapeared a few years ago, I can't get Hillman's roasted garlic mayonnaise anymore, or chilli Tim Tams. Boots no 7 moisteriser isn't available in Australia and Blandberra's only goth club closed down not long after I got here. Trivial perhaps, but important to me.
I recently saw the film Serenity. It had been recommended to me previously, but I'm a bit dim and I forgot all about it until the husband came home from the dvd shop with it a few weeks ago. In short, the film is a work of genius. I then bought the tv series Firefly, of which Serenity was the pilot (sort of). I just finished watching the 14 episodes last night. Brilliant. Sci Fi at it's best. Now I'm a long term treckie, Next Gen and DS9 do it for me, not so wrapped in the others, oh the original of course, but I love the grittyness of DS9 and the smarmy shinyness of Next Gen. Firefly is something else entirely. The first big difference is there are no aliens, just humans spread across the universe. Technology has evolved, but humans haven't. Apparently that was Joss Whedon's premis - times change, we don't. And as such the characters are so real...they have sex (OMG!!!), swear at and insult each other, they are dysfunctional, they make mistakes and even - go to the toilet! It's like, and I hate to admit this, Star Trek for grown ups. The grit of DS9 looks like rose scented talcum powder compared to FF. In one episode one character asks another about the bad guys "what will they do to us?" the reply was "rape us to death, eat our flesh and stitch our skin to their clothes. And if we are very, very lucky - they'll do it in that order." Wow! Not even the meanest, low downest, dirtiest, scariest badie in Star Trek ever did anything like that! These are real bad guys. I love it. It is the best sci fi I have ever seen. And they only ever made one season. Fox axed it and there will never be anymore.
Apparently there have been petitions and campaigns to get more made, but it's not going to happen. The best we can hope for is another movie. I went to one of the fan sites to see what's going on, but it was just endless, mindless conversations about things like "would you rather be Jayne's shirt or Mal's trousers?" I found it all quite annoying. Why do sci fi geeks have to be SO fuckin' GEEKY? Anyway, I digress, my dissatisfaction with my peers is subject for another blog. So how come they will make endless series of tv shows about doctors and lawyers and detectives and seriously, how many more of those damn shows are we going to be bombarded with, yet they can't allow an utterly brilliant sci fi series to flourish? It is quite simply, a crime against the tv watching population. And more evidence of just how short sighted and stupid the Fox execs are.
I lament, I am sad and I think perhaps I should be doing something a wee bit more constructive with my life. Read more!

Raul Julia vs Mel Gibson

A parcel arrived for the husband from the USA. It was a video; I was intrigued. I rang him at work and asked what he had been buying, teased him about buying porn. He pointed out that we live in the porn capital of Australia – why would he purchase it from the USA? He said it was a present for me and that I could open the parcel.
It was a copy of Kiss Of The Spiderwoman. I was overjoyed. I had been whining about the fact that this film has never been released on DVD. It is one of my favourite films and one that I needed for my collection.
So that night we watched it, it has been many years since I had seen the film, about 12 I think. I tried to make my boyfriend at the time watch it, his favourite film was Braveheart, which was a great source of embarrassment for me. Not only because I was in a relationship with a man who loved this film, but even more so because I later married him and he is the father of my child. A mistake I will regret for all time. The Braveheart thing was one of many clues that I chose to ignore.
I thought that showing him what a good film actually is, a film that has depth and substance and layers not to mention brilliant acting and thought provoking issues would make him realize what a single dimensional sensationalist moron Mel Gibson is. I thought he had simply never actually seen a really good film and that I could provide some guidance. How wrong I was. In fact, as far as that man goes I have never been wronger (the ex that is, not MG, my opinion of him remains unchanged).
Needless to say, having my new and very much improved husband go out of his way to order a movie for me from the USA, then have him sit and watch it with me and agree on its' qualities was nothing short of bliss. He did say that in spite of the film being set in a prison and the inherent violence it was in fact a chick flick – the themes being very feminine – something I had never considered and I realized was quite true. That fact does not excuse my exs' dislike of Kiss, nor any of his other totally abhorrent behaviour, like forcing me to watch Das Boot, which made me want to lobotomise myself with my choc top.
So the day was a pleasant reminder and confirmation (not that it's really needed) that my new husband is truly a wonderful man.
Raul Julia was a brilliant actor and his premature death was a tragic loss to all movie lovers (and probably his family and friends too). Read more!

Never say never

Last night I did something I said I would never do. This is not too unusual; I often make proclamation of "never", only to discover that "never" does not always fit the conventional interpretation.
There have been times when I have had a jolly good go at "never". In the mid 80's I decided "never" to eat at McDonalds again (them being one of the evil empires). This lasted until the late 90's. Not bad, and then I only gave in because I was drunk and hungry and the victim of peer group pressure.
Some "never"s that have been much less successful were: mortgage, career, marriage, children, track pants, living in the 'burbs, short hair, drink that much again, marry again and PVC. Obviously most of those were the declarations of an idealistic, naive young person. I mean, what did I think I was doing at uni if I wasn't going to end up with a career? And no-one can predict the force by which the old biological clock grabs you and shakes you until you consent to conception.
A few "never"s that I have maintained for sometime now are: to sky dive again, to go in the sun without hat and/or sunscreen, wear yellow or orange, join the army (that's too easy) or buy shares in BHP. Others that I mostly stick to but make occasional exceptions include watching blockbuster films, reading books written by men, listening to anything that has made the top 20 or buying merchandising crap for the child. I view these as guidelines more than rules and it is with that view that I gave in last night.
I watched Alien V Predator.
Actually, it was pretty good. Read more!