The inevitable has happened and Gigantor’s got a girlfriend. To protect the innocent, we’ll call her Mothra. I’m not sure whether to feel pleased that he’s playing nicely with others, or horrified that he might love Mothra more than me.
Too paralyzed with horror to write more.
Fun in a box 
Hmmm. Tall, good looking, smart, funny – nope, didn’t see that coming. On the bright side, now someone else can check “The Satisfier” for cricket damage. I bet that makes you feel better, eh?
Facebook kindly reminded me about “The Satisfier” earlier. Smurf, I thought that was hilarious until I realised he had imminent plans of testing its mettle,
Que?
Gigantor copped a pace ball to his unboxed goolies at last weekend’s cricket match. Back home, I asked him to show me the damage. He cocked his hip saucily and said “I call it The Satisfier” before flopping it out.
Sniggers.
I would expect no less from one of your boys.
Commiserations, MM.
Then again if you show them the photo of the Grand Evil & interrupt them during private time by saying ‘can you make sure it’s just like this?’
– it may put them off.
I knew you’d be a comfort, Q. I shall affix a printout to the fridge immediately.
They’ll be testing it by the fridge?
If the Grand Evil is going on the fridge, may I suggest that you pin google’s lovely range of hpv throat cancer images in a frieze over his bed.
That might give the young temptress something to think about if she’s contemplating gratifying The Satisfier.
Liiiiiiiiiick!
Smurf, that’s fair put me off the Plumber, too.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/warts-and-all/4674400
I’m sure I heard something on the news more recently than this but it is, seriously, worth a word to the youngsters about understanding risks. I think there’s a vaccine out these days but whether it’s made it out of the lab or they’re still busy testing it on people who can’t afford to sue for the side effects in the slums of Liberia, I couldn’t say.
Once again you have both made me thank the stars that I don’t have to guide any younglings through the mire of life, I have cats and as they’ve all been neutered they want nothing but to sleep, snuggle and eat.
S’all good. There is a vaccination campaign and they all got shot early this year. As long as Mothra’s parents signed the form, I suppose.
Ugh, I remember that vaccination program. My lot told tales of weeping, fainting classmates that both surprised and upset me. I suspect the virus was not killed by chemicals, but was washed away by the tears of teens. It is tempting to just buy the whole lot of them chastity belts, and be done with it.
You’d need one specially designed to fit over their heads. I suppose orthodontists worked that out years ago. Still, yet another reason to salute the many uses of duct tape.
A safety must for every teen date, and it’ll eliminate the back chat.
Remind me again why the quarantine office said that I shouldn’t breed?
Oooh! Now I understand that mask thing Hannibal Lecter was wearing in Silence of the Lambs. “Well Mrs Rabbit-Vacuum, we believe that the “Clarice Special” would be the best option for young Fiona.”
I know! I know! Surely it was Q Fever
Boom tish!
Madam Morgana is here all week, folks. Don’t eat the yellow snow.
Have one of these donut chocolates instead. Catty, you’re a darling! I would have saved your gift for the day but EB tore into it before I made it home from work. Thank you, thank you, thank you! xxxooo
And thank you Catty (Naughty Catty!)
All three of my cats were down pit in their dungeon when your parcel arrived, Catty, so there was no risk of anyone tearing anything. That is the best part of Xmas day, though, watching cats shred the paper & chase the ribbons. They’re 12 now & they still act like the craziest of kittens when they see Xmas stuff.
I’m almost feeling mean for saying ‘no Xmas tree’ but one of them has been vomiting on & off for a few days & while I’m sure it’s just the regrowth from his September haircut giving him indigestion, at least I don’t have to worry that he’s eaten something deadly off the tree.
Luckily First Dog posted his DIY Xmas nativity kit on twitter yesterday so if the Bloke is feeling decoratively-deprived he can go put that together.
For now he seems happy with lego (he has finally built last year’s villa savoye) and I think he’s got plans to start on a WASGIJ.
Oh, poor kitteh. I once ate a Christmas decoration. It gave me a dreadful case of Tinselitis. Hopefully the little puker is better soon. If not, at least you will have something appropriate to put under NTO’s tree.
heh heh.
Mission brown with sparkly bits.
Catty you do pick the most perfect presents.
Tinselitis!
Catty’s here all week, elves and reindeer. Try the venison!
I just found the most adorable Rudolph and Blitzen on eBay, but I didn’t buy them. They were two deer.
If you keep this up, Catty, I’m sending you on a tour of the RSLs with Big Bad Al.
What did the RSLers ever do to deserve that?
In other news, Mr Slacko hasn’t done his posting so any little somethings* heading to any of yez is gunna be late. Biiig surprise from the guy who just forgot his anniversary eh?
(*literally. as in “it’s some thing but I’m not sure what.”)
Yes, GB – When are you going to send me your new address as I asked so many moons* ago? I tell you, you’ll be sorry if you miss out on what’s in store for you**.
*disclaimer: well, a few days, at least
** yeah, that sounded a little threatening but I think you’ll actually dig this
I’m right on it! (Not called “Mr Slacko” for nothing)
Nothing I’ve ever heard you called starts with “Mister”, GB.
GB, I can one-up your slackness by suggesting we put Xmas off until next year. I haven’t even bothered sending cards, emails or texts this year. The only people who are getting presents are those who front up & make it through the obstacle course that the builder left behind. They will be rewarded with boxes of chocolates from Coals that I haven’t got around to plundering, myself. And when I run out of those, I’ll be doling out the spare roofing screws that spurt out of the gutters during heavy rains.
My plan of sitting quietly in the pool & spitting watermelon seeds into the neighbour’s yard is not running to schedule.
The bloke insisted on doing Xmas shopping yesterday & then assured me it was all done, and then he grabbed the keys an hour ago & said ‘Where can I get blah from?’ and went out to get moar crap. He got snarls by way of a response & I have resolved that from now on I will wake up on December 25 every year and wish everyone a happy excessive consumerism day.
Meh. Traffic people heat, so much Stupid.
I was having such a nice day. We left at dawn & went for a swim at the south coast & hung out at the SLSC & watched pods of dolphins in the blue, blue ocean under a calm blue sky – and then we had to turn around and come back.
Urk.
There’s scritching and bellowing and jibber jabber and crashes and thunks and screams and squeals of tyres as idiots try to park in driveways around here which nobody has ever been able to park in.
If any of you know how to bottle silence, do send it to me.
Meh. Wake me when it’s over.
Treat yourself to a good pair of comfortable over the ear headphones. Preferably wireless and maybe noise-cancelling. You can wander around, sit where you like, ignore the phone, doorbell or Bloke in a blissful haze of sweet music. Note that I do NOT advise ignoring the cats. They have ways of dealing with that kind of thing.
Yes, I wondered about “what he said” headphones, too. I’m surprised that there are a lot of people making noise at your place’ though Q. When I came down at lunch-time to day the Bruce heading north was literally a parking lot.
This news will shock you, but some of the kids next door have been moving out & as you know they won’t use her driveway, they park their utes outside Casa Q & slither down the treacherous incline with their precious clattering cargo.
The new freaks across the road at Jen’s have been coming & going regularly too, remember them, the family with the three screamers?
As soon as Xmas is out of the way I plan to indulge in a lot more mornings like this morning – out of the house by 6am and on the beach by 7.30am.
The water was absolutely blissful.
I’m just cranky because the Bloke is finding fault with the house we looked at in Currumbin this morning which ticks every single one of our boxes including being part of the budget that would allow him to keep Casa Q. Another mouldy sac with only 5 houses, none of them rentals, quiet as the tomb.
Sigh.
I’m just sick of Xmas.
I always swear that I won’t get drawn into the BS of his last minute panic as he realises that he’s hopelessly disorganised & then I always do & it’s just horrible.
Yesterday when I got stuff for his horrid mother from the Perfect Potion the stupid girl charged us for someone else’s stuff too & of course we didn’t realise that till I got home. So there’s no point even calling them to contest it.
He just went to the fruit store & bought stuff for his parents & the idiot girl down there charged him for things he didn’t buy, too.
Which is pretty much the gripe I have every christmas when he leaves things to the last minute.
I keep telling him ‘do not go into a shop within three days before Xmas. Not even for milk.’
Does he learn?
No.
This is why I like to be somewhere nice & remote & inaccessible for Xmas, so I can’t get caught up in the chaos trap.
Calm blue ocean.
Next year we go to Albany.
* clenches teeth.
I am taking great satisfaction in knowing that tomorrow he will have to listen to five hours worth of Alan Jones on 4 different right-wing speaker sets while he lunches with his parents & their xenophobic neighbours.
Bwahahahahahahaha.
Work’s been so busy and I’ve done so much shopping online that I can almost forget it’s Christmas for half hours or so at a time.
Dementia has much to recommend it.
The weather forecast is cheering, BOM said it will start to become quite unstable on Friday & we can expect showers and storms all weekend. And on Sunday they’re predicting a maximum of 25C.
How very, very civilised.
Darling, darling Morgana…. What a Merry Christmas I’m having! I’m all dressed up in my pretty little black dress – it’s the perfect backdrop for my Tiffany & Co starfish. Delightful, as is the macadamia brittle (my absolute favourite of all the brittles). Don’t worry about chewing, this stuff is well worth sucking! Thank you, thank you, thank you, wonderful Morganarama. MWAH!
It’s overcast this morning, isn’t it exciting! Hopefully it will be raining on our day, Q.
Catty, you’re too kind. And – not that you should tell people this, totally claim it’s authentic – but I found your necklace at my markets and it may not be completely ridgey-didge. BUt I’m happy you’re happy – mwah!
I know, I woke up to a light pitter patter of rain around 4am. It was heavenly.
I forgot to mention, when the Bloke got in from the old coast yesterday he had to park in the street because someone had dumped a brown velour recliner rocker in our driveway, under the carport.
If you’re wondering what shade of brown, it was a near perfect match for the steaming heap of dog shit he found on the lawn as he was loading up to leave town. (the Special family across the road don’t lock up their dog so we know where that came from – everyone gets one at least once a week as part of Special Dog’s contributions to the neighbourhood Ill Will Fund.)
So the Bloke was out there going ‘WTF, didn’t you hear whoever delivered this thing?’ To which I just rolled my eyes.
yeah right.
So we shifted it onto the footpath & within moments NTO had persuaded one of her tenants to help her cart it up the back into her hoard.
I’m just sorry I didn’t stuff it full of little lucifers before I dumped it out the front.
So I would imagine that in the next day or two we’ll have to contend with door-knockers saying ‘Where is my chair?’ and then I’ll have to say ‘NTO took it’ and when they go in there she will say ‘No. No chairs in here.’
Sigh.
Thankfully yesterday’s efforts of abandoned furniture & faeces, combined with my ill humour at zero sleep has made the Bloke more amenable to the idea of viewing this house at Currumbin tomorrow with a more favourable eye.
Why would anyone put a chair in your garage – and can BCC issue a ticket for illegally parked lounge furniture?
Bizarre! Are you sure it wasn’t a surprise Christmas gift from your MIL for the Bloke?
I’m also curious about the BCC ticketing issue. You might have to get them out to paint a mission brown line next to the yellow one across your driveway, just in case.
My inlaws had a strange visit from their strange neighbour yesterday morning. She wandered into their backyard and stood there until FIL came out. Then she handed him her purse and said she wanted to buy a rake. He’s used to the poor, dopey dear, so he just handed the purse back and told her to go to the shops and buy one. She argued for a while, but he just herded her back into her own yard. It occurs to me that she is a lot like this woman:
Q’s MIL would have sold the demented woman a broken rake for three times what it cost at Bunnings.
Yeah, the recliner rocker was just weird.
Later in the day we heard a shocking racket, and it was her. She had tied it to her trolley & she tried first to get it up the internal stairs into bog hollow & then when that didn’t work she tried to get it up the side path to the back of the house.
Remember the narrow access due to non-compliant fire stairs into flat 4?
yeah well the noise was the trolley scraping against our corro fence as she dragged it up the back.
Judging from the bangs, she must have dragged it inside her flat, the better to enjoy her leisure time.
So now, when she’s bouncing up and down spying on us, we can say with utter certainty ‘Dammit she’s off her rocker.’
Boom tish!
Q’s here for the rest of the school holidays, people. Try the leftover turkey.
Do I have to? *retch*
No, you’re special. Have these Lindt reindeer balls.
Mmmm…chocolate. I have just been getting into your fudge, Madam – thank you!
It’s delish.
Nom nom nom!
Lovely to see you this morning & it is unfortunate that you didn’t get to see NTO peering through the fence slats. Or standing on the handrails or hack-sawing the water main or painting in the rain.
A horrible clatter just started up in there, it sounds like she’s been out collecting her daughter from the airport or the transit centre.
These visits are rare & the daughter sounds very restrained. Or perhaps Medicated.
After what I’ve seen in the last year of that madwoman I feel like I should walk up to her & go ‘Psssst – in here, if you need a place to hide.’
Poor girl.
Oh the horror that is Christmas.
No wonder the highway was chockers yesterday with cars packed to the gunnels & everyone trying desperately to escape for the calm & sanity of home.
Don’t drop those Reindeer balls, Madam. Christmas has been bad enough without Rudolph growing an attitude.
Thank you, Q, it was wonderful. And Mum and I have already hatched a plan to unleash trifle on our NYE guests.
Speaking of balls, I should tell Catty about Clarke Kent the half-neutered miniature goat. Gigantor spent many a happy minute wrestling him. I wished we could take him home with us as an aggression sponge.
Yes it was lovely, and I hope you girls enjoy the trifle recipes & that they save you from having to bake desserts in the horrible heat for many, many hot & horrid Christmases to come.
I’m still boggling at the gift of goats.
Still, T’is the season for boggling at bizarre behaviour & my tandoori goat suggestion stands.
Let me know how the trifles go, and do post pics on your blogs if you’re happy with the results. The Bloke is not a trifle fan, although he says that about things & when I delve deeper it turns out to be nasty flashbacks to his mother’s cooking. Poor soul.
He hides his damage well, doesn’t he?
He gives only sorrow, who gives goats.
AB is a darling man. Please thank him for the coffee and say “plinth” to him, also.
Heh heh.
Sure.
We once shared a block of land with temporary goat herders. As there was no fence on the property, they quickly learned why goats are a really bad idea and disposed of the flock. Except for one baby goat that got into my shed, that is. The little dear ate everything in the shed, and led us a merry chase when he was found. Then the neighbours ate him. We moved shortly after. We had to. I was pregnant, and now I knew what the neighbours did with babies.
That was on the Fraser Coast hinterland, right?
Morning all. Is everyone having a lovely day? We’re about to have 13 guests for lunch – good thing I’m not superstitious. Actually, apart from a bit of tidying up and the cooking stuff, it hasn’t been a problem and I’m quite looking forward to it. This is the “no one has issues or grievances they want to drag out” family gathering so I expect laughter, bad jokes and complaints about my lousy bro-in-law from two of his kids who’ll be here.
Also, may I ask why “plinth”? I mean it’s a good word, a “woody” sort of word as Graham Chapman would say, but not usually fraught with significance or ill omen?
Thirteen guests for lunch? Gee, you must have a good appetite. I can barely manage a sandwich.
I want him to design me a plinth to go between a recycled shipping container and some screw pylons. None of this is euphemistic, it’s an actual project. Barracks out the back for the boys.
It’s a suggestive word, though, isn’t it? And resonant. A bit plink, a bit pithy.
GB, I was born on the 13th so obviously the rumours of it being an ill-omened number are greatly exaggerated. To the point of accuracy.
I just forwarded you an email from Port Container services. They turn shipping containers into shops, cafes, accommodation, laboratories – pretty much anything. I love that idea.
Thanks GB! Yes, it’s how I’ll add-on without renos, I think. Better than a caravan on bessa blocks. Cheaper, too.
LOL at the idea of the Bloke designing anything.
He’s left the design of all of our houses to me, the actual drawings for town planning/the builder to an architect, and specifications for structural foundations to the engineer.
If you want him to build you something, it’ll need to be made of lego.
That’s the primary reason for all our delays, MM – he found a thousand & one excuses to avoid drawing up the drawings to give to some official sort to be drawn up properly.
That said I do like the idea of sealing teenagers in a shipping container.
While they’re not listening, where do you plan to send them.
Havana, perhaps?
Or the Cayman Islands. You could address them to your accountant.
Or to the Mexican pharmacist. They could set up a franchise over there, with a burrito stand as a front.
Think of the money you’d make, and no more agonising over packing their school lunches.
Hehehe.
Do teenagers still play spin the bottle and such? I was just thinking of sending them to Heaven. Briefly, and where I can’t hear them. And I can hose out the enclosure afterwards.
Why on earth would you seal those boys in a container. They sound like sources of both affection and amusement – strange, sometimes twisted or worrying amusement I grant you – but I’d keep ’em around for the LOLs.
Well the lunch lasted six hours, we were all stuffed and it was fun. There should be a Nobel prize for the inventor of the dishwasher btw. One g-nephew had a pile of books and he was frantically reading bits of each. He wants to move in apparently. As expected my b-in-law’s ears should have been burning. Apparently he’s also defended the foul handling of sex allegations by one of the former Archbishops – Hollingsworth. He was an Anglican but the very embodiment of what the Pope called spiritual Alzheimers. Bah. Enough of that.
So extended Xmas is going well. Last one will be when Lyn’s bro gets back and we have them over even if that’s after New Year. But Stephen Fry (the fount of all wisdom) says that Christmas originally was celebrated until Candlemas in early February, not just for the twelve days. (burps ham & chicken. theologically)
Glad you’re having a fun time down there, GB.
It’s always a surreal experience hearing people talk about Xmas with genuine pleasure & enthusiasm. It’s a bit like hearing someone saying how much fun they’re having with Polio.
Most of my GFs have screwy families like mine & one has created her own boxing day tradition in her own small unit of ‘Shit Santa’ whereby they regift the worst things that they were given, in totally appropriate ways, so that they can get some pleasure out of the Gift With Sting attached.
Next year I’m spending boxing day with them & I will be sure to win the prize with whatever my in-laws gift me.
Needless to say the Drama Queen T-shirt is not going down so well after the months & months & months of fending off NTO’s insanity ending with another of my pets being poisoned.
Yeah I’m such a drama queen, every story that I’ve told you about the freaks in our street is pure fiction that I’ve hallucinated & I should be medicated & made to STFU.
I’m still boggling at the water main.
Other than the emotional abuse over canape preparation I enjoyed Christmas. There’s something all full-circle and Lion King about having a celebration with my cousins and all our kids when we spent so many together as kids ourselves.
This is the good, close side of the family, though. I’m lucky I’ve got one of those, and fully aware that many people do not. This is why we have friends, huzzah!
Yeah, damned untidy water mains. Christmas wasn’t always like this for us Q. Like Madam M, we’ve landed in the san, er, happier bit of the family. Our kids can remember the tense ones for kids (don’t go near cousin X or you’ll get hurt, especially don’t go out of our sight at any time) and adults (I must not react to jibes about our jobs, cars, kids, racist cracks etc etc). It used to be such a sweet relief to leave. And let’s not mention – no, let’s not. Yeah. It kind of improved with Fifi’s family getting older and mellowing a bit and my brother moving to Townsville but you can’t mellow stupid. Did they actually give you a Drama Queen t-shirt? That’s just nasty.
BIL the drunk. My eldest sister could give him lessons in how to do it, though, so I let it slide. Or as the Bloke once put it, ‘OMG Q your family make mine look like Amateur Hour.’
Speaking of water mains, the Bloke just discovered that ours was switched off. He went outside, found a plumber’s truck, hunted till he found the plumber next door & asked him to turn our water back on.
NTO had directed him to turn off our water main rather than her own.
We know she knows it’s not her water main because, um, remember she said it looked untidy & would we please move it?
What a psycho.
Oh FFS, Hasten the evidence accumulation!
Hasta the removal trucks. I can’t wait to get out of here.
Time to think about who you’re renting it to. “violent tendencies and short fuse preferred.”
Forget the entertaining deck. Turn it into a meth lab and Hello, Odin’s Warriors!
My last post doesn’t seem to be here. Odd! Morgana, you may have to adjust the spam trap – every time I use the F (art) word, my comment disappears.
Christmas was pretty good this year, considering that I was completely over it by mid December. Only one online purchase didn’t show up – serves me right for ordering stuff from a Venezuelan on Etsy. I wonder if it’s worth asking for a refund?
Meanwhile, it’s time to take action against NTO. Her actions are completely unforgivable. What sort of inhuman monster poisons her neighbour’s well-behaved pets? Might I recommend a nice Warfarin cake as a thank you gift for her heinous actions? Or regular deliveries of arsenic sugar donuts; I hear that it’s undetectable in small doses over a long period of time.
Big kitty hugs for poor little kitty. And for you too, Q. It’s awful to see your pets suffer.
Oh, and Madam, yes teenagers do still play spin-the-bottle. It’s right up there with Doctors & Nurses, and Kiss Chasey.
Oh, I remember Doctors and Nurses. I did enjoy kindergarten.
Q, a local friend had a good idea. Booby-trap the top of your driveway. Get one of those laser-beam trip wires and rig it up to an alarm, or just set it to start taking video of NTO-but-quite-the-psycho.
You said ‘booby’. *snicker*
Thanks, guys.
xox
I’ll have to think about this.
Coming in here to bait the cats is a whole new level of crazy that I hadn’t reckoned on. For her to risk jail time to do that means that she feels that the satisfaction of killing three cats is worth a few years living on Her Majesty’s Pleasure (some of those prison farms do have lovely gardens & think of all the painting she could do) or else she’s so entitled & so disconnected from reality that she simply does not understand that the rules apply to her, too.
Having seen some of her brain’s failures to connect the dots when it comes to logic, I keep coming back to the idea that she was dropped on her head repeatedly as an infant & she is just not the full quid.
So long as we remember to keep the roller door down, nobody can get in there again to hurt the cats.
That has been opportunistic on her part & so long as we don’t get slack about leaving it up, there is no way that she can get near that enclosure to poison the cats again.
The dog is the animal who is most at risk because she can chuck baits over the fence and it will be impossible to prove that she’s the one responsible for it.
I have just messaged the builder and have begged him to come back ASAP.
Once that lower courtyard behind the house is secure, it means we can confine the dog’s nocturnal wanderings to that area. That courtyard is stark, it’s easy to check before we let the dog out there & if we find anything, it’s hard evidence & we’d get it before he can swallow it.
Until then we will just have to watch him like a hawk & follow him up into the back yard every time he goes out to snuffle around in the shrubbery.
Effing psycho.
I do think that the surveillance is a good idea, though, because I think it’s time that we got hard evidence of her stawking on video so that the police have something solid to go on.
Anyway. My plan for the time being is
1. Apply pressure to builder to finish the courtyard so we can bugger off.
2. Be thankful the cat is recovering, albeit slowly. I rang them at 4.30am & they said he’s looking brighter & is smoochy & more cheerful so it sounds like he’s recovering, slowly.
You know, she may have given him just enough to make him sick, for the satisfaction of knowing that we’d have an enormous vet bill as a consequence.
That would probably be her idea of evening up the score for us ratting her out to council for building without council approval.
Everyone I’ve talked to who knows cats says it must have taken a fair bit of effort. She must have wrapped it in something incredibly delicious (for some reason I think pate) as usually they won’t touch doctored food.
And the more thought went into it the more terrifying it is.
I know. This is why Ron fell for it and not the others. He’s incredibly sweet & trusting, and aside from which, he’s greedy.
I’ll have to go back through my blog posts and work out when it was she was staring up our driveway that night. I know it was before the last segment of the Bake Off Xmas special and it was either the Saturday or the Sunday night. So aside from all my venting of OMG why can’t Cthulu strike her down off her scritching post & snap the neck of her femur, there’s hard evidence that I complained about her being out there that night, staring intently up our driveway at 8.20pm at night. WTF was she watching, cockroach races?
Usually after those two have done something vile they retreat and pretend to be all nicey-nice and having seen the same behaviour in my grandmother and her sisters, I know that the pattern is that for a few months after poisoning a neighbour’s pet they will put on a huge act to divert suspicion from their behaviour.
So I think that the month following the attack is the safest time to be here because she’ll be worried about discovery.
Meanwhile, everyone pray that the lady who said she wants at least one of these kittens shows up and takes both.
They’re adorable but kept me awake from 2:30 to 4:30 a.m. And I didn’t get to bed until 10:30 #knittingfrenzy.
Kittens? You have kittens?
How did I miss this, is this one of those things that hit FB & not the blogs?
Kittens!!!!
Sssshhh. They’re black market kittehs, and not related to the Twins, natch. Just packed off to a lovely home in Cooroibah.
Sad face. I got very attached to them in the 18 hrs we looked after them. Ragdolls – so smoochy!
All cats are grey market in the dark. And thank you Madam. I have snorted much with rude glee over your CD. And it’s inspired me to write some topical versions. Mischief Managed.
Boom tish!
It called to me, GB. I knew it must be yours. We look forward to your YouTube clips, although I hear no-one wants to wear the milkmaid costume.
A shame, as with GB’s talent for the bagpipes & the unicycle we’d be assured of a winner come Eurovision next year.
It would be hard to beat this:
but I think it’s worth a try.
That’s just silly! Who rides a bike in platform stilettos?
Conchetta! That fairy floss colour is just fabulous on her. Well, when I say “on” there are some who would argue that “off” is both more statistically and aesthetically correct.
Huh. I never trust a man who rocks pink better than I do, or who wears more eye makeup. This is probably because my first boyfriend was a bass player with a penchant for fluoro pink shirts and liquid eye liner. Bloody bass players.
Meanwhile, my trip is booked. We fly to Brisbane on Sunday 11th, and Mother will pick us up at the airport. The flight home is late Thursday afternoon, so I have told her I want to be back in Brissie by lunchtime, which will give me 3 or 4 hours to catch up. Woo hoo!
This is exciting news! About catching up, I mean. The going-to-your-Mum’s bit is more Chinese interesting.
Why does that make me think of water torture & bamboo shoots?
Because it partially describes Mother’s cooking.
I was thinking about their curse, “May you live in interesting times.”
That also describes Mother’s cooking.
So about the only things that don’t describe your Mother’s cooking are “tasty” and “nutritious”?
You left out ‘appetising’.
And also “digestible”.
Awww, you’re all so cruel. I like that. We’re getting our next guests about the same time, arriving on the 14th for a few days to catch us up on Brisbane gossip. The bad news is that Fifi has decided we’re getting the spa usable. I was hoping to ignore it and it hasn’t been touched since we moved in, hence a bit manky. Anyway we’re draining and cleaning it and refilling for cold dips over summer – no bubbles, no heating. Bah, humbug.
But where will you keep your frog spawn?
Forget the frogs. Where will you keep Mayhem’s Mum?
There’s a rock pool out the front for the frog spawn and as for Mayhem’s Mum, no way is she getting near the spa! There was a whole other floor you didn’t see Catty. Bedrooms, Mancave, dungeon, oubliette.
So she didn’t step on the spring-loaded trap door.
See? I told you our Catty was far too smart to fall for that.
Silly GB. You can’t get CaItty with a mantrap. She’s a lady.
Gee, I hope the spa will be heated when I visit. And the slave boys well-oiled.
D’oh! I knew there was something I forgot…
There may be an oil shortage.
I’ve ordered several shipping crates so I can tip boiling oil on NTO every time she follows me to the clothesline.
yesterday she made 7 trips to the fence in the space of ten minutes.
You do the math, my cauldron won’t be able to keep up with demand.
Fifi let the oil run out? As if! She probably has whole kegs of it in the oubliette.
Meanwhile, I am currently nomming happily on fudge. Not my own, but my favourite macadamia fudge from the Nut Factory. Thank you, thank you, thank you darling girl! Aust Post did try to ruin it by dropping it in a puddle, (the card was still wet), but the magnets weren’t affected. Suck on that, Aust Post! I have cleared all the crappy real estate/plumber/takeaway magnets off the fridge to make space for witty cries for help/warnings/life philosophies. What a fabulous present! And what a fabulous girl you are, Morgana. I love you soooo much! MWAH!
Yay, our parcels must have found each other & huddled together for safety in the holding room.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying your BD, Catty.
Mwah!
I’m sure it’s not a patch on your fudge, Catty – but those of us with no skill time or patience do as we must.
I’m glad you like the magnets – Q gave me a vampire set. If we combined them we could have drunken vampires.
Ah vanttt oo suckkkk youuuur Vodka….
*Drools*
It seems funny to you, but I’ve dated a few drunken vampires. They’re worse than bass players.
Are any of them currently homeless & capable of paying ridiculous amounts of rent?
I staked them all on my way out the door. Sorry!
They should never have trusted you. Suckers.
Boom tish!
ho ho.
I have literally got nothing. THis week back at work has been a nasty shock. Everyone’s gone troppo over the break, and now they’re calling us.
This must make you miss the days when you could just eye them over the desk top, write out a script for lithium & xanax, and say ‘go home, take the entire contents with a bottle of scotch, and call me in the morning if there’s been no change.’
Have you seen the price of scotch lately? There’s never any change.
It does make me miss the days when I would go home and drink a bottle of scotch myself. Knitting isn’t quite taking the edge off,
Hm. Knitting needles. Are they sharp enough for staking Zed, or anything I see in my driveway that I might accidentally mistake for Zed?
They’re bamboo, so by my interpretation of the Lore they’ll off a vampire if you position them properly.
For Ombies you might want tempered steel.
Maybe I’ll test all that out on Irma.
Pass the chocolate biscuits, and the Winchester. I’ve got some rocking on the porch to do.
You can have the rifle but someone ate all the Tim Tams. Who taught the Wildebeest to open the fridge?
It looks like he used a crowbar.
Sigh. Back to Wholesale Appliance Spares I go.
I don’t think I told you, one of the fridge door shelves spectacularly failed the other day (caught 2 x 3L milks, missed the sweet chilli sauce). It was Thursday arvo, round 3. Hopped on-line and ordered a replacement – not without smurfing around, Samsung website spectacularly unhelpful –
AND BY THE TIME I GOT HOME FROM WORK THE NEXT DAY IT WAS WAITING IN MY GARAGE!
How’s that for service? I tried to give them multiple kudos on social media but they don’t seem to have a presence. Perhaps that’s their secret?
Wow. You must have stepped into the twilight zone there, MM.
I started cleaning my fridge last week – I’ve done the belly of it but have yet to work my way through the shelves & the freezer. I’m pretty sure all that’s holding it together is the mildew, erk.
If you need any new shelves, etc., I can’t recommend them more highly. Tell your friends!
Good to know.
Good to see all you gals yesterday, too.
Your love & support means the world to me.
Apologies for being subdued.
I am glad I snuck out into the horrible, horrible heat to see you all.
Good thing I left when I did, though.
I had to fish Miss Kitteh out of the hottest corner of the house & shove her into the AC when I got in, so I’m glad I didn’t stay out any longer.
Normally I can shove them into the cool & the dark of the dungeons when I’m out but that just doesn’t feel safe any more. You can pop the roller-door open with a crowbar & after her antics this Xmas I wouldn’t put anything past her.
Morgana I had a dream that you said ‘Flot came back!’
So I hope that comes true.
Cats. They are worse hearbreakers than men, when all is said & done.
xoxo
Fingers crossed. I feel much calmer this time, it’s obvious whereever he is and whatever he’s doing he can look after himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes back when he needs feeding up and a bit of loving.
Cats are worse – I trust my cats. Hehehe .
And at least he’s got his collar & tag on with your phone number, so whoever is aiding & abetting his adventures can see that he’s got a home & he’s loved. I still think it’s a family that holiday from Brisbane.
It makes sense, although knowing Flot’s nature I’m more on the side of leading a pack of ferals in the storm water drains, killing for sport.
Poor Jet. having to turn to that slavering hound for brotherly comfort.
Let’s hope the murderous rampage ends soon & Flot comes home for a cuddle & a good feed.
Jet actually seems as happy as a weasel. Maybe Flot’s been holding him back, all these years …
It’s what siblings do.
Very true.
Agreed.
I didn’t know Flot was AWOL again. Sheesh, he’s worse than a teenager. One of these might help, Madam. http://www.trackmycat.com/ I hear tell they work on teenagers too.
If he ever comes home again we’ll stick one on him. As Gigantor said, “he obviously has somewhere better to be.” I like to think of him as ruling a like-minded gang of semi-ferals in the storm water drains. Or, as a local friend pointed out, perhaps stopping some crazy cat person from killing again.
Who needs to contemplate murder when the ATO are so willing to enact retribution on the deserving at one’s request?
NTO seems dispirited. She’s in there with the blinds drawn, painting, and she didn’t even bother coming out to eavesdrop on the builder when he came out to measure up the courtyard this morning.
Naughty Flot. I find the perfect home for him & he runs away.
Cats. They can be such ungrateful bastards.
Jet is still an absolute darling. We fight over who gets to cuddle him. And he even puts up with Slobber of Love from the hound.
Huzzah to the defeat of NTO!
Here’s hoping.
With 40,000 tip offs per year for SMSF fraud/breaches, I don’t expect the ATO to get to her in a hurry.
Still, you’d think the line ‘9 flats’ would draw their attention.
Can you imagine how much money they could fleece off her for charging her tax at 46% over the two years she’s been there instead of 15% or whatever it is?
I’m confident that the ATO would have some sort of system for prioritising attention to the more serious breaches that are brought to their attention.
You’ve got to think ‘9 flats’ would send up at least that many red flags on their ‘Sic ’em’ radar.
I can’t brain that sum. I have the occupationally induced dumb.
(Stealing that)
I think the technical definition is ‘a feckload’.
You don’t need a feckload to have the dumb. I haven’t done anything productive for two days, and I’m still struggling to be thinkative. On a positive note, my couple of days of scurrying about pointlessly flapping my hands like an old spinster has left the Boss shaking his head in despair. He has even begun to do something about his week’s worth of filth. “Kids, wash the dishes! Kids, take out the rubbish! Kids, put away all these shoes!” Not that they actually did any of that stuff, but it’s the thought that counts, bless him.
What was he doing trying on your shoes while you were gone, Catty?
did Greybeard come over with a bottle of Scotch?
It was the Wildebeest. He’s trans-curious. And a real bitch when he’s drunk all the port.
Not only all the port, but all the starboard as well.
Catty, as usual your puns make me keel over.
xpost. this is also funny
Boom tish!
Catty was just in Queensland, folks. If you missed her “Hot Flushes 2015” tour, you should be kicking yourself right about now.
Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Exciting times eh? I do hope the ATO rocks up in a tank and busts her door down. Or is that only the Qld police? We’ve done nothing interesting here except ferry around some old friends and have some fun. She’s about our age but he’s 84. I’ve known him for over 30 years and this time was a bit private-tearing-up sad. He’s always rushed madly from project to project – not always wisely – but always having fun. A few months back though he had a stroke and while he seems OK at first, you realise his short term memory isn’t too good. Her mum is 100 in a couple of months and has mild dementia, just enough to need constant care from her daughter. So they’ve been a couple forever but can’t live together while her mum’s around. Now it looks like our lovely friend (she’s nasty enough that you’d all like her) will go from years of caring for mum to caring for her partner. Bummer and also poo.
On the bright side, Fifi and I were repeatedly attacked by a small fierce tiger yesterday. It growled and roared and pounced on us to everyone’s satisfaction. Also had giggling hugs where she tries to burrow into my neck when grandma is coming to get her. Asked daughter if we could have another one and she said they’re trying AWFULLY HARD and if I had any suggestions…? I ran away.
Don’t bother suggesting oysters. The Boss ate a dozen oysters on Sunday, and three of them didn’t work at all.
Speaking of neck burrowing, EB took one look at me and latched on to his mumma for dear life. I think he realised he was in the presence of a much greater evil.
boom-TISH! And EB didn’t try to kill you? Not even a bit? Hmph.
I did wonder why he didn’t want ice-cream, if he’d already burrowed into Morgana’s jugular then that explains that.
Oh and sad news about the elderly friends, GB.
I finally caught up with my vet today when the dog had his check up – he’s missed the kitteh crisis thanks to having one of his own. They’ve been doing palliative care for his FIL and he died on the weekend.
He said it was brilliant to be back in at work & he was enjoying the relative peace & the sanity. 20 consults, 3 hit & run emergencies…so soothing after living with an in-law in a worse state than most of his clients.
When my time comes they’d better have bloody IV nembutal available on medicare or I will be seriously pissed off.
Speaking of people you’d hate to have living with you, you definitely don’t mind putting me up before Easter, GB?
I hear the spa will be up and running …
Hmph and double hmph. We look forward to having you MM but don’t hold your breath re that spa. Evil object that it is. Actually we’ve enjoyed all our guests, including the last ones. It was a bit sad but also great to catch up and take them fun places. Tomorrow we’re having a visit from friends of Hairy Greybeardson’s. I knew them on line for ages before he started getting friendly with her sister which means they’re now my potential daughter in law’s sister and brother-in-law. Tis a very small world at times.
I don’t think I understood that and I read it three times. Should I bring some placecards and name tags?
No no, I’ll just draw up a “family tree”. If I can get it sorted myself. But I’m sure that these people are arriving tomorrow and that neither of them is in a relationship with my son. I hope.
You’d do better to bring MacGyver so he can use chewing gum and a paper clip to break you out of the oubliette.
No, no … I have my wiles for that. And if my wiles fail me I have my homebaked ninjas.
Wiles? Oh, you’re going to take your top off, aren’t you? Hmmm…. that may work – but given Greybeard’s predilection for tasty noms, you should probably make the ninjas your first option.
Out of all of these different topic themes the only one I can focus on is Easter (Red Tulip Rabbit drool) & the Acland Street cake shops.
Speaking of spas, we got our system changed over to a salt water chlorinator & I absolutely loathe the smell of it. I know it’s meant to be better and yada yada yada but I still feel like I’ve been sent to the gas chamber every time we set foot in it.
I am trying to rejig my day so that I can get to the coast & back again before the rain sets in. Gorgeous house, deets at my blog, but OMG my heart just sings at the prospect of escaping from Freak Street & living in the hinterland.
BBL, when the rain sets in.
Oh lovely cool soggy sogginess, how I do love thee.
Oooh … I love it. It has trees and it is such a long way away from the neighbours.
Catty, if my tits were going to have any effect on GB I think they would have worked by now. I was thinking of talking until he let me free for the joy of having me shut up.
So that’s who I gave the Ninja-Bread men cutters to.
I really must start keeping a register of what I give & to whom.
My brain, honestly.
The house was lovely.
The agent said that it’s been overpriced & they would accept any offer over 600.
I think that’s still overpriced, so we’ll wait & see just how desperate they are.
It was good for my head to get out into the hills & there’s always stuff that comes onto the market after Australia Day.
There’s usually a big crop of boomers who’ve spent the last 2 months looking after their grandchildren while the parents work & by Australia day they’re all going ‘Smurf this, it’s time to sell up & move to a one bedroom unit in Ephraim Island where there’s No Room At The Inn.’
We just had two invisible friends and their three kids (9, 4-but nearly 5, and 2) for the afternoon & dinner. They played in the cubby (can you say BRAINS?), bounced on the trampoline, played with the sand table and everything else. The parents will have no trouble getting them to sleep tonight and you have to like kids who want to barricade themselves in a cubby and fight off zombies. Well, one oldish zombie anyway. Where do they learn these things?
I don’t mind the barricading and the zombie slashing. It’s when they raid my bug-out bag and steal my cans of bacon that I get irritable.
Mmmm … tactical bacon.
The concept of visitors reminds me that I’m out of bacon and bullets.
Never mind.
I’ve used the big guns on NTO – not that she’d know – and yesterday when I futched the Bloke from the train we saw her scurrying around the front yard in the rain, in her trench coat & hoodie & wellies, doing what looked to be inventory with a clipboard & some very official looking Asian clerical type in tow.
I wondered if she’s doing inventory for her next BASS statement & the Bloke agreed that’s what it looks like – he thinks she was out in the rain counting her marigolds.
Heh heh heh.
Yeah if the ATO tell her to Feck Orf I don’t know what she’ll do with that garden. You’d need to raze it & put turf down to make it manageable, perhaps she’s calculating how many pots she’ll need to transplant her preciousses & how big a moving van she’ll need to take them with her to the Prison Farm.
Prison farm, hey? Sorry to say this, but even if I were on death row, I wouldn’t eat anything that woman had grown. After five minutes with her, I reckon the other inmates would say the same thing… right before they lure her to the shower stalls for her ‘initiation’. Preferably performed by a big, butch matriarch named Barb. Pleasant thought, isn’t it?
No!
I might just skip my shower tonight.
*shudder*
I don’t think she takes showers, I think she saves water by rushing outside & filling up that 9l plastic watering can from the garden tap.
That would explain much of the manic rushing in & out & blasting of the tap & banging of the screen door. And also why all the tenants either side of her old flat fled at the first opportunity.
I’m glad of her for one reason only. She makes me feel completely and utterly sane.
Testify, Sista.
I’m surprised you can make any claim to sanity at all after going out in the heat today to peddle bacon.
OMG, hot! It was even hot up at the top of the mountains at Bonogin.
The Bloke wasn’t overly taken with that house – too much work, no ocean views, too far to drive to the beach. So we cruised around & looked at the usual array of horror builds that the south coast has to offer. A few that we’ve considered have gone under contract – no great loss. When I got home I discovered that a few that had sold three weeks ago are now saying ‘contract collapsed’ – that seems to be the way of it. A couple of weeks of rain & a swarm of lice-carrying blubber jellyfish tend to do that to contracts on the old coast at this time of year.
It was a lovely day to cruise around, aside from the heat. The dog was pretty happy to get away from the cats & to have so many opportunities to scavenge chips & bits of bacon off the footpath in the sidewalk cafes. Perhaps I should try snuffling crushed Macca’s chips off the pavement & see if it’s as euphoric an experience as the dog makes it out to be.
What were you saying about sanity & proximity to NTO, MM?
Today’s guilty pleasure is that I discovered burnt caramel & pecan gelato at the gelato bar at Coolangatta…Yummy yummy yumbo.
Not so sweet or so sickening as the salted caramel flavours & wonderfully nutty.
Catty we drove past a pool shop & I was sorely tempted to stop, they had blow up pool lilos in the shape of a thong.
Gorgeous! I need a new pool float. The kidlets managed to shred the one I got a month ago. They refused to say how, but as they weren’t in the pool (or even outside) when it happened, I probably don’t want to know.
“a swarm of lice-carrying blubber jellyfish”. This is why I avoid salt water at all times. And people get picky about a few rats?
Gigantor just yesterday refused to go to the beach: “Swimming is a fancy name for getting sunburnt, wet.”
Greybeard, I’m pretty sure the swarm of lice-carrying blubber jellyfish is an euphemism for Victorian tourists.
Madam, Gigantor is right, but he failed to mention the sand. Damned sand gets into everything.
Cknoath. Mostly my bed.
Well I was trying to be nice because the VIC tourists do keep the dog supplied with his quota of scattered & downtrodden bits of Maccas.
Poor Riley. You should be more careful of his diet. Get him the crust of a Big Boy Pie.
I think this is why he loves the prospect of a car trip so much, he knows there’s a good chance he’ll get to eat something off the pavement that he knows he’d be strictly forbidden from eating at home. Especially if the Bloke is left holding his leash while I wander off.
Since it was so hot yesterday I spent some time on the internet expanding our house hunt into other suburbs at the Gold Coast that we aren’t really that interested in (10 minutes radius of the train) & I fear for my eyesight after suffering the glare off all those white tiles.
I know you’ve got that plague up the north coast too.
I cannot for the life of me fathom who would want white tiles. No wonder there’s so much drug addiction & alcoholism at both ends of the coast.
Urgh.
Leave enough dirt stuck to them and they resemble slate.
All that means is that when I slip over on them – and with my nerve damaged foot & their failure to respect any of the regulations about non-slip ratings – the wound will go septic before I get the chance to pick up something anti-biotic resistant in the Staph family from the local horsepiddles.
Back to school today.
I’d say that I’m looking forward to a reduction in screams, but the new family in Jen’s house have three little screamers that don’t look to be anywhere near school age to me. They’ve bonded with the woman a few doors down who has children who scream just as loud as she does.
It’s a match made in heaven, I must tell Jen.
I’ve got you covered for antibiotics. It’s so hot and humid the bread is mouldy before I can bring it home from Woolies.
Terrible screamer news. Luckily it’s hot enough to justify the aircon. And you’ll be gone soon. Huzzah!
Yes, and thankfully the Bloke has had enough days off over Xmas listening to the jibber jabber of the idiots that he’s supportive of me using the AC as a Cone of Silence.
Mercifully the Screamer family have installed AC so that muffles their racket a fair bit. NTO has been cocooning herself in the AC in that downstairs flat, too.
I’m still boggling at the silence in there, it’s not like her not to be making a horrendous noise. If the ATO isn’t crawling up her arse then she must have more leases due for renewal & she might be trying not to piss the tenants off with More Of The Same.
Well, I’m waiting for the washing machine repair man, today.
He said if he didn’t make it here on Friday he would be here after the school run first thing today.
Wish me luck, I am so not in the mood for going out to replace white goods.
If the washing machine has karked, imagine what you could do to NTO’s fragile grip on reality by using a tub and slapping the wet clothes against concrete in the back yard? Had a small BBQ at D#2’s place yesterday. It was a bit cool in the morning but got up to a sunny 21 which was great. Now we have two empty rooms again I’m laying more carpet tiles and setting up a bookbinding room for herself in one and we’re putting a chair/double futon thingy in the other so visiting nephews and nieces can find a quiet spot to read away from boring adults.
Surely they’d prefer a pilates studio and a home gym?
I’ve tried banging things loudly beside the fence when she’s behind it clad in Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak (or so she thinks) but she has the memory span of a goldfish & sooner or later she drifts back.
It is odd having her cocooned in that front flat & that she’s stopped the obsessive stalking. I do get the feeling that she’s got bigger problems on her mind than how many pegs I’m clipping onto the clothesline.
It’s only been a week since I wrote to the ATO, surely they can’t have jumped down her throat that quickly?
I still think she’s scrubbing the mould off the walls downstairs in Bog Hollow.
We all know how she loves bleach.
Um, these are my relatives. Given the choice of exercise equipment or a pile of books + comfy couch, I’m pretty sure which way they’ll jump. Also my brain needed bleach this morning when Moko proposed pouring sun screen into the bath, rolling around in it and going outside for some nude lawn mowing. That image will haunt me for a long time…
Me too. I just can’t get it out of my head and wondered if there was something wrong with me. Since you’re the same, then … oh. Smurf.
Heh heh heh
Yikes. Was that on FB or twitter?
I was kind of busy tending to the washing machine disaster yesterday. And I removed myself into the cone of silence to avoid the sound of the tree-chipper parked outside & the guys putting a new roof on across the road 2 doors down.
The repair man eventually showed up & pronounced the machine to be terminally ill. All of the plastic holding the wires together has perished & is brittle & snapping off. Useless Korean POS.
So I have to go out today to look at new machines.
He’s told me to get a Simpson & one that’s got the least amount of computerisation as possible as computers & washing machines do not make for a happy coupling.
Meh to dead white goods.
So, the Samsung sings no more.
Let’s hope I can find one that’s less vocal, down at the home-maker centre today.
Yep. We had the same advice a zillion years ago. Bought a Kleenmaid which gives you some idea of how long ago. It was a big simple industrial type model with a couple of rotary dials and a stainless steel tub. Then came the flood and it was submerged to the lid in liquid mud. So I hosed it out with a gurney and sprayed WD-40 in the motor, gearbox etc and let it dry in the sun. Worked fine until we moved down here – although it did make a funny grinding noise for the next three years.
I have a lovely Electrolux front loader with stainless steel tub that has done at least one load a day for 6 years or more and is still awesome. Touch wood.
Sigh.
I’ve spent much of the day researching the damned things and I’m more confused now than before I started.
I subscribed to Choice but when I go to find the buyers comments on their top rating machines, the GD things get a bollocking from the punters.
The trouble with the internet is that there’s so much information out there & no way of knowing what of it is bollocks, half the time.
I want a top loader with no agitator, I know they aren’t as efficient as the front loaders but we quite often have to wash dooners and such due to cat vomit.
Also all those cat snugs, which get very, very fluffy.
So the big bellied 8 kilo top loaders are much more manageable for that.
I might have to ignore it till tomorrow & just walk the earth smelling somewhat rank till I’ve figured it out.
We’re planning to go to Alex’s wake tomorrow night – after everyone else has sat through a Russian orthodox funeral & then sweated in the sun watching him go into the ground, I can’t possibly smell worse than the better friends than I that can sweat it out while his mother has histrionics over his grave.
The only thing that tempts me to go to that is the picture of horror I could paint for you all afterwards. Alex would so enjoy it if I ballasted his funeral with caricature but I fear it’s more than I could cope with.
Particularly in the same week that I need to dig a hole for the Samsung.
That’s just far too much to bear.
So much death already this year. I hope something sprouts soon.
Choice is great, but I’d stick to their recommendations. They test the bloody things in the lab. A lot. With no axe to grind. You’ll go mental with each individual person’s comments about one interaction with one machine. That’s just one person’s unscientific opinion and they may or may not be batshit.
Indeed. I had been thinking the same thing.
I suspect the bad reviews are written by the sales guys, as invariably the products they recommend instead are the ones that Hardly Normal tell you are their best sellers.
Happy news though.
I did some googling yesterday, while I was on the DA site looking at NTO’s folly.
The DA for the boarding house next door to her finally got approved, albeit at a reduced number of extra flats they were proposing, (down from 5 to 3) and with conditions like parking spaces, and replacing all of the services – sewer, water, electricity. Standard council response to any unit development & the Asian slumlords, I suspect, will not be amenable to such. He probably needed the income from 5 flats to justify the expense of building it. DAs are cheap, & his plans looked like they were drawn up by a CAD operator in the middle of India.
Building is expensive, so they won’t like that decision.
No wonder the fire trucks were called out there in the middle of the night over Xmas. If the Greeks don’t torch it, the owners will, for sure.
I read some of the submissions complaining about Bog Hollow 2 – there were stacks of them, all running to the same theme of ‘We hate this dump it is full of riff raff, it should be torn down not extended’ – and the most outraged submission was none other than NTO’s.
Interestingly hers was the only one not done online – she sent a three page letter full of irrelevant whining to the local member about how she lives next door & they shouldn’t be allowed to build a fence, much less an extension, as it will block out her lovely view into the Greek’s gardens & it will also block her view into the houses & gardens up on the hill in front of us. And, worse, not only will she lose her view into her neighbours’ properties but the proposed extension to Bog Hollow 2 would mean that the tenants would then be overlooking her garden & Oh The Outrage, she will lose her privacy.
There’s more of the same for the next three pages, if anyone is having a dull day & needs a giggle tell me & I will email you the link.
I LOLed all the way through it & thanked heaven for the Trang family who are about to become her newest target thanks to council approving their DA.
One of her arguments was that no development should take place in the street as there is nowhere for the tradesmen to park their vehicles, they will take spaces on the street that by rights belong to the residents. And there is a terrible problem with the tenants at Bog Hollow 2 parking everyone in, as things stand. Multiple occupancy is bad because the tenants will be squeezed in like sardines & council should order that a resident caretaker must be required to be on site to prevent any bad elements taking hold.
LOL LOL LOL.
Perhaps she thought it would be private – not so, they’ve scanned it & chucked it on the DA site, along with her name & signature. Very handy as evidence if the ATO manage to bust her for SMSF fraud. Or if the nut-catchers ever need hard evidence that she needs to be shot full of thorazine & locked in a cage.
I’m still chuckling about that.
I’ll be surprised if any of the DAs for the boarding houses come to anything – it’s going to be an expensive effort that will take a long time to get any sort of return & as the land value increases by 50G per year around here, it’s all too easy to let the dumps rot & then sell up for the 5 year turnover.
Either way we’re leaving, so if the ghetto does expand & all these ghastly people dig in like ticks, so be it. At least we won’t have to live with it.
Meh.
Russian funeral day.
Our builders were scheduled to be here today but the rain has meant delays so they’ll be here next week.
Unsurprising, but that shatters my excuse for attending the church today. I know Linda won’t begrudge it if I go white-goods shopping instead, & we just go to the wake tonight.
Have a look at dishwashers while you’re there, please?
I strongly suspect mine’s about to go kablooey. All I know is I don’t want the fancy European kind you have to add salt to.
I have a Miele and it’s the best thing we ever bought. You only need to add salt once a year, it comes in tablets and it’s easy as pie.
If you want the number ask me later, I’ve just switched it on & I think all those details are inside.
Remind me to go to Choice & look for you tomorrow, when this ghastly day is over.
I’ve made a decision to go the LG front loader. It’s probably time I faced my neurosis about front loaders, I’m sure I can develop some OCD to rival NTO’s checking that there’s no litters of kittens in there before I seal the lid but meh.
There’s an LG FL in stock at the good guys that is the top performer for Choice & it rivals the 3 grand Miele in performance.
The punters online at the chat sites love it so since everyone is in agreement, I’ll go out there this morning & buy it.
Eh? This is our first dishwasher and I know nothing of this salt-adding business. Any information gratefully received. As for washers, we bought a front loader when we got here, on the “oh sh*t the old machine won’t fit in the laundry and I need one today” principle. Sandy had a Fisher & Paykel that coped with baby stuff so we got one of those. Seems to do a reasonable job but it’s less than a year old, too electronic for my taste and I wouldn’t recommend it until it was at least 5.
And look, I know I’m pathetic, but we had the best day yesterday with Grand Evil. You’ve seen the photo MM but we went to an Op shop with her, then walked along the Yarra and there were ducks! She loves ducks and they were all around her, quacking busily. And going bottom up feeding. Also, though it’s a sekrit down here still, her parents have succeeded in starting another one. Very content.
Huzzah to the Secret Sib! Secret congratulations to all, too … is Sandy feeling well? When I come to stay, I get to play with Grandevil too, right? I recently cleared out some of our kids books and I found a few I think she might enjoy.
Q, I love my front loader. They’re quiet and efficient. Just shut the door and do a head count before you press “start”.
Huzzah for Grandevil Mark II. Give her a hug from us & remind her that the arrival of the second one is the time when the first one gives up all efforts at deception & shows their true nature.
Bwahahahahahahaha.
Also Huzzah for the ducks because my dog is quite fond of them too & can sit for hours & watch them fleeing from the snapping turtles in the UQ lakes.
As for the front loader, I may put a sticker beside the start button saying ‘Before pressing start, go & count cats.’ Ronald was the one who liked to crawl inside white goods. Fridge, freezer…loopy animal – so I would never have contemplated the front loader while he was still with us. The Bear has more sense than to crawl into a confined space & Tilly has a shocking aversion to anything mechanical – aside from her water fountain & the AC, both of which she will yowl about until they’re switched on. So the current batch of cats should be safe.
I’ve bought the LG that rated top of Choice’s list & if it lets me down I will happily go online to the washing machine chat sites & give it a bollocking.
It’s due to arrive today, so I have a long list of chores to amuse me until the delivery truck rolls up to install it & to cart the dead one away. they wouldn’t give me a time.
Sigh.
they just call an hour before to say they are OTW.
MM I have printed up Choice’s DW comparison list so you can see how they’re rated from the top down.
In the end that’s how I worked it, and then I cross-referenced with what was available to buy, & punter reviews gleaned from googling ‘Samsung Singalong WOMD666 Review’. That’s where you find people snarking about them if they aren’t happy. So that’s in an envelope ready to go, I will post it when I take the dog out this evening.
Anyway, I’d suggest start with that, and when you narrow your selection down let me know which products you’d like to compare & I’ll do you a print-out of the choice report on that.
I started off doing it backwards to what I’ve advised you, & having learned from the experience, I can tell you that’s a bad idea.
Every brand has its problems, but Simpson is the one that has them the least often. LG are a reputable brand, though, They do the job and you don’t hear a lot of complaints. A friend of mine bought one a while ago. It was her first front loader, and she is surprised and impressed. The only complaint is that her little doggie suddenly developed separation anxiety when she started using the new machine. His day bed is in the laundry, and the vet says she’s imagining things. Doggie is now on antidepressants, but personally I would have shifted his day bed to the garage, or the enclosed patio.
Thanks, Q – much appreciated.
How good is this election result? Can. Not. Keep. From. Smirking!
Weird! The cat that slept on the top loader is already on anti-psychotics, Catty, so perhaps his mental health will improve?
We spent all day yesterday running the new front loader & we can’t believe how quiet and painless it is. It sings at the end but it’s brief & mercifully it’s not such an invasive 4yro on the piano number. We’ve still got more washing to do today & the new batch of tiled & carpeted split-level horror for sale on the gold coast was not enough to entice us down there.
Besides, we had to vote.
The Bloke only went there for the sausage stall, he snarled at all four candidate-pushers equally, wrote ‘Donald Duck’ on his ballot form, and headed straight for the P&C BBQ.
I’m still in shock at the willingness of the punters to restore the ALP after kicking them into the ground & smearing dog poo in their faces three years ago.
The Bloke says that this is a new era of schizophrenia & every three years from now until the end of the world, we will see a change of gubbermint in Qld.
Anyway, Huzzah to the end of Captain Clownshoes.
Here’s hoping the first thing they do is kick the chief justice out of his big cushy chair and into the unemployment line.
I drove the dog down to the rowing sheds at West End for walkies & a chat with the club ladies at dawn the other day, and I saw him shuffling towards me on his morning jog, looking like a homeless wino zombie. He gave me a long, suspicious look, the look of ‘I recognise you. You are someone from my past who knows something about me I don’t want anyone to know & if only I could figure out who you were & what you know I’d stomp on you like a bug & do my best to discredit you.’
Most of my ex-parents light up in smiles when they see me, even the ones that thought I was a nutter, because their kids loved me & that ends up being the memory that over-rides the eccentric dress & hair. Well, that and the current generation of piercings & tatts have probably worn them down a bit.
So for an ex-parent to give me a suspicious ‘I know you from somewhere & you are registering Danger Will Robinson signals in my pre-dawn confused brain’ – is a worry.
Let’s hope they kick him to the kerb as Priority One.
I hope Tony Abbott got a strong message from our results, and that message is “fuck off to England if you’re so taken with their monarchs”.
I can’t for the life of me understand all this furore about Sir Prince Phillip. I cared as little for that announcement as I do about any of the other Strayaday “honours”. Some unimportant dickhead gave some other unimportant dickhead a badge. So what? In fact, the whole thing seems so trivial that I have to believe there is something else going on. Is this whole media hissy fit a smokescreen so the LNP can sneak unpopular legislation through the senate? Is it a smear campaign by Labor to discredit the LNP in the minds of the unwashed masses so they vote anti LNP in the QLD polls? (if so, that one worked rather well, I think – but I also think it was unnecessary; Can Do managed to smear himself quite well on his own). Is it blatant backstabbing by some senior LNP minister who has decided they want the King Pig spot at the trough? Or has the media really, honestly, got nothing else to report on?
I suspect it was All His Own Work. After all, he’s confessed as much in an unusually straightforward statement and Ms Credlin is a republican. But I think Tones fancies himself as another Menzies. Old Sir Bob was one of those now rare Australians who saw England as the mother country and infinitely superior to here. He wrote dreadful poetry to the Queen, wanted to call our new decimal currency the Royal (I’ve kept a news clipping of that) and retired to Blighty as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports no less. I guess Her Maj was a bit flattered by it all. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Tones nicked off to England when he leaves politics and hopes like hell for a reciprocal gong.
He really wanted to call the Decimal Dollar a Royal??
With Cheese, one assumes/
And pickles. The dill variety.
Boom tish!
Catty’s here all week, folks. Don’t have a Quarter Pounder, McDonalds bastes everything in orang-utan tears.
Leunig said it best.
Khan GB, that explanation is the first one I’ve heard that makes sense.
Arise, Sir Rabbit!
Hmmm… if he wants to emulate Sir Bob, why does the picture show a Holt impersonation? Cute budgie, by the way.
It is a little remembered fact that the late Sir Robert Gordon Menzies KT, AK, CH, FAA, FRS, QC, POQ and DCB, was a highly successful male model and body builder in his younger days. Often seen in his trademark Royal Scarlet posing pouch, he was known as Big Bob long before his political nicknames of Pig-Iron Bob and Ming. I personally believe that Tones’ Speedos are a tribute to his hero.
I’ll take him for a surf. Many of the great white sharks off our east coast are professionally affiliated with our company.
That reminds me of a story I heard recently about KRudd. Apparently he used to have brown hair, but it turned white overnight. He went to his GP, who gave him a beaker of a brown substance, and told him to drink it up. “Pwaurgh!” gasped KRudd. “That tastes like shit!”
“Spot on”, said the GP. “Your levels were dropping, so I was giving you a top up”.
Hehehe. Politics are funny again, now we won the election.
Yes & now we get to see the ALP suck up to Katter & Peter Wellington.
I don’t mind the occasional hung parliament, in fact, I’m quite fond of watching them get strung up by the short & curlies trying to placate some wing nut whose just waiting for the right moment to impale them on an under-ripe Phililpino banana.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/its-not-the-voters-fault-you-idiots-20150202-133tp1.html
Well said, JB. Although I’m a died-in-the-wool red I’m not sure AP can do it. I hope there’s some sensible power behind her throne.
I think JB’s article is as much a warning to the new mob as it was an ‘I told you so’ to the old mob. Not that any of them will listen. Come the revolution, they’ll all end up in the hangi pit.
The CFMEU stands firmly behind her throne so she’s going to have fun with them on her left & Katter on her right.
We’re going to need a bigger hangi pit.
If Katter’s going in the hangi pit, I’m having the salad. Ewwww!
Well there’ll be plenty of extra foliage to garnish the bowl, Catty. I just heard Katter Junior on the radio expressing his enthusiasm for land clearing and his lack of it for animal welfare, and how he expects the ALP to sign up for that.
Oh Queensland.
You’ve done it again.
Happy news, I survived my trip to the dentist today.
One very small carrie, and he didn’t have to drill.
He sprinkled it with pixie dust & said it would feel better.
And, after topping off a box of smarties & a packet of chips to celebrate, I certainly do.
Smarties and chips? Good gracious, don’t tell me Aunt Irma’s due again! Didn’t the bitch just leave?
No, she’s coming back. I’ve got the usual lower abdominal twinges and urge to kill.
Me too.
Well, the concreters are due here today & tomorrow to resurface the driveway. I left notes out yesterday asking all the freaks to move their cars & so of course the usual offenders are still in place (the lesbians are back).
I actually don’t give a flying blue **** whose car gets mashed by a bobcat today. If these idiots want to take their chances with concreters & they don’t run outside & move when the machines turn up, I do not care.
That guy that killed his pregnant girlfriend at the Gold Coast was a concreter – employed by the Bloke’s firm, no less – so if the dykes want to take on one of his brotherhood, good luck to them.
I’m quite sure they all carry CFMEU issue tomahawks in their glove boxes & as such there’s absolutely no need for me to waste my time asking anyone nicely to move their car out of harm’s way.
Those lesbians really are some of the stupidest people in the street. They actually don’t get it when I’m trying to help them to sleep in and ignore it – they’d rather get woken at dawn while they’re enjoying sloth & unemployment & come out here & rant and rave about their right to park wherever they want & how nobody’s right to do work on their property trumps their right to be a moron.
Ha. Well what do you know.
One of them just came out & moved her shiny new work car.
I don’t think she’ll have it for long, I’ve heard that the company is due to go into receivership. I’m sure she’s heard that too, so I guess she doesn’t want to test the company’s patience by getting it coated in concrete splatter on her first week back.
OMG, really? That’s shocking. Concretors tend to be batshit, though. They blame the dust but I blame all the uppers to get going and then the beer to wind down.
Form worker. They’re a rung higher on the scale of insanity. And yeah, Varsity Lakes, in the old bit that used to be called ‘Stephens’. It’s got a bit of a reputation for harbouring some of the nastiest DV on the Gold Coast, but there’s plenty of it down there.
Poor kid. I think the papers said she was South American.
I think that when someone kills their spouse, the family of the deceased should have far more say in the punishment. I’d even go so far as to say they should be permitted to enact it, too. You think concreters are batshit crazy? Try riling a South American. If I were that concreter, I’d be shaking in my steelcaps about now.
Yep. He’s probably grateful he’s tucked away in a remand centre where her brother can’t get to him & show him a thing or two about how to use a tomahawk.
I would think they were more skilled with cane knives … but I’m in favour.
Huh. I’ve been reading some of the election follow-up stories. There are a lot of media types who could only be improved by a setting-to with a cane knife.
I thought the only story in the news was that idiot journalist who just got deported from Egypt. There’s about 2km of twitter feed devoted to him in my timeline & the stories about domestic violence & the cuts to programs to help it have been completely buried by it.
I know that Irma is due so I’m crankier than normal but OMFG you’d think these journalists would figure out a thing or two about the hypocrisy of slamming a foreign country’s evil ways in order to distract from the problems we have right here at home.
So if you want to complain about unbalanced reporting, take a number.
http://www.sbs.com.au/comedy/article/2015/02/04/julia-gillard-rushed-hospital-after-overdosing-schadenfreude
I’d laugh, Madam, but:
1 – I hate her, and wouldn’t be remotely upset if she died.
2 – Laughing is reserved for days when I’m not beset with an overpowering (or should that be ova-powering?) urge to maim anyone within sword’s reach.
3 – I have to clean the toilet today, and that’s a buzzkill right there.
4 – I have a mouthful of bananana cream cake, and laughing would mean I have to clean the computer as well.
But on the upside, you had cake. So no-one has to die today, right? Right?
BTW, how do I get from Tullamarine to Ringworm? Will it be more than a grand in a cab?
2nd best way is a Skybus to Spencer St Station and train to Ringworm, with pickup from the station. Best is we pick you up at Tullamarine if we’re free and I can find the right spot.
http://www.skybus.com.au
We hired a car last time we were down there, but the public transport into the CBD looked really efficient & we navigated the trams/trains for most of our travel through the city itself. We only needed the hire car because we planned to go to Mornington & with all of the Bloke’s points, the cost stacked up.
But I would say, ask Khan GB for advice as their eagerness for visitors may well stretch to collecting them from the airport or at very least from wherever the sky bus dumps them once you reach the CBD.
The traffic is horrible so I’d vote for the skybus, I think it has it’s own flyway so it can avoid the gridlock.
And yes that twitter meme was hilarious.
There’s another one running about stupid things Tony said about the KRudd gubbermint which now apply to him & they are hilarious.
I’m coming i on the Sunday evening. If you pick me up I could take us all to dinner somewhere exotic (i.e. in Melbourne)? From Tullamarine or Ringworm, whichever is best for you and Fifi.
I’m not an Orienteer but I’m pretty confident I can get from an airport to a shuttle and then a train station. I’ll ask someone heavily pierced for directions.
Try to find someone with a map tattooed on their body showing you how to get to Acland Street.
From what I’ve heard of St Kilda that should be possible.
Look we might escort MM to Acland St but only to look in the windows.
Mind she doesn’t have Irma along for the ride. She’ll punch out the windows if she needs cake & it’s in a glass cage.
Only cake through glass? No cake in my tummy?
* sulks*
I’m not going on holiday. It sounds more like a detox.
Oh, there WILL be CAEK at some point. I’m not sure, but I think our local San Churro now does ice cream, too.
Now you’ve got me thinking happy thoughts of that gelato place we found at Mornington. It really was the best blood orange sorbet I’ve ever had.
We plan to take the dog out to Woody Point for a wander on the esplanade & breakfast at the cafe that does that fab gelato out there. Irma wants ferrero rocher ice cream for breakfast.
I’ve told her no but like that ever works.
We contemplated going down the coast to look at open houses but there’s not much on offer. The pick of the bunch has had it’s price dropped to a reasonable level now, but it’s a few doors down from the Uniting church & I think I’d rather deal with packs of cyclists than church ladies. Urgh.
I’m keen on the new Redcliffistan plan. For a start, you’d be in easier visiting distance.
I also wonder if it would hold its value better. Parts of the Old Coast have gone a bit “Sons of Anarchy”.
It’s everywhere. That car chase the other day that ended on the tyre spikes in the Tugun tunnel started with the car-jacking at Caboolture, didn’t it?
The concrete truck driver told me they’ve raised their family on acreage out at Moggil, four kids, three on track doing well at school & the eldest is on ice & is so bad they’ve got a restraining order on her for attacking her mother.
God these stories make me so glad I didn’t have children.
We’ve been getting lots of advice from the locals down south about where the nasty pockets are & it’s kind of obvious, from the kind of cars that are parked outside. Besides, given what we’re leaving around here with all the housing commission flats down the road & the students off their heads on party drugs on the weekend, I think we’d just be swapping one set of freaks for another.
We’ll see what happens.
The Bloke thinks they’ll have another two year project for him down the coast when the horsepiddle winds up later on in the year.
And now that we’ve added Mudgeeraba to our list, that’s improved our chances of finding something in a reasonably nice neighbourhood.
Chaz’s uncle lives out there in some elevated breezy spot west of the highway & there’s trees & views & wildlife. It’s the next suburb beside the Stockland hill development at Reedy Creek that we like, but a few km further north of the superquarry so you’d be out of range of their trucks, in there.
Big families are like a batch of pancakes. The first child is usually a bit wonky. Come to think of it, the Teen won’t be a teen any more after April, so I may start referring to her as the Pancake.
Now, I’m sure I heard someone mention gelato. Hand me a spoon.
I would like a crepe wrapped around some dulce de leche gelato, now you come to mention it.
I’m glad you said “big”, Catty. I’m the eldest of three. That’s only “moderate”, right?
We went to Warrandyte markets with D#2 and the Grand Evil this morning. There was cheese and spinach gouzleme and crepe with caramelised apple and lemon juice for the wee one. Also a bottle of Raspberry Indulgence jam, hand made gnocci, heaps of avocados and a blueberry bush. (Urp. ‘scuse me)
Oh and I bought some furniture for the doll’s house. A wooden desk and computer.
heheheheheh.
It needs a doll’s house sized dalek to patrol it, now.
I love blueberry bushes, but I couldn’t eat a whole one.
Proof that cats can’t be trusted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_with_fraudulent_diplomas (Also GE loves blueberries so her ‘Ma’ bought the bush. Sigh.)
But cats are excellent hypnotherapists! You just look deep into their …
…
…
…
mmm, fish.
I want a doctorate. Not for any professional reasons. I just want to be able to say “That’s DOCTOR evil bitch to you”.
I know a cat who can hook you up with one, Catty. Hey, did someone say hook? Mmm …. fish.
A degree from an old Red Dwarf garbage pod with the writing burnt off in places? I’ll take it.
I can give you my degree, Catty. Lord knows I’m not using it.
Yes please. Will my share in the Wildebeest be adequate recompense?
He’s not coming home with me at Easter. Our couch is where Mum and all those fleas sleep/
Fleas. *shudder*
Well, perhaps they’re mites. Who knows?
So long as they’re not Term Mites.
They are Term Mites! Soon they’ll be Easter Holiday Mites, though. Or maybe Vege Mites.
Stalag Mites?
That’s a collective noun for 13 gathered together.
Sounds kinky.
Sodom-mites?
Catamites?
That reminds me of the old joke re the name for our favourite toast spread: Marmite might, but Parwill.
Except that Par didn’t. iSnack 2.0, anyone?
I quite like Vegemite under melted cheese as a snack but that in the jar thing quite frankly freaked me out.
I like bruschetta on sourdough with melted cheese on top. Followed by a chocolate frog.
Oh yeah that’s right Irma is here.
We’re completely at the mercy of our hormones, aren’t we?
Yes. Hormones explain many things in my life. Chiefly, Gigantor and EB.
I wonder how hormones explain cats.
The breeder has a fridge magnet that says ‘if I wanted to hear the pitter patter of tiny feet, I’d put shoes on all my cats.’
heh heh heh.
That’d be more like the sound of the Israeli army coming after you, considering what lurks in her house.
Bloody Aunt Irma. Here we are in a heatwave, and I can’t get in the pool because of that cow.
The Boss recently bought an espresso maker on eBay. I have no idea why. Nor do I understand why Aunt Irma is in love with the thing. I do know this, though. Espresso goes really, really well with Snickers bars. And Mars bars. And Furry Friends. And Bounty. And Kinder Surprise. And Cherry Ripe. I think I ate some other chocolates there, too, but who’s counting?
I never thought I wanted a fancy coffee machine until just now when I had this thought … can the milk frother melt and whip a Milky Way, by any chance?
I am not a coffee fan so that baffles me far more than you, Catty.
I had to go to West End to stock up on my herbal tea mixes yesterday & as usual I got lured in by the Wrap shop (falafel haloumi Yummo) and as the only park available was right outside the Swiss Deli (my other fave shop down there) it seemed only natural to support their business by purchasing a Portuguese custard tart & a piece of chocolate slice. She makes it the old-fashioned school fete style, none of this arty MKR crap.
I stocked the slow cooker last night with veggo lasagne mix so my goal for this afternoon is to make Lasagne.
I reshuffled my orientation stuff to this morning as Irma gave me a headache yesterday & I didn’t want to leave the tradies unprotected while they were banging on the fence that NTO keeps banging on about. She hovered, but thankfully she had a shitload of insurance repair guys out fixing up damage from last year’s ice storm, so she had to prioritise stalking them. The boys should be busy setting up a batten wall 6m away from the boundary, today, and it’s raining, so I think it’s reasonably safe to leave them for a few hours to do a library tour of QUT.
Wish me luck getting our car up the new driveway, it looks quite terrifying & none of us know if our modifications will make it less likely we’ll get the car belly scraped & wedged, or more likely.
eeek.
Only one way to find out. Godspeed and no wedging.
Good luck with the new driveway, but you had an architect do the plans so I’m sure it’s OK, right? I might have missed it but how did his “chat” with NTO work out?
She’s started calling him at work to make insane requests and allegations. Lucky they use CAD and have no pots of ink to spill when they start to twitch.
How on earth did NTO get the Bloke’s number?
NFI
He gave it to her when I flat out refused to deal with her any more & I told him that if he wants to keep the effing house, he gets to deal with her complaints until we hammer the ‘sold’ stake right through her black cankerous heart.
It is my way of deflecting the behaviour, as she pulls out the crazy while he is at work & doesn’t get to see it, & at the end of the day me & the builders are ready to whomp her over the head with a bit of 4×2. So if I report on it, he does the ‘she’s not so bad’ and ‘she’s got a point’ and ‘you’ve really upset her this time’ crap. She knows she can sucker him & I figure the more of her BS he is exposed to, the more he will see through it.
I used the same strategy when his parents were playing conquer & divide – or Triangulation as it’s known in therapy – and it means that I’m not there at the frontline as a buffer zone. As he is the Zen Master Yoda of dealing with crazy, thanks to gruelling years of training by his mother, there’s not much she can do to ruffle his outer appearance of calm.
If she does upset him, I refuse to listen to it, as he’s made so many condescending remarks about my inability to cope with her.
Like I said, that strategy worked a treat with his parents & it wasn’t long at all after I installed that policy that he started to say how much he hates dealing with them & how little time he has for their *problems*.
And technically it’s not an insane allegation, we did complain about her DA. The thing is, she’d assured us not five days earlier that we had every right to complain & she’d understand if we did so. Then, when we did, she rang him in a howling rage accusing us of a ‘campaign of harassment.’
The sum content of our complaints was ‘X, Y & Z does not comply with the building codes. i.e. height, water proofing, setbacks.
Which was rather different to her extended rant in response to the DA that went through for Bog Hollow 2. Didn’t I send you that, Khan GB? That was remiss of me. I’ve just sent it through now.
I’ve been re-reading it, every time I think I might be losing the plot. I love that woman. She makes me feel so normal.
Just read it. On my way north with net and trank gun. Still, you have to admire her total lack of self-reflection and magnificent hypocrisy.
I could go a long way with such an insight deficiency. I am tormented by self-doubt.
Don’t be, Madam. We love you, and none of us suffers effwits gladly.
Aww, shucks. Two churros for you just before Easter!
I dread to think what bizarre behaviour we’ll capture on CCTV when the sparky puts the cameras in. I decided to let her know that there’s a few cameras about, just to discourage the behaviour, so while she was crouched behind the fence I told the boys that we need to keep the garage door down because there’s been a few unsavoury types hanging around. I said we’d had a surf-board stolen (not entirely untrue, that did happen in January one year) & we didn’t want them coming back for more. And that as the new structure was attracting a lot of ‘interest’ from the ferals we had a few cameras up until the sparky can put in a concealed security system.
Best to put up road blocks to stop the behaviour rather than let her think she can get away with it.
I can’t WAIT to see the footage. Can’t GB work out a way to live stream it on your blog? It would be better than You Tube.
Good plan, btw.
Thanks. yeah, the vet said to make the cameras very obvious so that she knows Big Lawyer is watching & I just read some study online saying that criminals are more likely to be deterred by security cameras than anything else. The plod are also asking for locals to register their security cameras so that they can keep a better eye on what the nasties are up to.
As for the footage, I’m planning to sell it to Australia’s Funniest Home Videos.
When she falls off her scritching post & snaps the neck of her femur, the entire country should get the opportunity to savour that.
They’ll put a comical “boooooooing!” soundtrack with it, too, which will be sweet music.
Excellent. I will write a note suggesting that her orbital-vibrator antics should be accompanied by the Benny Hill skit music, too.
Orbital vibrator plus Benny Hill = Near-fatal coffee snort
Hehehe. Now I can’t get that out of my mind. Still, considering where I have to go it’s reasonably appropriate.
And I keep blinking.
That’ll be alcohol withdrawal, Catty. Have a Valium Daiquiri.
Make it a sixpack.
I think you’ll prefer this jeroboam and a really, really long straw
Ah, bugger it. Just fill the bath tub and I’ll get in it.
You don’t mind if the Wildebeest just turned it into a spa?
Ooooh, bubbles! Bring it on!
I have bubbles in my ginger beer.
It is good.
We saw a chick called Bubbles at the Burlesque evening I just attended with my work mates. Sadly, most of it was 50 Shades of Meh.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-johnson/50-shades-of-brown_b_6658876.html
I saw a review of that movie that described the book as ‘Domestic violence portrayed as erotica. Makes Twilight read like Dickens.’
yeah. Pass.
The good routines were old-school. The feathered fans bit and a jiiterbug to “Chantilly Lace”. But there was also lot of the sort of twerking you might see at the back of a Beyonce clip if you accidentally clicked the wrong link on Youtube.
I despise pornography disguised as music videos. The TV networks should be fined for showing Nicki Minaj film clips to children on a Saturday morning.
Makes you pine for the days of Countdown & the relative tameness of Skyhooks & Kiss, doesn’t it?
I certainly do miss Countdown. I would watch it all the time. Especially if they repeated the 70s/80s ones, but even if they had modern stuff – not La Minaj,
I just typed an extremely harsh opinion about Molly Meldrum and had to delete it. I’m in a bit of a tizz today, (long story that starts with one of the girls in the Teenie’s grade killing herself), and I took it out rather unfairly on Molly. It’s not his fault he’s a stuttering, butt-ugly, arrogant, self absorbed, self important, name-dropping wanker who slept his way into TV.
What the what, Catty?
How old is this child & what on earth happened? That’s terrible.
What? No. No. Oh dear that’s just terrible. How is she – Teenie – coping? They’ve got a squad of crack counsellors I hope.
The girl was being bullied, apparently. As you can imagine, emotions are a bit high at the school even with the counselling on offer. Anyway, the Teenie was attacked rather viciously (and unfairly) by an Aspergers student, but when he tried to report the incident, the teacher ignored him. I mean, literally looked at him then turned away. I’m pretty ropable. No mother wants to show up at school pickup to find her kid with red marks around his neck from being throttled. The headmaster has been told in no uncertain terms that I expect something to be done.
Red marks on his neck?
That’s got nothing to do with ASD, that’s bloody Actual Physical Harm. Possibly GBH, considering how many fatal things can go wrong when you go to strangle someone.
You should send him to school in a studded collar, Catty – and explain why in no uncertain terms when you’re called up to the office.
The Boss wants me to tell the school that he has a shotgun and a short temper. I’ve told him to get a shotgun first. I shouldn’t have. He probably will.
Bugger. Can you get a sawn-off on eBay? Oh, what am I saying … this is the man who sold a van to lesbian vampires. I’m only surprised he doesn’t already have a whole pool room full of weapons.
i had a magic moment in parenting this morning. I’d told – and demonstrated to – Gigantor about eleventy times how I wanted him to hold his hand while I strapped it. Eventually I screamed, “What part of hold it still and like THIS is so hard to understand! Weren’t you listening?”
“Whaddaya mean listening? I never listen.”
so I called him a fuckwit and stormed off to the shower.
Some days you guys make me immensely grateful that I don’t have children.
After that story & the memories of the school nasties that it brings up, I’m profoundly grateful not to be a child.
How Effing horrible.
Big hugs, Catty. If it’s any consolation the teachers & the principal probably wouldn’t shed a tear if the little horror did get his arse plugged full of buckshot, there’s SFA they can do with that as the little darlings have usually learned all they know about being vile from larger versions of themselves at home.
How come that child’s suicide didn’t make the news? Or has this become so commonplace these days that they no longer report it? I’m boggling over that one as I can’t work out if it’s better to shame the little gobshites that caused the poor child that much distress or if it’s better for them not to become famous as a result of it.
It’s been reported in the local paper, but you’re right. It’s far too common to be reported in larger papers.
Speaking of gobshites becoming famous, I saw a picture of Corey Worthington in the paper. He’s got this huge, ugly tattoo all over his neck. It looks awful – even worse than a prison tattoo. Actually, that’s not fair. I know a guy in prison who does tattoos so good, he’d win national awards. If he was allowed out to compete, that is.
I think there are still Japanese tattoo collectors. He can get a posthumous award, but it will only be skin deep.
Well that explains all the busloads of Japanese tourists down at the Gold Coast. And why the council wants to encourage more.
They can’t be very good hunters, though; they’re doing a crap job of keeping the numbers down.
If they’re collectors, they won’t want any dolphins, celtic armbands, butterfly tramp stamps etc. They’ll be after the exotic.
If you add ‘dancer’ to that then that’s still half the population of Surfers.
They could come to Melbourne, although I doubt they’d be interested in the long lists of children’s names and birthdates running down the backs of bogan chicks’ necks.
Is that to remind their partner’s why it’s preferable to use a … erm … rear approach?
I believe they’re much sharper tools than anyone gives them credit for. I think they’re aware of the ruinous cost of elder care & are planning ahead so that when they dement & require decades of expensive care in a nursing home, centrelink will have no trouble tracking down their progeny & confiscating a large chunk of their incomes to fund it.
Well there you go. I thought they did it so they wouldn’t get confused when they went down to CSA and had to remember all the kids’ (and their various fathers’) names.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, no matter how many times the Boss repeats my one-off comment about new boyfriends having something to read when they flip her over in the sack.
Silly Catty. As if their boyfriends can READ.
They may not be able to understand the words, but the message is clear. “This slapper is fertile”.
I’d quite like that as an epitaph. Do you mind?
I’ll write it in lurid red nail polish on your tomb, MM.
I’m not sure what I want as mine.
‘Died throwing crocs at marsh frogs’ is probably the depressing truth.
But a testament to your upper body strength and fearlessness.
Hang on – you meant rubber sandals, didn’t you.?
Yes but I’m thinking about upgrading to the real thing. I hear that’s how they do things down the Gold Coast, so When In Rome, I say.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-16/baby-croc-found-on-side-of-gold-coast-road/6021044
All you need is duct tape and the odd dead pinkie mouse.
I’m not fussed on epitaphs. Once I’ve finished with my earth suit, I don’t much care what happens to it. But if I had to choose one, it would be something like, “trust me, it’s perfectly safe”, or maybe “be right back”.
I might go with ‘I’ll see you in hell.’
How are things in the soggy north? You people OK up there?
Well, much to Gigantor and The God Particle’s disgust I sent them to school and braved it down the Motorway. Absolutely chucking it down so I hope I can get home.
Or do I?
It’s not that heavy here so I say point the windscreen wipers south & keep going, MM. You’d want to get here before I finish the last of the brownies, though.
Thus far all we’ve had is a steady light rain – the only time the bom radar turned yellow over us was when I went out to restock essential supplies this morning. Bread, milk, kebabs, anti-psychotics for the cat.
Otherwise, some excitement here as Boggart Court goes to auction at 3pm tomorrow, regardless of whether or not Marsha tears the roof off it tonight.
So I’m not sure if the weather event will work in our favour by discouraging the punters, or if it’ll discourage us by dropping enough rain to make us stay on the sofa & go ‘Meh.’ I’m fairly sure it will get passed in at auction & from what I’ve seen online, wet weather can bring the price of a property down by around 5%.
The system is meant to move through tomorrow morning & after midday they are predicting a southerly change. So we will see.
Otherwise, I have a girlfriend who lives in Yepoon & I wasn’t worried about her till I saw the twitter footage of a blonde woman in her 40s being rescued from a stuck lift.
That is trademark Sally antics so I’ve pinged her an email insisting she supply convincing evidence that her propensity for mishaps has not made it to youtube. And that she still has a roof over her head rather than a pile of splintered gum trees.
Eeek to gale force winds.
Eased off up here so prepare to be bucketed. Well, there were no gale force winds that I felt, but there is a lot of water about.
Fingers crossed for Boggart – can’t ypu do a phone bid if the weather sucks?
Our suburb has turned into a sauna. Tomorrow promises to be worse. True to form, the Boss has been rostered onto a job that involves several hours working near (as in, above) effluent. Every time the temp gets above 35, they give him the shit jobs. Literally.
As long as he doesn’t come home covered in germs and give all of you the shits as well, then at least that’s something Catty.
Catty, this is karma for fouling up your internet access.
And yeah, I looked at the temps on the TV last night & thought ‘oooh, Adelaide & Melbourne, Nasty!’
We can’t really bid because the auction is likely to be unconditional.
The bank has approved finance subject to conditions – that being that our house achieves the value that we think it will, and Boggart Street doesn’t go in excess of what we can afford with the equity. This means bank valuations of both properties & there hasn’t been time for that.
We thought we’d tell the agent 5 minutes before it goes to auction & say that we’re happy to make an offer if it gets passed in.
He has hinted that he thinks it is likely to get passed in – most of them fail to meet their reserve price & the real haggling starts after the auction.
And we want to see what happens at the auction, because we’re not sure of how much interest there will be in it & what people are willing to pay.
Things don’t usually sell for much more than what they get passed in at auction for – this is because people who do have their shit together get the bank to go through & do a valuation beforehand to tell them what they value it at and what they can bid to. So unless you are NTO and you can magically pull an extra 300 grand out of your arse the week it gets passed in at auction (Gweedo bought a new Audi, BTW, no doubt on the proceeds from that) – that is pretty much the sale price.
I can’t be arsed getting stressed about it. The agent knows we can afford it & I told him straight up that this is what I expected the bank to say, and that we would need a two month settlement period as we can’t get away till later on in April. He said the owner is fine with that.
You never know when they are stringing you along, but generally they will latch onto the buyer who will give them the best price.
So, we’ll see.
Looks like the rain is just about to start blowing over us, so we will wait & see if it looks safe to drive through that system later on today.
Enjoy, I gather you haven’t had much until nowish.
Well, now we’ve got gale force winds to add to piss buckets of rain but everyone is safe and not going anywhere so we can settle down to enjoy our 9l of stockpiled milk and video selection.
Boss’s weather, bet it’s sunny again on Monday.
We’ve had steady rain, but it eased off before I fell asleep last night.
I was wondering how wild and woolly it was up your way. Twitter just sounded a storm warning for Yandina & it looks like the Blob is slowly working it’s way towards us, but thus far the winds here are 2k/h & the rain is best described as Scotch Mist. Hard to imagine what it’s like up the coast under the yellow bits on the radar.
We stayed up late last night watching the mini-series ‘Top of the Lake’ – have either of you seen it? Jane Campion, with David Wenham as the sleezy cop & Holly Hunter as the cult leader of a women’s hippy commune/refuge called ‘Paradise’. It was brilliant, we could not tear ourselves away from it.
So since I woke up at 4am as usual I am now half asleep on the sofa & can’t say I much feel like going anywhere. The Bloke is yet to emerge from beneath his cat stack & it’s just damp enough to keep the Freaks silent, trapped indoors.
What news of kittehs, MM, I assume there’s one on a sofa purring – but did your prodigal cat ever return home?
Ooh, Holly Hunter. AND David Wenham. sounds fabulous, is it on ABC?
No, I was hoping an impending cyclone might bring Flot back but nix. Jet is being smoochy and delightful though and seems quite calm. I wonder if they touch base when I’m working or sleeping.
Tyrannical cats, they are bound to.
Ours have been a bit worried about the approaching storms so perhaps they do remember the Ice-meteor shower.
Um, I think it was an SBS mini-series but it might have been ABC.
It’s mesmerising. The scene where the local drug lord confronts the hippies next door is just brilliant.
The BOM Blob has just reached us now, but it’s still very light rain.
I declare this to be Sofa Time.
Enjoy. I received multiple storm warnings that have merely amounted to yet more rain. Huzzah to the grey and wet!
“Huzzah to the grey and wet!” Eh? Wot? Did someone call?
Hehehe. Isn’t Wet some form of English political party?
I’m pretty sure that describes all of them.
It’s not raining this morning. I can hear cicadas and the birds getting tuned up for the day. It’s weird, it feels too quiet.
I went to bed listening to the rhythm of the marsh frogs, so it’s a relief to wake to the crows. When we got back to Brisbane last night we stopped at a couple of shops, and people were taking Selfies of the sunset.
Things like this remind me why I don’t do facebook.
The weather girl said you lot are still in for a lot of rain. We’re not getting any rain today. We’ve got another day of 35+ heat. We had planned a trip to the beach, a spot of metal detecting at the fort, and a barbecue, but it’s too bloody hot for that. For the thousandth time I’m thanking God we have a pool.
We still have a beach, and I only picked up half a Woolies bag of rubbish as I trudged up it after the dog so much less damage than that Tsunami the other year.
I hope we get that rain you’re talking about, though, Catty. If it stays sunny I might have to actually do something in the vile outdoors, instead of lazing with a book.
The kids gave Fifi a book repair course for her birthday last month (how odd?) and she’s off to the city today for that. Didn’t seem too bad yesterday here, maybe because we seem to get a breeze so I hope she doesn’t melt. I’ll advise her to wear her red shoes and red and white striped socks. Just in case. I’ll play in the Man Cave which, being a genuine semi-cave, stays cool through anything.
Book repair, eh? no need to tell the cave dweller what she’s really learning, is there, girls?
Cough*Advanced Protocols in the Dark Arts* Cough
As for your nasty heat – I’ve been looking at the weather in Adelaide & Melbourne – and even Hobart’s forecast yesterday – and thinking ‘Gah!’
If it’s any consolation those promises of rain look like total BS.
We’ve woken up to a layer of steam, today.
The humidity was so high yesterday lunch time that it started setting off the smoke alarms. We had to dismantle one & it was no happier 8 hours later when the rain had long since stopped.
I think we should chuck that and replace it with something that can tell the difference between Bacon Inferno and a Tropical Low.
Stupid technology.
Anyway, you should all take comfort in the knowledge that my smoke alarm system is not going to morph into Skynet & take over your laptops any time soon.
Ah, book repair. Always one of my favourite subjects. I’ll be having afternoon tea with another of the coven … um, Book Repairer’s Guild … later on.
The humidity was so bad here yesterday I thought my dishwasher was broken. No, she powers up again this morning, must have been a bit too moist inside the zappy bits.
Oh noes. That reminds me, did you ever get the choice list of DWs that I sent you? I’m keeping that subscription for this year as we’ll probably need to replace appliances when we move.
Hmm. Perhaps I should get online and see what they’ve got to say about smoke alarms.
Yes, thank you kindly. Actually, I was surprised my current Dishlex ranked so low … I’ve been quite happy with it. Might lash out on a Westinghouse instead.
But not quite yet, prevailing weather conditions permitting.
Oh good. And yes, I was surprised at the rating of my old Samsung Singalong top-loader. I can’t say I’ve noticed a substantial difference in cleanliness with the new higher rating LG, but it is nicer to have a washing machine that’s so much quieter.
And yes, Woe to Humidity.
I don’t think the Skynet takeover will work in these parts if they keep manufacturing tech that can’t survive outside of the Mojave Desert.
Fifi has returned happily from the book repair thingy and assures me with evil and raucous laughter that no Covening involved. Have persuaded her to let me order Indian tonight. Cannot begin to describe how little persuasion was necessary.
Huzzah to the raucous laughter. And give Fifi my best. You do know that the first rule of Coven is that you don’t talk about Coven, right?
Tell Fifi I have a fresh pool full of striped marsh frogs for that potion she was using to…er, Rule One.
Never mind.
Indian, yum.
We ordered take-out from the Punjabi palace a week or two ago – my it was tasty.
I haven’t had anything but the kid’s fave butter chicken in yonks and now I’m dying for a vindaloo.
This place is good. Maybe a vindaloo when you’re down here? And aloo chat (spicy potato cubes). I sure love leftover curry for breakfast (insert Fifi eye-roll here).
Oh yes, lets. Flaky paratha?
Flaky paratha *and* garlic naan last night.
I’d forgotten about Indian – if we’re in the mood for spicy take out, it is very, very hard to think beyond the Tibetan.
I’ve never been there. Do they do lunch?
http://tibetankitchen.info
Maybe on the weekend. Or if the one in New Farm is still operating, but so far as I know they are just open from 5.30pm. too much competition from the Asian restaurants in that strip to make the lunch crowd feasible, I would think.
It’s very good. We never eat in, though, we just stock up on enough take-away so that we’ve got dinner & lunch the next day. You know how I loathe noise and crowds, why ruin a perfectly good meal by having to listen to the dull roar of humanity.
Yes, our substitute Vietnamese is on the same road and the food is good but the noise is deafening.
Yes, and the roar is tedious dull. On the rare occasions when I’m forced to listen to another diner’s conversations, I sit there boggling & wondering if there’s room for my head in the chef’s ovens.
People never cease to astound and disappoint me.
You carry your Uncle RV’s genetic codes for Tolerance of Fuckwittery.
How could you feel otherwise?
That explains much … promiscuity, substance abuse … oh well, can’t have everything.
Book binding, hey? I may need to ask the brilliant, kind, very pretty, wise, clever, helpful Fifi for a hand with a very special project that will probably fail, but I still want to try. You’ll appreciate this one, Madam. I want to make an Enchiridion, with the known chapters in it. And the unknown chapter, too, just for fun.
Oh, wow. That would be so awesome!
Maybe you could make two copies, one for the Grand Evil. She looks like a Marcelline fan to me.
I was thinking of making a couple of extras, one for the littlest kidlet’s bestie, and maybe one for your Higgs Boson – if he’s still into Adventure Time. And if it works out. Knowing me, it will be a dismal failure but everyone will be too polite to say so.
I think it’s time to practice my Spanish.
‘Que?’
I’d love to help … I did some calligraphy, once upon a time. Do you reckon it might be easier to start with a blank book … I’m thinking one of those art journals that are now quite affordable … and then embellish the hell out of it?
Q, it’s a cartoon called “Adventure Time”. It’s actually quite hip and meta. Although it;s no “Thunderbirds”.
It sounds suspiciously like scrapbooking.
In which case, you are all dead to me.
No! Not scrapbooking! (perish the thought!) It’s a homemade prop, sort of like making your own papîer maché Light Sabre for Comic-Con, or your mum sewing a Jedi robe for your school dressup day, or painting a piece of cardboard to look like Marceline’s axe.
Madam, I’ve been looking for hard cover, leather bound, blank paged notebooks to use, but have yet to find one that is even close to the right size, shape and colour. I’ve tried Typo, eBay, and Kikki.K. Any suggestions where else I could look?
I bought a little red journal from this lady. They are beautifully made but a bit exxy:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/AwakenJournaling?ref=shop_sugg
And just put “leather journal” in their search bar, cos you might find an Aussie crafter who will make one to spec.
Right, gotcha. I googled it which I was too lazy to do yesterday. You’re very good to these children, Catty.
Would a moleskine do? I saw a whole stack of them somewhere, recently, but I wasn’t really paying attention so I am smurfed if I can remember where. Might have been one of the QUT bookshops. If you can post an image of the kind of thing you’re looking for, I’ll keep an eye out for them in my travels. Which are considerable – I’m jetsetting between Kelvin Grove & Gardens Point campus so that means I get to stop in the city & fritter away my time. Much better than being here listening to the freak show soundtrack.
Speaking of which, we had ambulance sirens outside late last night. It parked over our driveway (there was nowhere else it would fit) & as I’d heard a woman screaming earlier in the evening I assumed it was Bicycle Rage Mama bringing forth the new unfortunate soul into the world & I carried on watching TV. Until I went to the loo & realised the noise & excitement was inside NTO’s flat. The Bloke said they took NTBF away. He walked to the ambulance down my driveway so if he can negotiate that kind of terrain under his own steam, I can’t imagine the hospital will keep him in there for very long.
Some of the tenants were flapping about looking concerned & one threw me a filthy look when I stepped out on the balcony to do the ‘WTF now?’ thing so whatever is wrong with him, I presume we’re to blame.
It looked like he’d had a fall. Curious how he can amble all over that property s& up & down the street & all those stairs without mishap when he wants to scritch & help her stalk us, but he met with disaster travelling from the dinner table to the TV.
We didn’t have much sympathy for him, as he’s such a manipulative POS. Remember the time the bloke was out on the footpath shovelling mud & NTBF made out he couldn’t see the wheelbarrow & he was about to trip over it & die?
and then later in the afternoon we heard him playing with his bandsaw in his subterranean workroom.
Yeah, that.
So it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s pulled a similar stunt on her just because he wants the attention & he wants a holiday from her Scritching program.
Unkind, perhaps, but considering how those two operate, I’d say it’s in character.
I couldn’t do it. I would not be able to live within such close range of the Insanity and remain calm and cheerful myself. Kudos, Q.
Thank you. And in case you’ve forgotten, it did tip me over the edge most of last year when I was trapped here with the tradesmen putting up with her constant frigging nonsense. It’s like she’s given up because her best efforts have failed to 1. get us to shout at her or punch her
2. Move house.
I could never decide which she wanted more.
I’d put money on the head punch.
The prospect of escape is the only thing that keeps me going & trust me, every time I view the latest selection of GC properties for sale online, for every cracked slab & asbestos roof I see, that’s another step down the primrose path towards Brain Snap Alley.
Meanwhile NTO has been cruising around chipper as a squirrel tending her flowers (and watching my builders) so she can’t be too concerned about NTBF. I suppose that means she had time to hide the trip wire before the ambos came & she’s looking forward to being single again.
I was just about to step out to Coles but stepped back when I realised NTO was stepping in. She’s just bought NTBF home from hospital, he is motoring along just fine without her assistance & he’s sporting a white bandaid on his elbow.
And that, in totality, seems to be the extent of his injuries.
Your tax-payer dollars at work, folks.
He’s good as new.
No doubt she’ll have him back behind the paint brush after a vegemite sandwich and a cup of tea.
Try and remain calm. They were saying on ABC Local this morning about how rage outbursts are directly correlated with myocardial infarction.
Think of the calm, blue ocean. Without a single jetski.
We would settle for a muddy canal, at this stage.
I’d still like to live on a hill where I can hear the birds sing, but this one is very tempting. Houses that face north over the canals are hard to come by. We will definitely be taking a tour of this one.
http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-currumbin+waters-119172259
And yes, I saw that article too. That heart attack follows rage thing is a folk medicine staple of traditional Chinese, Western & Ayurvedic medicine so it’s good to see modern medicine is catching on.
🙂
From personal experience, the north facing is ideal for sea breezes as well as solar orientation whatevs.
And what a solid fuck off grill at the front. Was it seized from the Finks, by any chance?
Who knows? Perhaps they visit regularly & this is the Artist’s way of keeping them out.
FWIW I was immediately suspicious that he has a really nosy stalker neighbour who probably has a mobile viewing platform that she wheels up to the front door.
When we drive by, I’ll be keeping an eye out forGladys Kravitz on stilts.
Yes, we don’t need a frying-pan/fire scenario.
Well, at least I know what to look for. If we drive by a house & we see the bins overflowing on the street & dump ducks rummaging through them strewing crap everywhere in their frenzy to get to the maggots, we know it’s a mistake to slow down.
Good lord, they don’t have Ibii down there? As well as Bandidos. I mean.
Ibii? Madam, you made that up.
You got me.
But why don’t we open a new e-tailer and call it Ibii? We could block an incoming purchase from the Boss and have a dump duck as a mascot.
How would we keep the dump duck off the tea-trolley?
Chain it to the Wildebeest. After we’ve muzzled him, natch.
Good luck with that. He ate the last two muzzles.
I like dump ducks. If I can’t have a turkey in Melbourne (miss you Colin, hope you’re OK) maybe I can befriend some Ibii? Although there’s a Magpie family hanging around the yard that looks as though they might adopt us. BTW, did I mention that I now have gout (pauses for derisive laughter)? It sucks.
That’s no good. Are you on colchicine or have they advised you to try dietary and alchomohol retrictions?
Cos I can supply a stat dec to the effect that that latter turkey will never fly.
Quick course of Prednisone has knocked it back a bit, also cut beer/stout consumption (apparently the worst) and red meat/fish. Not cut *out* mind you, just back a bit. Also I drink very little water (filthy stuff) which is bad for it, so they say. Still, I fear you are right.
It’s not hard to up your water intake. Just add a squeeze of lemon or lime and carry a bottle around with you. Or knock back a glass every time you’re at the sink.
Poor GB. I gather it’s an excruciating pain.
I would mock your suffering, Khan GB, but I’m having trouble seeing to read about it. I just got back from the optometrist and have parted with $600 for a new set of reading glasses. Sigh. Remember last year’s tale of woe of how I need three different scripts for
1. Roaming the Earth without falling off the edge of it
2. Computer vision
3. Time spent with my nose in a novel
Yeah? that.
It’s time for a new script. Thankfully the old reading glasses which I can no longer see out of are now perfect for seeing the computer, and the Roaming The Mall glasses are still serviceable.
But I needed a new set of glasses for reading/study purposes.
Frames, too, as the old ones can’t be melted any more.
As I’d spent the morning reading 40 pages of a psyche text book in preparation for this afternoon’s lecture, and I’ve now got such a ghastly headache that I can’t bear to attend it & sit in the T-9 high buckets of torture – gah.
I think I need to give up and make a mojito.
Or at very least go to the mall and get a donut.
So feel free to join me on the Sofa of Suffering. There’s plenty of beer & prawns & a box of corn-syrup laden US sweeties leftover from Halloween. What’s that you say about purines? Lies from the nutrition freaks, they’re all eating-disorded obsessives, ignore them. In fact, have a tumbler of two of Scotch. It’ll do you good.
Truthfully, MM is right, telling a gout patient to go on a purine-free diet is like telling Lindsay Lohan she can’t shop-lift any more, and Miley Cyrus that she can’t expose herself to public ridicule.
It’s never gonna happen.
When we covered gout in class at Hogwarts, my teacher & mentor went through a long & detailed list of dietary advice & herbal/nutritional support & then, when he was done, he cradled his hands together, made a smug face at our cramped hands from an hour of high-speed note taking, and said ‘you only need to know this for exam purposes & to write up clinic education sheets, though, because every single one of your gout patients will look at that list, mutter ‘WTF?’ and that will be the last you will see of them.’
So I’m with Morgana. Just take the effing drugs and neck another bottle of home brew. We all know you’re beyond redemption. No need to pretend you’re more disciplined & evolved than the rest of humanity.
Oh, and just so you know, you might want to tuck your toes under the sofa when you’re visiting here.
That way the wildebeest won’t get the chance to *accidentally* trample them.
You can tell it’s “accidental” from the way he puts his Docs on first.
Um, are they the same reading glasses you lost at Uni, Q? Maybe cake boy did give you the wrong pair.
GB, the Boss and his mum have gout. They have some little pills that clear the attack right up. I’m looking at the bottle now, and it says Colchicine. They never need to take more than one or two per attack. It even appears to work after they’ve been pass-out pished three nights in a row. Hydrotherapy helps them too, so get Mayhem’s Mum out of the spa and start spending cocktail hour in there.
I’ve been reading some interesting articles about different illnesses, and some people are starting to think that many illnesses are linked to viruses. Parkinsons, cancer, fibromyalgia, all sorts of things. The reasoning behind the suggested link makes me think that gout and arthritis also start from a virus. Unfortunately, there’s too much useless crap on the internet to research it without bias, and as Q points out, there’s lots of useless crap in Uni courses, too. Also, it would be a complete waste of time, as the physical damage from most serious illnesses can’t be reversed no matter how it began. Still, I find it interesting.
That’s scientifically fascinating but what we really should be working on is a cure for men.
Nup, I’m blind. The worst that happened to my glasses was a stem got bent by somebody sitting on the glasses case.
The scratches are all mine, unless the wildebeest has been using them to floss, again.
Thank you all, I shall look into the cholchicine toot sweet. I don’t mind a pill/attack solution but taking things every day bothers me. Partly because my old doctor put me on a migraine remedy that should have been “rested” for a while every six weeks. He had me on it for three years and since I didn’t drink back then – or rarely – I blame it for the liver damage. One of its known side effects. He told me once he never read the MIMS but after that, I did.
There’s quite a bit of interesting research going on at the moment isn’t there. If as you say, you can sift out the crap. On the subject of which, Fifi drew my attention to an article on Fecal Transplants which are looking very promising for irritable bowel syndrome etc. But there is now some untested, virtually anecdotal evidence that you can cop some unexpected side effects of having someone else’s poo um, inserted. A thin patient became borderline obese after one transplant, very like the donor to give a single example. And with more coming out about the importance of the microbiome to mental health, depression etc, we may be in for a bit of a non-chemical based revolution in treatments for many things. http://www.scientificamerican.com/editorial/innovations-in-the-microbiome/?WT.mc_id=SA_EVO_20150223 Good thing too.
Hey wait a minute. “Cure for men”? (Checks in daks, wife rolls eyes, shakes head.) I’m a man, not a disease. And anyway, we’re here to be endured, not cured. If it weren’t for us, who would lift heavy things, open bottles and serve as an enduring reminder that, for all the imbalances and injustices of society, you lot wouldn’t be men for quids? Hmph!
Salient points, GB. I am minded that I will be burdening your hospitality in but a brief month, too so I will try to be nicer, at least for the next 5 weeks and/or while you are in pain.
Please don’t be nice. I’d spend the whole time wondering if EB had hidden in your luggage. Oh god, you wouldn’t…?
You need to come up with that cure fast. I was in the 2nd left lane of the 4 lane highway & the bloke shouted at me that I had to get into the far left lane because of the traffic sign saying that there was an incident in the far right lane. I did it, protesting, to oblige him, and then said ‘This lane is the exit lane, how badly do you want to avoid that incident? Bad enough to go to Woodridge?’
By Smurf the stupidity.
I keep telling him to just STFU when I’m driving but he does feel the need to tell me what to do. And then wonders why I threaten to punch him.
I have a deep well of patience but a man – any man – telling me how to drive makes me stabby and spiteful.
Specially when it’s a cop.
The car is the only place we fight, pretty much. He is getting anxious & more like his father – in the car at least – as he gets older. I keep reminding myself that we all turn into our parents as we get older & as such he has much worse to deal with than I do.
No way do I want to turn into my mother! She mops floors! Oh, the humanity.
The Boss claims that I already cook like mother. #frownyface. So, when is this Man Cure coming on the market?
Don’t worry, GB, we only ask men to do that stuff to make you feel useful. If men weren’t around, we’d get our butch lesbian relatives to do all the heavy stuff/jar opening for the week or so it would take us to invent clever tools to do the job.
It’s like I always say. If the world were run by women, there would be no wars – just a lot of jealous countries not speaking to each other and bitching behind each others’ backs.
Hehee.
Not to mention they’d be stealing each other’s boyfriends & starting vicious rumours about their rival’s quota of plastic surgery procedures and time spent in eating disorder clinics.
Best we leave the men in charge, it’s probably good for the planet if humanity keeps shooting and beheading each other till there’s none of us left.
Sign me up for beheading. It’s the fastest way for me to lose 20 pounds of ugly fat.
Yes but think of the loss of child support if you went through with it.
I know Irma is due & we’re all feeling mildly homicidal but I would urge you to practice some restraint, Catty.
Aw, you’re no fun.
Truer words never spoken.
I do, however, have a bag of sweets after my foray into the wilds at ZombieDale this morning, so here, scoot up beside me on the sofa in the AC & have a fantail or 12.
I have been to the Osteo & I have plans to sloth until I feel like a human being again.
Right now, though, all I feel like eating is chocolate.
Irma is here and she’s either trying to kill me or I’m miscarrying quadruplets.
Huzzah!
Woe to fertility & roll on The Paws.
Irma is circling and is making me hideously depressed.
It must be Irma, it wouldn’t have anything to do with 18 months of house-hunting and 11 months of go-slow renovations, surely?
Yes, but Irma is still worst. Go visit some innocent young girls who are probably annoying cos they wear acrylic nails and are forever taking selfies and leave us alone, Irma. We’ve given enough.
Damn straight. Although I have been known to be relieved when she shows up.
I’m not pregnant conga! (kick)
I’m not pregnant conga! (kick)
I’m not preg…
No, that’s it. Someone has to change places with me. I can’t conga properly while the Wildebeest is licking the back of my neck.
If I coated them in peanut butter he might swap to licking my feet. Someone has to do something about this scaly dry skin.
I hear that Clive’s dinosaur needs a fresh set of scales.
If you’re having a scrape with the loofah, save anything that flakes off & send it to your local MP.
It’s gone beyond loofas. Who’s got an angle grinder?
Me. Just warn your neighbours to shut their windows in case any fungally flakes fly into their smoke alarms.
*Head to Desk*
Why did I not think of this earlier?
NTO’s plan is to use NTBF’s slide into the grave as an opportunity to meet as many burly rescue workers as possible.
Think how useful they’d be to have on hand as tenants & as a replacement NTBF to dig up the rocks in her garden.
And we all know how the ladieez love emergency services. Don’t we, Mayhem?
Good point.
Now that I think of it, I’m surprised she didn’t call the police & the SES for her dust crisis as well.
How many emergency service workers does it take to close a window for someone with histrionic personality disorder?
Ans: It’s a function of how many people are watching, divided by their average individual care factors
Well, there’s no tradies today but the tiler is due to pave our courtyard tomorrow. And the lads will be back with their barrows to prep the side paths for soil & turf.
That’ll kick up plenty of dust & dirt so I’m predicting hysterics by smoko.
Perhaps she’ll call the army when the police, council, the fieries & the ambo give her the finger.
I hope so. I do love the sound of jack boots in the morning.
You can save the headbanging, Q. You didn’t think of it because your brain knew full well that none of her smoke detectors have batteries in them.
Did I mention that the fireys had a stall at the local Westfield a couple of weeks ago? There was a rather tasty young firey autographing calendars, but I didn’t get one. Firstly, because it was far too distressing taking last year’s calendar off the wall (goodbye, sweet Morgan! *sob*), and secondly because the autographer wouldn’t take off his shirt. Piker.
A friend in Arizona sent me the Tuscon Firemen calendar and they are disappointingly average looking.
Which might be empowering for the average-looking but is inadequate for my morning delight.
Agreed. Body oil may enhance the hunk, but it sure can’t disguise average.
(Bins bottle of Bronzolene, slinks away)
Stick with the valvoline, GB. Your cartilage will thank you for it.