Forty going on Four or Eighty Four?




















I can drive, drink, vote, read and breed and am occasionally able to cook something using more than one pot but there are still so many more things I do that are really, really immature.

Such as:

• Eating a banana and half a 250 gram packet of marshmallows for lunch. Starting with the whites first and leaving the pinks (my favourite) until lucky last.
• Flexing in front of the mirror after my shower. Did you know that bikini supermodels pose like Egyptians? If you don't believe me, try shoving your shoulders forward and twisting your waist and butt around to the side. Then push out your hip bones and throw your arms back behind you like a troubled ape (or Paris Hilton) and voila, you've lost ten kilos and should be auditioning for the 'after' picture in fat busting advertisements.
• Laughing till I cried at seeing the search phrase "Ashleigh's Peanut Butter Farts" and wondering if I should send it on to him.
• Substituting four-syllable words to replace the 'Mu-nu-mu-nah' that Animals sings in that classically catchy Muppet song. Recent winners have included the Kath & Kim's bat-wing arm fat descriptor 'Foo-doo-bah-dahs' and pornography (but only after explaining what it meant to a horrified Sapphire), simplicity, undoubtedly, unbearable, exaggerate and, most appropriately, 'inanity'.
• Still writing my name or 'Kath loves LC' inside a lop-sided love heart in the steam on the bathroom mirror.
• Knowing that my chances of winning the lottery is about a billion to one, yet feeling absurdly disappointed when the slimy piece of paper is handed back with 'Not a Winner' on it. Refusing to touch that slip, saying 'Oh you can put it in the bin,' as though it'll damage my fortune in other aspects of my life.
• Painting Milly the dog's toe nails (paw claws?) shimmery purple.
• Popping a Lindt Ball into each cheek and letting them dissolve slowly as I read in-depth, thought-provoking articles in The Age. And doing it again for the next article. And the next insert.

And yet there are other times when I'm swear I'm looking towards eighty four instead of four. These are all true:

• Avidly reading the freebie community newspaper from cover-to-cover and then joining the local ratepayers association. And attending the council's community consultation session. Willingly.
• Consider googling where I can find a spiked litter pole thingy to ease the agony of continual bending over to pick up rubbish in my street, the local school, the poo lane alley adjoining the corner shop and the dodgy old flats next door.
• Looking forward to eating soup as the weather gets colder.
• Laughing at the re-emergence of eighties fashions being touted as 'Defying the recession with bright colours and bold optimism'.
• Noticing that the flesh on my neck doesn't turn in time with my head, but instead wobbles and stretches like a hesitant raw pizza base.
• Wondering why antimacassars aren't in vogue anymore.
• Discovering that I have a permanent pink tattoeed belt around my middle - even first thing in the morning - from years of wearing high-waisted elasticated underpants and jeans.
• Following and actively participating in discussions concerning politics. And realising that I'm actually a bit interested.
• Acknowledging that my most frequent thought and deed is determining where and when I can sit down.
• Doing a passable impersonation of a duck's mating call just by farting when I cough.
• Spending a longer time on the toilet and appreciating the solitude.
• Appreciating the fact that there's not one pair of heels in my wardrobe and 10% or less of my clothes need be be touched by an iron.

So yes, I insert the dog's name into ABBA songs and serenade her during the day ("Milly-mooster tell me what's wrong..."), have tried to photograph Skipper's tiny disapproving bunny lips from a weird angle and licked the chocolate cake mix bowl with Sapphire but have also noticed that my face has the imprint of the pillow left on it until long after lunch time and my legs are the physical representation of the blue and red streets of the Melways directory.

But most importantly I am that age - whatever mental, emotional or psychological number is assigned by the relevant experts - where coolness and a posh car don't matter. Just clean clothes and my loved ones. Oh and finding chocolate on special.

Tha Goodest Spellinkt bloggee Thingo

Blogger Helen from Bonding with Lizards nominated me for an 'Awe-Summ award' and Sandi K nominated me for a Kreativ (sic) Blogger award. No hefty cash prizes or bars of gold accompanied the honours unfortunately and really it's just a sneaky way of forcing me to write a meme but it also makes me smile with pride.

Both allow me to to blow my own trumpet in that I have to mention seven things that I'm awesome at - spelling not included.

When I sit here and think about it I realise that it's much harder than I thought. Sure I'm not the biggest loser in the land, but I aint a champion either and there's loads of things that I can claim to do competently (ie fold up the washing, make sure that bottle tops don't get flung into the recyling bin and never buy milk that's less than two days away from the 'best before date') but to be awesome is another level entirely.

The Collins Concise dictionary defines awesome as 'inspiring or displaying awe.' Okaaaay, so we'll look a bit further up the column to awe: 'overwhelming wonder, respect or dread.' Hmm, let's leave the seven dread bits until the very end, shall we?

So let's get the ball rolling on this anal gazing malarkey.

1) Hedonistic Hypocrisy. Picture my morning today, dear reader. The dog and I have just spent a couple of hours roaming the neighbourhood inserting flyers into letterboxes regarding the aims and exploits of our venerable local residents association. The cold winter sun is out and we both feel energised, happy and..... I'll be honest, a bit pleased with ourselves. I see what can only be kindly described as Michelen Man's girlfriend in a pale pink velvet tracksuit shoe-horning herself into her car and think, "She should be walking like us." I then see a Medibank Private employee sucking down on a cigarette so intently her eyes bulge and think, "She should be inhaling the fresh air, like us." Annoyingly justifiable, no?

Less than half an hour later, I'm at San Churro enjoying this as my lunch:

The only savoury thing there is the salt sprinkled on top of the peanut butter truffle and yet I still managed to look disdainfully at two spotty teenagers sharing just a plate of the churros (the phallic-shaped donut sticks) and think, "Oh that's not going to help their skin," before hoeing right into this like a blind basset hound lapping up porridge.

And then, what did I do? Popped into Rebel Sport to get myself a new pair of running shoes.

The other six things I'm good - nay, awesome at are:

2) Working by myself to a deadline. Having a mere four metre commute to work from the kitchen in one direction and the bedroom in the other means that public transport or car crashes can't be blamed for delays and non-performance. Instead my only way of procrastinating actually benefits the family: the house becomes very tidy. No dog fur clinging to the felt squares under the chair legs, no toothpaste splats on the mirror and Milly's butt nuggets are (mostly) removed from anywhere that human feet are likely to tread.

.....which sort of leads me to Awesome skill number 3) Wielding a Chux Superwipe. It's become second nature to have a damp cloth within an arm's length. In fact, Sapphire's first recognisable form of imitation as a nine month old was to cling to the edge of our ancient coffee table, whip off her bib and use it to wipe over the surface. Sure, the magazines went flying and my tea got spilled but she was learning about the importance of having a surface that is less like velcro and more like a top you'd be willing to rest your elbows on.

Now I'm struggling and lucky for me, Sapphire's just walked in. So sweetie-darling-sweetie, what's your old ma awesome at?

"Look Mum I'm really busting to go to the toilet and I only came in here to ask if I could have a muesli bar because I'm absolutely starving and the sausage sizzle before the school's junior string concert tonight isn't until 5:30 and I can't wait that long, so----" She left the room, but not before calling out, "So I'll have a think while I'm on the loo, OK?"

Er, fine. Thanks.

Bless her little heart because she did bounce back several minutes later, still reeking of the loo spray that she squirts liberally around the room so that the next occupant enters a blinding lavender fog, and came up with these ones:

4) "You run really fast." I'm OK, but I'm not that good. Sure the distance isn't shabby (eight kilometres) but at five minutes each I'm not troubling any Olympian - or para-Olympian for that matter. "No but I've seen you and it looks fast and you never give up."

I've been running now for nearly nine years and hope that I can continue for many more to come. I'm proud of getting out there even when I don't feel like it, it's too cold; my shins ache; my shoes rub; my toe nails get bashed, turn black and fall off and my bra cuts into my rib cage and makes me bleed. This has happened more than once but the last time I was wearing a black one so it didn't have the same, um, 'pictorial piquancy' shall we say.

5) "You're actually quite good at singing." WHAT? NO-ONE has ever said that to me before and I sing only when I'm happy and think that I'm alone or safely out of earshot. "I hear you sometimes just singing away to yourself in the kitchen when you think I've got my earphones on or are too far away in my room and you sound quite good." She sees me puff up with pride as I begin to deeply inhale and prepare to burst into ----and says hastily, "But not all the time." Shuddering, she repeats it, "Oh no, not all the time, no." Ah.

6) "You're able to turn boring, everyday things into something I want to hear about and read about." Oh dear, but there's a fair bit in my blog that I don't want you to read or hear or know about just yet. The farting themes alone are a bit too 'out there' for you and.... "No but when you said how you ran up to the stage to get the actor to stop kissing your Mum in the play I laughed a lot. You do swear a bit though and didn't Grandpa tell you - and you tell me all the time now too - that using rude words just means you don't have any imagination to think of anything more clever to say?" Er, yes. So now I'm not sure if this quality now qualifies me as 'awesome' or just rude and lazy.

7) "You're very Motherly."

This one warranted a fair bit of further discussion, revamping and clarification about all the times I've embarassed her by talking to the high school kids on the way to her school in the morning and picking up papers on our way back home and her criticism of my sartorial selections and rushing over to pat any dog that walks within a 200 metre radius of us but this next line she said absolutely word for word: "You do all the things that good mums have to do, but you're like my best friend because you do also things that you want to do for me and we have a lot of fun."

Oh bugger it; I didn't think this Awesome shindig was supposed to leave me in tears....!

Litter Ninja















I have become something that all reasonable sane and aspiring-to-be-cool teenagers everywhere dread and despise - no, not a social studies teacher, a public litter collecter. Or is it picker-upperer? Socially-aware Scavenger? Trash Tracker?

.....Loser? Well, I prefer the term 'Litter Ninja'. Whatever the title, my mother is proud that her genes actually have started to make themselves known in my own mix of cells and synapses as she's been a regular power-walking litter-picking mini-skip at the picnic reserve near her house for many years.

Mum's habit finally awoke in me after too long trying to resolutely ignore the rubbish everywhere I went, saying 'I didn't do it, so I'm not taking care of it,' and pretending that the pathway leading into the kiddie's playground was lined with barkchips instead of cigarette butts and the twinkles in the hedges were fairy lights and not the ring-top pulls from beer cans.

Every single home we've owned - even after moving cities four different times - have always found us within walking distance of a McDonalds. Under-utilised Physics undergrads could be invited to determine the factors that influence the distance from a take-away establishment and the time taken to eat the food whilst walking drunkenly home and dumping the bag, wrappers and soft drink bucket-with-lid directly in front of our gate.

In Adelaide we only had the local Maccas to deal with but being sandwiched here in Melbourne with Red Rooster and Pizza Hut on Mt Alexander Road and Subway, KFC and the Golden Arches on Racecourse Road, our little street resembles the inner-city equivalent of a waving field of Edelweiss if cruelly replaced by half-squished sauce packets, straws and paper napkins. Throw in at least two kidnapped trolleys from Safeway, abandoned sofa cushions wet by rain and beer cans dumped by late night punters walking back to the drying out centre and you'll get some idea of the lovely urban ambience we've been enjoying in our little corner of the world.

It was high time to take a stand, be a member of my community and take some pride in my surroundings. Unlike my mother, my de-littering occurs under the cover of darkness (oh OK close to tea time because it's dark by 6pm) or on the weekends when the school yard is deserted.















Sometimes Sapphire - who at ten is beyond her teens in terms of insight but is still mostly willing to hang around with her mum - will accompany me, but usually it's just Milly the dog; in mad passionate love with anyone holding her lead and saying 'Wanna go for a walk?'

Cold Sunday afternoons/evenings just before tea sees Sapph zooming around the bitumen triangle on her scooter or trying her hardest to throw an adult-sized basketball through the adult-sized basket at our local high school. Milly gleefully trots around sniffing the bushes, finding ancient sandwiches wedged into the gaps of the plank seats or rolling in the sticky patches left from crushed Red Bull cans lingering only two metres away from empty rubbish bins.

Another father arrives with his young sons and he throws a basketball to them and involves Sapphire in their game. The 'dong-dong-dong' sound of duelling basketballs reassures me that she's happy and I can continue my embarassing quest for cleanliness.

I'm a pitiable sight - bent over like an old crone with a plastic shopping bag in one hand and an old pair of BBQ tongs in the other with my snot green eyes focussed solely on the ground, quadrangle, indigenous garden and canteen queue-space for anything like chewie wrappers, fruit boxes, clear plastic straw covers, egg sandwiches, styrofoam coffee cups, coke bottles, chip bags and meusli bars half-eaten and rejected for Mars Bars.....

....and sneakily-squashed cigarette butts, broken lighters, socks, ripped-up assignments, Chinese take-away containers, alfoil balls, clingwrap strands, shoelaces, condom wrappers* and mandarin peels.

An hour later, my work is done. During that time, a group of bored teens walk past, with one who looks like a chubby Zac Efron calling out, "Hey you missed a can over there," as the others snigger; Milly takes offence at the friendly overtures made by a Spaniel puppy ("Sorry about that, she loves people but considers her fellow species as slobbering evil incarnate"); get hit in the back of the scone by one of Sapphire's stray basketball shots and, for some reason, a bloke in a commodore yells out, "GET A JOB" as he's idling at the Mt Alexander Road traffic lights.

As I clip Milly's lead back on and signal to Sapph that it's time to leave, the father smiles and says, "It's a nice thing you're doing."

My back cracks as I stand up and accept the compliment gratefully. "Thanks. Well, it's our neighbourhood and it's going to be the high school that our kids will end up at isn't it?"

"Oh no," he shoots back instantly, pursing his lips in distaste. "No way." He turns his back towards his children and their game again, instantly dismissing me. I guess they'll have paid ground staff to do this kind of dirty work at the college he'll be sending his kids to.



















* I suspect that even in these groovy times, most teens use condoms to inflate like obscene party balloons at school than the slightly-more-fun and adult purpose they were originally intended for.

Fanning the flames

It would be safe to say that for most successful relationships and marriages, your beloved partner gets to see you at your absolute worst, yet still stays around and puts up with it. Right?

Is it any wonder then that Hollywood marriages only last the standard time that intrigue and passion does - about twelve months. Is it then that these overly-cossetted celebrities realise that the daily indignities of morning breath, smelly shoes and farting is not at all acceptable within their unrealistically sanitised concept of long-lasting love?

Even a mathematical numbnut like me could figure out that the average length of a stars' marriage is miniscule compared to ours in the real world. My own relationship is going on for sixteen years, thirteen of 'em married. Whilst Love Chunks and I are proud of this achievement, we also accept that there is very little of the intrigue and romance of our first twelve months together. But would we have it any other way?

My foggy brain thinks back to my dating days: when we thought River Phoenix was a drug-free vegan, Seinfeld was new and those crazy Branch Davidians were a bit over-zealous with their pop guns. The pre-date preparation always involved a shower, cleanly shaven legs, nice perfume, a hint of make-up and a new outfit.

And today? LC leaves for work by 7am and sees me in my once-white towelling robe, ugg boots, matted hair, dragon breath and a face not yet unfolded from the shape of the pillow. He's still willing to kiss me goodbye and is even kind enough to say "See you tonight."

Alas for him, in the first fourteen years of our together, my effort was mostly shovelled into enhancing the work persona long after he had departed for work - styled hair, subtle mascara and lipstick, snappy suit and the latest boots. When I got home, that gear was immediately thrown aside and replaced with tracksuit pants, the ubiquitous ugg boots and a shapeless windcheater that was able to hide the bralessness. Now that I'm a work-from-homer who drives a desk in the spare room, this is get up is my work uniform all the time and is what the lucky LC comes home to every night.

Bedtime in the heady first days? Too x-rated, fun and exuberant to mention with no concerns for the lateness of the hour, comparing our states of exhaustion or having to keep an ear out for the baby.

Today it seems as though I'm doing everything I possibly can to appear as unattractive and as 'nocturnally unavailable' as possible, but not intentionally so. After cleaning and flossing the teeth, locking all doors and switching off the lights, I drag my now aching body into the Marital Magic room. LC's already in bed, reading. I hang up the dressing gown, kick off the uggs and slather lavender cream over my cracked hands (soaking stained school uniforms in napisan will do that to you) whilst my wheat bag is being nuked in the microwave. This hot bag now smells like an over-used horse trough and is draped around my neck which seems to be permanently cricked.

I give my snozz one last full-throttled HONK into a tissue and spray two squirts of Rhinocort up each nostril. I then pop in a valerian tablet to help me sleep and slip on my mouthguard. This infernal contraption makes me lisp, so dear old LC is treated to a slurpy "Goodnight Ssshweetie, Sssshleep well," as he turns out the light.

To be fair, there is a bit of surreptitious fumbling in the darkness: I can't find my bedsocks and it's freezing in here!

But wait - there's more. Even in our unconscious states, we 'treat' each other to aspects of our physical selves that don't exactly leave us smelling of roses. Dutch ovens, for a start. I can't help it - if that's what my digestive plumbing needs to do, then so be it.

Love Chunks gets his own back via his snoring; so sonorous our blinds rattle. Many's the time I've lain there in sheer wonder at the incredible noises his throat makes and him such a quiet person during the day....

If our marriage was a movie, we'd wake up attractively entwined in each other's arms - his manly torso on display, my chest discreetly hidden under the sheets. We'd gaze adoringly into each other's eyes, kiss passionately and get right down to business. Yeah right: how could you contemplate doing any of that before going to the toilet or rinsing out your mouth for gods' sake? What about those cornflakey boogers that have formed around your eyes? The dried white drool marks on your chin?

At least the morning shower gives me a chance to clean up, wake up and tidy up. Not that any of this is a mystery to LC. In our one-bathroom house, he's busy cleaning his teeth and scraping away his whiskers whilst I'm surreptitiously trying to blow my nose in the shower and shave my armpits.

Then our darling daughter bursts in, has a giggle at my soapy backside and pokes me with the ornamental back scrubber: "Hey Mum, remember you said I could order my lunch from the canteen today!"

In the movie High Fidelity, the Rob character (played by the gorgeous John Cusack) bemoans that his live-in girlfriend only wears sensible underwear and not the sexy, lacy stuff he'd see when they were just dating. LC laughed at that scene, commenting, "I should be so lucky." On fat days or full-laundry basket days, the old maternity knickers get dragged out - purely to flatten the tummy, mind. The dag in me likes to put on my socks before my trousers, so LC's had many conversations with me only clad in nanna pants and those knee-high tights that make the tops of my legs look like a mini mushroom cloud. Yet still he says, "See you tonight."

He's been kind and helpful to me too, at times when I've been less than my best. "Pssst - you've got one of those dangly boogies in your nose," as I gratefully fumble around for the cafe's napkin to wipe it away. Or, less quietly, in a fluorescent-lit chemist, "Hey, here's the thrush cream you want!" He's emptied my sick buckets during migraines and tactfully told me that "Um, there's a couple of friends that you haven't flushed properly."

What mystery? We have NO mystery in our marriage, and it goes both ways. I've politely pointed out that his nose hairs were long enough to hang beads on; have plucked out some scary Robert Menzies-like long eyebrow hairs (you do not want to have eyebrows that will join up with your fringe); and nearly fallen to the ground in airless agony after visiting the loo too soon after he's been. Yet I too, say, "Yes, I'll see you tonight. Have a great day at work!"

He's the first person I clap eyes on in the morning, and he's the last person I touch, kiss, talk to and see at night. I wouldn't want it any other way. Although he could lose those pongy old slippers of his......

Cake-hole Chaos

We've all had 'Dyslexia Days' where whatever we type comes out lal worgn and causes a tol of imstsakes or had embarrassing bouts of 'Erroneous Eyes' when you'll see one person but be thinking of someone else and greet them with, "Hi Tracey - sorry, I meant Neil, honestly I did, but y'see I was just talking to Tracey on the phone and ..."

......Haven't we?

But have you ever had a Mangled Mouth Day?

No? You're probably shaking your head and wondering, 'Kath's a bit odd at the best of times, but this time I have absolutely no idea what she's on about and am going straight to Cute Overload to clear my mind right now.' If so, let me tell you about my morning so far.

I think my lips have gone on strike. No, before my husband Love Chunks interjects and says, "YOU - SILENT? That'll be the day," a bit more explanation is required. By going on strike I mean my actual lips seem to have forgotten how to drink things properly.

Several times this morning whilst expecting - as per every other morning of my lengthy adult life - to absent-mindedly slurp my coffee and remain dry, the exact opposite has happened. Like a root-canal victim still under the influence of dentist chair anaesthesia, the hot brown liquid splashed all over my top like a shower head. And not just once.

Later on, I decided to treat myself to a glorious chunk of almond nougat. It goes down a treat for morning tea when my sugar levels are merely at Diabetes Level 2 Lose-a-Limb stage and not at the Optimum Working Conditions for Kath Lockett range. Chewing away happily, I sang along to the iPod - "I am Milk, I am red hot kitchen; I am cool, Cool as the deep blue ocean" until twinkle time. As I washed my hands, I did my (sadly) usually jokey muscle flex at the mirror, only to discover with horror that partially-masticated almonds and white nougar had inserted their ugly selves into every single gap in my teeth.

Oh Jeez, no wonder the parcel guy was leaning so far away from me as I signed his receipt pad and Stuart next door now thinks that not only am I a terrible singer but also enjoy rinsing my my dentures in oatmeal.

No matter, a quick do-over with the floss and I was sparkly white and socially acceptable again. Now, where was the rest of that nougat.....

Did I tell you that it was rolled in a generous sedimentary layer of Bolivian cocoa? And that when I popped out to the shop to get some milk and had what I thought was an engaging chat to Narelle I got home to discover that the dust had settled on my upper lip, making me look like an Albino Mexican bandit in dire need of electrolysis? ~*Sigh*~

Clearly it was time to stay inside and away from innocent civilians. Besides, I'd discovered an ulcer in my cheek, and whilst tapping away on the laptop I had another touchy-feely festival going on inside my head as my tongue continually flicked at and worried the ulcer. Why oh why couldn't I just leave it alone?

Actually, I did, because it was then I noticed that my tongue had one of those annoying little pimples on the end. I then wasted a fair bit more time, effort and imagination by trying to bite the little bugger off by wedging it between my top and bottom front teeth. This was not successful and just succeeded it making it swell up and hurt a bit more. Now it's impossssssible to ssssssay anything with the letter Ssssss in it without ssssssound like SSsssssir Hisssss from Robin Hood. And it hurts too.

Then the blister on the roof of my mouth started to sting and throb and reminded me of the dangers of inhaling hot coffee straight from the kettle instead of being patient and waiting for it to cool, as I neglected to do so earlier in the day. The crinkly, wet skin that remained protested painfully as my pestering pimple tongue started to explore it.

And thus, here you find me, suffering from a Mangled Mouth day. Stuff It: I'm off to create total mayhem by cleaning my teeth with ultra strong mint and then glug down a glass of unsweetened orange juice..... Living on the edge baby, the Edge!

Lizzie's Long Weekend
























Despite a Pommy monarch literally living half a world away who actually had her real birthday in April and most of us wanting a Republic, we Aussies are still never going to knock back a day off.

Our three days were spent doing activities that avoided the rain but still:

• Allowed us to clean up the litter in our street, respond to some lip given by loitering teenagers (yes, to one boy - at least I think it was a boy - I actually curled my lip and said, "Pull UP your pants, fool") and give Milly the dog some nice walkies at the same time ("That's right sweetie, you can chase those friendly kids away, that's right....")
• Taught us that Footscray Markets are to avoided at all costs if such issues as the odouriferous fug of fermenting fruit, pre-WW2 prawn heads, overly-elastic hygiene guidelines and the beauty of decaying Soviet-era concrete design are of concern
• Showed that home-made pasta is fiddly and time-consuming but very delicious. Especially if done by Love Chunks and Sapphire whilst I am reading the paper and patting the rabbit.
• Proved to me that blowing on cooked and freshly served food is essential before greedily inhaling. Hot caramel sauce studded with chunks of banana with lava-like tendencies will steadfastly stick to the roof of my mouth and create a painful blister that protests against any food hotter than refrigerated chocolate for days afterwards if I don't blow.
• Allowed us to witness the Crows defeat Essendon in Melbourne. One Bombers bloke in a newsboy's cap saw my wild clapping further along his row and, in frustration, he yelled something about my having a 'Far Cough'. I feigned indifference and added to the maturity level of our shouted discussion by poking my tongue out and showing him my grandmother's gold ring on my middle finger. Sapphire was shocked, LC resigned.
  

However, in amongst our various activities, I was subtlely trying to get a photo of the three of us together; looking casual: an informal portrait, having fun, just being a contented family enjoying each others' company. I'd noticed that our photos tend to feature only one or two of us in them and a Lockett Triple was becoming rarer than a happy marriage in Hollywood.

I had been asked to submit a good quality, high-res picture for a magazine article I'd been interviewed for, but trying to take a photo in the evenings when we were all together meant that the flash and automatic timer thingy made me look whiter than usual, LC more tired and Sapphire more recalcitrant.

In addition, like the badly-timed and later-regretted re-telling of jokes at dinner parties, we three tend to be folk who are best viewed 'live', as in "You had to be there." The camera doesn't seem to flatter us much, let alone cast us in an optimistic light.

No, I'm not being overly harsh. These photos below were taken at the footy by a kind bloke who sat directly in front of me and even offered his M magazine (containing the essential TV guide for the week) to help me mop up the Diet Coke that I'd dropped and then opened only to have it fizz directly down the neck of his parka. They clearly illustrate how difficult it is to get the three of us photogenically acceptable:



I tend to resemble an elderly potato, Love Chunks is obviously sitting on something excruciating (or just did something excruciating) and Sapphire is at that oh-so-helpful 'let's make a funny face' stage. *Sigh*

I didn't feel like asking my soggy Diet Coke victim to take a seventh picture, especially when his three mates were standing impatiently nearby rocking on their heels kicking at crumpled beer tumblers and muttering, "Come on Trevor, this is our last bloody night before we fly back to Adelaide and our wives."

But how was I going to obtain a recent family portrait that exemplified the ideals of work/life balance and not the less attractive ideals of facial tics, self-abuse, uncomfortable stadium seating, disrespect and too much sugar?

Perhaps the Star Wars exhibit at Scienceworks would help?




















Hmmm. At least posing with a gender-reassigned Senator Palpatine and Luke 'This is my Warwick Capper hair' Skywalker made me feel a bit better about myself. There was a Princess Leia in her Planet Hoth (the icy place) outfit that made me wonder if she'd enjoyed too many hot toddies at the rebel base, an Obi Wan Kenobi who was channelling Marlon Brando rather than Sir Alec Guinness and the less said about Darth Vader and Leia as the bikini-clad slave the better...

A smaller and slimmer Darth was found in the gift shop, slumped forlornly against the wall. After an hour of queing to get into the musuem followed by another half hour queue at the cafe for lunch before the final half hour queue to get into the Star Wars exhibition, he was feeling as tired and emotional as I was.




















So the fabulous family foto will just have to wait for another day. A day of soft lighting, forgiving camera work, a malleable child and comfortable husband, a tan for me and a graduation course in Photoshop and Picasa. Cross your fingers and hope that the force will one day be with us.

Shifty Swifty

Our neighbourhood frequently sees a blonde old bag seemingly permanently ensconced in polarfleece accompanied by a smiling orange dog walking at a fairly slow pace as she (the dog, not the old bag) sniffs at every drive way they pass. However, that's merely a very clever disguise.

Some of you might remember the latest local mystery that Milly and myself are in the process of uncovering for your edification:

Just why is this car painted this way and who or what is 'Swifty' and 'The Operatives'?

As luck would have it, the other day Milly and I were walking past the cutest Post Office in the world, see:

....and Swifty the car was there, with a real human bloke inside!

Casting aside all fears of being considered insane, nosey or as potential rape-and-pillage opportunity, I rapped at the passenger's window and got Swifty's attention.

Swifty is indeed in reference to the car, a Suzuki Swift, which was painted last year by a visiting international graffiti artist rapper, beat-boxer, home dawg, free-stylin', rumble-in-da-jungle, keepin' it real chap. I think. The owner of the car, Jerry, runs a business called 'The Operatives' who - according to the postcard he gave me, combined themselves with Funktion to run an event called 'Recloose', featuring Dexter, Dizz, Curse the Machines, Kano, Dan Motive and JPS. Held down in Brown Alley, unless that's a euphemism.

All clear now?

Since then, young Jerry has been busy setting up other kinds of events, most notably once featuring Shamik the Human Beatbox from Vancouver. No, that's not a form of torture involving cardboard and moose horns, or I don't think so anyway. I'm sure your Nanna's heard of him.

Like Karen Carpenter, Shamik "hears music in his head" and uses beatboxing (well, Karen played the drums, didn't she) to bring it to life.

"He has performed in Canada, USA, Czech Republic, India, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Philippines. With crushing basslines and crisp rhythms, Shamik has captivated audiences from nightclubs to outdoor festivals by creating a DJ set with his mouth. After performing alongside artists like Q-Bert, Bassnectar, Method Man & Redman, Skream, Thievery Corporation, Z-Trip, Freq Nasty, Killa Kela, Tanya Tagaq, Sub Swara, and The Glitch Mob, he continues to spread the artform of his vocal percussion."

Okaaaaay, I feel about a million years old now and am dying for a cup of tea and a fast opening Jason recliner. But look, there are local people featuring on the bill as well, so maybe I'll run into some of them at Safeway on my Friday morning grocery grab:

Simon Wrinkler - I wonder if he's works part time at the dry cleaner's on Pin Oak Crescent?

Inkswel - Tattoo artist, Dandy or Stationer?

Rambl - Allergic to 'e' or an ex-student of the studiously ignored Debney Park high school?

Dan Motive - Thank goodness his mother didn't call him 'Ulterior' or 'Obvious'

Ms Butt - celebrating her best asset presumably, unless she's the jollier-sized one of the two young girls who fry up the bacon and egg rolls at the cafe next to the tattslotto shop?

As it says, it's "Music for and from our generation!!! Upfront, Upclose and personal...."

But a tad too late for me. Bless them for trying, but Shamik isn't on until 2:30am when I'm already three hours into (hopefully) a good REM snooze session.

Nevertheless, for your sakes dear reader, Milly and I will keep on doggedly trying to catch Jerry again for more information even though he's clearly a Man of the Night and I'm a Moron of the Morning.

Broken Toe

Last week I'd just enjoyed a nice long run, had cooled down, let Milly lick a bit of sweat from my ankles and was ready for a refreshing shower.

Ours being a small house with a tacked-on bathroom the shower and bathtub is a one-and-the-same space-saving affair. I leaned over the tub to switch on the hot tap and then, like the Hokey Pokey suggests, put my left foot in.

Unlike the Hokey Pokey, I didn't take it out again but left it there and as the water became warm enough for me to want to step into it instead of squealing and shrinking back up against the far wall with the towel rail digging into my arse, I absent-mindedly flicked my right foot in.

Or thought I did. Instead, the fast flicking motion and my distance-defining dyslexia meant that --- CRACK --- my toes forcefully smacked themselves against the edge of the solid ceramic edge of the bath.

I was in a painful quandary: did I sink to the bottom of the tub in the foetal position to fully immerse myself in the spiralling maelstrom of twingeing agony, or blindly stagger to my feet in order to turn off the hot tap which was now sending scalding jets of water down my spine and into my butt cleavage? Neither option was attractive and both involved a fair bit of swearing, crying, yelping and moaning.

My middle toe had turned an angry maroon colour and whatever pulse I had left was concentrated within that dented digit as it spasmically throbbed in a monotonous but regular heartbeat of pain. Letting the shampoo run into my already teary eyes, I gingerly bent down to touch the toe - PHARCK! It looked wonky; as though it was leaning on a lamp post; the lamp post being the second toe.

I - yes, me, the woman who cries during Master Chef eliminations and likes to watch Sparrows pick at discarded lunches in shopping malls - actually yanked at it to straighten it. It crackled and crunched like a cocoa-pop-lined gravel driveway under a moving car and hurt like jammed jackhammer might if it landed on your toe and worked its malevolent magic for mincement and misery.

But I did it. Somewhere in that hellishly horrific self-inflicted torture I remembered that medicos don't do anything to broken toes but tape them, so I turned off the water, stepped over the edge of the tub like a foppish flamingo playing hopscotch in ultra slow motion and taped it up.

Oooo Oooo Owww! But it was done. And, to be honest, was a nice excuse to have to wear ugg boots all day instead of sneakers or leather shoes.**

And as I settled in front of my laptop attempting to write a scintillating article on how to achieve

work/life balance during a recession and my toe felt as though it was imprisoned inside a TicTac container, my mind started wandering away from the task at hand towards something far more urgent, more intimate, more compelling.

Being Injured Whilst Completely Naked. How grateful I was in this instance to have been able to treat myself and not have to call for help!

Who amongst us hasn't occasionally imagined some of the more humiliating ways that we fervently hope we won't find ourselves in, desperately requiring assistance? My mate Jill and I have said in the past that even if we slipped on the wet bathroom tiles, snapped both hips into smithereens, smashed our foreheads on the vanity unit and had our eyes unpleasantly poked out by the taps there would be no way we'd call - much less whimper - for help until we'd covered our rude bits up.

It's true. Would you really want to find yourself spread eagled and nude yelling out for your house mate, nanna or parcel delivery guy to come in and give you a hand? When all you meant to do was reach for a towel but somehow misjudged and ended up paralysed from the waist down as you slid into an ironically perfect demonstration of the splits; albeit on beige tiles lightly sprinkled with dust bunnies and stray pubes?

I thought not.

** That's right, reader dear. Even though I write at home, I've been making an effort to always wear some kind of outdoorsy, socially acceptable shoe. Sure I'm overly fond of elasticated tracksuit pants and polar fleece, but wearing slippers or Crocs all day is just giving up altogether.

I'm KNIHLing my laptop

That's a silent 'n' in the blog header, by the way. I've had my laptop for four years now and I've worn away the K, N, I, H and L keys. Sure, they're holding together with a combination of dropped chocolate shavings, crystallised coffee sploshes and stray eyelashes but my touch-typing 'skills' mean that I know where to find them even if my eyes don't.

I'm sure it's because I frequently type out:

Kaleidoscopically kleptomaniacal kidnappings of Kalashnikovs kicked in the kidneys

Naming the nadir of suffering a Neuroendocrinological necrosis

Illustrating the Inconceivably, indefatigably, inexplicably incomprehensible incidents in irrelevancies

Handling the hegemony of horrifically hypersensitive Humanitarians

Lamenting the lackadaisical Legislative liabilities

...or is it because I frequently tap out the words

K ath, knowledgable, knit-wit, kid, knave, knickers, knuckle, knock out, Kama Sutra, Kamikaze, knockers.

N No, Never-Saying-No, nonsense, nude, nobheads, nerdish, noteworthy, normal, numb

I Inspirational, itchy, irritable, ink, ill, industrious, intelligent, idiosyncratic, inimitable

H ell, Haigh's, hog, high-school, hot-head, hopeful, hatred, heartache, humungous

L Lockett, Love, Love Chunks, lurk, laugh, like, learn, look, lick

.... instead?

And try as I might, I can not think of a word that uses all five letters... Can you?

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