Lawks a lordie, it's nearly the end of 2008!!

Well, stuff me, that came around farking quick. I can only think of 5 occurrences where blackout from alcohol consumption can account for lost time, so either I have been abducted by aliens or I well and truly lost track of things. Will stick with the aliens theory for now, as it provides some comfort and excuse for not being at all geared up to usher in 2009. It may also mean that I will get a visit from David Duchovny, who I have had a crush on since I saw in in Twin Peaks all those years ago... sigh.

This has been an interesting year, has it not? I'm not sure about those of you out in blog space, but 2008 has had its share of ups and downs for this crazy tree dweller and I find myself sitting on a slightly lower branch than intended when I started out this year, but I haven't completely fallen out out and landed on the ground with a thump, so life is not completely sucky. On the down side (get the shitty stuff over and done with eh?) : have spent a year with my depression seeming to enjoy the odd sojourn back into my life to smack me around the head a bit, steal my handbag and drink my champagne, which tends to leave me feeling a bit down, roughed up and raw around the edges (what girl wouldn't be without her champagne?). I also managed to have a small slip at work, which resulted in two bulging discs in my lumbar spine. To anyone out there who has done a similar thing, you have my complete sympathy. For a slip that did not even result in a fall on my bott bott, I ended up spending June to November in varying amounts of pain and not being able to do much at all for a few months. This put a serious dent in my exercise regime (and sense of humour) and as a result, nearly all of the weight I had lost has crept back on, with the exception of 5 kg. This is a blow, but shit happens and no point in dwelling on it. Does that sound as though I've convinced myself? Hmm, more positive thinking required.

On the plus side, the kids are going great guns at school and childcare, Tim has just finished his 4th year of teaching, we have attended 2 lovely weddings and as I said earlier, I made up for being down in the dumps by having a few great parties and self medicating with champagne cocktails. I know, all of the health freaks out there just had a sharp intake of breath, tut-tutted me and will be sending me links for AA, but if you could save your time and just stuff your well meaning advice, it will save a whole heap of time and grief. Also, a friend of mine is about to have his first book published (GO GARTH!!!!!!!) and I encourage you all to buy it. Will do a separate blog about it later. The other plus is that I made it back to the gym in the last 2 weeks and today was able to complete 60 minutes of "run 1 minute, walk for 3" on the treadmill. It is back to basics, having to retrain my body in all forms of exercise. Also, having the vision of my exercise physiologist standing next to me saying "switch your core ON! BRACE YOUR CORE!!!!!!" means that no matter what I am doing, my core muscles are working their, um, butt off all of the time. This is very tiring - try it sometime.

So, on with 2009 (hee hee - originally left a zero out there). Hope you all have a great evening tomorrow ushering out the old year. I plan to go to bed early and catch up on sleep. Does this mean I have become and old fart and should I list this in the positives or negatives for 2008? Hmm, where's Mulder?

How to burn those extra calories...

Those of you who are regular readers (thankyou!) are well aware that over the years I have struggled with my weight, gone on and off various diets, exercise regimes etc. You also know that I am recovering from a recent back injury, which put a serious dent in my aim to lose weight and run 10km by Christmas. Now, the weight loss is back on track but the 10km run is unlikely to happen, unless there is the promise of something like a free massage once a week for a year, or the kids set fire to the Christmas tree again. Yes, I KNOW it was an accident, guys, but the memory is still pretty fresh. One I will run towards, the other away as quick as my chubby, pink little legs will carry me.

After getting the all clear from the Dr to resume most activities pre back injury (except running, which is off limits until at least early January), I have been out and about walking at lunchtime, bike riding etc. The walks up Mt Ainslie are at a fairly stately pace at the moment, with me not talking much at all on the ascent (hallelujah! It's a miracle!!!) as I am concentrating pretty hard on not having a coronary, but I know it will get easier. Maybe. One day. I am also riding a fair bit on the old stationary bike. First lesson I learned was that I had lost my "bike seat conditioning" or as I like to call them "buttocks callouses". 1st ride was fine until I got off, when I realised that it felt a lot like how someone (say, Julie Bishop's speech writer) who has been booted up the backside for 45 minutes. More imitations of walking like a duck and involuntary noises when lowering oneself onto the toilet.

I have found a great website though, which answers the questions that EVERYONE asks themselves but you never find in the exercise books. It is how many calories you burn during sex - one of my personal favourites is the use of fudge. Oh yeah, and the trapeze one. Get motivated and, um, enjoy!

A great holiday and shy sausage

Tim and I got a chance (thanks to my wonderful parents - mum and dad, you rock!) last weekend to escape with no kids to a lovely area of Australia called Hyams Beach. It was fantastic - a cottage all to ourselves with a great view of the beach, sleeping in both mornings (woo hoo) and just having some of that rare stuff called "time together". The simple joy of having a coffee together where we knew that Cameron would not get Will in a headlock and in the ensuing struggle, knock the table over and send sugar sachets flying out over the cafe patrons like a cluster bomb was quite relaxing. Also, wandering through shops where a number of twee, incredibly breakable and expensive items were arranged at toddle height without the blood pressure steadily rising was also a novel experience.

Other highlights included :

• A mother humpback whale and her calf coming right into the bay. We sat on the beach and watched them for hours - it was just amazing. An added bonus was that the money I was going to spend on a whale watching tour I was able to blow on a pair of cowboy boots. So cool!
• The local high school had a food fair and fete. So loud, great food and the reassurance that all teenagers are just raging bags of hormones, ready to swarm.
• A pizza that had us laughing for most of the weekend. When we picked up our order, the slip came with it. Apparently, we had ordered an aussie pizza with extra "peeperoni". Quite a few conversations ensued about what peeperoni would look like, how it would act and does that count as a special topping. We came to the conclusion it is sausage with a confidence problem. Tasted good though.

Back to school

My daughter is currently very caught up in watching a TV series called "Winx club". From what I can gather, these girls (who look a lot like the Bratz dolls, who are referred to "slutz" dolls by Tim and I) attend some kind of special high school for fairies (which may be more mainstream these days, who knows) where they worry about being able to cast spells, dress fashionably and impress the dumb, token "jock" fairy (who is also a prince, so I am guessing that although he has the IQ of a sequined handbag, the girls think he is quite a catch). Yes, I know it is sad that I have say through a few episodes and absorbed this much, but it means a lot to Grace, so I have decided to turn my thoughts from "someone kill me now" to drawing parallels between what the Winx high school is like and my own days back in the dark ages of puberty.

Now, when I was at Ginninderra High, not too many real princes or princesses were around, but there were plenty who thought they were, or at least thought that the sun shone out of their arse, so that will do for covering the fairy side of things. I have also noticed that, just like high school, there are "good" fairies and "bad" fairies. Just like high school, the bad fairies dress like hookers, wear way too much eye makeup and generally make the "good" fairies life hard - stealing powers, crushing them with magic constriction spells etc. When you think about it, the girls who were the "princesses" at school were also the ones who made life hell for all of the "ordinary" girls by teasing them about their breast size (too big, too small blah blah blah), wore lots of eye makeup, thought that kissing boys was the ultimate to spend high school and wore the most fashionable style dress to the formal (aka prom). The good fairies just struggled on through, trying to cope with the burden of learning and raging hormones (and the bad fairies) and in the end, could not give a rats bum if they wore a dress or jeans to the formal, they were just happy to escape.

So, is this TV show just encouraging the age old stereotypes, which we will never escape, or is it preparing our young girls for the fact that in life, you will have to deal with good and evil fairies? Both concepts are pretty perplexing really and I have no idea. Still, I can comfort myself that at least in my day, the pressure was not on to sprout a pair of wings, turn my head into a talking pumpkin or defeat the powers of evil whilst maintaining good fashion sense and still attracting the prince - or maybe I just wasn't paying attention.I would like to class myself as a "middle of the road" fairy - capacity to do good or evil in more or less equal measures. And I don't talk with a really irritating American accent. That has to put me over with the good guys.

People listening

Now, I love people watching as much as anyone, but I am also happy to own up to the habit of people listening. This is awesome and if you haven't really tried, give it a go. Here ia a cracking example I heard just today when I was out with mum at the local shopping centre.

We were making our way through the David Jones cosmetics and perfume section (also known as "olfactory hell" according to my husband) when we overheard this gem from a sales assistant : "Now, I know it seems very bright and often people find this shade off putting at first...". I have to admit to literally laughing out loud and checking with mum to make sure I had not misheard. No, it was 100% correct and we spent the next 5 minutes wondering what on earth the stuff the girl was trying on, what it looked like and where the sales assistant had done her training. I feel it was probably at the school of "Yes, your arse does look big in that dress but it takes the attention off your face".

So, if I can have this much fun in just my lunchtime, give people listening a go. Great fun and the more you take it out of context, the funnier it gets.

This parenting moment is proudly bought to you by prozac

Well, the school holidays have started, along with the wonderful windy spring weather that seems to turn even the most normal of people into weirdy, cross, "don't-give-that-guy-a-gun" citizens. Not a stellar combination in anyone's books and of course, I have decided to celebrate by taking two weeks off to relax (ha ha) and spend some of that oft talked about but rarely experienced "quality time" with my nearest and dearest.

Of course, I had forgotten what I like to call "the chant of consumerism" that starts pretty much 3.05pm on the last day of term. It goes something like this - you say to the kids "wow, isn't it great it's school holidays" to which they reply "yes, but we're bored. Can we go to the shops/bowling/skydiving/white water rafting/whale watching..." the options are endless. When you suggest a nice (aka cheap) version of fun, such as a family picnic in the park, they look at you as though you just said "how about I make a call and sell you into white slavery for the next two weeks?". They bravely struggle through their disappointment when the realise that you are not going to sell the house to fund holiday activities, but in return you must suffer the "there's nothing to do, I'm so bored" lament at least 4 times a day, accompanied by resentful looks and deep, suffering sighs. I have come up with a good way to counter this (my dad just used to say "only people with small minds get bored". This has stayed with me for my entire adult life and I don't remember the last time I ever said "I am bored"). I have made up a wonderful list of what the parenting magazines like to call "boredom busters". I feel it is important though, to put your own unique spin on things, so instead of a list that has things like "making a space ship out of toilet rolls and a supermarket stock of tin foil" I have things like
1) Why don't you sit quietly and see who amongst the (insert number of children you are entertaining) of you can get their finger furthest up their nose before it bleeds. The funny thing about this one is that kids will do this all on their own at least once a day, but suggest it and it is "just gross!!!!!!"
2) Get out a dictionary and colour in all of the Os. Use a different colour for each one!
3) Go into the bathroom with your magnifying glass and see which of the black specks in the shower waves back at you and which ones don't move at all!
4) See who can clean themselves quickest using only their tongue!
5) See who can lie on the floor and push a ping pong ball (not using hands) to the other side of the room. The great thing about this one is that the kids might find it interesting and it saves you having to mop the floor if you lightly spray the tiles with water first!

Anyway, I am sure there are some great bonding moments ahead in the next few weeks. Must remember to get my anti depressant script filled.

How to fold man vegetables and why you should be careful about saying "toughen up"

I am relaxing after a lovely weekend in Sydney with my cousin, Elizabeth, and her lovely husband, Christoph. One of the things that was so relaxing about this weekend was that it was without Tim and the kids (yes, I know, that whooshing sound was my vote for selfless mother and wife of the year flying by). I went up last Friday on the bus, which all in all is a great way to travel. The only problem with traveling by yourself is that you run the risk of ending up with a total tosser as your companion. On the plane from Canberra to Sydney, not so bad, only about 40 minutes – on the bus it can be a VERY LONG 3 and a half hours. The lass sitting beside me was fine but the chap in front was obviously EXHAUSTED as the second he got in to his seat, he reclined back to an angle where – well, let me put it this way : normally a man with his head in my lap is a chap I know very well (i.e. my husband), rather than a complete stranger (i.e. dickhead in front of me on the bus). When I politely let him know that he was cutting the circulation off in my legs (“mate, you are lying in my lap – could you please put your seat up a bit”) he got all grumpy and whiney about the length of the trip and how he needed to rest. He was met with my usual sympathy and compassion and for the next 3 hours we engaged in a push/shove match up the highway. My quads felt as though they had been put to good work by the time we got to Central station in Sydney. Being the complete gentleman, he left the seat fully reclined when he got up, so that the girl sitting next to me and I had to do some weird contortions to get out of our seats. Yet another person I wish gonorrhea upon.

So, off to Potts Point where my cousin and he husband have a very lovely apartment, where I picked up the keys from the concierge (this in itself a novelty – a place where someone looks after you, collects mail, holds keys for guests etc) and headed upstairs to drop off my bags. I was greeted by Lucy, their cat, who went nutbags over the smells on my bag and coat. It got a bit uncomfortable watching her after a while – she seemed to like it A LOT. After she finished rolling around making ecstatic noises, she went about trying to convince me that she was totally starving and she had not been fed in weeks by her mean and cruel owners. She had a tough audience though – I had done the “children on their knees making cow eyes at you whilst silently begging for a doughnut” routine too many times to crack over a pathetic performance from a cat.

I bet you are wondering where on earth I am going with this and what on earth my trip to Sydney has to do with puppetry of the man vegetables, aren’t you? Well, on the Saturday night Lizzie had been invited to a hen’s night and was taking me along for company and a good excuse to leave early. She had told me that part of the night was a performance of “Puppetry of the penis”. Sure, I thought, I have seen a willie or two in my time and I was keen to see if either of my sons had a potential job when they get older, as at the moment they are putting some pretty concentrated effort in seeing what can be done to their various boy bits (one of them managed to stretch it out to an impressive length but it had the width of spaghetti) and then falling around in hysterics or rushing off to show their older sister, who receives these displays with a weary tolerance that belies her years. Anyway, we got to the apartment where the party was and it suddenly became clear that we weren’t going to a show, the show was coming to us. Ok, I thought, that changes things a bit. I was in a brightly lit lounge room (with the biggest honking TV you have ever seen) and I was, at best, going to be about 2 meters away from a chap who was going to impress us with his “genital origami” (no kidding, this was how he described it). I think the thing that stuck me the most was that he wore a blue velvet cape, black shoes and socks and nothing else. In the end, it wasn’t too bad and some of the stuff he did was clever, but I am wondering if this whole idea came about because two chaps had put away a case of beer each and ended up having to improvise to keep themselves entertained because the playstation broke down. The highlight was possibly when he offered the bride to be his services with a “wristwatch” or “ring”. I’ll leave it up to your imagination.

It does lead me to think if there is a market for a female equivalent. I know that there have been times lately when I have wondered if my boobs (which are ok but are showing the effects of time and gravity) could be tied into a very delicate “crane” or even better, some kind of bow-like arrangement so I would have to dispense with the problem of having to find an appropriate brooch. I discussed this with a friend of mine and she wasn’t sure about origami of the breasts, but if you used other female genitalia you could call one move “the flaps are down”. Hmm. Might leave it to the guys.

Just to finish up, must share a little conversation I had when I went to get my legs waxed recently. The girl who was doing it very good and I was asking her about how she got into beauty stuff etc. She told me her first job was at a shop called Be Brazilian, so you can imagine what she spent most of her days doing. On male and female clients. I have never gone for the full pluck, but I was curious about how much it hurt. She said that the first time was usually so excruciating some people pass out, but you just had to have it done a few times “so the area can toughen up” she assured me brightly. ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME???????? Think about the area in question, guys and girls, and wonder to yourself – is this an area where you want the phrase “toughened up” to be applied? I mean, if you wanted to “toughen up” your scrotum or outer labia, why not just cut to the chase and bash it for a while with a cricket bat or buy sandpaper knickers? Jesus!