Hayastan Shakarian, Freedom Fighter.
In part two of an accidental series on inspirationally deranged crones, allow me to draw your attention to Ms Hayastan Shakarian, the 75 year old Armenian woman and Georgia resident. Armed only with the rusty saw depicted, Hayastan killed the internet in Georgia and Armenia for more than 12 hours on the 28th of March this year.
Although it would be fabulous to report that Hayastan pulled off a deliberate act of sabotage, rumours that she had been motivated by the thirst to revenge herself on duplicitous lover Julian Assange remain unsubstantiated.
In fact, Ms Shakarian claims that the incident was completely inadvertent and occurred while she was scavenging for scrap metal in the forest. Indeed, she denies any knowledge of the Internet at all.
There’s so much wrong with this story I hardly know where to start.
Authorities who insist that Hayastan has made a full confession refused to address concerns that their evidential documents had been ratified several hours before the actual outage. When questioned they blamed the discrepancy on power surges caused by the cut cable and on more in-depth questioning they deported this reporter.
Surely a post-menopausal woman roaming the forests of Central Europe should be seeking small children to devour, rather than scrounging to eke out her subsistence existence? Why has evil witchcraft become so unprofitable in harsh modern times?
Most importantly, though, it’s an absolute disgrace that this pensioner doesn’t have better scavenging tools. I can’t help feeling that a DitchWitch would be perfect for the job and am currently acting for Hayastan to negotiate a spokesmodelling deal with the manufacturers.
Now we know what Hayastan can do, I say we should harness her destructive powers for good. After our meeting with DitchWitch office, I’m unleashing her on a certain Government office with a can of energy drink and a manicure set.
Wish us luck!
Fun in a box 
Didn’t she know there is no markert for second hand optic fibre?
For government departments, better the energy drink and a chainsaw!
She might not have, Stafford – but how did you?
I reckon she was going to make those 70s disco pompom lights from it – or dress the set for Avatar II.
Or two small children and a chainsaw.
And if you source your children from strong stock, the chainsaw might be redundant.
Children such as mine, for example… *lightbulb sparks*
Catty, this will be our business! Hiring out the children to be a nuisance in public spaces.
Jack of the rip off prices and poor quality at your local supermarket?
Hire a “Holy Terror” (TM) or two to wreck steaming havoc in every aisle! Surcharge applies if a deli aisle or frozen food focus required
Pissed off at the incompetence and indifference at your local Government Service Provider’s branch facility?
One of our “Stunt Mums” (TM) will land on their doorstep and change the nappies of twins with gastro on the front counter – until they change their tune.
Or, we could run it as a purely fiscal exercise. Take our offspring to random establishments and stay there until the proprietors (or clientele) pay us to leave.
This actually works. True story: When I worked at a prominent bank in Flinders Mall (Townsville), there was a busker with bagpipes who would stand out the front of the bank, playing Scottish ditties until the manager gave him money to leave. The busker would then move along about 50 metres, position himself directly in front of a new establishment, and start again. He would do 2 laps of the Mall a year this way. I heard tell that he earned enough to go off the dole.
Pure, unadulterated genius.
Okay, any preference for our company colours? Make your selection carefully, because I’m aiming for company cars by Christmas.
Hmmm… the cars would have to be really, really bright and ugly, so that proprietors will see us coming and get out their petty cash tins before we’ve even parked.
Now this is exciting news.
I would like my ditch witch to be a lurid shade of purple with the personalized number plate 4WDFKR. This could solve all my parking problems down at the local pool when I arrive a little late on Sunday mornings and all the available parking spaces are occupied by coffee swilling 4WDing overbotoxed bubbleheads.
We should be able to make a fortune racing each other on Top Gear, and then celebrating the winner’s success by razing an entire school parking lot full of pristine BMW, lexus and mercedes armoured soccer mum type vehicles.
“4WDFKR”… Hehehe.
Okay, for me the choice of vehicle colour is always simple, whether one is styling a family car, emergency services vehicle or hearse:
Phantom purple, with green and orange flames scorching back from the front wheel arches. Darker-than-street-legal tint to all glass – even the mirrors. Let the bastards get out of our way, I reckon.
I think that ticks everyone’s boxes?
I second the motion.
After watching Quokka’s video, it occurs to me that the Ditch Witch could ostensibly serve another purpose – disposing of the bodies of irritating Zumba aficionados who attempt to muscle in on our racket.
Killing them first won’t be a problem – I have a cousin up in Charters Towers who could do the job on the cheap.
Excellent.
What would be the collective noun for a throng of irritating Zumba enthusiasts ?
“Zumbastards”, maybe… no, I reckon “Zumbuggers”.
Catty, I hope you’ve got a cousin who’s a funeral director, too. Sounds like the family could keep him in business.
Zumbigots?
No family members, sorry, but my old Ford’s new owner is in the business of corpse relocation. I’m sure he’d be happy to help. Most people are, if you offer them enough incentive. In his case, it would have to be a financial incentive. Violence doesn’t work as an incentive for blokes whose neighbours are lesbian goth tattoo artists. Apparently.
I like Zumbuggers. or Zumdummies?
Hey, there’s another business opportunity! We could cross breed the species! Get those yummy mummies and their FKD4WDs in on the Zumba phenomenon. They’d be Zumummies, and we could offer them Zumbotox injections. It would be so much fun, injecting toxins into them by means of boxing jabs and slapping dance moves.
Yes.
Yes, I know now that this is my calling.
Combat Botox injection.
The urge to pierce is crawling like a fuzzy caterpillar through my fevered veins. Luckily it’s nearly pick-up time. There’ll be Zummies by the truckload, loping into school on their 2m toned bronze legs, the only evident cellulite on their bodies that which inhabits the vacuum between their ears.
Nurse, my battle syringe and botox bandolier!
And if the Zummies run away, just load the syringe into a Zumbazooka. Ready, aim…..
Zumbazooka.
:))) :…. \.:./ That’s an emoticon I just developed, to signify “pissing myself laughing”.
Catty, you’re a legend.
Thank you, thank you, I’m here all week. Try the prawns.
The spawn have a day off on Friday, to lead into the holidays next week.
If it’s all the same to you, I’ll be trying a Lethal Lamington – for breakfast.
A zumbamassacre.
How very apt.
All of this zumbing has generated in me a peculiar case of earworm – I can’t get the driving Latin rhythms and somewhat opaque lyrics of Jenny Morris’s “Saved Me” out of my head.
The strange thing is I haven’t actually heard the track in years – which means it’s now transmissible, like Ebola.
Save Me!
Huh. I have Ricky Martin earworming me, thanks to the kidlets. Un-dies inside out, livin’ la vida loca….
I hope you made a whole jug of them Lethal Lamingtons, Madam.
It’s just a hop to the left…
Pass the taser, nobody with this much co-ordination and enthusiasm can possibly be entirely human.
And this one’s for you, catty.
I particularly like the stealth bells, if only they’d wear them in the supermarket I’d know to run like hell when I hear them coming down the nuts and mixers aisle.
Gee, thanks, Quokka. Huh. And I’d nearly gotten the song out of my head, too.
Um, quick question, why would they be in the nuts aisle? Aren’t they nuts already?
Here everyone, have a Lethal Lamington.
Do you like the way I stuck 100s and 1000s to the rim of the glass with egg white – or would you prefer them straight up in a rinsed out Vegemite jar?
I’m gonna get me some stealth bells and superglue them to the children.
They’ve taken to sneaking up on me and activating my exaggerated startle reflex… they think it’s h-i-l-ar-i-o-us, I’m thinking longingly of a rubber room.
Thanks, ladies – Ricky Martin has sent Jenny Morris sobbing for the bottle of barbituates. I feel a strange urge to get a Brazilian wax and practise my penalty shoot-outs.
Hola!
I’m off to procure food and finish a case study.
You’ll all have to boogie without me.
Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast.
I have to go and scrub the toilets.
See if you can guess how I feel about this?
I don’t know where to procure a kipper or how to smoke it.
Can we just smoke this joint for you instead, Quokka?
Catty, put down the toilet brush and crank up the Peter Tosh… mon.
Toilets are clean. Now I’m going to have a kip. Hey, does that make ME a kipper? I hope not. I’m not keen on being procured.
Damn.
Because procurement was my Plan B, if “Holy Terrors” tanks.
On-selling Mexican Rogaine and Viagra it shall have to be. Who wants to get hairy and stiff?
Only if it’s hair of the dog, and a stiff drink.
It’s been at least 10 days since I shaved my legs, and I’m not as flexible as I used to be, so I’m in.
Shave? That word is vaguely familiar…. refresh my memory, will you?
Actually, that flexibility thing is a bother. I get cramps if my sodium levels dip – yeah, me and everyone else – so I should know better than to try and hook my foot behind my head when salt has been off the menu for a while.
No, it’s not what you think. I was merely curious to see if I could still do it.
I can’t.
But I now know how to put my hip out.
In the trash? Here, take mine while you’re at it, the damned thing’s been giving me grief for years – although I must say the pilates exercises where you rotate your pelvis while lying on little half ball things does seem to help with that one. Am coming to the conclusion that pilates, while expensive, is probably worth the investment in warding off impending decrepitude.
Which reminds me, I should probably be taking out my own trash seeing as the Bloke is in Cairns and it won’t walk out there by itself. Although judging from the slide marks at the bottom of the fridge, if it had legs it would’ve tried.
If your fridge had legs, it may have tried to hook it’s foot behind it’s head.
While I may think this would be amusing, I’m not sure your cheese/milk/assorted tupperware containers of leftovers would agree.
I’m already scared of my fridge… well, not the fridge so much, the assorted ponds of mutant scum that are evolving in the further corners and the bottom of the vege crisper.
The thought of the fridge doing Pilates has given me the screaming heebie-jeebies and I can’t go into the kitchen.
Looks like the diet starts today!
My bar fridge too has a layer of decaying organic pond scum in it’s nether regions. It crossed my mind while I was out doing laps that really, today, I should clean it. Instead I went shopping and I’ve solved the unsightly matter by filling it with layers of chocolate and easter eggs which are doing a marvelous job of concealing the horror.
I figure once I’ve chewed my way through them I might have the energy to deal with it.
Maybe.
I’ve tried this hypothesis before and it’s failed, but if at first you don’t succeed….
I went shopping today, too.
Would you believe I had to hunt high and low for plasticene?
I bought the kids some software to make their own claymations, so we needed raw material.
You can get textas that smell (deliberately, I mean, of fruit and stuff, not just chemixcal pong), textas that join up, textas that have faces and ride little skateboards (I didn’t make that up, hand to God)… but no basic plasticene.
Eventually I found two boxes under a mound of stuff at the newsagents and was so desperate by that stage that I snapped them both up.
The ingredients and blurb are in Spanish, so if it’s actually rainbow-hued plastic explosives, I loved you both, Quokka and Catty.
And all you lurkers – you know who you are.
Well, they do say it’s good to start school holidays with a bang.
so long as you don’t end up pregnant, which just compounds the problem.
I guess after they’ve scraped up your remains with a teaspoon, it will be a closed casket. Otherwise people will ask why there are 43 snaplock bags of lumpy red smoosh in the coffin.
Still, filming the explosion would make a great continuous loop video tribute to mount on the gravestone.
Oh, and we love you too, Madam. What do you want served at your Wake? Spirits?
I’d like a Tibetan-style funeral, thanks.
Luckily my corpse will be in shards already, so you won’t need body breakers – just sling me straight to the vultures.
Then everyone should make a beautiful sand mandala – or jelly shots, whichever.
Hey, bugger waiting for you to explode, Madam. Let’s have jelly shots now.
you do that, Catty, and while you do it I’ll fire a few warning shots at the neighbours. Just so they know what to expect if they wake me up at 3am singing jigs and falling down the garden stairs again tonight.
Bottoms up.
My BD cannot pass without you all pausing for a moment’s silence to listen to the wonderful Loretta Lynn, who said of her husband ‘he never hit me once that I didn’t hit him twice in return.’
Never was a huge Loretta fan (I’m more the Emmy Lou Harris type), but boy-howdy I loved Conway. Nowhere near as much as I love Merle Haggard, though. I just looked at youtube to find a film clip link, but instead ended up singing along with about 10 clips – until the Boss threatened to gag me. With his sock. Believe me, nobody could be gagged with one of his work socks and live.
I actually saw Merle live in concert 15 years ago. What a legend! Well worth the 4 hour drive to get there. He even signed my bosom. *sigh*
What a beautiful sentment.
Catty, I’d like to commission a song from you entitled “You’re the reason the kids have dicks but it’s only thanks to me that they’re clever.” Subtitle: “Thanks for the chromosomes, now you can rot in Hell.”
In the style of Patsy Cline or Tammy Wynette, if you’d be so kind.
The chorus should include the words “thanks for nothing you useless waste of space now die, die DIE!”… if you can get them to scan, of course.
The art must come first.
Oh, and can I pay you in remaindered chocolate bunnies, after Easter?
She means pro-bono, Catty.
Because I just can’t imagine the pro-bunny-o deal working out in your favor.
Hmmm, this may take time. And research – I don’t want to be sued for plagiarism. This IS country music we’re talking about, so I’m pretty sure a song along these lines already exists somewhere.
And don’t fret about the eggs, Quokka. I’m a mother. It’s been years since I got to eat an easter egg that someone else hasn’t licked first.
Pro-bunny-o…. it’s funny and it’s topical!
Catty, pull yourself together. Surely you know the two hiding places children never look: (1) The Vegetable Crisper and (2) The Laundry.
Now, quickly stash an extensive and varied selection of treats in these locations before the offspring rise from their stinking pits.
Just remember it’s full of chocolate before you switch the tumble dryer on… and creme eggs don’t taste as good with cheese sauce as does cauliflower.
Hey, that sounds excellent! If the creme eggs melt all over my t-shirts, I can just suck on my sleeves if I get hungry.
Speaking of hungry, I’ve just discovered Pink Lady strawberry truffle hearts. They don’t normally have them down at Sweet As, so I’m going to go there today and buy as many of them as I can afford. Which is more than I would have imagined, as the record company have just sent me a royalty payment. Yay! I like money. Sure, it’s only about $2.49, but a dozen strawberry hearts are better than none.
I was going to hide them in my sock drawer, but the wardrobe faerie will probably pee on them. (bitch). So I will have to hide them in my mouth instead. Yes, that sounds like a good plan.
The only person that can steal chocolate from your tummy is a gastroentoerologist….
Bugger, I bet you’ve got a cousin, haven’t you?
I won’t tell her if you don’t.
I’ve got an uncle-in-law who’s a pediatrician. If the kidlets eat my chocolate, I WILL be getting it back.
I’d just sell the plumped kiddies on the internet to a more tech-savvy wicked witch than Ms Hayastan Shakarian, and buy fresh chocolate.
I’m all for recycling, but one has to draw a line somewhere.
As one such wicked witch, allow me to enlighten you. The bottom has fallen out of the plumped children market due to oversupply and the fact that for at least the last decade you can pick them up for free, abandoned at the local swimming pool. Due to oversupply, the high cholesterol content and the reduced nutritional value of modern children, us wicked witches have actually gone off consuming fattened roast offspring and have moved back towards eating marinaded tofu and the occasional BBQd pork cutlet.
Its a matter of practicality, not just maintaining the skinny witch/bitch professional image – a number of our younger members were piling on the kilos and having trouble obtaining lift-off on their brooms.
Another consideration was our cats, who were eating the leftovers and reaching enormous proportions (Exhibits A&B on view here at Casa Quokka if you doubt me) and were tipping the brooms off balance every time they swished their tails.
Nup.
The general consensus at the last AGM of the Wicked Witch’s association was that plumped children were only good for making soup stock and there was a caution against skimming the fat from the top and tipping it down the drains, apparently the plumbers and the local council sewage plant operators have been growing suspicious.
Far better to save it in jars, add a few drops of witch-hazel, and market it to teenagers as a safe and effective acne treatment.
Hehehe… acne treatment. Who would have thought the active ingredient in Proactive was rendered kiddy fat? I could have sworn it contained Ajax and sodium hypochlorite.
I just allowed the kiddies some of the Easter eggs you gave them last night, Wicked Quokka – I take it that gift had no ulterior motives, then?
Certainly not.
Just send $12.95 plus postage when they break out and your jar of OUT DAMNED SPOT will arrive by return mail, conveniently wrapped in bubble wrap which can be snapped and popped in lieu of doing the same to their zits.
I love the idea of the bubble-wrap… soothing and recycling in one. However, I’m not worried about acne.
I’ve already started them on the werewolf treatment that you were
faffing aboutpostulating the other day.When their pelts grow in, we’re going on the freak show circuit – I’m cultivating a taste for lightbulbs.
Well, just don’t let me walk past you at that time of the month unless you want the bulbs to flicker and pop out. Although perhaps we could charge an extra 50cents for that?
It’d certainly come in handy to fix some of those I’ve irreparably damaged around here.
Ain’t that the truth? I can’t tell you how many touch lamps I’ve blown up when Aunt Irma has come to visit. Stupid touch lamps.
Between your talent with lightbulbs and my ability to interfere with television screens, I’ve thought of another place that might pay handsomely to be rid of us – Air Traffic Control.
We could trundle the Ditch Witches up Kingsford Smith Drive and just park those babies right under the towers.
Good idea. You go to the towers. I’ll stand next to the security scanner. Quokka can stand under the arrivals and departures board. This should be fun!
Brilliant.
Although the great irony of this is that after the war my father worked as an air traffic controller.
Which makes me suspect that perhaps some of those bomb craters around Darwin aren’t actually from the Japanese but are in truth from a galaxy far, far away…meaning I’m a 2nd generation meteor freak with kryptonite powers.
Did you ever make it into the series 4 or whatever where they wrote Lois Lane into smallville? In that list of 5 people you’d like to have dinner with before you die, at the top of it would be whoever it is that writes her lines. They’ve really nailed that character. I find it so impressive when a writer can move into someone else’s creation and pick up the voice of their character.
I sooooo want to know how to do that, in this life.
Become a sock puppet, Quokka. You can practice at CBG. (Everyone else seems to.) You’ll get plenty of feedback if you get it wrong. Once you are able to comment as someone else, and nobody seems to notice, you’ve nailed it.
Just don’t sock puppet me, o.k? I’ve got enough trouble with anal probes as it is.
They’re not anal probes, they’re anal barbs.
Probes – think of the one they sent to mars – require the intelligence to gather information and offer feedback.
Which brings me to my point, perhaps we should strive to put a sock puppet on mars, or the moon.
Being as we don’t have access to NASA technology we’ll just have to make do with firecrackers to get them there. Or as near as, if there’s a sock puppet Challenger style disaster, I call that win-win.
Lobes volunteers for your mission, with SJS as vice captain.
Regrettably I’m not a megabucks author or I’d be over in Seppoland, drowning in cheese fries while producers fight to the death over the rights to dramatise my books.
However, this I know about characterization: You have to thoroughly imagine them before you start.
Yes, what they look like – although those scenes you get in bad novels where the main character admires themselves in a mirror and lists off their attributes in a handy check list are WRONG and if you write one NO CHOCOLATE FOR YOU!
But more importantly, nitty-gritty like exactly how old they are; where did they go to school and how did they do there; what’s in their pockets/handbag; what do they have for breakfast; who’s their favourite author?
You can see where I’m going with this. Now, don’t get me wrong, almost all of this intricate detail probably won’t find its way into your work, unless you’re the new Marcel Proust – and I hope you’re not. But knowing it will enable you to write characters so vivid they reach up off the page and slap you.
but think of my startle reflex!
Oh I know, I’ll just ensure that my characters are all on high doses of lithium.
Ladies, allow me to assist with two of your issues…
First, the fridge. Just take out out anything chewable and replace it with alcohol. No need to tip it out of the container, multiple jars and bottles will take care of the evil gunk.
Second, bugger I’ve forgotten what it is we’re shooting off into outer space, but regardless, I have a equipping firecrackers in the bottom of my wardrobe. Feel free!
Mayhem!
Excellent advice…. but more importantly, how’s it going darls?
I gather you’ve been too busy “catching up” with Fireman Sam to see Catty, so here’s a friendly warning – don’t let her at the bottom of your wardrobe.
Quokka – it worked for William Burroughs and bug powder.
Thanks for the warning Morgans! Honestly been so busy I havent even seem my sisters or the kids yet. A bit of a break over Easter should see me settled enough to catch my breath and catch up!
Catty, darling I promise I have been thinking of you, and trying to work out a date. Any chance you’d be brave enough to venture into the city? Even for lunch? I only get 45 minutes but I’m really close to stun cross station. I’ll call you once I have a roster of my own. At the moment I’m at the mercy of other people’s timetables. Hopefully straight after Easter.
Bloody autocorrect !!!
Stun Cross Station?
Is that the real name, or is that just what the locals call it?
I’m thinking… if the train’s on time, you’ll be stunned.
When the train’s late… you’re cross.
Mayhem, I will happily attempt to get into the city to see you. Whether I actually find my way there is the tricky bit. (My sense of direction is worse than ever). But it’s worth the possibility of ending up in Ballarat if it means we might get to catch up. The kidlets are on school hols at the moment, so any time from when they go back on the 27th would be easiest for me. Just text me when you’re ready. Looking forward to it!
Meanwhile, my migraine is proving more tenacious than I had hoped, and is still attempting to screw my head down through my shoulder blades. With a tyre iron. I’m going back to bed with as many analgesics as I can find. If I happen to find the migraine faerie instead, guess what I’m going to do to HER with the tyre iron?
Don’t go beating faeries in your fragile condition, Catty – just lay out some baits.
I try to limit the “cute things my darlings said” posts to the minimum, but last night’s was an absolute cracker.
I’d managed to persuade Elf Boy to give me a foot rub. He was doing his usual excellent job while Magic Man threw off at him for touching my “vile old feet”.
Elf boy’s response (bear in mind he just turned seven)?
He snarled “Elf Boy’s a man and you’re a puny shrimp. You can’t even stand a woman’s feet!” then resumed my foot massage, quite undisturbed.
Where did that line come from? I’m pretty sure he didn’t learn it on ABC Kids.
I blame Pokémon.
Pokemon?
Unless the average Pokemon trainer is a cross between Hugh Heffner and Conan the Barbarian – in a backwards baseball cap – we need to look elsewhere.
Or is there a whole foot-fetish gym that I don’t know about?
Hugh + Conan.
This is sounding very familiar.
You might want to blame the DNA pool and fit him with ear mufflers when he’s around his great uncle.
hiya mayhem, how’s Melbourne?
Hehehe.
Not much you can do about DNA, is there? I’ll park Elf Boy in the horse paddock when we’re visiting over Easter. Uncle hates horses.
Is this the same household that breeds miniatures?
What’s this, some form of cruel and unusual exposure therapy?
Did you ever see that film, “War of the Roses”?
More like that, but in the mud and stables.
The tiny horsies are Aunt’s obsession. She’s waited more than three decades, but I think she’s finally getting the upper hand.
And they wonder why I’m marriage avoidant….
I only recall the scene where Danny DeVito urinated in the wok or whatever it was and it’s giving a whole new perspective to the phrase ‘marinaded tofu’.
Meh.
Another fracking case study ready to hand in. At this rate I just might catch up over Easter. Thanks to the wise and almighty Cthulu who is discouraging patients from walking through the doors. I expected prac to be the same mad hive of activity it was back in 97/98 but hallelujah, it’s a ghost town in there. Please God let them all cancel or have typhoid tonight.
If they DID all have typhoid, how would you treat them with natural therapies, Oh Wise One?
Or are you postulating that they’ll be too sick with typhoid to crawl into the clinic and darken your doorway?
I had hoped for an evening where I’d only need to utter words of one syllable, and preferably the same four, several times over.
I think this about covers it:
This is what’s lacking from modern society… the corpse cart.
Think about what a boon it would be to the modern murderer or abusive spouse if council came by a few times a week to take away our dead?
Well worth the price of a big red cross on the door.
I believe you’d have a corpse pile (from next-door) the size of Colin’s mound, Quokka?
Well, they’d have to legalize homicide, at least when it comes to backpackers, but I suspect if you held a referendum on the topic the nation would vote overwhelmingly in favor of it.
I’m pretty sure both Hughesy and Nbob told me that up in their neck of the woods there was for some time a large road side poster on which was sprayed ‘Bring back Ivan Milat.’ And nobody saw fit to disagree with the sentiment and white it out/tear it down.
Oh, silly me. I typed the above before I’d finished my morning coffee.
Of course, homicide is not only illegal but immoral as well, children.
This blog does not endorse the casual…. or even masterfully-planned following years of seething resentment… killing of one’s enemies.
Death is not the answer – it does reduce the incidence of answering back to “vanishingly rare”, though
It does explain why sales figures have spiked on the Kitchen Aid mincer attachment, though.
Judging from her taste in kitchen decor and the contented smirk on her face I’m guessing the neighbour’s kids are in the oven, neatly compacted into terrines and spicy meatballs.
Ooh, I want one.
Why isn’t there a sprauncy mincer in the GD Tupperware catalogue?
I’ve been poring over the catalogue yet I find very little in the pointy and lethal category.
I want to be asked to a military-grade hand weapons party. Where’s Havsy when you need him?
I think Havsy’s still hanging around outside the Burger, all lost and bewildered. Poor dear.
Speaking of poor dear, the Boss has just gone on an away job. And I didn’t even crack out the crock pot!
Now, I’m going to see if I can weasel out of my commitment for the day. I doubt it, though. I’ve just been informed that daddy let them call a friend each to invite over for the day. Did I say ‘poor dear’? Hmmm, maybe I should save that description for AFTER I’ve gotten my hands on him.
Yes Catty, weasel away, and when you’re done with your excuses (Sorry, We All Have Ebola used to work well for me) I want to know everything that you know about these newfangled gadgets they have on the shelves called Slow Cookers.
I haven’t been doing my 10litre pot cooking lately because I know if I’m studying I’ll just forget to stir it and I’ll wind up with a layer of crusty burned legumes at the bottom of the pan. Which the Bloke resents cleaning up.
I was in DJs the other day looking at gadgets – well, I was flirting with the idea of the kitchen aid – and I saw the slow cookers.
Common Ladies.
Its the Ita Buttrothe hour, come, give your sister appliance advice puh-lease.
I tend to make stir-frys, salads… I have commitment issues, so I’ve never had a crock pot.
However, I can offer thome more general advithe on life. People are like a box of chocolates – thome are hard inside, thome are runny.
BTW, who are you calling common? I was a scholarship student at the same over-priced ladies lounge that spawned you! If we’re common, I pity the Acacia Ridge High alums.
Freudian slip, clearly.
I caught a part of the Ita show on Sunday but thanks to our supervisor keeping us back to explain our many inadequacies and failings (which are important to her as they distract her from any awareness of her own) I missed catching even the last few minutes of the second part.
No doubt ABC2 will repeat it.
And yet still not the inspiration I require to figure out how to operate the remote for the bloke’s set top box.
Slow cookers are the third best kitchen gadget on the market – the first two being the Fat Free Express (of infomercial fame) and the electric chocolate fondue pot. (Fourth on the list is the humble Tupperware shaker. Followed by the bendy straw, which conveniently reaches all the way to the bottom of the martini in the Tupperware shaker.)
There are now a whole swathe of slow cooker recipe books on the market. Beware! Many of them are from America, and contain ingredients like Bacon In A Can, Cheese In A Can, and Barbecue Flavoured MSG In A Can. Great if you’re contemplating suicide, not so great otherwise.
The best book on the market is from Un Zud. It’s called “100 great ways to use slow cookers & crockpots” by Simon & Alison Holst. It tells you how to get the most out of your crockpot, and debunks a few myths, too.
Most pots have three settings: slow, hot and Auto. Slow is great for overnight. Auto is good for most recipes and recipe bases. I use hot for roasts. Beef and lamb brown nicely, but chickens don’t – I stick them under the griller for five minutes before serving to crisp up the skin. And there’s always lots of lovely liquid in the bottom, just perfect for gravy. I rarely brown meat first, unless it’s a casserole – then I brown the meat pieces in seasoned flour so that the sauce thickens. Otherwise I can’t be bothered.
Christmas puddings, jars of homemade jam, tins of condensed milk for caramel tarts, all these things and more are excellent when done in the crockpot.
You are making a wise move, Quokka. Slow cookers, when combined with cats, are the best way to dispose of the -uh- ‘leftovers’ once your neighbours have become intimately acquainted with your food mincer attachment.
Have fun!
Thanks Catty, I knew I could count on you for cooking tips. Any particular brand you suggest?
They’re all good. I have a Ronson, because that’s what the Boss was able to get within our budget. But it makes no difference, you’d do just as well with a $30 Homemaker one from Kmart.
Wow, Catty… you make me want to go out and get one.
You’re much prettier and more informative and talented than Nigella – why don’t you have a cooking show?
Because when Nigella delicately licks the tips of her fingers, it’s sexy. When I suck blobs of errant chocolate sauce of the front of my jumper, it’s nauseating.
Mmm… chocolate sauce.
Now I want to suck your jumper – unless it’s acrylic.
Blech!
Blech indeed.
Easter’s not even here yet and already I feel like I’ve eaten way too much chocolate. Its those GD sacks of solid Red Tulip baby easter eggs. They’re deceptively substantial and, of course – more-ish.
Well, drum roll, I’ve actually caught up with the poxy bloody case studies for Wednesday prac. I still have three more to write for Monday prac but thanks to ANZAC day there’s no class next Monday so I might just get the chance to catch up on that lot, too.
Hallelujah and Dog protect me from patients with IBS, uterine cysts, and the ill effects of 7 years worth of weekend consumption of ecstasy and cannibis.
Yeah, those IBS patients are a pain in the butt, aren’t they?
Ibsolutely.
Thanks for the UnZed slow cooker recipe book tip. I have just directed the bloke and his magic plastic to their website and it’s in the mail.
All the while he was muttering ‘UnZud. I bet there’s FKN sheep in every FKN recipe.’
The backpackers are out in force cooking lambchops outside our bedroom window. Went downstairs to feed the leftover 4 flood cats and they all smelled of mutton fat.
That’ll confuse ’em.
Meh.
Well, thanks to the antics of my latest Gen Y patient I now have to go and start reading a 16 page long article from the American Journal of Psychiatry on the topic of How Ecstasy Can FK U up.
Who needs hops and valerian mixes with snore fodder like that?
nighty night ladies.
If you ever do need help sleeping, I’d be happy to come over and talk to you about my feelings. It works on the Boss – ten seconds and he’s snoring.
As far as my failing memory banks recall, Quokka, the problem with ecstasy is ironic… the more users take, the less their brains are capable of manufacturing intrinsic “feel good” chemicals.
Serotonin, mainly.
Another issue, harder to be specific about because of its very nature, is contaminants. Very little “ecstasy” sold on the Australian black market contains a high proportion of MDMA (methyl dimethamphetamine I think, but don’t quote me). Manufacturers and dealers use fillers including ordinary speed – so you’ve potentially got all of the speed complications, as well; strychnine; and talc etc. – relatively harmless compared to the rest, unless your user injects.
As for good old University Tobacco, for decades there were no scientifically valid studies that proved dope did much to you – until very recently. Now they’ve proved it not only fries the short-term memory, but exacerbates underlying mental illness. In fact, predisposed individuals who chose to ingest cannabis can probably give themselves mood disorders and psychoses that may not otherwise have reared their ugly heads.
Of course, your patient probably won’t want to curtail their weekend warrior behaviour. You’re just supposed to wave your magic wand and make it all better without any effort or sacrifice on their part, I’m sure.
Catty, you can’t lull us to sleep with your chatter about emotions. We’re women, we love that soppy stuff. Now, talk to me about motor racing or the footy and I’d be out like a light.
In fact, will you talk to me about footy, please? It’s oh too damn early hundred hours and I can’t get back to sleep.
Recent studies indicate that cannabis relieves IBS symptoms – according to Wikipedia. Perhaps Quokka should be telling her patients to have a choof and chill out, dude!
Actually MM that’s pretty much it – the general theme that you get in clinic is ‘I FK myself up – you fix’. Ecstasy girl is coming back in a month and I’ve suggested she work on changing her lifestyle if she wants to address her symptoms. I’ve got the contact details for a truly merciless therapist who treats addictions and impulsive behaviour so I’m sorely tempted to pack her off to see that one without any warning of what she does, and just say that she might be the right T to see to help her work on Creating Positive Lifestyle Changes.
I did indeed doze off on page 1 of 16 of my drugs will FK u up article but I can read it later this morning when I’m at the hairdressers. Actually I can probably pass it around as the hair stylists would probably get more benefit from seeing why Drugs Will FK u up than me.
I’m not the right person to deal with any kind of addiction – if I put crap in my body there are no pleasurable effects, just unpleasant ones, so it’s just not possible for me to empathize with someone who does get something out of it.
More disturbing is when they tell you how many drugs they’re doing and you look at their profession and think ‘Jesus H. Christ, I hope you’re not at the helm next time I want to fly back to Perth.’
Onto happier news I’ve been reading slow cooker reviews and I think I’ll go out and get the sunbeam. Apparently it got the Women’s Weekly product of the year award in 2009 and when it comes to Ita and her pals, as Jimmy Barnes said, ‘I believe I believe, her magazine will tell me true…hic…pass the scotch.’
Those WW ladies don’t mess around.
I’ve been tempted for years to join our local CWA… I doubt I’d meet their standards, though.
Dress or moral hygiene?
According to twitter and Terminator legend, today is the day that skynet becomes self-aware and tomorrow it decides to kill us all.
Which means your time to stock the fall-out shelter with baked beans and automatic weapons is rapidly drawing to a close.
I’m off to do laps before the pool becomes a hunting ground and then I’m off the hair dresser. No way am I embarking on the apocalypse with my roots undone.
If I’m in a fall-out shelter with my two boys, there’s no way they’ll be eating baked beans.
I think we’ll feast on the flesh of the weak and unway.
I’ve stocked up on char sui sauce.
Going by the stash of easter goodies hidden in my (…deleted for security purposes…), we’d feast on rabbit for at least a week. Not that we have a fall-out shelter – I don’t think we’re in for the Zombiepocalypse just yet, no matter what the Mayan’s say.
I will explain my theory of the Mayan calendar in a future blog post. Right now, I’m girding my loins for another round of playdating Monotony. How do I get myself into these situations?
It’s by similar means, Catty, I’d wager, to those that find me – still at the point of weeping hysterically from sheer exhaustion following the stayawakathon/car aerial nightmare – minding someone else’s child while she works.
Join me in a chorus of:
“I’m just a gal who cain’t say no
I’m in a terrible fix!”
Annie, get me my gun.
She can’t. She’s trying to drag me out from behind the clock in her room.
Typical.
I never get any help around the house.
Oh, hello.
I’ve just done class and finished reading 16 pages of mostly 16 syllable words on the topic of Ecstasy and cognitive impairment.
Result: I feel like I’ve had my brain sucked out through my ears with a straw.
Am off to the couch for a nice long soothing session of Inspector Rex. Night all.
Don’t let Rex see your ham roll. Goodnight.
You people stay up too late.
Half past seven… were you off to a disco?
Quarter past nine… surely getting ready for the night shift at a chicken processing plant.
3 a.m. – that’s the stuff to give the troops!
* sob *
Why can’t I sleep? I keep staring at the arses at Catty’s and all that happens is a strange urge to drink a UDL and apply sequinned acrylic nail tips.
Quokka, I think I know how you can put paid to The Irish once and for all (yes, I know they’re mostly Un Zedders now but in my heart they’re Irish):
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/strong-chilli-fumes-make-residents-sick/story-e6freooo-1226042055901
O.k. This is not good. 4:30? You need some advice to help you sleep.
JB’s books. Three pages, and I doze off – it might work for you, too.
Sex. It’s amazing how often a woman will actually fall asleep whilst only pretending to be asleep (so that he stops nudging her). Men just don’t listen when you tell them that an elbow in the ribs is NOT foreplay.
Drugs. Prescription or otherwise.
Eat an apple just before going to sleep (or, at least, trying to go to sleep.) The chewing of a crunchy apple helps to stabilise your ear pressure, which (for some reason I don’t know) promotes healthy sleep. Also, apples have chemicals in them that help to relax you, and clear your thoughts. Which, ironically, makes apples better than coffee at waking you up in the morning. This is actually true. Ridiculous, but true.
Lavender. No, not in an oil burner. Either use pure lavender oil in a diffuser (heat destroys the beneficial properties), or get yourself a dab-on oil. My two favourites are Olbas oil (available at chemists, this one helps clear your sinuses if you have a cold, too. Just dab a few drops on your collar or your pillow case.); and Migraine Stick. It’s only mildly useful as a migraine cure, (still – half a loaf and all that), but it really helps me go to sleep. Which is where anyone with a migraine wants to go. Both of these products contain peppermint oil as well as lavender. Mmmmm…. peppermint….
Warm milk. It induces vomiting. You’ll be so exhausted from chundering out your dinner, you’ll drop straight off. (To sleep, not the toilet).
Routine. Reset your body clock by spending the next two weeks being strict about what time you get up and what time you go to bed. And don’t nap during the day during that two weeks. Stop laughing.
Counselling. Sometimes insomnia is sparked by a stressful situation, or fear of an upcoming event. Once the insomnia faerie gets her claws in you, she doesn’t let go. So you may find an exorcism by a counsellor will rid you of your stress and the fkn insomnia faerie at the same time.
Vodka. In a bubble bath. ‘Nuff said. Oh, but try not to fall asleep in there – you’ll turn into a prune. And I’ve already bagsed that job. No, wait, I’m a prude, not a prune.
Get a new bed. Or at least flip your mattress. Or turn it sideways – scientists say you sleep better if your head is pointing south. (Sometimes I think scientists are either A-stupid, B-drunk, or C-both.) Whatever. Shopping for a new bed is kinda fun, and might relax you. It also works with shoes, but apparently you have to leave them at the foot of your bed (facing south) for it to work.
Darkness. Either wear a sleep mask, or make sure your bedroom is completely dark at night. If street lights make your room glow through the curtains, get thicker curtains, Or a slingshot to take out the bulb.
Have you considered it could be the CIA’s doing? They may be beaming their thought control rays directly into your head, keeping you awake. Try sleeping in your colander hat, or making a Stooge-esque nightcap out of tin foil.
A brick. Whack yourself over the head with it. This is an absolute last resort.
Did I mention Vodka?
I’d recommend videotaping Gillard’s speeches to the media, and watching the video at bedtime, but that would be overkill. Listening to them would put anyone into a coma. So DON’T do that.
I hope you get a good night’s sleep tonight, Madam.
You’d need to get the sleep issue diagnosed so they know what’s causing it. If it’s trauma then the standard treatments – narrative therapy, exposure therapy, group, writing & CBT all work. Albeit slowly.
If it’s trauma then the process of therapy is to become de-adrenalized, which is slow, and maddening.
Someone ages ago put me onto a sleep hygiene tips website and the basic idea is: Tedious daily routine, regular meals (plenty of protein, complex carbs, B vitamins and tryptophan so you’ve got the nutrients you need to keep you asleep and you aren’t being triggered awake by spikes and slumps in your blood sugar) go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every day, and whatever you do, don’t get up in the middle of the night as it FKS up your sleep cycle even more.
The tricky part of that is that with trauma you generally have ants in your pants and they run around under your skin between midnight and 3am.
If all else fails, there’s always stillnox.
Assuming you don’t mind sleepwalking into the traffic and knife murdering the local lollypop lady.
I hate it when I do that.
Our local lolly pop lady is about 110kg overweight. So she’s safe from my nocturnal ramblings as I’d need one of greybeard’s 90cm blades to penetrate a vital organ.
Onto other news there has been a new record of Technology Failure here a Casa Quokka.
The sunbeam electronic slow cooker that I bought from the good guys yesterday has failed to power up, despite my reading the instruction manual 7 times and pulling the plug in and out twice as many times and frantically hitting the ‘on’ button.
Skynet has assumed control over my kitchen.
Thank Dog the gas cooktop still works.
So, in about 90 minutes when my Harira (morroccan soup) is done, I am off to exchange it at the good guys at Mt. Gravatt.
I suspect it’s a skynet trap and there will be a battalion of terminators waiting to ensnare me.
You might want to be ready with the rocket launcher, just in case they mess with my programming and try to turn me against you.
Fracking small appliances.
You guys have no idea how often I manage to blow the GD things up. The Bloke is going straight to the AFL from work but will roll on the floor laughing when he discovers that I’ve set a new record for frying a piece of technology.
MM, do you have visitors yet?
Yes, Quokka – yes I do. You can’t see my hands as I frantically misstype this comment, but they’re trembling like jellyfish in a tsunami.
I also went to writer’s group this morning which seemed like a good idea at the time… but as always, was…
…
…
… interesting.
Thanks for all the good advice. Funnily enough, I do most of those things – even, by a complete accident of bed placement, my head points south as I attempt to sleep.
It may be time to move onto the stillnox and lollipop slaughter.
One of our lollipops is a bloke – you know how I do love to stick it to a man. An alternative might be retribution on my enemies. I’ll keep you posted.
As for the slow-cooker, maybe a pressure cooker on a gas stove would be better, Quokka? Sure its technically a fast, rather than a slow, cooker and a fail would be more spectacular, but there are no electrics for you to fry with your witchy power.
We’re off to the farm before kookaburras’ cackle tomorrow, so please make yourselves at home while I’m away. There’s a jug of pre-mixed Lethal Lamingtons in the bar fridge, under the tray of egg-shaped cheeses.
No way, I have many unpleasant memories of the lid blowing off the pressure cooking and bouncing off the kitchen walls when I was a kid. Not good for my startle reflex.
Say hello to your uncle from me.
The cat with the broken leg was a little grey domestic shorthair with a wonderfully placid nature. His name was Moey. Everyone thought it was from Moet & Chandon but not so, I got him from the television repair man, whose own cat had given birth to a litter of four, all alike, so he’d named them ‘Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe…’
There was nothing PC about the 70s, was there?
Good luck with the relatives.
I don’t know if this helps, Quokka, but I saw that Target has the Sunbeam slow cookers on sale, marked down from $60 to $39. The sale ends Wednesday.
I’m thinking of staging one of those Villawood style riots at my local post office. I posted several express post bags on Monday, and nobody got their parcels yet. This is the third time in a row they’ve lost my mail. I’m beginning to wonder if the contracted couriers are selling my parcels on eBay. That, or the local PO is a portal into another dimension.
But for now, I shall retire to my kitchen and prepare a sumptuous feast for my kidlets to complain about. Should I just skip the vegetables and feed them ice cream instead? It would make life (and the washing up) a whole lot easier.
Hold off on the rioting, Catty, I got mine – and emailed thanks too GD early this am. In case you haven’t checked Mr Salt’s email account lately, here’s the text:
Nom hat! I have a darling nom hat, exquisitely packaged in a box of my favourite colour, with the tastiest caramels I have ever eaten. Regrettably, the boys were at home yesterday when we picked it up from the post office, so they have developed a taste for them, too. In fact, I have been bribing them with caramels – so far they’ve cleaned out their rooms and the gutters and scampered off to karate training without a whinge, all thanks to caramel power.
You, on the other hand, have nothing. The charming and witty easter-themed gifts I ordered weeks ago – in plenty of GD time – have so far mysteriously failed to arrive. “Mummy’s Mojo” my caramel-coated arse. I was contemplating sending you a jpeg of what you will with any luck one day receive, but I’m holding on. They will arrive, or I’ll unleash the deadly fury of PayPal.
So when yours eventually wends its weary way down to Melbourne, Happy Belated Easter from me.
I’d go on, but I have a certain ecommerce website to flame.
Oh, so it’s Hotmail I have to destroy for non-deliverance of mail.
I am so glad it arrived in time. I’m glad it arrived at all – the kidlets materialised just as I was wrapping the caramels, and I almost had a Villawood kitchen when I refused to let them taste test. My children do not respond well to the word ‘NO’. I had to resort to ‘Eff off or die’.
I’m not surprised.
They’re crack caramels – one suck and you’re hooked.
In an exciting Easter update, the package containing your package finally arrived! So I repackaged and dispatched it… express, so it should arrive just in time for Mother’s Day.
I’m choosing to believe the timing is more cunning than clumsy – it’s an emergency cache of eggs that will land around the time the Easter choccies run out… like a U.N. Egg Drop.
I wonder if NATO will do an egg drop on Gadafi’s compound this weekend. A nice dose of salmonella could be just what the bunny ordered.
I’m off to the Blue Water festival at Shorncliffe to walk the hound and check out the markets. After that we might toddle off to the festival at Sutton’s Beach at Redcliffe – I like to watch the Easter Bunny parachute out of the sky and land on the beach. He always swoops down into a gaggle of sugar crazed children and passes out chocolate eggs.
One year he’ll clock one, and when it happens, I plan to be there.
Happy Easter, kids.
Now that’s one to look forward to on Youtube. You will be videoing the carnage, won’t you Quokka?
Meanwhile, I have figured out why my emails didn’t arrive. It’s the Boss’s fault. I am going to have to punish him. Any suggestions? (Note: I have plenty of gaffer tape, honey and Deep Heat, if that helps with the suggestions.)
Trip the circuit breaker for the next six weeks every time he’s sat down with a beer to watch the football.
Look innocent and profess your inability to fix the problem.
That should do it.
Oh, and I tried to find the parachuting rabbit on youtube but I don’t think Redcliffe has the internet yet.
We got a good vantage point up on the hill behind suttons and stood next to one of the security guards who was on Rabbit Patrol. So he kept us clued in as to Bunny ETA. He was well pleased to be up on the hill as his mates on the beach were in charge of keeping the kids behind the barricade until the bunny had landed and as security wasn’t allowed to touch them or shout at them he wasn’t sure how well they’d manage.
So it was up to the MC on the stage to keep shouting ‘Stay behind the barricades, kids’ and the five tandem jumpers that swooped down before the Bunny made some daredevil moves towards the barricades that put the fear of death into them.
FK it was funny when the bunny landed and the kids swarmed him, though. The woman standing beside me had never seen it before and she went ‘OMFG, there’ll be nothing left of him in 5 minutes.’
Oh well, I suppose it’s good practice for future celebrity hysteria crushes.
Just think, in a year or two, what this lot could do if turned loose on Justin Bieber.
In a year or two, these kids will think Justin Bieber is an old man has-been. He will then have to resort to trolling for: 1-cameos, 2-Silly Solly warehouses to open, and 3-interviews on talk shows hosted by slightly more successful old man has-beens.
Or he can do this:
http://www.northlakesmessenger.com.au/
Oh, the humanity!
Technically it’s called rabbitinanity.
Sorry.
Oh, the rabbitinanity!
How was that?
Well in keeping with the level of inanity I’ve come to expect hereabouts.
Why, thank you! That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day.
Meanwhile, I had a phone call this afternoon. The middle kidlet just won a bunch of Easter eggs from our local IGA. Oh, joy. Like the kidlets need more sugar. Kinda makes me wish I hadn’t used up all my gaffer tape on the Boss’s punishment.
Bloody Hell!
When I was a kiddie growing up at Duntroon, Santa used to arrive in a Chinook and I thought that was pretty exciting. But a skydiving Easter Rabbit who then gets torn to pieces by a crush of kiddies from the Insular Penninsula?… it’s almost as good as if the Tooth Fairy was in the SAS and abseiled through your bedroom window in NVGs.
And a suitable fate for a diabetes-dealing feral pest.
Congratulations, Middle Kitten! Would you like my recipe for easter nests, Catty? Just make Honey Joys, leave a hollow in the middle and insert a (peeled of foil) mini egg. The white ones look more dramatic, but milk will suffice.
I’m not sure if you can make quiche from Easter eggs – but it would be fun trying. I would suggest you substitute candied peel for the bacon, though.
Heresy! There is no substitute for bacon!
Seriously, though, I was going to make cupcakes. The nest on top was going to be made of fairy floss. But that idea was quashed when the middle kidlet declared that the prize is hers, and none shall venture near. We’ve got a sweep going – I reckon she’ll barf by 11am. I hope I’m wrong – the winner gets to clean it up.
Maybe you could bring your boys down for the fun next year, MM, and let them join in the fray behind the yellow line. (and yes I think they used police hazard tape to mark the spot)
We were down at the west end markets yesterday procuring fresh produce – being sick of the sight of chocolate in all it’s forms – and we discovered a T-shirt with an image that’s a hybrid between Heath Ledger’s joker and everyone’s favorite obesity peddling burger clown. It’s basically heath in the Ronald outfit, complete with logo, and it’s marvelously sinister. I saw it and thought of your boys but of course wouldn’t know what they like and what their sizes are. Also I had my arms full of groceries and pide by that stage so I didn’t go up and poke the fabric to test for quality.
So next time you’re in Brisvagus on a Friday night and feel like a dawn start on the saturday, if you want to trawl the markets, let me know. (bearing in mind I have that 10am pilates class).
I think I’ve cautioned Mayhem in the past that there’s not really anywhere to sit and faff unless you’re willing to go to the breakfast hut and be regaled by the wailing of aspirational Dylan style hillbilly hippies and the stink of poaching eggs (blurph to both) but if you’re happy to stay on your feet and wander and munch, there’s some good early morning eating to be had.
Catty I’d be inclined to go to the supermarket alone and come back with two dozen yolk and white style eggs and hand them over to your kids saying ‘Congratulations! Let’s make a spinach and feta quiche.’
Unless of course they’re at an age where subterfuge no longer works. In which case, Dog help you.
Bugger. Catty, we’ve cross posted again.
Good luck with the anticipated spike in everyone’s blood sugar levels and the concurrent reduction in sanity and sociability that generally ensues.
BTW all, I unveiled my replacement sunbeam electronic slow cooker yesterday and made the Indonesian chicken curry in the attached recipe book. Well, with a few of my own additions. I’m notorious for not being able to follow a recipe without – er…’improving it’ (What do you mean there’s no lentils in this? WTF are they trying to do, constipate us for a week?)
It was delicious.
I’m looking forward to those slow cooker books arriving from NZ. I think I told you, we went to their website and there was a special on so we’re getting both their books.
Not that my kitchen really needs another recipe book but I do seem to accumulate them the way that normal women accumulate shoes.
Put me down for 13 minutes past 1 p.m., Catty. And the effluent will include diced carrots, whether or not she’s EVER eaten them.
Well, Quokka, I’d suggest quarter-to-dawn on the day of your Tupperware party, but I figure you’ll have enough on your plate that day.
The absence of table seating is of no concern to me. I stopped having breakfast sitting down when I brought Elf Boy home from the hospital. Now, although I no long have to feed him from a sling while cleaning and cooking for a toddler, I find that walking the dog for several k’s first thing is not compatible with sitting down to breakfast AND making breakfast, cleaning up after breakfast, laundry, packing lunchboxes and improvising forgotten homework. Not in the two hours before 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., anyway.
* yawn *
Remind me not to list my domestic drudgery anymore. Just reading over the list makes me tired.
Vomit and drudgery on Easter sunday.
Hm. I guess there’ll be a bit of that about today.
Yep, not sure what will be happening here at dawn on T-day but I’m guessing it won’t involve frivolity at the markets. Feel free to do an exploratory trip without me, though. It’s along the riverside of the markets not far from the entry by the mud soaked rowing sheds of Grots. The stall has those darth vader toddler tantrum T-shirts that we saw at South Bank and as all roads lead to Hungarian donuts I doubt you’d really need a tour guide.
So, did you mention the dachsund with his cat plaster prize toy while you were on your family outing yesterday? And don’t worry, I long ago got used to the neighbourhood referring to my crazy boozed up father as ‘That Man’ – with obligatory shudders.
One of my sisters carried on the tradition by marrying someone who elicits the same response from the general public. And our grandmother did the same thing. Its a long standing family tradition which I decided early in the piece that I wouldn’t be passing on.
Uncle couldn’t remember your specific cat, but from first priniciples he says it would have been a splint and strapping, rather than an actual plaster cast? On a front leg?
So, either your family wasn’t so odd and offensive that they stuck in one’s memory, or Uncle has been successful at last in punching huge holes in his cerebral cortex.
We had a lovely visit, though. Aunt and I ditched everyone and went to a hair salon behind a BP roadhouse. We nearly did a Thelma and Louise and kept going, but we had to go back to bottlefeed the miniature piglets.
As you do.
Absolutely there will be carrots in it. A close friend once offered the theory that every person on earth has a carrot sac in their stomach. He said that carrots were indigestible, so the stomach would store them away in the sac, and dispose of them via the only way possible – i.e, when the stomach’s owner next pashed the porcelain princess.
My friend also said that carrots do not decompose, so when you die, the carrot sac travels with your soul into your next incarnation. Which explains why there will be carrots in your chunder even if you have never eaten a carrot in your life.
I used to think this was a plausible theory, until that same friend pointed to some particularly unpleasant suburban roadkill and say, “it’s only sleeping.” As the mass was quite obviously seeping, not sleeping, I began to seriously doubt everything he’d ever said.
Ah, shattered illusions.
Maybe it was a back leg. I can still remember finding him in the garden, unable to move, and as you know, my memory’s fried from years of exposure to my family’s unrelenting insanity.
Now I’m picturing Thelma and Louise flying over a cliff with the Disney pigs in the back seat, all screaming ‘Eeeee’ and wearing floral scarves.
Must be time to go soak my brain in chlorine and children’s urine to clear out the cobwebs.
I thought piggies cried “Weeeeeeee”?
The weeeeeeeee only comes out in moments of great fright.
I’d say hurtling off a cliff in a convertible with two crazed women counts as one of those moments.
“Pashed the porcelain princess”… I love that idiom so much I want it on a coffee mug.
Catty, I love you dearly – but why on earth would you call Aunt and myself “two crazed women”.
We’re not crazed, we’re just damaged and over-worked.
Thanks for the vision of Babe versus Thelma & Louise, Quokka. I luaghed so hard a little “weeeee!” came out. Lucky I was already all the way home.
Oh, no no no Madam. I was referring to Thelma and Louise. The only sane thing they did in that whole movie was pick up Brad Pitt while he was still worth having. I would never EVER refer to you as crazed. That’s my job. Or, it will be when I get some cats.
We can arrange that.
I’ll source some from Quokka, and we’ll freight them to you by rail, in a cardboard box.
It’s a family tradition, right?
P.S: Probably we are crazed – but the truth can wound.
Oh, goody. We’re having a crazy competition.
Beat this and play fair.
I just woke up from a dream in which Mick Jagger was menopausal and having issues with flooding, so he decided he was going on a world wide tour to market his new invention, a six inch tampon that only needed changing every two days.
Catty you’re the dream guru.
Care to tell us the hidden meaning of that one?
Bloody hell.
In Catty’s temporary absence – I assume she’s in a choc-chip bun induced coma, and hope she’ll regain conciousness soon – let me have a stab.
Royal Wedding fever has infected your brain – despite your inherent aversion to the monarchy – in the manner of Ebola virus, so you’re “Royal sensitized”.
Your dreaming mind, eager to protect itself from the memory of Prince Charles’s recorded phone conversation with Camilla (while he was still married, if memory served, I can’t be arsed googling it) that he wanted to be reincarnated as a tampon so he could live inside her lady parts, has replaced the sexually unacceptable image of Prince Charles with that raunchy hottie, Mick.
Despite Mick’s legendary heterosexuality, understandable confusion arising from his show-pony dance style on stage and penchant for technicolour leggings resulted in your subconcious gifting him with a fertile womb.
The flooding is from the Stone’s album title, “Sticky Fingers”.
Hope this helps.
As for the crazy competition, I’m not in your league, Quokka. All I get is tedious re-runs of real life past events, or boringly mundane dream archetypes like unexpected tooth loss or being pursued but unable to run. All my crazy is on the conscious level!
Quokka, Mick represents your creative side. Your subconscious has chosen him because he has some particular quality that you admire, or would like to have, or believe you may have. So what do we know about Mick? He can sing, he’s flambouyant, and he has purportedly had marital relations with many, many women. (He kissed David Bowie too, but Bowie is a bit girly, so we won’t get into that.) I’ve not heard you mention karaoke OR leopardskin tights, so I’m guessing it’s the intercourse.
Selecting a famous person for our dreams often indicates that we feel someone else is getting the recognition we deserve, or someone is preventing us from getting that recognition. (I.e, stealing our ideas, or blocking our success through undermining). I.e, Uni Admin, and Nurse Ratchett.
Dreaming about menstruation/menopause can mean two things: If it’s a woman, it generally points to grieving for loss of youth and fertility, or an inability to accept a new phase in her life. If it’s a man, it represents an urge to follow more creative pursuits. I.e, you wish you were young and unencumbered by responsibility, and that you could move out of this current phase of your life into one that is more interesting and creative.
The two days part is interesting. The number two indicates duality (male/female, yin/yang, yes/no etc), and also indicates communication within relationships. (There’s those marital relations, again.)
My verdict: You are sick to bloody death of your studies, because you’ve been working so hard for so long, but don’t feel that you are being acknowledged, let alone appreciated. You’re sick of Nurse Ratchett and Kylie the Computer Drone and their ilk holding you back with their bitterness/incompetence/jealousy. You wish this whole annoying phase in your life was over, so that you could do what YOU want to do with your life – and what you want appears to be having a lot of uninterrupted, and creative, sex. Possibly with the Bloke, possibly with Mick Jagger. I’m not sure.
In short, you want to ditch Uni, buy a Maui and a copy of the Karma Sutra, and follow your kinky dreams around the world.
My advice: Go with the illustrated copy of the Karma Sutra instead of the text-only version (and keep up those pilates classes. You’ll need them). Take the Bloke instead of Mick. (Mick would use up all your face cream, and that stuff’s not cheap). Oh, and I’d recommend a Winnebago instead of the Maui – their beds have better mattresses. You don’t want to do your back in, do you?
If you’re wondering whether to watch the royal wedding on Friday, or rent a DVD instead, check this out:
There you go. Now you’ve seen the wedding. So sit back and enjoy those DVD’s!
Fabulous.
I would have liked to see them boogie to a techno remix of the Clash’s “London’s Burning”, though.
Or anything by Quiet Riot, especially “Come on Feel the Noise”.
Or in fact maybe Quokka’s favourite would be best. Isn’t it called “It’s Your Fault The Kids Are Ugly”, or something?
William, we’re looking at you.
All this is making much more sense than my father’s logic in explaining nightmares, which was ‘this is what to expect when you eat cheese before bed.’
Exactly. Who eats cheese before bed?
Everyone knows you eat chocolate in bed.
Unless you need something savoury to go with your night-time martini, I suppose.
What a fab read – the post and the comments. I think I’ve forgotten what I was going to say about the original post though and now it’s kind of all the way off into the distance there. Maybe I’ll just admit defeat for now.
Oh yeah, crones. I can’t get enough crones. Please, more information on crones so I know what I have to look forward to as my dotage encroaches.
Cheers, Melbo and welcome.
On the subject of crones, can I draw your attention to the preceeding post “Growing Old Gloriously”?
The lady featured there is an inspiration to us all, and I’d like to be just like her when I grow up.