Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Bogger Bluddy

My new blogger buddy (oh dear, that's so close to 'bugger buddy' but let's move on) Conor of Hold the Beef has tagged me. It's been a while since I've been tagged so I feel a bit giddy and flattered and said of COURSE I'll do it.




















What is your first memory?

Drawing on my one year old brother's face with fat, permanent-marking texta colours. I was three, he was still in a now-very-unpolitically-correct lunar module walker that I pushed into the corner, wedged in tight and got to work. I can even smell that heady aroma of chemical solvents; something I still love today.

Mum got off the phone and walked into the kitchen to see David's face now resembling a test pattern and told me to get outside. It was a hot January day and I sat by the back door in white puffy pants and little else, awaiting punishment.

....years later Mum said that she and Dad had a bit of a laugh, took a few photos and then put on their angry faces to deal with me. It was a fortnight before the texta fully faded from trusting David's face.

What is the dish that you most often eat?

You're all going to assume that it's chocolate and yes, that features in my diet (ha!) every day but in terms of regularity and volume it is probably oranges. Every morning I squeeze and drink three of them, including every single bit of pulp. Makes for a chunky slurp that I don't dwell on too much, but I feel better for it.














What were you doing this time yesterday?

Flopped on the lounge watching 'Glee' with Sapphire and Love Chunks whilst enduring their disapproving eyes and 'shoosh' motions via putting their fingers to their lips as I chatted on the phone to my buddy Jill.

Are you a runner?

For TEN YEARS yes! That is until two months ago when my achilles - getting dodgier and dodgier, finally hurt itself well and proper, forcing me to stop altogether. The first time I waited patiently for four weeks before getting back onto the treadmill only to have it give me the muscular 'big finger' and the second time I did the right stretching exercises and waited the appropriate musculo-skeletal healing time of six weeks.

On Sunday, I nervously switched on the treaddie. It had been six weeks and two days. What were my legs? Springs, steel springs. How fast was I going to run? As fast as a leopard.

And I did - for three glorious kilometres; for fifteen wonderful minutes. It felt great - strong, easy, painless and then ----

--- TWANG! Pain so intense I tried to jump off the moving belt straight away but sort of slipped and was thrown to into the fake 'mudguard' of the exercise bike behind it, a pedal lodging firmly - and, let's be honest, rather ironically - right in the centre of my arse.

So for the past two months I've been glumly pedalling away to nowhere on the exercise bike and power walking. For the past two and a bit weeks, that power walking only occurs on the way home from work where most of the journey involves inhaling traffic fumes or the cigarette smoke puffed out by obese patients and visitors at the various Accident and Emergency entrances I pass. The Royal Children's Hospital has the added fragrance of old McDonald's grease, poo (today it was a human example, strangely perched on top of a folded t-shirt left beside the Australia Post box!) and BO.

If nothing else, this unedifying route home just makes me walk faster in order to escape it quicker.

What are your thoughts on food at sporting events?

BRING YOUR OWN. Otherwise you'll be ripped off - taste wise and finance wise. Seven bucks for an ancient, half-cold pie and indifferent chips or a hotdog older than Moses when you can have a block of Lindt, a proscuitto and jarlsberg sandwich, a bunch of grapes and home-brewed coffee in a thermos? Make the effort.

Same goes for the cinema. Big handbags finally have a use when you're at the multiplex and don't want to spend a weeks' rent on candy bar fare. Pop in an iced coffee, several chocolate bars and whatever chips you like - purchased on the way to the cinema (at a tenth of the price) at your supermarket.

I did go see a movie with a girlfriend who snuck in a boiled egg sandwich but that did pong slightly. Plus a bit of it splodged out in the darkness and she walked out two hours later in the sunshine with what looked like fresh pelican shit on her crotch...

What was the first, or last, band that you saw live?

'Twas 2003 and we took Sapphire (then four) to see The Wiggles live at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, 10am start. Dorothy the Dinosaur ran through our row of seats and shook Love Chunks' hand - a fair bit more than he got ten years earlier when he and I saw Midnight Oil at the same venue. At 10pm.

Did you ever, or do you still currently, wear bike pants?

Technically no, but I do go for the knee-length or three-quarter legging for running and power walking. Those flappity-flappity-flappity running shorts favoured by marathoners and Bendy Wendies are a wind-dragging distraction. Rest assured that the t-shirt that accompanies my tight 'bike pants-like' shorts are l-o-n-g ones so that no camel toes, exercise-induced wedgies or gut rolls are exposed to the public.

If you could have any drink at all right now (disregarding any possible calorie/money/hangover concerns) what would it be?

Iced coffee - but it'd keep me awake; so
Gin and tonic - off to get one right now; and
Water - always.

13 comments:

Hannah said...

Ah, the old supermarket-before-the-movies trick... that's been a secret of mine for years! I remember one night making a picnic of it with pumpernickel bread, dip, chocolate, and frozen yoghurt. It was such a shame to have ot eat dessert first before it melted ;)

Love the other answers too, except for the part about the Achilles pain. Doesn't the world know that the only Achilles we want in our lives is the Brad Pitt variety?

Plastic Mancunian said...

G'Day Kath,

I totally agree with taking your own food into the cinema and such places. Our local cinema actually threw somebody out for trying to sneak in a cmall bottle of pop.

I would have kicked up a right fuss if that had happened to me.

I tend to sneak stuff in, in Mrs PM's cavernous handbag. You could hide a bloody gorilla in that thing and the attendants are too scared to search it.

:0)

Cheers

PM

Kath Lockett said...

You're right Hannah. If Brad Pitt was clinging to my ankles I could at least kick him off.....

Plasman, exactly. I reckon - if us less-fashion-conscious females are honest - that silly-sized handbags are MADE to sneak food into.

Kath Lockett said...

Oh and Sapphire saw me post the first photo of me and Rosie the doll; a doll I hated and ended up ruining her face ala Dave but only with yellow texta.

She said, "Geez Mum, I don't know who's scarier looking - you or the doll!"

franzy said...

This either explains a lot, or will do in the future: "that heady aroma of chemical solvents; something I still love today"

Also, what the fuck is a Bendy Wendy?

Also, a shit on a t-shirt?

Also, is it cool to put swears in your comments?

Also, did you exit Adelaide before visiting the cinemas at the Mitcham shops? There is an IGA directly underneath the cinema! You don't even have to use the stairs! There's a choice of either the escalator or lift!
Not happy with paying $8.90 for Salt'n'Vinegar chips? Ground floor, please.
Oh look! On special 5 packets for a dollar! Dinner is sorted!

River said...

This was a fun read.
Love you and your dolly.
I remember big handbags filled with movie snacks too.

Kath Lockett said...

Franzy - I've always loved the smell of felt pens and always will;

Bendy Wendy - those high-maintenance Burnside Yummy Mummies who drop their kids off at kindy or school and then do a work out, shop and....? ALways immaculate, fully painted and in the latest gear. "Oh here come a couple of Bendy Wendies now."

Yep, a shit on a shirt. Seen two days ago walking home. I could do a daily post on the people (and their, um 'produce') I see outside the Royal Melbourne hospital each day. I swear the patients' families and carers need as much medical attention as they do.

Swear away. That IGA must sell far more chips, Farmers Union Iced Coffee and chocolate bars than the average IGA....

River I used to pop into your Coles for my sale snacks before heading for Hoyts across the road.

drb said...

You walked right past me today!
I saw neither poo nor T-shirt. You must have the snort of a grey hound - I can't smell fumes, grease nor BO.

drb said...

*snout*

Kath Lockett said...

Sorry drb! I had no idea - obviously in my own little world.... Next time call out 'HEY LARD ARSE' and I'll be sure to spot you!

Conor @ Hold the Beef said...

Oh Kath, this is everyone I hoped for and more in your answers. Wait, let me rephrase that... this is everything I hoped for, except the bit about your achilles drama, because I wouldn't hope for that because it sounds ghastly despite the cool noises it seems to have made.

3 oranges every morning? You are a hardcore orange lady. Respect. You must hang those giant bags of them around the kitchen? Jammed into the cupboards?

You could not be more correct (DING DING DING!) about the sporting/cinema food situation, in my opinion. I must say though.. the place where I sit at Subiaco Oval has recently grown a chocolate filled organic doughnut stall. I don't normally like doughnuts but these are life changing. Totally worth the resulting face/hands/shirt/pants/5m radius totally covered in sticky sugar (arguably better than bird shit crotchness).

Helen said...

3003! That's far too long. Tsk. I prescribe some Dan Sultan, Stat.

Kath Lockett said...

Conor if there was an organic chocolate-filled donut stall, then just *attending* live sporting events would be worthwhile.

You're right, Helen - I remember viewing a Dan Sultan clip on your blog and sighing.....