Meme-Meme!

I've been shoulder-tapped for two memes, one from Eleanor Bloom and one from Benjamin Solah.

Firstly, Western Australian dweller Ms Bloom's. Each of her chosen ones had to visit flickr, type in their answers to each of nine questions and select a photo only from the first page that pops up and copy-n-paste 'em to bighugelab's Mosaic Maker.

Now look here, you: if an ageing and techno-deficient cyber dunce like me can do it, so can you, okay?

1. Something that expresses beauty to you - Sleeping dogs. Their utter peace and contentment stirs envy in me as well as admiration for their natural beauty. I like the way they have the one coat that sees them through from morning til night for all occasions and the way their whiskers look as though they've been individually hand-sewn onto their snouts. And when their paws twitch as they run chasing cats in their dreams.

2. A love - Love Chunks. Yes, I'm going literal here. Husband for (thinks hard for a moment or two), um 14 years, together for sixteen. Still my utterly best friend and owner of the warmest feet and the softest lips and the most comfortingly strong hugs. The photograph is actually of Hurricane Dean, but in reality LC is much calmer than that (unless IKEA self-assemblage is required). I still reach for his hand when we're walking down the street. Rubs my sore head for ages when I'm able to sit up and complain instead of lying in the dark, silent.

3. An addiction - Chocolate, what else? This 'reducing your chocolate intake by 90% because of your dangerously high cholesterol' medical malarkey is soul-suckingly awful. I was going to eat some Milo straight out of the tin until I read how much saturated fat it contained. Plus, if I'd accidentally breathed in as the spoon was inserted instead of exhaling I'd have suffered a gut-busting coughing fit. Believe me, it's happened before....

4. Favourite album or style of music - My selection changes every day and my running list has focussed on heavy fast rock and bouncy electronica in order to keep the legs moving and the heart pumping. Off the treadie, I'll go for Tom Petty's album 'Into the Great Wide Open' which is what this bunny photo was called. It's certainly cuter-looking than Mr Petty who seems to be the Love Child of Steve Tyler and Carly Simon.

5. A place you spent your childhood - Murray Bridge, South Australia. Yes, a town on the river Murray, by the bridge. Clearly there were no local heroes or renowned explorers worth naming the place after when the bridge was opened in 1879 and even now the only remotely noteworthy person from MB is Alby 'World Safari' Mangels.

6. An enjoyable pastime - how you spell past time? pastime? pasttime? Writing. Not on walls or toilet doors but on the computer or in my tatty blue notebook. Most of it is drivel ('where is Plastic Bertrand now?') or impossible ('get Dairy Farmers to give me stats on sales of Farmers Union iced coffee per head of population compared to Big M') and occasionally useful ('Trolley Tracker hotline - 1800 641 497 - collects stray shopping trolleys off the streets'). Dream job would be to work from home (tick), earning a decent income (er, not yet a tick) on a slight, humorous column (no tick).

7.Your favourite season - Autumn, especially in Adelaide. After a long dry summer, it finally becomes cool enough to sleep with a blanket on and curl up snugly and yet is still sunny enough to peel off your jacket at lunchtime and sit on the grass.

8. Favourite animal - The Dog. Even being away from Milly for seven days during our recent holiday to the Red Centre saw me rushing up to any vaguely human personage with a dog, saying, "Oooh, is your doggie friendly? Can I pat it?" and seeing Love Chunks and Sapphire roll their eyes and remark to each other, 'Well we might as well go inside for a coffee, because she'll be chatting to this bum/toothless loser/weirdo/bogan for a while')

9.Somewhere on earth you'd like to visit - The Lindt conching machine in my scuba gear and a large straw. No seriously, Canada. Hence the Canadian duck. Everyone I've met from there seems to be nice, as well as what I imagine the scenery, comedy festival, food, lifestyle, bear and beaver wrestling etc. Vague plans are forming to do just that in 2010.

Benjamin Solah is a Marxist horror writer who works in an office as his day job but spends most of his free time fighting for the oppressed and the powerless. As you do in Coburg, whilst wearing a ~shudder~ Collingwood footy scarf.

He was recently asked to write a meme based on five words he was given by a fellow blogger, which were:
1) Marxism
2) Revolution
3) Capitalism
4) Horror
5) Office

I love that 'Office' is up there with the other rather noble, but forbidding and frightening topics. It seems to fit rather well somehow.

Compared to his passionate, sometimes-dangerous and always admirably-lofty life ideals, I'm the blogging equivalent of a communion wafer, with about as much depth. Still, Benjamin knows what warms up my uggs and he's given me the words chocolate, Melbourne, freelancing, family and ABBA.

Chocolate. Since the day I was dared to insert an entire Cadbury Creme egg into my mouth in year eight science (thus making me uncharacteristically quiet during class), I've been a convert.

Hmm what can I say about this that I haven't already said before? Perhaps I should plug one of my paid writing gigs - Chocablog. Please click on the link and subscribe to get your online fill of all things cocoa-related (plus, it's cholesterol and fat-free when enjoyed online instead of inmouth). Yes, it's a damn nice gig to be able to review something that I love and not something like dysfunctional aged care facilities, uranium mining disposal policy guidelines or hand made cod pieces. It's (chocolate that is, not cod-pieces) my main food group, the substance I crave the second I wake, what I run over thirty kilometres a week for and what I dream of.

Stay tuned for a bit of blather on how judging the best Australian Chocolates for the Rush Chocolate Festival turned out yesterday....

Melbourne. This is my third period of residence in this interesting city. The first was in 1994 for only a year when LC and I first officially moved in together after finishing our Grad Dip Eds at Adelaide uni. I followed him back to Melbourne and got work at WormWorld Security as the only non-smoking, non-bogan, non-pokies-playing debt collector. It was the year that migraines mysteriously appeared, signalling the arrival of my brain tumour. Sometimes Jan would give me a ride home, chain-smoking all the way with her car-heated on full-blast and windows wound up: no wonder I vomited into an empty KFC carton before we got to my street.....

After a stint in Darwin for a couple of years, we returned in 2006, bought our little ex-housing commission clinker brick in Heidelberg Heights. LC was still with the weather bureau and I'd moved from federal government to state - EPA. When Sapphire arrived, there was a sense that Heidelberg Heights wasn't the best address in town when a fellow new mother asked the CAFS nurse, "How many beers can you have when you're breastfeeding?" and LC was erroneously spotlighted and chased down by a police helicopter at 6am whilst innocently riding his bike to work when they mistook him for a bloke who'd held up the service station around the corner from our place.















The third time - this time - was planned a bit more. Work was the main reason behind the decision, but it was also for other opportunities, a bigger cultural blend, better lifestyle.... We wanted to live closer in to the actual city to give Sapphire access to different communities that range from the very poor to the very wealthy, reduce LC's commute time, use the trams, have access to the Queen Vic markets, be in a suburb with grit, history and integrity. We also knew that the 'big move' needed to be inflicted on our daughter at age nine and not fourteen when she'd hate us forever.

Flemington is a suburb full of contrasts, and even houses side-by-side (see above) can be utterly decrepit or beautifully restored. It has drunks wandering along Racecourse road, menacing no-one and sunning themselves on the benches. It has Porsche Cayennes and mansions that overlook the commission flats and kids that line up to pat Milly as she waits by the school gate. A police station that looks like a church and a post office that resembles a cathedral and streets clogged up with litter and cigarette butts. I love it.

Freelancing. I seem to be putting the 'free' into freelancing, and any 'lancing' tends to involve me popping the post-running blisters on my toes and squirting the fluid all over the floor before I step into the shower. Still, some work is heading in my direction and I'll say 'yes' to anything that doesn't involve public nudity, David Koch, eating pumpkin or pretending to like Nick Cave.

Family



















Love Chunks and Sapphire are everything to me. Instead of feeling hemmed-in by marriage and parenthood, I feel free. Free to be myself and not worry if I'm hot, or cool, or hip or edgy. They've both heard me sing, do silly voices and dance with the dog, yet I've never felt self conscious or ashamed (maybe I should....?). I think, when Love Chunks describes Sapphire and myself as his 'two chattering birds', it's an apt description: he only starts to worry if we're quiet, because that means we're either sick or sad or both.

ABBA. This is a hard sentence to write - let alone admit to - but I'm utterly sick to death of them. Sapphire 'grew up' listening to them, and seeing 'Mama Mia' last year just completed her full indoctrination of all things ABBA. As such, the old favourites are played over and over and over again. What's even more annoying is that her old favourites aren't my old favourites. She prefers Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen and The Way Old Friends Do to my SOS, the entire Super Trouper album and anything where Frida is allowed to be the vocal star. At least I have head phones and iPod Minis to be grateful for; my pooor mother had to listen to it all via the family's one and only piece of music playing equipment - the radiogram. And my singing.

Beer, Bourbon and Broken Hearts



















“…Am I ever gonna see your face again….

………No Way Get F----ed F--- Off!”

The first time I heard those lyrics I was barely seventeen years old and nervously standing in the Presidents’ Room of Lincoln College, wondering just how I was going to manage to drink the plastic cup of warmish cask wine I’d been given and feeling glad I already had a boyfriend and didn’t have to ‘snare’ someone on dance-floor later that evening.

Such was my entry into the unfettered student world of cheap champagne, charity shoes and chunder; far removed from my relatively innocent and sheltered country upbringing with a protective high school teacher for a father and a mother who still tended to refer to slightly easier-going girls as ‘common’.

Staying at a residential college for university students was not unlike a school camp except there were no supervising teachers, no lights-out rules, no separate boys or girls dorms or forced attendance at lectures the following day. Dad was worried: “You know you can tell me anything, kiddo – are there drugs there?”

Not that I was aware of. In 1986 it was all liquid based - pub crawls wearing thrift shop ties from the 1970s, dressing up in bed-sheets to attend the Adelaide University Toga Show and surfing through spilt beer on the lino. Drinks at the Dover until midnight closing time and then cramming into someone’s tiny room where their single bed was the couch as we scoffed down soggy hot chips and boiled the kettle for poor quality instant coffee with a dash of cheap brandy or blackberry nip slugged in.

Romance in those days was a five dollar bowl of Laksa at the Central Market food hall and a movie to follow if the Austudy payment had arrived. We’d car pool back home to Murray Bridge on the weekends and spend Saturday night watching rented videos or lurking at the back of the Cameo Cinema having snuck in our own blocks of chocolate from Mum’s pantry.

Sexual interludes were relatively infrequent affairs, despite the loud ‘You shoulda seen me last night’ braggings of some of Lincoln’s more ego-centric and immature players. Single beds with hard wooden bases in rooms that were draughty and last updated in the 1960s with mates likely to burst in at any moment made any form of horizontal folk-dancing a fairly quick and furtive activity. Most one-night stands ended with at least one partner having a technicolour yawn on the stairwell back to their own room and receiving a endless ribbing about it until their next beer-fuelled bonk.

As a quiet country girl who arrived with a built-in-boyfriend who also resided at the college, every now and then, on special occasions, such as anniversaries (‘Yep, we’ve been going together for two years now’) we’d go out for dinner. To a real restaurant, where I’d borrow one of Mum’s skirts and dress up a daggy long chambray shirt with a silky scarf wrapped around my neck and under the collar.

Selections were a great deal fancier than college food: Prawn cocktail with a gin-n-squash entree and a rump steak and chips for mains. Or chicken and corn soup followed by a brick of lasagna and a cone of gelati from the servo as we walked back home. A big night out like that didn’t come cheap - it would cost us at least $20 for the whole bill – my entire week’s beer, books and bloke budget plucked out of my holiday earnings, or if we were lucky, a freebie voucher won by Sean if he got best player on Saturday.

In 1988 I moved out of college to share a house with Jo (left) and Fiona (front). It was mostly to give me nights that didn’t involve hearing a herd of drunken elephants arrive back home at 2am and clumsily try to open or kick down their doors and also for the chance to teach myself how to cook stuff that was slightly more complex than cup-a-soups and peeling off yoghurt lids. I was single again and out on the prowl but in hindsight my choices were more likely influenced by the volume of bourbon and cokes than by any sense of propriety, maturity or finesse.

There was Mark, a beefy bloke who took me to see Rodney Rude at the Norwood Footy Club for our first (and last) date;

Ian, who pretended he’d lost his car keys so that he could try the old ‘Let me sleep in your bed with you, so I don’t have to walk home by myself in the dark’;

Brenton, on leave from the navy who did the same bar-and-waiting course I did and drove me home on the back of his motorbike with me unknowing that in slinging my leg over the seat my mini-skirt had split up the back all the way to my waist giving other drivers a fairly unrestricted view of my knickers;

Greg, a fellow arts student who twisted the 'come up and see my etchings gag' into 'I like the way you draw, would you do one for me' before putting the moves on and serenading me with roses, bad poetry and funded his trip to Sydney to see Bon Jovi by staring in a TV advertisement as a lumberjack.....

We held a few parties at our little Hackney townhouse that made the once-sensible Berber carpet look like a psychedelic Axminster even after a professional steam clean. Flatmate Jo’s birthday bash was a romantic standout. My night was made by being wedged up against the back of the sliding doors pashing Roger, a Geology PhD student. He drove an ancient Mazda that smelled as though it housed livestock and literally only owned two jumpers; both dodgy experiments knitted by his younger sister. It was enough.

After graduating, a sensible graduate-traineeship and a third-share of the rent to pay meant that 1989 began and ended in a never-ending round of twenty first birthday parties. These seemed to be designed to either show off your latest boyfriend or try to find a new one. I met one bloke I barely remembered during high-school at one held in the Mypolonga footy club rooms. The short scrawny kid in year twelve had gone overseas as an exchange student and returned as a six foot three man-mountain, with twinkling eyes and broad shoulders to boot. He seemed to like my spiral perm, hot pink court shoes and the shoulder-padded t-shirt that hung down to my knees. Sadly our relationship was doomed to fail several months later as he was still a poverty-stricken accounting student and I was a relatively well-paid young Yuppie earning a staggering $21,000 per year. He simply couldn’t keep me in the manner to which I was dying to become accustomed.

Not that attending a vodka jelly party was likely to find me a high achieving millionaire either. As one fella decided to surf down the stairs on an ironing board, another one asked for my number. Clutching the soggy brown velvet modular for support I gave it to him before the floor came up to meet me.

Meeting him a week later at a friend-of-a-friend’s birthday party I soon realised the folly of wearing vodka goggles – he was a hulking rugby player with no neck, white shoes that could have doubled as canoes and a slab under each arm. “How about we finish these off and then crash on the lawn, eh?”

I could only hope that my knight in shining armour would arrive some time in the 1990s……

Teen love eighties-style

Being the daughter of a high school teacher and attending the same school that he taught at pretty well curtailed any budding-but-faint teenage inclinations towards romance that I might have had. That and shyness.

Instead, I’d read ‘Dolly’ magazine from cover-to-cover and carefully cut out and paste photos of hunks into my homework diary to assure others of my firm standing in the ‘Has a libido, must be trendy’ pecking order. Yeah, like Ralph Macchio and C. Thomas Howell really stood the test of time.

Any crushes on real, attainable boys at school, church or in my tennis team were kept utterly secret. My fear of rejection, embarrassment – or worse, not knowing exactly what ‘to do’ in the physical sense – meant that I suffered in silence or went out of my way to utterly snub and ignore the object of my affections.

Being quiet and studious didn’t preclude me from observing the hormone-laden rituals of the teens in my class, however. The girls who were – ahem – ‘active’ from around fourteen years of age didn’t seem to be particularly fussy about who they would ‘go with’.

Murray Bridge was a rural country town that had a meat works. For kids who weren’t academically focused, it was the army, an apprenticeship or a job at the meat works that eventuated at about the age of fifteen or sixteen. Some of these heroes would cruise past the school or the drive-in in their dented, double-exhaust, 1960s Holdens and the girls on heat would answer their bum-fluff and bourbon-breathed bellows, strutting by the school fence with the waist-bands of their tartan skirts rolled up so that the hems would barely cover their knickers.

In 1983, the real sign of being a tart-in-demand - from my innocent observations - was the love bite. Preferably on the neck, freshly-made in the back of a car on Saturday night so that it was in full purplish bloom for bragging rights at recess time on Monday. They were either proudly displayed or hidden under then-unfashionable polo necks and whispered about in the school toilets after sharing a cigarette and spraying away the smell of smoke with Impulse body sprays. “Narelle says that you should rub some toothpaste on it, and it will go away.”
“Shit-a-brick, as long as it’s not there when the school photos are taken tomorrow or my Dad will kill me!”

Interestingly, even the ‘moles’ went for boys at least a couple of years older than they were and with the benefit of hindsight I can sort of understand why. Apart from having jobs and a car, boys their own age were going through the thirteen-to-eighteen year old growth stages that, unfortunately, rendered them at best, gawky, and at worst, monstrously unattractive.

For them it was a time of cruel contradiction: puberty was kicking in big and strong, as was their vague but clumsy interest in girls. Most had spotty faces which only served to highlight their big noses, chin hairs that were usually only visible when viewed against bright sunlight and overly-pointy Adam's apples that worked overtime to produce embarrassing yelps and squeaks in the middle of sentences. Their hands seemed to be huge, way out of proportion to even their noses, heads and feet. My theory is that God had designed it so that they had the best gathering tools for food. Or breasts, if they happened to have the ideal trifecta of being fairly good looking, the school sports hero and possess some acceptable social skills.

These objects of my hidden hormonal longings tended to be obsessed with sport; calling each other the all-encompassing term ‘poofter’ for any digression from the expected and regular display of social skills that included armpit farts, real farts, belching the alphabet, shooting spitballs out of bic pens onto the ceiling and ear lobe flicking a mate if they looked like they were actually trying to write something in their exercise book. Entering the audio-visual room after lunch with these sweaty brethren was a malodorous endurance session that reeked of Brut 33, Sherrin leather and damp desert boots.

And yet at times I had yearned for men such as these. Young, idiotic males who could barely operate a double-tape recorder, let alone pick up the vibe that Mr Read’s goody-goody daughter, Katherine, sitting two rows behind them, was desperately in love with their intelligent, sporty, funny, hunky side. As well as their ability to expertly throw chunks of chalk down Daniel Panizzi's unenviable bum cleavage during geography.

My first kiss was conducted away from my home town, or school or friends, at a drama camp that had representatives from a variety of schools acting in a play together in Adelaide during the school holidays. He was as inexpert and fumbling as I was and our kiss was a rather uncoordinated, slobbery let-down. Not that that was how I gushingly described it to my friends when after the school holidays had ended of course.

The second was nearly two years later, after the most wonderful night of my life up to that point – the Murray Bridge High School senior ball, 1985. It occurred after a year of yearning – no, pining – for Sean H. I had clapped my eyes on his rather snug little butt in his grey Levis' Californians whilst standing behind him at school assembly. When he turned around to say hello to his mate 'Sidey', the front of him looked pretty good too. All through Australian History and English, I sat behind him and enjoyed some rather adult daydreams that had very little to do with Albert Camus or Henry Lawson. He asked me to the senior ball and we were inseparable for the next couple of years.

Like most girls with a mission, I thought that it was my fashion choices that were the key factor in attracting Sean’s attention. Fashion was extremely important for all of us in high school, wasn't it? End of term Casual Day became a sleepless week of worrying about whether my jeans were tight, baggy, dark, cool, loose, branded properly or paneled enough. My hard-earned babysitting money was always relied upon to save the day after the inevitable discussion with Mum saying, "Look, I don't see why these nice Target jeans aren't good enough, so I'll put in $14 for those and if you insist on having those ridiculous Corfu ones, you can find the extra $24 and as for wanting Adidas Romes instead of these perfectly fine Dunlops, well that's up to you......"

I eventually settled on my pale pink tennis shoes so they’d match my skinny pink tie worn with a chambray shirt, baggy paneled jeans and a long light blue jumper that hung below my knees. With my shoulder length spiral perm and dangly love heart earrings, I was hot and yes, he asked me to go with him to the senior ball……..

The luxury of reminiscing about these painful crushes over two decades later has shown that I should be grateful that they were mostly innocent and usually fruitless. My husband tells me that for boys at that age a girl would have to strip naked, shove a slab of beer under one arm and write 'Take me, Stud' on her breasts in liquid paper for them to grasp the idea that she might possibly be interested in snogging him behind the bike sheds after cricket practice.

It was much simpler in the seventies......

Five lost days

Way waaaay back in 1995, when Alanis Morrisette misunderstood the meaning of irony and we had to endure hearing her whining growls about what she did to her ex-boyfriend in the cinema blasted out of the speakers of every shop and pub in existence and my workmates thought that 'Ace Ventura: when nature calls' was an intensely witty cinematic experience, I was diagnosed with a 'macro-adenoma', also known as a Pituitary Prolactinoma (or 'Poo Poo' for short).

It wasn't cancerous, but was a jaffa-sized (as in the Australian 1.2cm diameter inedible chocolate balls used to throw at annoying people in the cinema, not a real orange) little planet with a mind of its own feeding off my mind. Luckily for me, the specialists soon stopped talking about yanking it out via my nose and were relieved to see that it shrunk itself to the size of a single grain of rice. My nostrils were no longer in danger of being raped and pillaged because the magic medical pills were received as gratefully by me as OJ Simpson with a not-guilty verdict. As my regular specialist put it, "Look, you'll never be normal (which explains my life thus far), but you're about as normal as it's ever going to get for you."

Despite this tantalisingly close proximity to normality, one of the specialties of this arse of an adenoma is its production of prolactin. As in breast milk. Yep, if we were living in 1709 instead of 2009 I could be making myself a rather handy living being the village wet nurse. Or idiot, but at least a few babies' lives might have been saved if my restless rack was restoring them. In a third parallel universe I could have been blind (prolactinomas make their presence felt by squashing up against the optic nerves as they grow in size) and insane; again, the similarities are eerie.

Back to today. The tumour may be rice-sized, but Poo Poo still makes an effort to keep the breast milk production up. So yes, I have the enviable capacity to be able to politely lean over and offer to whiten your cup of tea during a meeting if you need me to (although no-one, yet, has been brave enough to ask). All it would take would be a quick lift of the top, an armpit-fart type of motion and voila - white tea!

During karate classes we were often required to hold our closed fists in front of our faces and have our elbows pressed firmly up against our chests and my 'ol mammaries would leak mutinously in protest. Thank god the karate pajamas were white and the hall was hot because it just looked as though I was extremely sweaty.

Bountiful boobery aside, Poo Poo also sets itself up as the nerve centre for all things annoying (apart from Dancing with the Channel Seven Staff and heaters that die one month after the 12-month warranty expires, that is). Poo Poo will contact my old enemy, Mr Migraine, on a regular basis to come out of his lair and do his obscene version of Riverdance wearing barbed wire stilettos behind my eyeballs, or send Technicolour Yawn Man down into my stomach to force-fill up my sick bucket. If Poo Poo isn't on the ball, it will send someone less drastic but still bloody annoying to remind me of its existence: Acne Man, for example, or Sleepless S**t Stirrer.

I've had a migraine for the last five days. Every damn time it seems like the Malevolent Mr M has decided to go and try his staple gun practice behind someone else's right eyeball he rushes back to my head, laughing uproariously at my confusion and disappointment. He waits behind a corner or the kitchen door frame with one of those punching gloves on an extended arm, ready to thwack it forcefully into my face, thus causing me to stagger back to bed or the bathroom for more self pity and pain relief.

This evening finds me more than 85% percent certain that Mr M seems to have finally lost interest in me and is hopefully off torturing someone who could well do with being out of the public eye for five days. (Mr Sandilands, please answer the door willingly when Mr M knocks on your thick skull and takes residence inside the echoing, draughty halls of your head, okay?)

Love Chunks has endured tears, crankiness, wakefulness (due directly to my insomnia and overt turnings over and sheet-stealing), whining, an increase in sick bed time and having to shoulder our childcare, cooking and household responsibilities on his own, including cancelling a Saturday night dinner party that he'd spent most of the day preparing for. He took Friday off so that Sapphire made it to school in one piece and provide a watchful eye over me at home. I'd stupidly get out of bed and do something 'to help' like hang out the washing or make the bed and then Mr M would punch me down again, delaying the whole 'get better and get over it soon' process.

What I worry most about is how Sapphire sees me: am I a sick and grumpy Mum who spends a lot of time in bed and not with her? Someone who doesn't have the energy of other mums?

Earlier tonight, we sat on the lounge. She was crocheting a scarf for Grandma's birthday present, and I was struggling with my 'monkey see, monkey do' plain knitting of squares to be sewn together for homeless shelter rugs. I quietly said, "I guess it's a drag when I'm sick a lot and don't spend much time with you."

There was a pause as she concentrated on hooking the wool through.

"I'm sorry about that Sapphire." What else could I say, with the past five days being all about me in bed or slumped around the house, feeling sorry for myself?

She looked at my glum expression and patted my knee comfortingly, in exactly the same way that my mother does. "You're great fun when you're well and I love it even when we just sit here and talk. But don't worry Mum, Dad and I always find stuff to do. We eat chips or buy our lunch from Subway, go to school to throw some basketball goals and watch movies like 'Star Wars'. "

Fair enough. I'm feeling almost as grateful as my nostrils were way back in 1995.

Dingoes and Diet Coke

Red Centre tour guide and all-round top bloke Geoff pulled Possum the bulky 4WD in at a dusty service station. "We'll stop here for lunch, get some petrol and be back on board ready to go and see Palm Valley in an hour."

Lunch usually meant either sandwiches or a sausage sizzle and we got out the bread, cheese, sauce, fruit and salady things and set them out for self-assembly on a shady picnic table.

I had a hankering for a cold diet coke and Sapphire and I wandered into the shop inside. As our eyes struggled to adjust to the gloomy light, we found ourselves standing in front of a bloke who looked as though he'd eaten Santa Claus as well as all the pies. He eyed Sapph.

"Hey darlin, do you play the piano?"

She shook her head, "No."

We took a step closer to the deli counter.

"Hey darlin, would you like me to teach you how to play the piano?"

She shook her head again. "No thanks---"

He grabbed her shoulder. "Well take a seat right here---that's right by the piano, and let's get cracking!"

Her anxious blue eyes looked towards me for rescue but I was still trying to grasp whether he was insane, intoxicated or deaf to her answers. "OK darlin' just play anything you want."

Giving up on being saved by her own mother, she timidly started a few scales. Pretty soon, a dingo trotted up and rested its head on the seat next to her. Sapphire glanced down distractedly and the bloke said, "That's right love, keep it up."

The dingo then jumped up onto the seat and walked across the keys, howling. As Sapphire played, he howled, Ooooo wooooo, Ooooooo wooooooo!

The audience, a large group of Kiwi tourists waiting their fresh-from-the-freezer meals of chicken nuggets and crumbed fish, clapped in approval.

"What's your name, darl?"

Sapphire started smiling. "Sapphire."

"Well Sapphire, thanks for playing along. Dinky loves a good singalong and is famous all over the world, did you know that? Give her a hand, ladies and gentlemen - yep, just take a seat with your mother over there and I'll tell you a little bit more about Dinky...."

Dinky, clearly no stranger to Jim's talks, flopped onto the floor beside his bulky owner and fell fast asleep, paws twitching as he no doubt played the piano in his dreams. Or Jim's face: time would tell.

Half an hour ticked by. Our touring group were outside under a shady tree, eating sandwiches and fruit, chatting and laughing. Sapphire and I, on the other hand, were trapped.

Trapped and hungry, plonked in front row seats sniffing hot salty chips being eaten by tourists around us as we heard more about the exploits of Dinky's owner than we wanted to. He pointed to yellowing newspaper articles, postcards sent from 'fans from all over the world', read aloud some pertinent facts from an old childrens' book about Australia's wild dogs and shared with us the time he met two other dingo owners as they alighted from the Ghan in Alice Springs.

Jim's beer belly became strangely mesmerising as it jiggled precariously every time he raised his hands to enthusiastically point out another Dinky-related item he had previously staple-gunned to the wood-panelled wall. It reminded me of a walrus about to jump from the rocks into the sea, wavering, waiting for that perfect wave. How Jimbo could stand straight with all that fatty verandah leaning three feet in front of him was beyond my understanding.

My reverie was suddenly interrupted when Love Chunks's bemused face appeared pressed up against the spotted fly-blown glass window behind Jim. "What are you two DOING in there?" he mouthed. Behind him, our tour group were starting to pack up the plates, scraps and cups as Jim droned on: "Dinky has a few other songs in his repertoire and we've been approached to consider recording a CD......."

It was time. To do that thing that every front-row hostage dreads doing - get up to leave during a performance. I did some useless miming of pointing to my watch and then pointing outside, shrugging my shoulders in an exaggerated apology and dragged a red-faced Sapphire out through the screen door which banged loudly in offence.

Geoff's shoulders were shaking with laughter as he saw the 'What the hell...?' expression on my face. "Ah it was YOU that got it this time, eh? That's why I never go into the shop if I've got a tour group with some kids in it, mate. We eat lunch outside, use the loos at the back behind the petrol pumps and piss off before he nudges Dinky awake."

It was the only time that entire holiday that I wished I'd been childless.

Puckle Street Palaver

We were sitting in a bakery in Moonee Ponds, tucking into our chicken salad rolls and coffee when yelling was heard outside.

I looked up and saw a swarthy man in a black overcoat striding past and automatically made eye contact. I smiled, thinking he was calling out to friends further ahead, and my grin was supposed to convey a vague but community-spirited, "Lovely Sunday day, innit?"

He got the wrong idea and stood in the doorway, yelling, "Robert Walters pharked up my life! Robert did! Yes, he did! I am Lebanese and he pharked it all up! Robert Walters!"

I. couldn't. look. away. Love Chunks and Sapphire had their backs to him, both cowering deeper into their food, shoulders hunched in shame. "He did! He ruined my life, me a Lebanese! Robert Walters pharked it up. LISTEN TO MY STORY!"

My stupid smile was still pasted on, the roll still raised halfway to my face as I nodded in dumb agreement.

Love Chunks kicked my ankle. "Stop making eye contact you idiot," he hissed. Trying to look regretful and as though I had places to go, things to do, people to see but best of luck with your crusade, good sir; I looked down at my limp roll. Loopy Lebanese man legged it further up Puckle Street, still furiously spewing out his life story to other eaters and shoppers.

"Why did you encourage him, Mum?" Sapphire was horrified and a bit shaken. For all her intelligence and humour, her scared face reminded me that she is only ten years old after all and the only baddies or weirdies she usually sees are in the movies or books or sitting sozzled out of their minds at the corner of the train station under the bridge. The owner of the bakery scuttled out, grabbed our plates and hastily wiped the table with a dribbly Chux that disallowed us to rest our elbows on the top: a clear sign she wanted us mental magnets out of there.

Puffing up my chest with the breath of only someone who is embarrassed but also indignant about it can do, I tried to explain to Sapphire that no-one is born wishing they'll be the stark raving crazy who yells at people in the street or wants to resort to snaffling up used cigarette butts outside the TAB or yearns to spend their days drinking long-necked beers out of shabby paper bags on the bus stop seats. "It is very sad, and it makes you wonder just what kind of life they led for it to end up like that," I concluded, feeling my chest relax as the warmth of my understanding, right-on empathy and mature life-lessons for my daughter flowed through.

"Yeah right, and you're halfway there yourself."

The roll plopped onto the soggy table. "Excuse me?"

"You heard. You pick me up from school with those embarrassingly long litter-collecting tongs and a plastic bag in your hand; you pat the dogs of the tough guys with tattoos on their necks who hang outside the pub and you said you were going to - --" this is where Sapphire puffed out her own chest in self-righteous indignance "----STEAL SOME LEMONS from the house across the street."

I'd struck a new low: having my ten year old daughter liken me to a mentally-deranged man in a stained overcoat who wanders the streets swearing and yelling his life story at people.

And no, I didn't steal the lemons. At least, not yet.

Living on the edge

Working from home gives me far too many ways to creatively procrastinate.















Nothing says 'overdue article for which you'll actually receive some money' like some freshly pumiced heels, weeded gravel, dusted bookshelves and recycling arranged right down to metal screw caps and plastic bottle tops.

Apart from work stuff, I'm also avoiding:

Completing the Victorian Government 'Working With Children' documents. Yes, the school is always asking for volunteers and no, I'm not some shifty kiddie fiddler with hidden jail time but I've been avoiding getting those unflattering passport photographs done, because..... well...... because this year I want to have a year off from being a member of the Mummy Mafia.

You know the sort; those mothers who are always there to hear kids read, attend excursions, run the sausage sizzle, collect donations for raffles and coordinate the quiz night. Always immaculately dressed with late model SUVs, bendy-pilates/private-trainer-toned bodies and an Osh Kosh baby on one designer-jeaned hip. Even after five years, I was never a contender, just a willing slave. "Oh of course Diane, I'll paint the entire set for the class musical and make a pot of soup to share and keep the string instruments at my place during the weeknights and clean the Axylotl aquarium, make jewellery for the craft stall and write that Public Art Water Saving School Heritage Celebration State grant that you'll be taking to the next committee meeting....."

These days, I waddle up to the school and it's not the dog that causes other folk to avoid me: it's my sticky witchy woman hair, puffy eyes and morning breath that singles me out as a Mummy Mafia Member gone AWOL (or, in reality, me just out of bed and in my running gear). And I kind of like it that way.

My 'editing and proof reading' assignments. I'm particularly proud of my delaying tactics here, seeing as I haven't submitted any work to my tutor since October last year. Stuff such as a trip to New Zealand, my mother-in-law's death, GFC affecting the sale of our house for over three months and our move to Melbourne has meant that I had a few other things to occupy my mind other than what silly symbol means 'shift one space to the right and change to Times New Roman font sized 12' when written in red pen alongside the offending row of text, zzzzzz.......

Making a PAP smear appointment. I'm hardly alone in putting this one off and each time I've eventually gone, it's always with dismay to discover that the female doctor I asked for when booking the timeslot is away sick or at a health conference and I'm stuck with Dr Checks or his curmudgeonly equivalent and wondering just why he's forgotten to shut the blinds when I'm up on the table with my knickers stretched between both ankles staring between my knees at passersby and traffic on the road out front. These old locum war horses are also the types for whom empathy disappeared in around 1967, and think that 'bedside manner' means reminding you of the suffering of other (presumably long dead) medical freaks: "I don't know what you're so uncomfortable about. When I was in the far east during World War II a poor woman had a Durian growing up there and we didn't hear a peep out of her." Thanks, that helps you know, as would a BIT OF DELICACY, SOME LUBE AND WARM GLOVES, OKAY BUDDY?

Emptying the bathroom bin. It's not like the kitchen bin with its orange peels, coffee grounds, glad wrap shreds, pencil sharpenings and pongy old dog food tin lids, it's worse. It's filled with disgusting items that tend to fall out and stick to my top when I'm shaking it into the wheelie bin - fluttering threads of discarded dental floss, mouldy band aids, yellowing cotton buds, leaky toothpaste tubes, toenail clippings... Not to mention the weird grey fluffy hairy stuff that seems to have sprung from our own invisible Mr Snuffalufagus when he secretly shakes himself in our bathroom.

Washing the car. This hasn't been done since 2007 because I'm saving water, see? And now that we don't have a driveway or carport and the station wagon's out in the street, it gets periodically sluiced by the rains. Unfortunately there are times when, if the angle of the sun is right, I can see some rather rude words that passing high school kids have written with their fingers in the murk on the windows, but better that than a spray can on our fence...

Inside the car it is admittedly a bit dusty. The airline sick bags I stole last year are tiredly drooping from the car door pockets and Sapphire's plastic sick bucket is mostly a rubbish bin these days but they might - along with the dog hairs affixed to the seat covers and ancient shopping bags in the back - put off any aspiring thieves (who would clearly be affected by illegal substances) if they had an eye to nicking our 1996-model cassette tape player or Club Lock security system circa 1987.

Picking up Milly's poos. This actually doesn't take very long; maybe a couple of minutes to scan the lawn and the tiny front strip of bark chips to see where madam's butt nuggets have landed this week. No, my biggest fear is that the nappy bags won't be able to hold the weight of the, er, matter inside and a finger nail will carelessly pierce through and be squidged into a nice, ripe and moist, um, nugget. When you hear an anguished, "Oooooooo! Ooooooooo! Ooooooooo!" from where you live, you know it's due to a faulty bag in far-off Flemington.

Cleaning out Skipper's hutch. Bless the silent little fella but he backs out bunny beans like a sub machine gun and sprays the inside of his bedroom with something that, whilst technically called 'urine' is more like a stinking, acidic nasal hair and super glue remover. It is astonishly acrid stuff and even more vile when it soaks into several layers of newspaper and hay and is left to mature for a few days. As for Skipper himself, despite producing such substances he remains blindingly white and super clean, so I'm assuming that his excretions are like his portrait of Dorian Gray hidden up in the attic.

However, all of these tasks will get done eventually. Maybe not before Sapphire starts high school, but some day.

This one, pictured below, will not. I'm being brave, holding my head up, trying not to have a tremulous quaver in my voice when I say that special word, No.

I'm saying no to Mr Seth. Have you seen the size of his ............... novel?

'A Suitable Boy' is thicker than the foundations for this house and about as interesting. It could throw the Starship Enterprise entirely off course if it was flung on their starboard side and after 500 pages (roughly a third), I'm chucking it in. Call me a quitter if you must (I'm looking at you, Dad) but life's too short to waste ploughing through a novel less engrossing than the tinea on my left foot between the piggy that went 'wee wee wee' all the way home and the one that didn't get any roast beef. Besides, I have dog poo to pick up.

Grumble Bum

It's time for a whinge. A blog rant; a Seinfeld-esque (at least to start) "have you ever noticed...?" style gripe about things that have been annoying me lately.

Have you ever noticed:

If you tie up one shoe because it feels a bit loose, that you then have to tie the other one up or it doesn't feel right?

How ridiculously breathy and exaggerated the male and female voiceovers are for Channel ten promos. "Sergeant Watson has..... a dilemma...... Will she be able to...... deal.... with it?"

"Tomorrow night it's ...... scorching .....in the west and seventeenth precinct ...... but NOT for the murdered call girl.......that Detective Blakely discovers ...... with her ..........head missing...!"

That packets of healthy cereals always feature glistening photographs or illustrations of fresh berries, mangoes and scoops of macadamia nuts on the box but they constitute less than one percent of the total ingredients?

You always have to violently sneeze just as you have your mouth full of meusli?

Plump forty year olds don't get served very promptly in sports stores. Not even when they've grabbed a $199 running shoe off the display wall and are looking around for someone to help them. Grrrr!

People always tap on the glass of aquariums even though there is a printed sign that says 'Please do not tap on the glass.' When has there ever been a time that a fish or frightened lobster has stopped in their tracks, turned to stare directly at the tapper and said, "Yes?"

Big M lite sucks babboon butt. If I was blindfolded, I'd be struggling to identify it as milk, let alone with a coffee flavour. Why does Melbourne; a city renowned for its restaurants, fabulously creative and fresh foods, think that this tepid pondwater is worthy of their custom? And why does Farmers Union have every variety of their iced coffee available here except for their Feel Good? Why, god, why?

No phone call after 10pm is nice news. It might not be the dreaded death call either, but is likely to be a favour you definitely don't want to do, an argument or a bare acquaintance (from years ago) asking if they can '...stay just for a few days, you'll hardly know I'm here...'

Advertisements in print and on the telly that say 'Prices start from', which essentially means that the $99* holiday to Bali is actually $3699 after taxes, choosing to fly out on a day ending in 'y', wanting to sit down on the plane, being able to walk through customs without a lubricator-less cavity search, a visa and somewhere to sleep when you get there. Same goes for television sets, cars (oh if you want doors, glittery paint, air bags, CD player or to be able to take it out of the showroom and onto the governement-sanctioned roads you'll need to pay another $3000...') and anything on sale at anywhere 'crazy'.

The stupidity of radio, cricket and football commentators who:

• Want to 'garnish' support
• Have six of one, a dozen of the other
• Respond with 'For all intensive purposes'
• Play with all holes barred
• Need to find the 'spare of the moment'; and
• behave like a fool in a china shop

And worst of all, Sapphire now risks heart failure to run to meet her friend Sarah at the school gate and disappear, thus denying me the chance to kiss her goodbye. Bugger it!

Enid Blyton Nude Tennis

Now THAT conjures up an image that'll encourage you to involuntarily puke up your muesli doesn't it?

It is just one of the recent Google search phrases that freakish folk from all corners of the world have typed in and then been automatically directed to this here humble little blog. Geez, they must be disappointed (to say the least) when they arrive, only to discover that 'Love Chunks' is not a scatological euphemism and 'FUIC' merely refers to my favoured brand of iced coffee.

However, 'Dutch Ovens' might offend those who were innocently looking for a pipe-shaped, cast-iron cooking device that is used over hot coals and not for the description of my shameless nocturnal butt blasts under the doona to which poor Love Chunks is frequently subjected.... Ahem...!

Despite my lifelong dream to celebrate - rather than suppress - the need to let off 'steam' every now and then, there are still some google searchers who find their way here using key words and phrases that are too bizarre to fully contemplate. They include:

Booger fetish site - let me assure you that I have never, ever fetish-ised boogers, mucus, snot or phlegm on these pages. Mentioned them yes, but celebrated them? No.

Parp Porn Movies - OK so 'parp' has been used here to describe the shart 'parp parp' sound that can emanate from the bulbously buttockular regions, but porn? Here? Not unless you can somehow wring out some sensuality from my nightly struggles to locate the fuzzy blue bed socks that usually end up on the floor.....

I sweat through my pants - Erk. Poor you; now go away and seek help.

Magnas with sex and nudity - Our mitsubishi magna is a STATION WAGON. It is thirteen years old. Station wagons, by their very design, are created to repel all forms of sex and nudity or any opportunities for sex and nudity. They reek of marriage, commitment, exhaustion, prams, dogs, groceries, booster seats, mortgages and long, boring drives that are often referred to as 'family holidays' or 'it's too expensive to fly' and 'why didn't you go when I filled up at the service station?'.

Shane Warne Hawaiian pizza - Wait, there's a pizza named after Warnie? This is what he eats when the baked beans have run out? Or does he have the IQ of a ham-n-pineapple, hold the onions?

Deformed Malteser - I'd never say no to a deformed chocolate; it all ends up in the same spot after all. Of course, I'm only scoffing 5% of my previous level of daily intake of course, thanks to Dr Checks and his evil cholesterol tests....

Swollen lips from eating parsley - Parsley has been mentioned here in relation to it being our rabbit, Skipper's favourite food, but he's barely got any lips, let alone swollen ones. Trust me, I kiss 'em every day and it's hard work locating 'em.

Having mocked those, I'll admit that there are some search phrases that I can (kind of) understand how they wound up in Kath Land. Stuff like:

World War One for Dummies - imagine their bemusement to get my book, read through a few pages and think, 'Who knew that the ANZACS were dying for more work/life balance?'

FUIC Wedding - unless this celebration involved copious amounts of fresh iced coffee, it sounds instead like the bitter review of an angry bridesmaid to me....

Bronzer lotion reaction - yes, I've tried to obtain a tan via a lotion; anything to prevent someone making a crack about my legs looking like fluoro tubes and possessing the whitest thighs on the beach. All it did was form unsightly brown crevices in my cleavage, ankles and the crooks of my arm and make me stink so badly that Love Chunks would enter the room, automatically rear backwards and run out saying "Phooo weee!"

Squeaky Rockport shoes - my parents are devotees of this brand, as are most retired grey nomads who want 'sensible walking shoes that go with everything' - spoken by my mother, Pauline, who likes to team hers with slacks, a blouse and matching cardigan. And a swipe of lippie to match the blouse. And pearl drop earrings. And a nice handbag; leather of course, and large enough to put stuff like packets of sugar, band-aids, snack bars, scissors, drink bottles, aspirin, reading glasses, a fold-up sun hat, 30+ lotion, gloves, plastic poncho, paper serviettes, moist sachets, cough lollies, needle and thread, buttons, safety pins, lip balm, comb, notepad and pen, novel, insect repellent, toe nail clippers, dried apricots and an umbrella.

Ashleigh's Peanut Butter Farts - perhaps Ashleigh's hiding something from us? Does he have a skill so specific that onlookers (or 'on smellers') can tell what food he's eaten?

Madonna admits she can't resist Cadbury's Fruit and Nut - bless her. Now if she'd only get off the stage, unplug the microphone, put on some trousers, stay home and eat some.

And (blushing profusely), even this one:

I hawk up solid brown chunks of mucus. Um, I might have mentioned my infected sinuses, nasal polyps, honking nose blows and nose surgery here a few times.....

However they all pale into insignificance when compared to a phrase that is so completely in the polar opposite direction of everything I stand for. It's a sick joke, a terrible insult to my years (yes, years I tell you) of toil, sweat, stress and strain to reveal in writing what offends, enrages, repulses and disgusts me:

Love My Cardie.

It's a sad old world we live in.

Creepin' Crumpets!

Every Friday I do our weekly grocery shopping at Safeway to the clattering sound of the trains whistling over the Newmarket bridge, tinny 1980s classics piped in glorious transister mono and the endless peep-peep of scanners. Invariably I'm always starving after having just been for a run and a shower before heading over there. It's my key task to complete for the day before getting back home for breakfast in front of the computer.

It's a sad-but-true fact that I really enjoy visiting the supermarket. Having lived here for seven months now, I'm familiar with the layout and am on 'Hello, how ya goin' this week?' terms with several of the staff. Friendliness aside, it's the unfettered freedom that gives me my simple dose of free jollies - being able to roll up and down each aisle without whingeing passengers, time constraints or feeling angry because there were no available Saturday morning parking spaces or a gold coin in my purse to unlock a trolley.

I'll read the back of labels, peruse the specials on display at the end of each aisle and ~gulp~ linger in the confectionery section, tantalising myself on what I would buy if Craptastic Mr Cholesterol hadn't reared his butt ugly head.














Today there was a bit of commotion in the bakery section - or was it the deli? Several children were screaming and one old lady putt-putted past me on her geriatric scooter, muttering, "I thought me heart had given out, that I did," as she escaped the area at 9 kms per hour.

I lifted my gaze up from the potatoes (oooh, red desirees or kipflers this week?) to get a view. Golden Crumpets were having an in-store promotion. Now this crumpet company has been around for all of my living memory and the logo (seen above) certainly attests to this. It struck me however, that I'd never really paid attention to the logo before, but just mindlessly grabbed a small packet of six, slung it in the trolley near the soft stuff like bananas and avocados and gone on my merry (and clearly ignorant) way.















Mr Golden Crumpet in the flesh, on the other hand, was huge. Pushing seven foot tall and handing out some little blow up mascots to anyone brave enough to get close. Trouble is, where the logo guy has tiny stumpy legs, the real deal was wearing white, shiny spandex that revealed enormous, muscular legs that echoed a youthful Arnie in his 'pumping iron' phase. He looked as though he could deliver a deathly roundhouse kick to the ghoolies than get a granny to stop and smile.

He wasn't licking his lips like this little chap either, but had his mouth open in a large, dark-meshed 'Oh' that clearly suggested 'Shove your toddler in here, Mum, before I get really angry.' Soon there was a crowd of terrified bakery section sufferers sheltering behind my bag of desirees. "Don't move, lady - he'll see us!"

Naturally, as a blogger and generally silly person, I started to laugh. Bad move. Mr Golden Crumpet saw me, gave me a wave with his massive white-gloved mitts and the lino started to pucker as he thundered over - Whappity Whappity WHAP - in his red, canoe-sized shoes. My cowering crowd seemingly vanished and I leaned in to speak to him. I presumed he'd hear more accurately if I spoke to his mesh cake hole and not in the direction of his ears because he didn't have any; just yellow fabric.

"Erm, you don't have any free samples, do you?"

Alas, like Humphrey B Bear, he was mute. And, for some weird reason, not accompanied by a human being with a tray of hot buttered crumpets. He pointed to a blow up mascot.
"No thanks Mr Crumpet, but thanks for offering and, um, best of luck for your remaining university studies and in being able to reach out to the kiddies today."

He was soon forgotten in my quest to find substitutes for chocolate*** and tick everything off my list. Bog rolls, check. Yoghurts, check. Dog Crunchies, check....

On my way out of the store, I saw the terrified geriatric scooter driver with no less than five of her mates - also on scooters - having some morning tea at the cafe next door. There were more oxygen tanks on display than in an intensive care unit yet they all managed to slurp down their especially frothy and powdered cappuccinos (unless they were actually short blacks that had been blasted with too much air from their nasal tubes) and chatter away.

What amused me more, though, was that all six of them had a blow up Mr Golden Crumpet mascot in their scooter baskets. Not for the first time, I cursed forgetting to bring along the camera. This was done silently though because I didn't want to risk receiving any tut-tuts or disapproving looks from the oldies.














Finally, as the car was loaded and I wheeled the trolley towards the bay to lock it in with the others and get my two dollars back (yes, the pennies need to be watched carefully), I felt the chain grabbing at my fingers and one finger feeling especially cool. No matter. I climbed in the car and inserted the key: Oh. My shower-wet, three-day-old, slightly rancid-smelling bandaid must have slipped off and was now stuck on the coin slot. Ergh, not a nice 'welcome to the world' experience for the next innocent shopper but hey, I had places to go, things to do, things to write....

.... yes, I sighed, took out the key and trudged back to the trolley bay and removed the offence - still in a perfect cylinder - and put it in the bin. Paragon of virtue, me.

*** There are none. But 3 x 250 gram bags of pink-n-white marshmallows, a packet of Jersey Caramels, three boxes of Weight Watchers 'Ginger Kiss' cake bars, 2 x 100g logs of pistacchio nougat, several scoops of sugared mint leaves and some Dick Smith 'Aussie choc' drinking powder might see me through for the week. Or weekend.