The always lovely Ildi and I met at GOMA yesterday and spent the next 4 hours marvelling at GOMA’s 10th birthday party. The installation by an Icelandic(of course) artist who has a name like something complicated from IKEA but fortunately for Anglophones goes by “shoplifter” had to be stroked to be believed, and there was an installation in a dark gallery made simply of lighting and a smoke machine that played with your mind – in a good way. We agreed that every cent of our tax dollars that it costs is well worth while. Do yourself a favour.
Fun in a box 
Hoorayxxxxxxx
>
Huzzah! And hello Ildi, lovely to see you guesting in at the Box here. Do come back. xxxx
I’ll have to pop in and see GOMA sometime when the thermostat outdoors isn’t set on Spit Roast.
“Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the reverence and delight which are their due.” -Winston Churchill-
Actually, if you can overlook the stinky sticky travails of getting to the place, the microclimate around GOMA is admirable. The gallery is always cool and dry for the good of the works, of course, but when we wandered underneath for coffee and chips – and mushrooms sauteed with garlic and pine nuts, a dish I plan to repeat at home ASAP – there was a lovely breeze off the river and I suppose the concrete mass of the gallery sucked a lot of heat up, too.
I really love that place. It’s the best thing I can ever recall a State Gubbinment doing.
Tsk tsk…. out in public and you eat mushrooms? Good gracious, girl, when the opportunity arises for CAEK, you grab it with both hands! Mushrooms indeed…. I’ve never heard such nonsense.
It is lovely.
I thought about going through GOMA when I was up there in the library a few weeks ago, but my feet had given out by that stage & the thought of spending even more time on them, while my left hip rotated further towards it’s 2monthly corkscrew position, was more than I could bear.
I’m quite happy to leave art galleries to people with functioning feet & less fraught spines.
Well, I am off to Vagus for what seems to be a regular 2monthly wrenching by the osteopath to put my feet & my vertebrae back in the position where evolution intended them to be, and then I have fun things to attend to like a trip to the mechanic, and a supply run for bibs & bobs I’ve yet to locate on the Old Coast.
I don’t expect to be back till tonight, so happy Mondaying, blogsters. And stay cool – can you believe BOM have their 7 day forecast out for SEQ and they’re still denying us thunderstorms?
For shame!
They had a vanilla and salted caramel cheesecake, Catty. But I looked at it and thought, “even I wouldn’t be able to have more than a mouthful of that”. And I never trust those muffins in jars, they’re probably from the Museum. One of their former displays, I mean.
Q, that sucks. I’m surprised the Old Coast isn’t full of those services. I bet you’re right for fake nails, fake tans and hair extensions, though. Good luck with the traffic!
Mmmmm…. cheesecake….
We had rain last night, Q. It was heavy and glorious. This morning the streets are littered with banks of leaves and branches, and it’s still overcast so there may be more rain to come. I’d send you some, but BoM doesn’t deliver gift certificates.
It was lovely, wasn’t it Catty? Maybe we should try and do something with kulcha for our next catchup! Next month I believe? I’ll do some research to ascertain which kulchural attractions are closest to the chocolate shops. And Yay!!!, I’m back!!!
Huzzah and welcome back, Mayhem. Not much has changed, but you have missed a fair bit of CAEK.
Yes, much CAEK. Mayhem, my appointment book is filling fast with medical faff, and Centrelink want me to sign up with a JSA at the end of the week (which will mean many appointments), so you should flag a date or two now that I can black out in my diary.
Meanwhile, if you can find an interactive chocolate installation for us to tour, count me in!
No medical appointments for me in the immediate future, so Huzzah for that. Did we decide the first week of the new season? Pick a day when Mel works, or maybe she’d prefer to come in on a day off so she doesn’t have to rush off? I’ll message her in the next day or so, then line up the beards.
Don’t worry too much about the JSA, that should only be once a fortnight. Although – oh smurf! – what if they make you go to The Borg’s Seminar on Using Deodorant And How To Spell One’s Own Name?
Oh, I hope not.
They may send me for training. I’m pretty good at using Windows ’95, but anything after that is a bit too technomological for me.
Actually, if you can do a couple of Admin certs, go for it. I’m the same person – with essentially the same skills – as I was since before I did them, but they seem to appeal to employers.
At the least I suppose they prove you can turn up on time M-F.
I’m wondering if CNN stands for Cookies, Naps and Nachos, and what certs I need to work there.
LOL. Undoubtedly.
I think the c probably stands for c-words.
Mmmm…. C-words…. Chocolate…. CAEK…. Carribean…. Coffee….
Chaise Longue, comfort-eating, Cointreau …
Chris Hemsworth
Crayons, cats, champagne….
Cuddle, catastrophe … oh, wait
Cockswaddle.
Is that a treat or a punishment, Q?
I don’t know what it means but they use it on twitter a lot, most particularly in regard to POTUS, and I feel much better if I shout it, loud and proud.
I went to look it up on urbandictionary & I was so impressed with their Words of the Day that I forgot what I was doing.
Lord Dampnut wins the internet, now I just need to find someone obnoxious enough to christen such.
‘Arise, Lord Dampnut!’ and so on.
I forgot, the CWA ladies are talking DV care packages for the shelters again & I have NFI where I put your suggestions for the contents. I do remember that you had some good suggestions that weren’t on their list of shampoo/conditioner/soap/razors/toothbrush/paste/tampons etc.
Remind me?
journal & pen for making notes and such
air freshener? (like one of those nice oil and reeds ones, not a can of Glen 20)
some choccies or nice tea bags or some other pampering thing
i can’t really remember … but keep up the good work, CWA.
Good one, MM.
They said that there was an optional ‘something pretty’ in the care package, so I will put suggest replacing that with ‘small indulgence which may not fit into the luxury budget’.
As of today I am officially & financially a member.
I’ll only be able to attend about half the meetings because of timetable clash, but I can volunteer at all their weekend things, I can drop cakes & such off for their internal competitions, (among the sub-branches) & I get to make cakes and biscuits for their fund-raiser stalls.
Probably a good way to ease into it.
We’re so proud of you, Q. You’re living our dream.
I know it and I’m continually grateful for waking up from the nightmare that was life at Toad Park.
I’m starting to quite enjoy the forays back into West End, purely for the joy of driving past Toad Street & 55 minutes later finding myself nestled into the peace of the hinterland forest.
55 minutes – that’s about how long it took to get home from the specialist today. Ugh. The air cond wasn’t working and it’s stinking hot out there. Eventually the Boss pulled over and poked the unit with a screwdriver (no sticks) and got it going again. We just got home and I am about to go and make sweet love to our pool.
Ugh, no AC, that’s vile.
How did the specialist visit go, Catty? Is he/she happy with your progress?
Here’s hoping you get a nice JSA, too. Do they actually help you to set up dates with potential employers, or is this just one of those empty services that the gubbermint wastes money on, hoping to irritiate people into finding gainful employment.
No, no – despite the Borg Queen and all her deodorant and why-did-my-second-husband-go-to-Bali-without-telling-me? seminars, it was Mission who set up the interview that got my my job, so they’re definitely not all bad. When you go on an interview, Catty, maybe do your own follow-up though. My now Boss told Mission they wanted to offer me something and Mission did nothing for 10 days. Eventually the Boss rang me direct.
Shudder.
Even now I get cold chills about what would have become of us if she’d just gone, “Meh” and offered my job to someone else.
Independent surveys say 3 out of five JSA’s are money grubbing, heartless and petty. Hopefully I get one of the other two. There are some dreadful stories going around. One lady said her JSA made them sit in a room and look for their own jobs online. Another said they wouldn’t reschedule his appointment when he’d lined up his own job interview, and his payment was cut off. And many people have said that they’ve found their own work, but the JSA harangued the new boss for information so they could get credit for the placement. I’m a little nervous about it all, to be frank. What if they’re not flexible with my medical appointments?
No news on the scan until the end of the week. I didn’t have a great deal of faith in the radiographer. She seemed very distracted. I hope she hasn’t screwed it up.
Request Mission. Being Catholic they’re very family orientated. And if you get a case worker who blows, complain and get a new one.
i wouldn’t worry about the radiographer. The machine will have known what it was doing.
My first suspicion that her mind wasn’t on the job was when she opened the door into the waiting room within two seconds of me removing my bra. My second suspicion was when she ripped off the little stick-on metal nipple clips for the fifth time to reposition them and had to get new ones because they had lost their sticky. The clincher was when she dug her ultrasound wand into my throat. I may not know much about echocardiograms, but I’m pretty sure ‘heart in my throat’ is a figurative expression.
She’s very lucky you didn’t faint and make her fill in an incident report.
LOL. Should not find that amusing but being the evil human being that I am, I do.
Now I know what I’m going to do the next time one of them traps me in the mammogram machine.
Hope for the best, Catty. If you’re anticipating fuck ups at every corner, you’ll probably find them, and the energy spent anticipating all that can go wrong is creativity you could be using to write your best selling novel.
And the world needs more hilarious novels.
I have to wax lyrical about the library again, I’m reading so much more now that I’ve got peace & quiet & the GCCC library is fabulous.
Remember ‘the life changing magic of not giving a fuck’?
Yeah, it turned up in my holds last week so I’ve been having a lovely time reading that.
Along the same line as the cleaning book, she recommends making a list of things & people that give you joy as opposed to those that irritate & annoy. Once you’re done making your list, you devote attention to the things that spark joy & you get a big black marker & strike out everything on your ‘Meh, sucks the joy out of my existence/and or/don’t give a flying FK’ list.
She says that Marie K advises you to do some buddhist thankfulness thing but she prefers to utter the line ‘Fuck you’ every time she’s striking a long black line through something that needlessly sucks her time, energy and money via obligation or guilt.
I am liking this philosophy & plan to implement it on anything that makes a habit of irritating me for the rest of the year.
Wendy Whiner’s stupid yappy dog must know this as I haven’t heard squeak out of it since I got home at 10am.
Win. 🙂
Oh yes, this has been my policy for years and I wholeheartedly endorse it. I came to this conclusion watching my Mother spend every Saturday night – EVERY – playing bridge with one woman she couldn’t stand because she felt vaguely sorry for the woman’s husband. This went on for decades. She regularly lunches with weird, annoying people. Nup. Not me, never.
You end up with fewer invitations to parties, and hardly any Christmas cards, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Life is too damn short to waste your joy on energy vampires and other downers.
Yep. I kept telling my cousins ‘I think you’d get a lot out of counselling’ – meaning ‘I’d get a lot out of it if you lot went to counselling’ but they never did, so spending time with them made me want to open a vein.
I of course am a terrible human being for getting out of Dodge, but it beats the alternative, which their brother chose, of going underground in a box, with a shitload of track marks over his veins.
If people don’t want to deal with their shit & live a good life then this is their business, and I am quite firmly convinced – it is none of mine.
I’m actively avoiding my GF with the custody dispute at the moment, because the only time she ever wants to see me is to talk it over.
Yeah, No. Some people just need to get a therapist.
Oh, I hope GB, Fifi, Melbo and Mayhem don’t start doing that, or I’m going to have a lot of big black crosses all over me and no invitations to burger gatherings.
I’d like to try it on the house, though. Do you think the Boss will find it strange if I wander around the house with a sharpie, muttering ‘Fuck You’ while I scribble on the washing machine, the vacuum, the kitchen sink, the toilets, and all the floors and windows?
Never! None of us would ever avoid you, actively or otherwise. 😘😘
Ahah! if thou sayest his name, he will appeare.
Actually I wondered where everyone had gone and went back to the old blog, found this one and started skimming for updates. Bonus Mayhem! (But not her mum – extra bonus points)
hehehe. I already say “fuck” a lot when housework becomes inevitable, I don’t see why you shouildn’t scrawl it.
Actually, go right ahead – your house will be like a Tracey Emin installation and you’ll be able to sell tickets.
I think we should sell Tm house cleaning products labeled Fuck This.
We should start with ironing board covers that say ‘Fuck you, Laundry Pile’.
That’d make me feel better every time I have to iron a blouse, for sure.
A friend who was a bit of a bigwig in State Poitics – and also a single Mum – had one that just said SACRIFICE.
Hehehehehehee.
Pictures scorch marks on the many garments sacrificed at that altar.
She also encouraged me to persist with my “brilliant” career on the grounds that I would never have to do housework again.
I’m happy with relaxed and doing a bit around the house as a trade-off.
MIL keeps telling me I should get myself a job as a domestic cleaner. And I keep laughing and laughing.
Hehehehe. Surely she means CAEK tester. Or pyjama designer?
I’m looking around for sleep study centres, to see if they need anyone for paid studies. Being paid to nap sounds like my kind of work.
Did you know there’s a disease called Familial Family Insomnia? It starts out with being unable to nap, then it progresses to not being able to sleep – not hot night or hot flush insomnia, complete inability to sleep at all – until you die!
I can’t think of anything worse.
How about being allergic to chocolate? I’ve heard of this hell, and I pray for the poor, afflicted souls.
I didn’t know that was possible! You can’t suddenly get it as an adult, can you?
Yes… well, sort of. My aunty developed an allergy to sugar when she was nearing 70. She couldn’t eat chocolate, lollies, CAEK, ice cream, or biscuits. Fruit was out, too. Poor love. She lived another 20 years like that, but it must have felt much, much longer.
Quelle horriblé!
Good lord. I might start smoking again, just to make sure I die before I’m 70.
I’d join you, but I’ve met so many fit, spritely, witty old devils since I moved down here that I’m inspired to forgo my planned nembutal overdose at 72 & join them.
Polar Bears FTW.
are you sure they’re old? we have a lot of people bouncing around looking like they’re made of old handbags and I always wonder if they’re active retirees, or 40 year-olds who’ve spent too long on beaches.
The hound introduced me to a 98yro polar bear last winter, MM, and his spritely 93yro wife. They had beautiful skin, no doubt due to the hours they kept in the Polar Bear club down at the SLSC. Dawn swims must be invigorating & good for one’s heart & complexion.
We’ve got a few of the crocodile skin handbag folk down here, usually coated liberally in bling, & I think they’re the type who lathered up in baby oil to sunbake in the70s.
I’ve always envied the poms and their porcelain skin. They age so well! Bastards.
… is it because they rarely sully it with soap, perchance?
I don’t know how anyone could say the poms don’t like soap. There’s East Enders and Coronation Street, and they absolutely love Neighbours.
Bon tish! Catty’s here all week folks. Try the Cashmere Bouquet.
Ah well. Some things never change. Or improve.
Now now, Madam. Don’t get into a lather – I won’t have a bar of it.
Not even this imperial Leather? Surely Tahiti looks nice?
“Simon, Tahiti”
“Roger”
“Yes, I’m doing that to the shareholders now, thanks for asking”.
When did you go to a Liberal party fundraiser?
I’ve got nothing. Unless the LOL suds coming out of my nose count for such.
Good-oh, Quokka. Add a bit of derision to those snorted lol’s, and you’d fit right in at the Liberal party fundraisers.
If you can spew hate out of your mouth as well, there’ll be a bidding war between One Nation and Cory Bernadi’s Conservative Party.
It’s a shame you lot don’t do twitter. When the announcement came out that Cory was forming his own party, some wag tweeted ‘I remember what happened the last time a Corey formed a party’ with a picture of that useless Cory party boy that got arrested, in all his glory of lairy sunglasses, bare chest & nipple ring.
Hilarious.
Hehehe.
Hang on, I’ve got a teenager. Eeeeeeeek!
LOL! If Worthington taught us anything, it’s that advertising your party on Facebook attracts the kind of people who riot when the booze runs out. It would be worth joining Bernardi’s party just to watch the fun when his new followers show up at the first meeting and find a coffee urn and Arnott’s assorted instead of hookers and blow. And then we can all do burnouts in the carpark.
Ha, yes, except I’m pretty sure they’ll BYO hookers & blow, and like Pauline’s mob, the news will be filled with them all self-sabotaging in the first year in the spotlight.
Straya!
Bernadi’s lot won’t have trouble scraping their deposit together. They’ll have better teeth and much better clothes. But it will be hard to split them based on fascist tendencies.
I will call this one early & say, sexting scandals featuring gimp suits & boys under 15, and then there’ll be some shady financial deals that will bring them unstuck. The predictable fascist shadow stuff.
Don’t forget the racist twitter posts.
And very possibly a drunken party where they try to pass some (female) interns around like an horderves platter.
What, flat and grey, and covered with shrimp?
Mmm … shrimp.
“I did not lick cocktail sauce off that woman!”
“I am not a crooque (monsieur)!”
Hehehe. You win. I can’t do better than that. Also, now I really want a toastie.
Well, with me around you’ll always have plenty of cheese.
She’s still going!
I blame that on lactose intolerance.
With me, it’s magnesium tablets. Geez those things are relaxing, though.
Magnesium does that? Oh. Oh dear. That could explain a lot.
Really? You’d been taking magnesium?
Yeah to much and it goes straight through you. That’s why Epsom salts unblock the back passage. Desist forthwith and you might get your gut back in shape.
Shall do. It’s going to hurt, though. I take it because if I don’t, I get awful cramping in the muscles around my heart. Three of the valves leak a little bit. I wonder why none of the doctors, nurses and surgeons have told me this before?
Because they were focused on their own little areas rather than looking at the big picture?
I just take it to chill at the end of the day. If you’re taking it for cardiac reasons I wouldn’t stop it without medical supervision, darld.
Yep, magnesium is good stuff. I’ve been taking it to stop my feet from cramping & it’s helping, lots.
I’m taking my food diary to the outpatients clinic today. Hopefully I see someone there who has a clue this time. Thanks for the info; thank goodness I have such intelligent and informed friends.
Hehehe. If they were still handing out barbiturates like M&Ms I’d be necking those and wouldn’t have to resort to magnesium … but you’re welcome anyway/
Mmmm…. M&M’s….
If M&Ms had a magnesium-enhanced shell, they’d be delicious and relaxing. And, if you ate enough of them, also a laxative!
According to my food diary, they already are a laxative.
“Melts in your mouth not in your hand” is probably a better slogan than “shit through the eye of a needle”.
It works for Taco Bell.
Now we all know what’s not for dinner tonight.
I’m hoping for leftovers. Our Valentine’s dinner was delicious and plentiful. There was even leftover dessert (chocolate mousse), but I think MK may have inhaled all of that when she got home from school.
Yummo, that sounds delicious, Catty.
I completely forgot it was VD & as we’d had such a late night I headed for the Japanese at West Burleigh to get take out.
Thankfully there weren’t that many people there & several had taken their toddlers along with them to remind the other diners where their romance is heading.
To my delight I discovered that they’ve got tempura battered camembert on the menu, with some sort of delcious plum sauce for dipping.
I ate the entire container of it while I was waiting for the Bloke’s train to pull in.
Of course none of my PANTS would do up the next day but as they fed us hot dogs for lunch yesterday, & the veggo ones looked even more poisonous than the carnivorous ones, well, swings & roundabouts.
Pass on that, gross.
At least they offered you a vego option. In my time at Uni it would have been meat or suck a dick.
Fried camembert is delightful – but do they have those Lion rolls like Secret Sushi? If so I’m there.
I haven’t been there that often so I’m not sure what they do, other than it’s delicious & it makes up for loss of access to Sushi Kotobuki.
Our local indy sushi train down at the village makes amazing fresh sushi, so that’s my usual port of call.
And as we’ll have closet doors next week, I’m that bit closer to having guest quarters here so you guys can judge for yourself.
There’s little in this world that isn’t made better by dipping it in batter and deep frying it. They really should offer that as an alternative funeral option.
Battered wives, anyone?
Remember Paul Keating, “Things That Batter”?
As long as cupboard doors enable you to stand fast against rellies – then huzzah, Q! What finish are you getting … all I know is not 2-pac.
Very simple – white board to match the closet doors that we didn’t mangle. We thought it best to keep the costs down & keep everything with the same look so that nothing stands out, so it’s just the base-line budget range.
The exciting bit is that once installed, doors will make a whole lot of crap disappear.
I’ve always liked those doors that are made of mirrors. But then, I’ve always liked flocked wallpaper too, so don’t listen to me.
Oh I love flocked wallpaper. Preferably very ornate in design. And red like the colour of healthy insides.
MIL has gold flocked wallpaper in her lounge room, with gold velvet curtains. It’s very Louis XV.
Ooh. Tell me she’s got ornate gilded spindly chairs. And a footman.
now there’s a happy thought. Where can I find a footman?
I’ve been known to admire a well shaped foot and even give footrubs but I’m not a footman. More of a (harumph. This is your internal censor speaking. shut up)
No, unfortunately. She has a delightful 70’s chocolate brown velvet lounge suite and tinted-glass-topped coffee table she bought brand new when they moved into the house. It’s very comfy. Until you stand up and stub your toe on one of the many brass animal figurines scattered around the room.
Q, they’re in the same aisle as the handymen.
Brass animal figurines and a smoked glass coffee table? Next time location scouts are looking for a place to shoot a 70s biopic you should nominate MIL’s lounge room.
The in-laws are fond of telling everyone that the Boss was conceived on that coffee table, so it should come as no surprise it’s more 70’s porn than 70’s biopic.
Tell me they have a mirrored pillar in one corner!
Also what is it with you lot and the horizontal folk dancing on non-bedroom furniture?
No mirror any more. They had to remove it to install a Coonara a few years ago. This event coincides with FIL’s loss of interest in marital activity. MIL wants to complain, but the Coonara was her idea.
I’m not sure why their family have a penchant for Bedroom Olympics outside of the bedroom, but I’m not complaining. Unless I get carpet burn. Or a Coonara.
So a Coonara is like a scaled-up crockpot, on effect?
It would appear so. MIL constantly complains that FIL won’t take the blue pills she bought him. I’ve offered to get her one of those do-it-yourself aids from the Adult Shop, but she harumphed so much at the idea that she almost spilled her wine. Almost.
And our Brisbane guest (remember her) just left with a pile of bags approximately twice her own weight. Off to the wilds of Brunswick to start uni. She was easy to have around, tidy, cooked occasionally, vacuumed out the car(!) and generally lovely. But I did miss pants-off Fridays.
Jesse’s stout (Southern Courage Russian Imperial Stout) gets launched today but we’ll be minding the kidlets, not mingling with the boozerati. Seems fair.
Oh break a… umm head?…. to the Commie Cervesa. Hope it goes down well.
Oh it does! It really does.
That doesn’t sound fair at all! We shall have to make up for it; I believe Mayhem is keen to meet up again in March. Bubble time!
Also tell Brisbane lass she’s set to high a standard. Vacuumed the car?!
We helped a fair bit with stuff and she was looking for something nice to do. Don’t know why she picked that? I did it once when we lived in Brisbane. I think.
Excellent.
Wait, what? You can vacuum cars? Good gracious, don’t tell the Boss, or he will want me to start doing it.
What a lovely guest.
I need someone to vacuum out our car, but there don’t seem to be any house elves here at coastal casa Q that are up to the task. Other than the very surly one that glares at me out of the mirror.
I gather they’ve all been set free. For which I blame the Bloke, and all the socks & jocks he drops on the floor.
I’m much happier living in squalor and having all the house elves free.
Actually that might be my new welcoming line! “Please excuse the mess, we liberated the house elves. “
Perhaps a sign on the front door ‘Due to an avalanche of dropped socks, the house elves have been set free, and as the dust bunnies have risen up & run off with my wand, I am temporarily unable to attend to your creature comforts.’
My brother once had a doormat emblazoned with the words ‘Piss Off’. Says it all, really.
Good suggestions, I might get both.
That reminds me. I must stock up on dust masks and Hazmat suits for visitors.
Hehehe. Don’t forget those slip over shoe covers! They come in a handy dispenser box, like tissues.
I don’t waste money on shoe covers, just make them leave their shoes at the door and wear tissue boxes on their feet like Howard Hughes.
Nope. I tried that, but it made the tissues smell icky.
Would you like Aloe Vera, Lavender or Feet?
If you stick your feet in the Eucalyptus box, does that make your feet smell like a koala’s?
I’m not sure – the smell of chlamydia and koala urine isn’t in my essential oils collection. Still, it can’t be worse than my feet already smell, can it? O.k, sign me up.
I think Chlamydia is an Impulse scent.
Why doesn’t that surprise me?
Hey, someone had a can of that in the change room at the lap pool yesterday…except I don’t think it was chlamydia, Cryptosporidium, more like.
There’s one way to tell. Have you got a soggy bottom or fluctuating levels of consciousness?
Thank you for the earworm, Madam. I just got rid of this one, too.
Oh I love this entire soundtrack! Thanks for the reminder.
I wandered around singing Man of Constant Sorrow for about 3 days last week, and had only just managed to replace it with The Lion Sleeps Tonight – you know, because the urge to sing that is always just a whim away. A whim away. A whim away. A whim away.
Stealing that!
LOL.
Hehehe. Always on the brink of insanity, now doomed to go crazy with “eee eee ooh ooh…” reverberating in my head.
I like the Siren’s Song best. I used to sing it to the boys when they were bubbas.
Oh yeah. We’ve got the sound track and a DVD called Down from the Mountain which has the orginal artists and a mix of the movie tracks and others.
She’s long gone with her red shoes on
Gonna need another lovin’ baby
I suppose it’s a bit sinister, but it has a lovely drowsy quality. TGP also used to like Billie Holiday. I imagine if I tried to sing to him now he’d get out the duct tape.
I have several Emmy Lou songs on my iPod. But any time I sing along, the same thing happens. Gran takes out her hearing aid, MIL starts yelling “Oh no, not again! Shut her up! Shut her up!”, and the Boss goes and hides in the shed. I don’t think it’s a critique of Emmy Lou, though, as they do that with all the other songs I sing along with too.
It takes remarkable persistence and dedication to one’s singing, to continue in the face of such cruel critique. SIng on, silver bird.
Sing on, silver bird
Sing on key
Your time has come to shine
(Please don’t shine near me)
Sing on key…. damn. Oh, well, maybe next time.
If you had your house keys in your back pocket as you sang….
That might work. Speaking of keys, the batteries in one of our two car keys went flat. We had heard rumours that it can cost anywhere between $400 and $800 to get a replacement key, so the Boss took the flat one to his dad and they fixed it themselves. They fixed it all right. Now the car alarm goes off whenever we try to use it.
Oh good lord. TGP ruined my beeper by teething on it, and I never bothered replacing it. From time to time I wonder what will happen if the alarm goes off, but so far … 12 years later? … so good.
I think maybe my way is less triggering.
I dropped our beeper key in the mop bucket last year, and I keep forgetting to replace it. Our car doesn’t do the alarm thing -well, not so far as I know, anyway. It’s not like I ever read the manual for these things.
That’s two votes against the beeper.
We haven’t got an alarm (afaik) but the beepers still work. Have to admit that if they stopped, I’d probably try fixing it myself too. It’s a blo- erm, survival trait?
Yeah, survival. Because the number of deaths by having to key cars open manually every year is terrifying.
I hoped it sounded better than “a bloke thing” but no.
We’re all out on the deck, colouring in and drinking coffee. Surrounded by loud magpies. Poked my finger at one and she nipped it – quite gently. Like bleeding Hitchcock around here.
Our cockatoos buggered off last week while I was away.
I’m sure they’ve moved on to raze greener pastures with their flock & no doubt someone is cursing them, but gosh I miss their twice-daily visits.
Even the raucous shrieks that shook the house, as one would summon the mate – or me, to give them fresh bird seed.
I hope they come back.
I had a duck named Hitchcock once. He was so named because he had short legs, which necessitated a fair bit of hitching to avoid grazes to the more sensitive areas of his anatomy. His brother was named Bronte, because he also had short legs and we were convinced the concomitant tail-dragging gave him a sore arse.
I think cockatoos migrate a bit according to what food is available, and seasons, and possible arcane feathery reasons. Sometimes they’re around at home, sometimes they’re elsewhere. Kookas, magpies, drongos, butcherbirds and the various honey eaters seem more constant. Oh, and the galahs. I’m sure the cockies will come back when they feel like it.
Catty, I’ve completely lost the ability to tell when you’re taking the orange.
Me too.
That duck story is entirely true. The horrible little bastards would savage my ankles every time I went to hang out the washing. At the time, I was relieved when the Boss gave them to a farmer friend for his Christmas lunch. Of course now I’m wondering if the ducks were merely critiquing my naming skills. That would have been fair; I never did ask them what they thought their names should be.
They probably would have resented Donald and Daffy.
Or Donald and Mickey…. oh, wait, that’s the American government.
And what an appalling comedy show that is.
Apparently I missed the twitter trending of Sweden, featuring lots of IKEA jokes & the Swedish chef from the muppets, going postal with his knives.
Oh well. No doubt there’ll be plenty more where that came from.
I’m sick to death of Trump stories. I couldn’t care less if the whole United States fell down a sink hole, at this point .
It’s traversing the S-bend, first.
The only good thing that will come out of Trumpopia is that for once our own politicians don’t look like idiots and stooges. On a comparison basis I mean. In real terms they are of course still idiots and stooges.
Good gracious, how can you say that Madam? The sheer arseclownery already imposed upon us by that pompous, money-gouging git we call our PM far outstrips anything even threatened by Trump.
Yeah he’s a complete dick but he sounds not too bad as he smiles and knifes the working class, while hoarding all the bandaids for his matea.
We’ll have to leave it to history to decide who’s the nastiest of them all, Catty.
Trump seems to take every policy statement from something he’s seen on Fox the night before, or one of those deranged & factless conspiracy theory websites that he follows.
I don’t really understand all the bitterness directed at the LNP gubbermint – I don’t vote for them because I know they don’t care about the environment, social justice, mental health, or good directions for a sustainable future. So I am never shocked or surprised when, true to form, they scupper all such things in the name of supporting fat cats & big business.
At least they’re consistent & they follow their policy directives, so you know what to expect of them.
Trump, OTOH, is entirely unpredictable & the entire admin looks more & more clinically insane with every passing day.
I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree on our perceptions of that one.
I can’t even. So I won’t.
Subject change! We took your advice and looked at Carsales.com.au, and found the perfect car. I wasn’t keen on paying a deposit over the phone, but that’s apparently how it works now. Yesterday we went to pick it up, but when we took it for a test drive, the Boss was worried it wouldn’t make it back to the showroom. The salesman jumped in and went for a drive with the Boss to see why we were complaining, and both of them thought the motor was going to catch fire before they could make it back to the showroom. We didn’t buy the car. (Or, more accurately, the incendiary device.) And surprise surprise, we’re still in ‘discussions’ about getting the deposit back. The Boss has decreed that our next car will be by private sale only.
Well that’s disappointing. I hope the next one you see is better. And that you get your deposit back ASAP. Might I suggest a complaint … or the threat of a complaint … to the website? They’ll want to keep listing their fire-traps.
They gave the distinct impression that they couldn’t give a flying proverbial what we say, or who we say it to. There were several young men in-and-out of the place while we were there, so I think the bulk of their sales must be scrub bashers for hoons.
Wow, what a shyster. Ombudsmen, Catty, STAT. And I would also be calling thte police. I hope you have a receipt, and you never use this service again. It sounds dodgy as all hell.
I have just sent another email request for the money. The Ombudsman won’t even look at my complaint unless I have made repeated, clear requests for the refund, and have allowed sufficient time for the refund to be delivered (14 day minimum, 28 days preferred). So I’m just going to send daily email requests and will ring them every few days until the Ombudsman is satisfied I have made all reasonable attempts to resolve the dispute directly. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
I’m so very sorry it was my lead. I’m sure Heff didn’t pay the nice old couple he got the Subie from a deposit.
Oh, what a pain. Did you sign something that stated that those are the terms of the agreement, Catty? Because if so I suppose they can hold onto your money & use it to collect interest in an off-shore account in the bank of Switzerland until time is up.
Perhaps you need to go in there at peak service hour & make a lot of noise until they give the money back. Take some whiny kids for good effect. Borrow one that looks like an ad for the infectious disease ward & tell them if you don’t get any joy of them, you’ll be back tomorrow with the other kids from sick bay.
He’s finally replied to my email, and has assured me that the money will be in my account overnight. If not, I’m going with your idea, Q. But instead of infectious children, I’ll be taking junkies – and their pit bull.
A child with chicken pox would be ideal.
Q, I think you’re a genius. But if Catty can get her hands on the bloke who ruined her halfway, I’d go with him.
The halfway? What have I missed this time?
If threats of A Pox On All Your Sales Cars doesn’t work, I can give you Wendy Whiner’s number. She loves to get on the phone & deliver an earful, it’s how she winds down after work every day. As she seems to be running out of people who’ll answer their phones, (The Bloke, on my advice, blocked her number & I’m sure we aren’t alone in that) I’m sure she’d appreciate some new numbers for her 5-7pm You’ll Be Sorry You Crossed Me list.
I think she should quit teaching and offer up a professional aggrievance service for people like you who’ve got better things to do with your life than chase Smurfwits. Just think, we could outsource all our grievances to someone who relishes those sorts of conversations.
I’ve taken to going walking down at the beach at that hour, so that I’m not here to listen to the four weeks of plotting & manouvering that’s involved in getting her latest target suspended. I think it’s the child who pissed her off by changing classes to get away from her. That’ll larn him.
Hopefully you’ll have better luck with car hunting this week, Catty.
That halfway was just MM’s phone inserting random typos again. It should read hallway. The Boss’s junkie mate utterly decimated my toilet, the hallway, the adjoining bathroom and the back seat of the Boss’s car. It took over two hours and a full bottle of bleach to clean up that shit storm.
Oh it’s hallway. that makes sense. That guy was unforgettable, I still shudder at the thought of it.
Bingo! The lady wins s year’s supply of bleach.
Q, I think you could be onto something there: listentomewhinge.com
LOL.
I’ve been wondering about starting up a Centrelink café. Cheap coffee, free TV, and brown sofas would lure them in, and I could make my profit by flogging chop-chop under the counter, adding a nominal fee for wifi, and offering (for a small surcharge) to ring Centrelink and sit on hold for them until someone answers. I can make coffee and I can sit on hold to Centrelink for hours – and I can do them both at the same time, so I’ve got all the necessary skills. Does anyone remember where we go for small business grants?
You’re not going to like the answer … it starts with a C and rhymes with “stink”.
Catty, an excellent business model. Can you get insurance for inducing chronic depression in you customers, though?
I’m pretty sure if the customers are on Centrelink, they would all already have chronic depression.
Fair point. And another great idea.
Testify. Is it too late for your hubby to go with chasing workcover or whatever the accident insurance thing was, Catty? I’m sure the Stink Centre is far worse to deal with than that lot.
I’ve been nagging him about it, but he’s reluctant. Reluctant, and stubborn.
Well, we need train drivers up here in Brisbane, Catty – perhaps you could sell up & move & he could retrain to do that?
Thanks, Q, I’ll mention it to him.
It would be a lot of fun being a train driver. And – unlike bus driving – you don’t have to have contact with the smelly and unreliable General Public.
I reckon the worst part of being a train driver must be the risk of people falling on (or lying on) the tracks and not being able to stop in time. That would crush me.
Yeah, it’s apparently the worst part of driving a semi, too. I’m told that “suicide by truck” is more common than they let it get into the papers.
Very much so. Julian has seen a lot of it. He’s seen friends whose lives were ruined by this.
I can sympathise with people who feel they’ve had enough and want to go, but there are some who seem to want to leave as much unpleasantness behind as possible. Wrecking the life of some poor train or truck driver isn’t necessary. Nor was jumping down the main escalator shaft at Eastland about a week ago. The place was full of small children and the escalators are near two separate play areas. Not to mention the number of shaken looking staff we saw.
God that’s awful! I didn’t hear about that one.
I believe it. Sometimes these things are hushed-up out of kindness to their relatives.
Really, GB? Oh that’s awful. Yes, I agree. That’s a very “look at moi!” final gesture.
Cross posting, sorry, I missed your comment GB. I didn’t hear anything about that on the news! The last shopping centre incident I’ve seen was the Doncaster one where they found a bloke in the lift with his throat cut. What happened?
All I know is that a woman jumped from the very top and it happened just before we left. The centre had staff blocking off the escalators and car park access – lots of very stunned looking staff. Most unfair on them.
Hold your horses … they found a bloke in a lift with his throat cut???!!!!
Yeah, that was big news on the telly a few weeks ago. The guy was a tradie working at the centre. His parents were so distraught that they didn’t even pick up on the fact that the Person Of Interest in the video surveillance tapes was the dead guy’s brother. There’s a couple of articles that say the brother might be headed to Queensland, and “may be driving one of two vehicles, a 1997 blue Ford Fairmont sedan registration ONV 954 or a white 2002 Ford Falcon station wagon registration RIL 435.” There’s been no public announcement to say he’s been found.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/doncaster-shopping-centre-killing-brother-a-person-of-interest/news-story/349255c89951b2536aaf57be5e71848e
Yes, there was a suicide by truck on the M1 up at Pimpama the other day. Nasty stuff. They don’t make the news because it prompts copy-cats, and a spike in suicides if it is in the news.
That makes sense. It wouldn’t be easy for their relatives to read about it in the papers, either.
Those poor, poor parents.
There’s going to be some grieving parents if I ever get my hands on the specialist I just saw at Box Hill. I got home and had a squiz at the doctor’s report he wrote for my GP. It’s so full of inaccuracies it’s beyond ridiculous. I shall be writing a strong letter of complaint to the AMA and to Box Hill hospital.
Water off a duck’s back, Catty. If you want them to suffer for their ineptitude, write a letter to the hospital with point-form details of the inaccuracies & ask them to correct it.
Keep it brief – one of my lecturers assured me that all letters of complaint get screwed up in a ball & the one that makes it furthest up the corridor wins a prize for the reader (and then goes unanswered into the nearest furnace) & you’ve got a better chance of them doing something about it.
Bugger. I hoped for a while there they’d actually HELP or something cray, this time.
The Public Health System. *sigh*
We should probably just be satisfied that they didn’t botch your surgery, I suppose.
Amen. It sounds pathetic, but when they went to mark my belly for a stoma, I had a meltdown. Nobody had mentioned it before that moment, and it was just too much. I am so grateful they were able to avoid needing one.
Yes, that was the worry, wasn’t it? If all else crumbles at least there’s that. Carrying around a bag of your own wastes all the time would really harsh one’s mellow.
Every time the lady in the next bed had a colostomy bag explosion (a couple every day), i felt an indescribably overwhelming relief that it was not my shit coating the walls, floor and curtains.
Oh wow. Yeah, that would be thoroughly depressing. Poor lady.
We always had a few kids in the Special Unit with colostomy bags and sometimes kids who had to be swung onto the toilet with a smallish electric crane. Most of them would make you want to howl because of their calm, matter of fact attitudes and even humour. And those bags always seem to leak enough to smell.
Never forget Bruce* (*his real name) with arthrogryposis who could barely bend his arms or legs. They were having trouble getting him into a car for an excursion and he said very dryly “Never mind miss, just strap me on the roof rack.”
Inspiring, GB.
Every time I speak to my cousin K in Perth I marvel at her strength of character – she’s had a C-bag for years & she’s been on dialysis forever. And in between times she made it to every visiting session for her son who wound up in jail because of a substance abuse problem.
I keep telling her that I couldn’t do what she does, & she says quite philosophically that you just do what you have to do, and somehow you manage to cope with it.
Sorry to hear about your appointment, Catty. That must be beyond frustrating.
Good lord Q. Here was I feeling exhausted after an early start, 5 hours work, a trip to Wooilie’s and the prospect of a teenaged driving lesson. Note to self – harden up.
I don’t think I’d last a mile in her shoes – I would’ve rolled over & given up, long ago.
Pretty tough here too. Sitting in the shade while PB plays in sand and water. Put a pic on FB for her evil father so he feels bad about being at work.
We have a few more warm days promised, GB, so PB will have plenty more opportunities to make Daddy jealous. Keep your camera on standby!
We’ve had rain – lashings of glorious rain! – again overnight. I’m very happy with the precipitation, but I wish storms would happen a bit earlier in the day so I could enjoy them, rather than being woken up by them.
There’s nothing so soothing as rain on a tin roof. Things like that make me nostalgic for Queensland.
No rain here.
* sulks & slinks off to water dry-as-a-husk plants.
It’s dry here too, except for our pool. The pool is wet, cool and glorious. Bliss!
The lap pools up here have finally dropped back to a reasonable temp – 27.6C. The uni pool has just been glorious, and still only 2-3 people in it when I jump in at 7am. That reminds me, the lifeguard was telling me that she & her boyfriend were coming over the hill from Tally into West Burleigh (a suburb known as Koala Park) & they had to hit the brakes to avoid hitting a koala. It was around 9.30pm on a week night & the koala started charging at their car, so they had to outrun it. She said it was a very scary drop bear, but beign good sorts they did the right thing & doorknocked a resident who had her lights on & asked her to call it in.
Koalas aren’t meant to be on the ground so wildlife here asks that you report any sightings so they can investigage. Probably thirsty, poor love.
Straya! You gotta love it.
Hehehe. I’ve heard of kangaroos battling cars, but I never thought a koala would have a go.
I wonder if it was drunk?
Fermented Eucalypt juice. Terrible hangovers.
Aren’t they all?
I thought they were more genial stoners. The video store clerks of the animal kingdom.
There’s a spate of threatening phone calls and letters going out at the moment from Video Ezy, for unreturned movies. A lot of people have ignored them because the place has been shut down for a few years, but apparently they’re genuine.
A friend of mine got one! Even if people still have the tapes – the tapes! – where are they supposed to send them?
It will make for some very silly court action, that will draw much needed focus from, you know, rape and murder.
Wow. I’d hate to be the person whose job it is to chase those.
Someone said that until now, the amounts owing weren’t big enough to make debt collection a viable proposition. But now the compound interest on the still-accumulating fines makes it an attractive one.
Some of the titles would be so embarrassing people might pay to have them kept out of the public eye. I’m thinking of much of Chevy Chase’s work ,and early Tom Cruise.
Heh heh heh, “Bros – Live!” or “Meatballs 4” would fetch a premium in hush-money.
Blue Lagoon
I’ve never seen it. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Won’t work on me, my appalling taste in DVDs is out on display in the living room book shelf for all to see.
I feel for the video store owners – I liked the clerks in our locals, & saw some of them being treated appallingly. We usually returned movies on time but on the rare occasions that we didn’t, the staff invariably waived the fees because they liked us & because we always said please & thank you & we took the time to treat them like human beings, not Hands To Serve.
When I told the girl that I was quite OK to pay the fee because Mea Culpa, she said ‘Yes, but you’re always so nice about it.’
So I gather that late fees were pretty much their Arsehole Tax to encourage the kind of customers that they don’t want to Eff Off. Which is a pretty sound business principle, really, if you’re the owner of the business & you want to pay your staff & your overheads.
I’ve been in those stores when people are explaining that they shouldn’t have to pay late fees because they’re Special & they can’t believe that the rules apply to them. Some shouty angry neighbours spring to mind – in fact the reason we probably got special treatment is from me saying quietly to the clerk ‘I feel your pain, those people live in our street.’
The Bloke came home from work yesterday & said that his Barrista (I love how these days people have a Barrista like you’d have a hairdresser or a dentist) is leaving to work in the Burbs closer to her home – less travel – and as she handed him his coffee she told him that she’d miss him & she said ‘Thank you for being such a lovely man.’
That poor girl, it’s a New Farm store so she must get lots of important people who are very surly, very busy, and who are all too happy to treat her like she’s just as disposable as the coffee cups that are currently occupying 3/4 of the space in the landfill.
Man’s inhumanity to Man is one of my greatest sources of anxiety.
I’m more exercised by man’s inhumanity to woman and child, but we’re on the same page, Catty.
Agreed Q. I imagine the current average New Farm entitlement level is hyperkardashian.
It’s everywhere. I want to live in a gentler world where people don’t want to crush bodies underfoot in order to get what they want out of life.
Inhumanity seems to be fairly evenly distributed across the sexes – look at the news today out of Moama. It never fails to astonish me that when a woman murders her children the media will make excuses for it & for the friends that new she was planning it. If a man had done that they’d have his mates up on crucifixes on page 2 of the herald sun by now.
*knew*. Damned early morning typos.
The more I read about that, the more horrified I am. Have you seen much about the litany of fuck ups that led to the incident? I sincerely hope the government officials who are directly responsible for this travesty are sent to prison.
I don’t.
The current burn-out rate in child safety officers means that people who are fresh out of uni & have less than 2 years experience are getting handed cases like this, and they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into.
They’ll be scarred for life from this & it’ll be down to inexperience & being thrown in at the deep end because of the failings of the system.
Ultimately it’s the pollies who slash funding to mental health care & rehab programs, who are culpable, but that’s driven by society’s lack of interest in taking care of those who fall along the wayside.
I do think DOCS have a hard row to hoe. Take kids away from parents and you’re creating another stolen generation and denying parents their rights. Leave them in iffy situations and you’re negligent.
Practically, too, there just aren’t enough placements for all the badly treated kids.
When did parents become so selfish and crapulent? Society exhausts me.
Yes, I agree for the most part, but in this particular case they made unforgivably stupid decisions. Like, when the woman was released from prison last month, the police drove her from the prison gate to her mother’s house, without at any stage advising her mother that they were going to do so. They just showed up with her. While that may seem reasonable, it wasn’t. It was illegal – the mother has an active AVO out against her, and the police knew it. When she complained that they couldn’t leave her daughter there, the police just said ‘tough luck’ and drove away. And this is just one of a whole litany of stupid acts that led to a little boy dying, criminally stupid acts that someone must be held accountable for.
Heartbreaking stuff.
Oh well, new topic to take our minds off the tragedy – the Bloke and I have invented a fabulous fun new game that we think would be a wowser at Dinner Parties.
It’s called ‘Guess The Missing Adjective’ and we came up with it in the car when he was grumping about things overheard in his visit to the clothesline on Saturday.
For those who came in late Wendy is in a huge fuming snit (again) as she’s missed out on some sort of promotion/job opportunity at her place of employment. Apparently one of her underlings is getting it & ‘it’s not like he’s even trying’, whereas ‘I’ve been openly ambitious’ (AKA: aggressive in pursuit of it).
It’s for a highly sensitive & diplomatic position & she’s convinced that she (& only she) has the talents that are necessary for it.
There’ve been repeated admonitions from some sort of senior staff member who tries to bring her back to terra firma with the wise insightful counsel of ‘But Wendy, you do know that you’re so….’ & the Bloke rushed inside before he could hear her raging against whatever this week’s criticism was & before Wendy could start fuming over the injustice & the inaccuracy of it.
So.
We spent a happy 20 minutes rolling through the green hills of Tally taking turns suggesting what the missing adjective could be. Perhaps you’d all like to suggest one?
Highly commended on the giggle scale were: aggressive, abusive, unstable, overbearing, domineering, unbalanced, unfiltered, undermedicated & then I won the day with ‘Unsuitable’.
The Bloke nearly rolled out of the car door as he took in just how much territory that particular adjective covered in terms of her employment & he announced me to be The Winnah.
I’m quite sure it would make a wonderful board game.
What’s the number for the patent office, again?
Noxious, venomous, feral.
Milton-Bradley are the chaps, I think. I’f they’te still in business.
Oh yes of course.
Tell me…Is ‘boganly’ an adjective, or an adverb? Or do you think it should be ‘Boganesque’?
I had an Aunt once out in the Lockyer Valley. She was definitely BoganEsk.
Boganific? Bognasty.
An older colleague may have said ‘underqualified’. But a younger one would have said ‘not even’.
Hey, isn’t that one of the topics in Cards Against Humanity? If it isn’t, it should be.
I don’t know. When we’ve played the full box I’ll let you know.
Hehehehehehheeee you lot bad, very bad.
Esp. Khan GB.
Now I’ve got Kransky Sister earworm.
I heard them on 612 recently, singing Highway to Hell.
I was on the M1 at the Surfers turnoff & it seemed very appropriate.
They are fabulous. I was going to try to see them around Christmas time, but everything unravelled. Hopefully they’ll gig again soon.
They are good, but not as good as Richard Cheese:
Should I be wishing I had speakers … or fearing them?
You are missing out big time! Richard Cheese is Fire!
Ipad not loading that, should this be motivation to buy a new one, or be content with what I’ve got? 🙂
Did you try disabling the Good Taste checker?
Hehehe. Definitely upgrade. You don’t want to miss the tasty stylings of Richard Cheese.
Better still, use your smart TV to look him up on Youtube, Q. You’ll be so glad you did.
Richard reminds me of this little bloke who comes to the market to busk sometimes. He is absolutely amazing. Wears a suit – weather permitting – and sings exactly like Frank Sinatra. He can sing for several hours practically non-stop and not repeat a number. Really terrific.
My father used to do that, but without the suit. His band would play four-hour gigs (with three 15 minute breaks), and they would not repeat a song. He had about five song lists to choose from, and very few songs were repeated between the lists, either.
It’s definitely a gift, isn’t it? Hey, did I ever tell your my Grandfather was in a Hawaiian band? I’ve seen a photo of them all in Hawaiian shirts and leis, but unfortunately no recordings are extant.
Oooh, and my Uncle’s wife’s Great-Aunt lead a troupe of chorus girls. Doris Wimp was her glorious name.
My grandfather was a sour, evil old b who would take the pennies from a blind man’s cup. But not musical as far as I know…
Fifi’s on the other hand played the accordion. So who was worse I say?
Who was it said that a gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but chooses not to?
LOL.
My Aboriginal grandmother made living (albeit meagre) playing the music for the silent movies. I think she played with dance bands occasionally on Saturday nights & such but it’s hard to know as Dad would so rarely talk about anything to do with his past. My cousin Noel still has the grinder music thingy which she used to use.
Fifi’s aunt – a lovely lady who reached a great age – played piano with the Charleville Hotshots. We’ve got a good photo but again, no recording. If I even remotely trusted any of you I could post photos of me as a singing Lord (lifting a small fairy) in Iolanthe and as a pirate in P’s of Penzance. But you know – not gonna happen.
Your Grandma might have played with my Poppa! That would be epic.
GB – what on earth do you mean?! OF COURSE you can trust us.
Unless they played Doctor…in which case we may be more than sisters in Spirit, MM.
Dammit I came back here to comment on something I saw at the blogs while I was at uni but the stoopid ipad wouldn’t let me into the comment thread.
FKN technology. Now I’ve forgotten what it was I meant to say & what prompted me to think ‘I’ll get back to that later’ – in the first place.
We had a slightly less than restful night waiting for the Bloke to be summonsed to his father’s Death Bed, for the Last Fart to trumpet forth signalling his departure to the next world.
Thank Heaven I’m an orphan is all I have to say about that.
The Bracelet!
I tried to do an ‘oh dear’ reply & Goblins ate it.
Stoopid ancient technology.
More likely the Gimmee swiped your comment and flogged it to Crime Converters to get money for Stolli and blow.
When sheep and cattle have bloat they just deflate them with a sharp metal tube-y thing. Wants me to ask Uncle if he has a spare lying around?
LOL. (Imagines rust)
Sure!
One for me too, please. The post-colonoscopy bloat isn’t subsiding.
Catty treats no good. Are you sure it’s not just a maiden of indigestibale hospital sandwiches?
MM, I do hope you never work out how to disable autocorrect on your phone. I get the best LOLS from it’s contributions.
Clearly it disapproves of your post-procedure snacks & the only sense I can make of the ‘maiden’ bit is that it believes in the intrinsic virtue of hospital sandwiches.
Too funny.
Feel Better Soon. Mwah.
Hehehe “that’s ” and “midden”.
The discharge nurse (an unfortunate title, if ever I heard one) did warn me to expect much painful wind. I’m not sure if she was a maiden, though.
A discharge coming from the right quarters would demonstrate that.
How was everybody’s Thursday? I spent mine knitting and playing wth the cats and regret nothing.
I spent the morning recovering and reflecting on the fun we had yesterday. We walked to the park with a lion – which was invisible but totally real. He went home early to make sandwiches which, upon enquiry, he had learned to make in lion school. This proved to be just “down the hill and up the hill and around the corner” which are truly magical directions. PB is getting to be a true Melbourne scrounger. She noted a small trampoline and doll stroller on the way home but neither were tempting. Later I was given a present containing a wedge of toy cheese from IKEA (I think it was a toy?) but when I said I loved cheese, she informed me that it was butter…pause…that you could use to make pancakes (evil grin). Shortly after that I made pancakes for lunch and she ate six. There was Hide and Seek – “I can see toes. Grandad toes!” – reading Pooh Bear, feeding fish and magpies and making sandcastles and much, much more. Then the rest arrived with Hamish aka the Mooshinator and it got more exhausting…
I visited gran and went to a JSA appointment. While I was out the Boss took a call from the manager of The Murray Hotel. The manager was quite upset at my call to the police and my Facebook comments about her hotel’s dodgy practices, and discussed with the Boss how they were totally innocent in the whole affair – it would appear the lady I spoke to not only lied to me about being the manager, she also lied to her boss about our conversation. She explained it was an innocent mistake and that they’ve sent the money back. When the Boss told me this, I ran to the computer to check my balance – sure enough, no money. But it may be processed overnight so I will check again in the morning. If there’s still no money, there will be a reckoning.
Personally I would have preferred cats and knitting, but there you have it. Yay for you, Morgana, living the dream!
Que? This must be another one of those things I’ve missed from FB.
I had class, which I enjoy, but was sleepy, because of Wendy’s dog & it’s 2am barkfest. My mistake for thinking we could sleep without the Cone of AC silence muffling the outside world.
Not to worry, I will sleep well tonight in The Cone Zone & I made a Swiss roll with passionfruit curd filling, so if my blood sugar gets dangerously low, I haz sustenance.
Don’t take the risk, Q. Get some preventative Swiss Roll into yourself before bed, and head off that hypoglycaemia at the pass!
The story about The Murray Hotel was basically an unauthorised charge to my Visa. I asked them to reverse the charge and was told to go suck it. I complained on Facebook and suddenly I’m told I’m getting a refund.
After hearing the Boss’s recount of his conversation with the manager, I am left with the distinct impression it’s the receptionist who is up to no good. So I reckon the police complaint might still be a good idea, if it stops The Murray Hotel’s no-CVV-necessary eftpos machine swallowing some other poor bugger’s card number.
Yep. I’d missed that on FB so went back to find it. Dodgy as all hell that they should refuse a refund like that and, as you say, could be the one you talked to doing the skimming. I know a lot of people don’t check the CC statements as carefully as they should (cough) butI can’t see how you’d get away with it for long.
Inter-bank transfers aren’t immediate. There’s some complex system of bundling the transfers that can take up to 2 days, depending on which banks are involved. Still, I’d whinge if you don’t see it this morning. You might get a double refund!
Q, what I want to know is – did you make the curd and if so what’s the recipe? Still far too many passionfruit hanging around here.
Ah, wild passionfruit. Now there’s a happy childhood reminiscence. They grew everywhere in Townsville, and it was such fun sucking the tiny blobs of pulp out of the squishy little passionfruits. Mmmmm…. tasty, tasty blobs….
I might stick some in a mailing tube. Better than a cat!
I expect almost anything would be better than sticking passionfruit in a cat.
Don’t try to come across all innocent, as if you’d never done that, GB.
Indeed. It’s not like a cat ends up being called Genghis without just cause & in this instance I call Provocation, PassionFruit style.
MM, I bought a jar of it from the hippies at the Tumbulgum bakery. She said she made it in her Thermomix. If you rush out and buy one…nah seriously, there’s recipes all over the internet for it.
I’d go with the SBS one.
http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/passionfruit-curd-0
Catty did you say that you have grandparents or such from Halifax?
I know someone mentioned Halifax to me & I’m smurfed if I can remember who.
It popped up in the book I’m reading & I had one of those ‘Huh, who, what?’ moments that seem to occur more often than the ‘I know that Answer’ moments, these days.
No, that wasn’t my mob. Ingham was about as far north as any of them ever got.
Well, put it this way. I know it wasn’t me.
Haha to buying a Thermomix – are you trying to get me killed?!
Just maimed & burnt. My twitter feed tells me that the Katering Show girls have a new series ready to launch – it’s called ‘Get Krackin’ and I’m hoping it involves eggs & some legendary deep sea-monsters.
Huzzah! When is it coming to iView?
They must have their respective acts together. When my kids were tiny I could barely script a playgroup meeting, let alone a whole comedy show.
There are periodic twitter photos of them both staring at the camera, bleary eyed, over bottles of UTI meds, baby food, and chablis.
That’s what I did wrong. I never drank any Chablis at all.
Silly billy. How with the ural work properlike if you don’t mix it with valium & chablis?
I surely hope that involved autocorrupt?
It’s as if that was sent from my new phone.
I don’t know what you two are talking about. Quokka’s comment makes perfect sense to me.
I’m off to a 21st this morning . Pray for me. I was gong to add “surely they won’t be too drunk at 11 a.m.”, then i vaguely remembered shards of my own 21st and I got frightened.
I’m sure you’ll be a calming influence and a shining example of responsible behaviour MM. Getting older sucks.
I say “Lead The Charge!”. Pack a beer bong, Madam, and all will be …. I was going to say ‘well’, but ‘uploaded to Youtube by teatime’ would probably be more accurate. Have fun!
They don’t drink, they assure me it’s too expensive and the $10 tablets with the little blue rabbits that they buy off the accounting students give far more bang for their buck.
They were sipping champagne cocktails made with raspberry sorbet, in a responsible fashion.
It’s 21 Jim, but not as we know it.
iPhone cameras have sucked the fun out of everything.
Why can’t more functions serve raspberry sorbet?
That’s a good question. Also, why can’t more functions involve staying at home alone in our PJ’s with raspberry sorbet?
I still prefer dark chocolate body paint. Just old fashioned I suppose.
I dunno. But Id attend more functions if they did.
The cake was decorated in edible organic flowers. Everything was gorgeous.
That sounds gorgeous! And expensive. Oh, how I miss the good ol’ disposable income days.
Saw a bit of QI the other night and Sandy Toksvig was talking about a Don’t Come function. For those times when you say “I’d pay good money not to have to go to this…”. They raise money by arranging the whole thing (guest of honour Piers Morgan?) and suggesting you donate and stay home.
I can see such things becoming wildly popular at Xmas.
Oh what I good idea! I wish it had been an option on the recent wedding invite I received,
But, but, there is CAEK at weddings!
There is also much CAEK at places where there are no weddings.
Quite. And there is usually much better cake at venues without weddings.
We get to have CAEK tomorrow for the actual 21st. We are having this CAEK:
https://www.cheesecake.com.au/tortes-gateaux/rainbow-cake
I ❤ it already.
Oooh, I’ve seen those on the TV ads. You realise we are going to want a bite-by-bite rundown, don’t you?
Oh, yum. Didn’t Greybeard’s Grand Evil have one of those as her BD cake a few years ago?
You have an incredible memory for Caek! Yes she did and I ate some the next day – ignoring that it had been out of the fridge – and got so very sick. Sandy is a sort of easy going sugar cop. Avoids foods, cereals etc with high sugar content, never adds it to food and drink but allows for celebrations and occasional treats. I’ve found that in cakes etc I can halve the recommended quantity and it’s fine.
Only if Sandy wasn’t watching. I think she’s the Sugar Police.
Mmmmm…. tasty, tasty sugar. I’ve always let the kidlets have access to plenty of sugar, so they don’t seem interested in gorging. Must be the positive guidance and good example I’ve always set for them…. why is everybody laughing?
You very funny lady.
Do we have enough veal?
Speaking of veal, would anyone ever dream of currying a beetroot? I think it’s a fool’s recipe. Almost any other vege is delicious curried. Possibly not leeks as a main ingredient, but every other one.
Ewwww! No thanks!
I know! I think it must be a hipster thing.
Hipster: “I liked beetroots before they were cool”.
Everyone else: “Dude, they’re still not cool”.
I love beetroot on burgers. Also Fifi does have a thing for baby beets and borscht.
Yes, yes, we all knew how kinky Fifi can be. But I agree that beetroot on a burger is essential. It’s also pretty good grated into a salad. I cannot condone, however, this ridiculous trend for beetroot and feta pizzas. That’s not a pizza. That’s a travesty.
Oh, I’ve never seen that but just knowing it’s out there makes me sad.
OK. I might get blocked here but I have made the following pizzas:
Ricotta and pesto, topped with chicken and spices
Feta and beetroot with pine nuts, basil and tomatoes
Pumpkin and feta with jalapeno and other spices
In my defence, the beetroot was freshly cooked?
Get out. Don’t come back without brownies.
I have cooked roast beetroot – with a combo of other root vegetables – in the multi-fry, with a light sprinkling of oil & cumin. The flavour was awesome, and even I didn’t expect that combo to work.
I’m thinking how toxic that could be if it was dowsed in Keen’s, though.
Ee-eew.
Greybeard – 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.
Q … yes, but slowly roasted it would be almost caramelized, wouldn’t it? That’s a different ballgame I reckon.
Agreed, Madam. Even brussels sprouts can be transformed from bleaargh to mmmmmm by a bit of slow roasting.
you can have mine, Catty.
And mine, for that matter.
Um, no, the multi-fry is a wonder of technology. It allows you to roast 2 kilos of vegetables in 1.5 tablespoons of oil. It gives them a delicious moist centre & that lovely almost crispy ‘roast’ exterior, without all the yucky grease dripping off them that you get with oven-cooked roasties.
I bought it because of my love of roast veg, and my loathing of cleaning the oven.
Oh, I remember that thingo. We’re not big roasters. I need a robot who can stir-fry for me.
Oh, did I forget to mention that the brussels sprouts need to be covered in butter and bacon bits before you roast them? Sorry, my bad. I always seem to forget parts of that recipe – usually the sprouts, but you get that.
Mmm … saturated animal fats.
They’re lovely, aren’t they?
Hey MM, weren’t you mean to be reporting in on Rainbow layer cake today?
So jealous right now, BOM said that Coolum got 136ml of rain last night. Here’s hoping it swings out over us & gives us a good drenching, not these pissy little showers that are swinging in off the coast. Better than nothing, but we need a good soak. Who in Qld doesn’t? 87% of the state is officially drought declared, yikes.
Yes, we sure did. It came all the way down the passageway and I had to get towels to soak it up in the middle of the night, but it was thoroughly worth it.
Disappointing for the Old Coast, though. Surely you’ll get some today?
Well, the stupid Cheescake Shop ran out of the rainbow cake so we had Mississippi mud baked cheesecake. It was very nice CAEK, but not as good as Q’s. Or as a mouthful of rainbows.
Ooh, sogginess. I had wondered if you were afloat.
And, thanks, MM. I haven’t made a cheesecake for a while. I think it’s still so warm that cream-cake with rainbows would be much easier to scoff. Cheesecake is a winter thing, for me.
I am very impressed with how the brownies turned out, though. Catty’s Xmas brownie tray is a winner – first time round I added toasted pecans & this time I used choc-chips. Amazingly none stuck to the sides – that canola spray stuff is definitely great for that.
Catty that sounds very artistic and so exhausting that I want to have a nap, just thinking about it.
Mmmmm…. mouthful of rainbows….
I showed the kidlets the rainbow CAEK picture and they are insisting that I make one. I have done it before, when I made MK’s Lady Rainicorn CAEK, and it is very pretty, but boy it takes some stuffing around. I’d rather make a polkadot CAEK. You just bake mulit-coloured balls in a cake pop tray, then drop them into plain vanilla batter in a round cake tin, then bake that. When you cut it, voila! Polkadots – and the amazed adulation of anyone who can’t work out how you did it. It’s a bit fiddly, but much easier than rainbow layers.
Catty, that sounds amazing! Do you only par-cook the balls the first time around, or doesn’t it matter because they’re submerged in batter for the second baking?
Cook the balls fully. They do seem to be protected by the plain batter. Once I overdid the balls a bit, and they were a little dry when the CAEK was done, (plus there was a dark brown ring around the polkadots when we cut the CAEK) but the other times I’ve done it they’ve worked out perfectly. Once I made too many balls, so I coated the leftover ones in candy melts to decorate the top. There was a barely discernible difference between those balls and the ones in the CAEK. I find that gel food colouring gives a better result than liquid food colouring from the supermarket, but I get that with every other food I colour too, so no surprises there.
I am inspired. i might do that for Easter.
I recommend that you put a layer of batter in the pan, drop in a few balls, spoon in a bit more batter, then put in the rest of the balls, then cover with the rest of the batter so that the polkadots are at different heights. It works with pretty much any batter that isn’t too runny, but I find it works best with the Whitewings cake mix as that brand whips up into a mousse-like consistency and bakes into a fluffy, light CAEK that I just can’t seem to copy with any of my recipes.
Maybe we could infiltrate the White Wings factory? Thanks for the pro tips, Catty!
I Googled it, and sure enough there was no explanation. My guess is that they use double-milled flour, powdered egg white, and some insidious chemical like MSG in small enough quantities to not have to declare it in the ingredients. So we are going to have to send in spies. Hmmmm…. I wonder if there are any Whitewings factories hiring in my area? Or better still, we could shave the Wildebeest and the dwarf, paint them orange, and tell security they’re Oompaloompas.
I used to live next-door to a man who worked in the Paradise biscuits factory. I don’t know how many secrets he learned, but he did bring home lots of biscuits.
In Queensland, the Boss worked at all sorts of factories. I never knew if he would bring home CAEK, biscuits, chips, ice cream or dire warnings about which brands not to buy because you’d end up with food poisoning. CAEK was my favourite. Those little Tip Top sponge rolls were awesome!
Mmm….junk food. Delicious, tasty junk food.
Kale will just never have what Tim Tams have got.
I was offered several bunches of free kale this morning. Oh, how I laughed!
We’re out of synch again, because I woke up last night longing for kale soup.
Remember the really old original version of Rapunzel, with the peasant’s wife longing for samphire?
That’d be me, giving up my first born child for a taste of fresh greens.
Truly, there are dark & unnatural forces at work within me & it’s for the best that I failed to breed.
I’d forgotten that bit of the story. Do you think she was lacking B vitamins, or just constipated?
My guess would have been anaemia, if I’d had any idea what samphire was. When I was little I always assumed it to be some sort of turnip. Turnips featured heavily in my childhood picture books.
It sounds lovely. I imagine something that looks like a fern, but tastes a bit like watercress.
Don’t tell me it’s a form of kale, I don’t want to know.
I believe it has a bite, so it’d be tangy, maybe like rocket? All I know is that it”s some sort of greenery that grows on the salt marshes – I googled it & someone near the Coorong actually sells it.
So perhaps with me it’s some sort of ancestral longing, that’s been converted into a passion for Kale?
I still dream about that Kale soup that the hippie folk fed us when we holidayed in the rainy chill wilds of Albany.
It might be related to sea bright, which is also a salt marsh herb, I believe – and the meaning of my name.
I thought it was from Morrigan? Which is much deadlier, unless your herb has some Hemlockian volatile alkaloids in it that I don’t know about.
Those old Celtish languages had a lot of crossover, I wonder if there’s a relationship, in the Irish format, at least.
The Welsh meaning of Morgana is Bright Sea, but the Celtic meaning is Dweller of the Sea. The Aboriginal meaning is Bitter, Disgusting Weed That Only Pregnant Women And Vegans Can Stand To Eat. *
(*I made that up. But it sounds about right, so I’m standing by it.)
And here I am, practically living in the sea – closer every day, the more CO2 they pump into the aching atmosphere.
You should invest in gondolas now, while they’re still cheap, & before Venice-in-the-Tropics/Coolum Canals becomes a thang.
Well, it is St Patrick’s Day, so between that and the Celtic ‘Dweller of the Sea’ meaning, Morgana is obviously Irish. To be sure!
When we’re inundated I shall live in a shack on stilts like a bayou hoodoo woman.
That’s very useful for when I get stuck for gift ideas.
I’m thinking you’ll need a variety of bright coloured turbans & exotic snakes.
We had one of those in Townsville. It was most tranquil.
Yes, snakes please. I love our slithery friends. And a big hairy spider would not go astray. Well actually it might but I would enjoy it when it was about.
About to do what, exactly?
Naughty Quokka!
*shudders*
Sorry Catty. No more nope ropes and leggy aaaaaahs!
We just looked at a property up in the hills. A whole acre of wonderful bushland with a lovely house…. and all I could think was how many Nope Ropes must be slithering their venomous way around in all that undergrowth. *more shudders*
Oh please don’t let them put you off. Honestly, they’ll almost always leave you alone. And you could always train a legion of attack tree frogs.
It’s that ‘almost’ that bugs me. The owner showed us around. We missed the OFI on Saturday, so we were just cruising past. When we slowed down, he came to the gate so the Boss got out and had a chat. Next thing we’re getting a private tour. He had a sweet little goat run and a pen full of chooks, but no fruit trees anywhere. I’d soon do something about that if we bought it.
You could have miniature goats oh my God make an offer! The Boss can do any snake wrangling required.
I’m with Madame.
the truth is that your mosquito pit next door is probably a bigger risk to your health than any of the reptiles you’ll find in the bush.
We’re thinking about making an offer. It’s a fair way from the kidlets’ school, though. My experiences with school changing were not pleasant, and I’d rather not put them through that if I can avoid it. We’ll talk about it later today, in the car, where the Boss can’t wander off while I’m in mid sentence.
Well, they aren’t you & it’s good to reflect that your circumstances were probably very different than theirs. What do the kids say about it, Catty?