Hallowe'en & Life Saving!

Yesterday took the lads to a cheap-o shop and purchased some props and costumes.  Yes, we are going trick or treating tonight, with a friend of theirs.  Their dad has not been supportive of this idea over the years when the little one has asked about it, on the basis that it's not really an Aussie tradition.  All I see when I get on FB is the usual bleating, beefing, and blathering about this Halloween business being an insidious US custom pervading our culture like a measles epidemic.  The reason I've never been that keen to celebrate and rolled my ocularies is not because I'm afraid of the Americanisation of my way of life.  It is because Halloween is actually a Celtic tradition and marks the end of summer.  Seriously, if we want to celebrate it here in Oz, do it at the end of FEBRUARY!!!!  Anyway, my kids will only be kids once, so I've got some face paint and fake fangs etc, and I'm looking forward to it.  This morning, I called the little one to brush his teeth, and he walked into the bathroom wearing his fake fangs.  He removed them and ran a toothbrush over them, and chortled, 'I'm being like you, Mum!'  This is because I wear a partial, having lost one of my front teeth to an abscess some years ago. I could go without my denture, but do not wish to look like some of the ferals in this town, which appears to have more than its fair share of boganalia.  (I've just made up a word - like it?).

Well, I'd best go and complete some paperwork and questions for this Saturday, when I renew my First Aid Certificate.  I need to have a current one for my employment and mine is due to expire in December.  I always recall having to do life saving and first aid at school - I'm sure we all did - and nobody wanted to do mouth-to-mouth on the mannequin because one of the kids (when the instructor was called away) stuck his dick in the mannequin's mouth.  For some reason, one of the mannequins was in a classroom at school instead of the swimming pool, and this same kid decided to dry-hump the mannequin.  His performance came to a sudden end upon the appearance in the doorway of the teacher, a dour woman with a countenance so fierce she was secretly referred to in my coterie as 'Gargoyle'.  The kid's case flamed scarlet to the point of near-combustion.  Nobody else got any work done because we were all too busy snickering throughout the lesson.  At least I didn't have to rescue this kid doing practical at the pool.  Unfortunately, I was assigned a kid I'll call DR, and he was the fattest kid in class.   He swam to the middle of the pool and feigned drowning.  I did the great safety jump, swam to him, and then tried to tow him back.  I struggled.  I spluttered.  I wondered whether Captain Ahab had my piece of gold handy.  Who remembers that fancy rescue technique of getting the victim out of the pool, the one where you stand on the edge, grab the victim's wrists, and pull them out and 'turn them', so they end up sitting on the edge?  I remember it well, but with that memory come the traumatic recall of this kid grabbing my wrists, slamming me into the side of the pool thus winding me, and dragging me out in such a way I almost lost a yard of skin, which then went floating off along the surface of the pool like a deceased jelly blubber.

Well, I'm off now.  Thanks for dropping buy.

Of Smog & Dumb-Arses!

I type this and hear thunder in the distance, and pray/hope/wish there is a downfall imminent.  But no lightning strikes - PLEASE!  There have been bushfires burning not far from here, and the grass around my home and indeed the town is tinder dry, or as we'd say in school, 'as dry as a nun's underpants.'  The smoke circling the town, a hangover from the controlled burns and out of control fires, is making me think I live in Los Angeles, and not the Upper Hunter Valley.  I keep thinking of the opening credits of 'LA Law', an 80s/90s show to which I was pathologically addicted.  But I could not stand Anne Kelsey.  If you watched it, you would know what I mean.  She was this holier-than-thou, piss-elegant, la-de-da type with a forked stick wedged firmly up her date.  She vehemently opposed the appointment of Rosalind Shays to position of senior partner, and a lot of it was based on gender.  She sniped at fellow lawyer Victor, who was preparing a case defending a death-row murderer, with the self-righteously intoned, 'How can you defend this scum?'  I sat in my beanbag, probably scoffing Thai takeaway (I was single then), and rolled my eyes as I said, 'Because. It. Is. His. Job.  He. Is. A. LAWYER!'  My background is actually law, and I tend to get a bit irked when people ask (or they used to ask) did I not have qualms about my job, a job that entailed assisting in the defence of people accused of some heinous acts.  My answer to that is a big, fat, "NO!", accompanied by a cheekily blown raspberry.

I walked my dogs yesterday and became out of breath.  I am vastly tired of this smoke in the atmosphere.  The frickin' coal dust is bad enough.

Don't you just hate standing in a queue at the supermarket and the queue doesn't progress because there is a dumb-arse in front of you typing a text on her mobile phone?  The fact that she was all fake-tanned with Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses perched atop the carefully straightened, glossy locks just makes it worse.  And I feel guilty that it makes it worse.  She is entitled to dress and groom herself as she sees fit.  But is it necessary to hold up the supermarket queue sending a text?  And a big hate-fest goes out to those clowns that walk around the supermarket whilst texting, ergo not watching where they are going, and then plough into you, or bang into your trolley, causing a jolt that sends a shockwave up your arms that then rattles the fillings in your teeth.  These people are mega-dumb-arses.

The other dumb-arse at the moment is Kim Kardashian.  I sometimes wonder if she deliberately cultivates her dumb-arsedness for publicity's sake, but then again she's too dumb to realise that feigning stupidity is even MORE stupid than natural stupidity.  She's said her labour was easy.  Fine.  My second labour was a relatively easy one, too.  It happens.  She said she couldn't wait to check out her vagina in the mirror.  Again, that's her business entirely.  She said, and herein likes the kicker, her paternal instincts have kicked in.  Yup.  Alert the media; a BLOKE gave birth!

Let me just point out who is not a dumb-arse.  It's the Great Gutsby, aka my 12yo son.  Yesterday he advised me he, and a handful of the other Year 6-ers, are to sit a test today.  He doesn't know why, but I have a very sneaking suspicious it is to determine who will be the student named Dux at the end of year assembly this year.  He has been awarded Academic Achievement every year he has been at school (with the exception of when he was in Year 2 - WTF was his teacher thinking?).  Except that it would make typing difficult, I would be crossing my fingers for him.  His dad and I spoke last night about how utterly wonderful a Dux-ship would be to our beautiful boy. As long as we don't get as passionate and one-eyed about it as that awful woman who murdered the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival some years ago in the US.  I think we will be okay.

Who Kerrs About The Split?

Well, the needle on my Give-A-Shit-O-Meter has not twitched at all upon reading the news that Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr have separated.  Women's magazines et al will no doubt be perpetuating a great contagion of teeth-gnashing and breast-beating, but I seriously couldn't give a fuck about it.  So much so that I feel compelled to write about it today.  Okay, call me a bitch (because I'm about to be one) but I have always found Miranda Kerr a tad annoying.  Well, maybe not Miranda per se, but more the gushy slop that gets written about her, and the constant selfies, and the fact that she is a MODEL, not a curer of cancer (let's get a little perspective here, people!) and I don't think models need to be deified quite to the degree that they are.  I must have been one of the very few teenaged girls back in my day who DIDN'T want to be a model.  Am I the only one who rolled her eyes when the term supermodel became the catchword of the Nineties?  Am I the only one who Just. Doesn't. Get. It?  Undoubtedly a Day of Mourning has been declared in the town of Gunnedah; their best (or only?) known export's marriage has fizzled, but all I could think was 'meh', when I heard the news.  But no doubt there will be an overkill and overload of quotes and Miranda might even be given her own column to write, because a lot of the right-wing media likes to give unqualified people journalistic possies. 

I have discovered a fabulous way to embarrass your children and teach them a lesson.  When they make an inappropriate remark, simply have them explain it to you.  Last night, my 12yo, The Great Gutsby was playing x-box online, and he said to his opponent, 'I'm going to kill you and teabag your grave!'.  I sat down beside him and asked him to repeat what he said.  I then said, 'I'm not sure what that means.  Can you explain it?'  I was almost sorry for my little rapscallion as he turned an unfetching shade of magenta and falteringly explained his idiom.  I then told him I didn't want to hear that phrase again, and thanked him for giving me inspiration for a saying to use in one of my stories!

Speaking of stories, I have liaised with my publishers, Zeus Publications, and I will be getting the cover art of 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth' for approval early in the new year, and after that the novel goes to print, and will be available for purchase around late February.  Hint, hint, hint to my readers, friends, and countrymen.

Condoms (if not splendour) in the grass

Okay, I'll admit it.  I enjoyed the episode of 'Ja'mie' last night, and am a big fan of Chris Lilley's work, although 'Angry Boys' didn't grab me.  Sorry, Chris, but it didn't.  I did not attend an elite private girls' school during those formative teenage years, but I think teenage girls are the same everywhere, ie, bloody awful.  Ja'mie was kind of a hybrid of two rather full-on girls from my school, in my mind.  Anyway, I went to a State school, and one of my memories of the alpha girl was the lurid tales she would tell me during Maths about the sexploits she and her then boyfriend got up to.  It is little wonder I am so totally pants at Maths.  Then one fine day she told me she and her boyfriend had gotten up to what is euphemistically referred to as 'rumpy-pumpy' on the gym mats in the sports equipment store room the previous evening.  Not only had they engaged in illicit sex (she being underage), they had left not one, but TWO (count 'em - two!) condoms on the mats, and we HAD to find them.  Yeah, WE.  I had been recruited against my better judgement.  Admittedly, my judgement was somewhat clouded because I had never seen a condom, used or otherwise, and was curious.   So, during break, with another girl going 'cockatoo', we scrabbled about in the sports room (which was really only an oversized cupboard) looking for dirty condoms.  I found a screwed up, yellowed thing and held it with the very tippy-tips of my finger and thumb nail, where it wavered precariously.  'Is this one of them?' I asked, my voice saturated with distaste and awe.   She said it was, and located its mate.  We then hid them under a rock and washed our hands, with the fervour of an OCD sufferer.  Someone saw us, turned the rock over, and they were bright yellow contrast against the green grass.  But that's another story.

Completed a course in mental health first aid today.  Had to drive 1.5 hours to another town to complete my training, which was an employment requirement.  Fascinating course.  But now I'm tired.  I'm tired and stressed out because my kitchen is a mess and the dishwasher needs fixing (this is going to be a simple task, but it's a matter of getting it done).  My kids did a totally shit job last night, and my youngest is a nightmare when it's his turn to dry (as detailed in a previous post).  I was playing trivia last night, and of course Mr Bingells' back is still in a state of fucked-up-ness.  I came home tired, and a bit irked after having an argument with one of my team mates about Scott Morrison's spurious and offensive use of the term 'illegals' to describe asylums seekers.  'They ARE illegals!' insisted my team mate.  'They effing are not!' I disputed heatedly, 'it is NOT illegal to seek asylum!'  He presented me with the chestnut of them not stopping at other countries en route to Australia.  I snarled that unlike these other countries, Australia is a signatory to the UN convention on refugees.  And I really wish I worked for the appropriate department so I could actively defy Scott Morrison's policy that the employees refer to these people as 'illegals'.  I would love to shout loudly from my desk I will do no such thing.  Morrison says to call 'a spade a spade'.  Okay, applying that logic, I say that the Immigration Minister is a twit.

Learned lots today.  I am not happy at the moment.  I have come home and am feeling stressed and miserable out some things on the home front, so have poured wine, ie, 'self-medicated'.

Our Politicians Are Nuts!!!!

Is there a delicate way to put this?  Is there a way I can be subtle about it?  Can I be tactful?  Do I WANT to be tactful?  Oh dear, I can't think of anyway to put it.  Oh well, here goes: dear politicians in Queensland and with Immigration portfolios: ARE YOU ALL ON FUCKING CRACK?!!!! 

Ah, that's one succinct way of putting it.  I am glad I don't work for Scott Morrison who has instructed the staff of his department and detention centres to refer to asylum seekers as 'illegals' and 'detainees'.  I will have to type this slowly for his benefit: They. Are. Not. ILLEGAL.  Seeking. Asylum. Is. Perfectly. Fucking. Legal. Whether. It. Be. By. Boat. Plane. Or. On. A. Hang-glider.  I fear I might turn green and bust out my clothing when I see frightened, desperate people being dehumanised thus.

And to Campbell Newman up there in Queensland: what the total fuck, man?  These proposed laws for dealing bikie gangs, to say the least, suck donkeys' balls.  Closing tattoo parlours because there MIGHT be a bikie association?  Where does this leave the poor tattooist who wants to ply his/her trade and make a living?  Increasing the sentences of people convicted of particular crimes, notwithstanding application of the parameters of the relevant sentencing law, if they HAPPEN to be associated with a bikie gang?  This is seriously and dangerously nuts.  Refusing parole if someone doesn't co-operate with police?  Charging someone if they refuse to turn police informant?  Why should someone have to put their life at risk by turning police informant?  Who are you going to target next that you don't happen to like?  Left-wing activists?  Greenies:  Trade unionists?  God forbid - BLOGGERS?  In Russia, Vladimir Putin is no doubt removing his hat and saying, 'Dude, RESPECT!'  Seriously scary and offensive stuff going on.  I keep imagining jackbooted footsteps.  You know what I've just been listening to?  It's an old Skyhooks song from around 1979 called 'Over The Border', which was a scathing little ditty abut the police state under the rule of The Flying Peanut back then.  Just wondering if much has changed.  You Tube the song.  I think it might have been one of the first numbers released after Shirl left the band, and Tony Williams doesn't do too bad a job.  Maybe he's not as good a singer as Shirl, but there is no doubt he leaves me in the shade in the vocals department! 

Ah, Queensland.  Beautiful one day, draconian repressive gulag the next!

Don't Look!

I'm going to issue a warning to all of you who may be contemplating watching a certain movie. It's not overly recent; 2006, I think.  Last night it was screened on television, when I was so exhausted I couldn't move.  My exhaustion can be attributed to having had to cart my children places, purchase some groceries after my work out at the gym, the decision of my car battery to flatten like a pancake thus necessitating a call to the NRMA, all followed with a trip to a neighbouring town to visit my father in hospital (he was transferred back to the district on Friday, from the John Hunter Hospital).  My children were keen to see their pop.  I filled up my newly-charged-battery-under-the-bonneted car with petrol, and got the kids some chips at the servo.  As you do.  If this makes me a terrible mother, then guilty as charged, m'lud.  Dire warnings were issued to the children to behave themselves, but the warnings were not heeded.  The minute we were in my father's room, it was, 'Mu-um, I'm hungry!'  Through clenched teeth, I snarled, 'You've just bloody eaten!'  Actually, my 12yo, a gluttonous wretch, has dubbed himself 'The Great Gutsby'.  It's apt.  There is a verandah off my father's room, and they sat there poking and prodding at each other, with my 9yo grizzling like a teething infant. 

In a cloud of fury, I marched them back out to the car and drove home, where I had to cook dinner as their dad is still incapacitated.  My dishwasher is giving out the OE code, and I think it needs a new pump, so I referred to the roster and said whoever was on 'stacking' duty would be washing up, with the 'unstacker' doing the drying up.  Easy in theory.  The practice entailed me shouting like a pre-menstrual sub-human monster, as my 9yo pretended to be a matador, flapping the tea-towel and chanting, 'Toro!  Toro!'  And then, oh and then, he said, 'Why do I have to do this?  It's a woman's job.'  Let's just say he has now been disabused of that theory, and was very defensive in his argument that he had just been trying to be funny.  'You. Are. NOT. Funny!' I hissed at him, in that manner that lets the boys know the needle of Mum's thermostat is teetering dangerously at the top end of the red section and there will soon be hissing, hot, scalding steam enveloping the room like the cheesy special effects of a B-grade horror movie.

I was worn out, and just lay on the couch, with my fox terrier pup curled up on my lap.  I looked at the television where a movie was starting.  I looked at the actors in the credits: Jennifer Coolidge, Fred Willard - people I find amusing.  So I decided to watch.  As I watched, I wondered what the hell I was doing.  The sheer badness of this movie had stunned and debilitated me, and I was powerless to move away as it drew me in with its tractor beam.  It was an utter car wreck.  A train wreck.  A plane crash.  I thought the worlds would implode with the sheer force of how hard this movie sucked.  I wondered what satanic force had convinced the actors to take roles in this mountain of dung.  Did they all have electric bills due at the same time, and need the money?  Strewth, it was terrible.  And the name of this celluloid suckery?  'Date Movie'.  I don't mind the occasional spoof it it's done cleverly.  Look at 'Galaxy Quest' which had a decent story line and poked good natured fun at trekkies.  But many spoofs just make me want to go out and stab a kitten with newly-opened eyes.  Put it this way: I cannot stand most Mel Brooks movies.  And as I explained, I had been powerless to move and the remote was not in reach.  When the evil spell broke during the closing credits, my pup looked up at me, with one ear up and the other folded  (awwwww!), and I said, 'Fergus, that was without doubt the worst fucking movie I have ever seen.'  It possibly eclipsed 'I Spit On Your Grave'.  No, maybe not.  I'll save that for the next post.

Peeves of the Day

Today's peeves, if you care, are as follows:

1.  Fancy-schmancy hidden addresses on curly strata plans.  It sounds like a first world problem but when you're driving in an area looking to assist shower and medicate some old people, and they all seem to be living in houses whose street addresses are not apparent from the street, this can make you a tad tetchy.  I had to deal with this yesterday.  I wasn't meant to work but a neighbouring town had a lot of sick carers, so I got asked to do the honours.  I did, but I was late for every service because I couldn't find their houses, because the houses were up a winding path and hidden behind another house!  Grrrr.  And then I had to drive to a farm to look after an elderly gentleman, and got lost.  There are also severe bush fires in this area today, so I did not enjoy looking at the smoke and haze, and have done nothing but sneeze for the past day, it would seem.

2.  People saying 'same difference.'  One of my Facebook friends commented on a thread thus the other day, and I begged with him that if he loved me, or held me in any type of esteem at all, to please CEASE AND DESIST this odious phrase.  It.   Makes.  No.  Sense.  None at all.  One of my mates suggested it was an idiom.  It is not an idiom.  I think what it is trying to achieve is status as oxymoron, but it is failing miserably.  It is grammatical bullshit, and should NEVER be used.  Any time I have ever heard it, it's usually been in a kind of passive-aggressive tone of defeat.   People, don't ever use it.  And while I'm at it, please don't say 'would OF', either.  This is plain psychotic and evil.

3.  People bagging out teachers.  Quit it now.  Could you stand in front of a classroom trying to control and educate a bunch of little monsters who are probably hopped up on a high-sugar diet?  No?  Then don't criticise the saints-in-making who do.

Must get a bit of writing done, and then I'm watching a bit of a DVD I got out of the library - 'The Passion Of The Christ'.  Never saw it, and thought it might be interesting film to watch - yeah, I know the ending.  The protagonist gets nailed to a cross.  But I thought the approach, with actors speaking Aramaic and subtitles, might make for interesting cinema.  Cin-E-Ma.  Not film, but cinema.  I'm not even letting the Mel Gibson association turn me off.  Not a huge fan of Mel's, what with the bilious, drunken, anti-Semitic and racist rants he is prone to.

Boxing Fifty Shades

And the Twitterverse is going into meltdown with the news actor Charlie Hunnam (and I have no idea who he is having never watched him in anything) has pulled out of the role for the proposed '50 Shades of Utter Shit' (sorry, 'Grey') movie.  I don't know why he pulled out.  I'm guessing he had an epiphany of overwhelming common sense and realised that this just might be a career-crusher of a role.  I remember the stink when Kim Basinger pulled out of 'Boxing Helena'.  It cost her serious coin to do so, but I think she did the right thing.  'Boxing Helena' was mind-blowingly awful.  It might have been directed by either David Lynch or his daughter Jennifer - can't remember.  Lynch you might recall brought us 'Twin Peaks', which was actually a hallmark in pop culture.  Admittedly it dragged on so much it got to the point where I didn't give a rat's arse who killed Laura Palmer and wrapped the poor unfortunate soul in plastic, but my then flatmate wouldn't miss it.  But 'Boxing Helena' totally sucked the balls of an old bull elephant dry.  Hunnam realised that in filming 'Tale Of Two Fuck-Ups' (sorry, Dickens fans), he would be subjected to the most execrable dialogue ever, and Sir Alec Guiness is no longer around to guide him.  Sir Alec Guiness, in his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi, was able to deliver the appalling line, 'Mos Eisley Space Station: you'll never find a greater hive of scum and villainy' with a straight face and make it believable.  Anybody who has seen him in his Oscar winning role in 'Bridge Over The River Kwai' will know how brilliant an actor he was.  I remember watching him in that, and being utterly spellbound.

Well, I'd better get on with my current project, which will one day be my fourth novel. 

Cheers!

Iconography, Blood Clots, & My Father's Wretched Toenails

The best laid plans of mice and men, yada, yada, yada.  It was my plan to have a serious relaxation session yesterday.  Instead, I was telephoned by my sister-in-law and advised my father had been transferred to John Hunter Hospital at Newcastle because he had severe pain in his left elbow, and numbness from elbow to wrist.  So, I travelled with my brother and his wife, and because only two family members were allowed in at a time, we took it turns (groups of two) to sit with Dad whilst he was in the ED undergoing some procedures such as a scan on his arm, and blood tests.  He also had an ECG and the doctor was frowning, which worried me, and then someone said Dad has a pacemaker and the doc's brow smoothed as if thinking, 'Aaah.  That explains it.'  For the scan, I helped remove Dad's singlet (utilising those skills I have acquired in my job as a care worker for the aged and disabled), and he was lying on the bed with his arms out a bit (the left was being scanned and the right had an IV).  He was bare-chested with a white sheet draped decorously over his lower half.  His head was leaning slightly to his right.  And so help me, all I could think of was the portrayals in Christian iconography of Jesus in his moment of suffering, if Jesus had been a pale old Aussie farmer in his eighties.  Actually, portraying my father like this is probably just as realistic as the paintings we tend to see wherein Christ is depicted with fair skin, blue eyes, and long brown hair.  I am no anthropologist, but it's pretty unlikely Jesus looked like that.  But if I can just make another segue using religious metaphors, what is seriously UNGODLY are my father's toenails.  The sheet moved a little, and Dad's unseemly feet were exposed.  Where most people have toenails, Dad has these yellow great lumps of horned keratin.  ('Hey, Dad, the dragon rang and wants its claws back').  Whilst waiting for test results, my brother and I had a cup of tea and he suddenly said, 'Dad's got to see a podiatrist; his feet looks like a fucking honey badger's!'  Yes, ugly yellow horns with caked on dead flaky skin cells underneath.  If anybody was eating whilst reading: my apologies.

But we were so exhausted.  My sister-in-law was actually a little tearful.  I am really, truly, utterly, without adulteration fucking FED UP with hospitals at the moment.  Over the past few weeks I have taken my son to one, had my husband transferred by ambulance to one, and now it's my father in one.  We ended up staying at a motel nearby and my father had an embolectomy carried out today.  No general, just a block, and he didn't require a stent.  He's doing well, happy as a clam, and me, my brother, and my sister-in-law are plumb tuckered out.  My sister and her husband attended the hospital today, but I don't think they are as physically tired as us, although of course just as worried.

So now I'm just sitting at home, tired and irritable.  My 9yo has decided, given his mother has been worn out and his father is somewhat incapacitated at present, to behave like a feral little pain in the arse.  I am sick of shouting.  I might be the next one in hospital to have treatment on the throat nodules I am bound to develop from all my bellowing.

So, Labor have a new leader in Bill Shorten.  From what I've observed of the Labor party's treatment of past leaders, I don't think he'll have much time to really wear a butt groove into that chair.  His mother-in-law is Governor General, so that will make for some interesting family BBQ time ('Sure, I'll mow the lawn for you, now can you do me a favour and sack Tony Abbott?').  That, by the way, is a joke everyone.  And I understand the GG has sought advice and even offered a resignation, but advice she has received would indicate there is no conflict in her remaining Governor General.

Oh well, time to get ready for bed.  Tuesday.  Tuesday I will do some writing.

Squirted Eyes, Celebrity Tweets, and Singing Old Musical Numbers

The love of my life is moving with a little more ease today, and as I am not working today suggested we have lunch at one of the local pubs to cheer me up, as my mood has been one of the most extreme, abject misery of late.  Not a bad lunch as far as counter lunches go.  Could have done without the spray of lemon juice hitting my left eye as I dressed my barramundi.  Similarly could have gone without the squirt of vinaigrette in my right eye when I bit into my salad.  Can truly say it was a balanced meal.  I spent much of the meal blinking and squinting like a stunned koala, who has just been hit in the eyes with the beam of a dolphin torch, perhaps held by an interrogative cop ('Confess, Bugsy!  We know ya did it!').

Chopper Read has passed on.  Do I care?  For his wife and children, yes.  For him?  No.

I saw a tweeted picture of Mariah Carey's boosies today - cupped seductively in a black lacy bra, with a message of promise to her husband.  Why do celebrities feel it necessary to do this?  ('Hey, everyone!  I have flattering undergarments and have sex with my husband occasionally!').  This is private stuff.  Is nothing sacred?  Will a tweeted promise from your blogger here that all manner of conjugal delights await her husband when his back feels better increase the sales of my books?  Lately, starlets seem to be tweeting photos of their butts in G-strings.  ('Hey, look everybody!  My butt can crack a walnut - my songs are pretty pedestrian but how about this butt, hey?  And I bet you all have butts like twin blobs of gelatinous wobbling blancmange!'). 

Was going to write on the next book today, but fell asleep.  It's the heat, the stress, daylight savings - you name it.  Of course, going out to lunch ate (heh-heh!) into my allotted writing time, too, but I think it did my husband the world of good to just get out of the house.  When I'm doing paid work, I sometimes take house-bound people out for respite and we'll just have a coffee.  It really does them the world of good.  The other day I was feeding an elderly woman, and wouldn't you know it?  'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' was on.  I looked at her and started to sing along with Professor Potts, his children, and Truly Scrumptious.  Come on, you all know it: 'You're sleek as a thoroughbred/your seats are a featherbed....'.  And the old lady smiled at me.  Now, anybody who has ever heard me sing could construe my little performance as elder abuse (I am a phenomenally bad singer), but she enjoyed it, and so did I.

Miley's Tongue, Jagger's WTF-ish Song, My Moans

Oh dear (heaving a heart-wrenching, heavy sigh as I type), there really are some inane things in this world, aren't there?   Let's just check out a few, shall we?

1.  Miley Cyrus.  I'm kind of liking the fact that she is answering her critics with a 'take me as I am' attitude.  I get sick of people saying her father should have a good talk to her.  This just in: she's twenty, and an adult, therefore responsible for her own decisions.  But I'm sick of footage of her tongue flapping from her mouth like a lynched stingray.  It's really grotesque and pissing me off royally.

2.  'Let's Work' by Mick Jagger.  This is one of Jagger's solo efforts from the late Eighties.  I am a huge Stones fan, and my all time favourite album is 'Sticky Fingers'.  Most aficionados will agree with the superlative, flawless qualities of that album.  There is the cheeky 'Brown Sugar' (that sax just tops it!).  There is the marvellously bluesy 'You Gotta Move'.   There is the brilliant 'Bitch' - a song that just screams 'fuck you!'.  And can we go past 'Can't You Hear Me Knocking?' - oh those riffs! - they make my ears want to smoke a cigarette.  Mick, when you are with the Stones, you are the consummate showman.  The Stones are like an old family recipe for the perfect cake: the right ingredients, the right mix, the right chemistry and don't screw with it.  However, the solo stuff is, well, pretty execrable.  My FB group had a theme the other day of posting work related songs, and for some reason I dredged this one up.  Yes, dredged is the right word.  It's pure Eighties pap and dross through and through.  Where's Jagger's raunchiness, rawness, and attitude gone?  He's put it away and pulled out a 'gee-whiz' type of tone, and 'let's-get-up-and-go-guys', and 'oh-gosh-I'm-enthused'.  It's a bloody awful song.  I suffered a minute of the clip, which is classic (hah!) Eighties stuff- a bunch of people dancing in sync and looking like rejects from 'Miami Vice'.

3.  This criticism of sportspeople endorsing junk food in ads.  A bit hypocritical, maybe.  But so what?  It's their choice.  If my kids want to eat fatty, sugar-laden toxic waste because some tennis player is telling them how it's pure ambrosia, I just do what most parents do and say, 'No.'

Forgive the tone of this post, readers.  I've had a rough few days.  Daylight saving always knocks me around in those first few days.  What's even worse is my husband's back has been playing up something dreadful.  He's been given a referral for his specialist to consider surgical options.  Actually, after his return from the hospital on Saturday night, his back went into spasms and I called the ambulance.  Our 12yo was in tears.  I almost was, too.  I'm exhausted and scared.  On the other hand, I'm pleased we're being proactive about getting surgery on it, but I'm hating the situation at the moment.  Yesterday, my husband had to lie down and he was also sick.  The drugs he's on have unpleasant side effects.  My exhaustion has manifested itself in me shouting at my children.  I hate this so much.  I'm meant to be working on my next novel today, and am wondering can I do this while I'm stressed?  I will try.  Most parents often have to raise their voice when issuing an order for the fourth time in a ROW!  But last night I wanted to catch the end of 'Media Watch' before 'Q&A', and my 12yo said, 'Come on, can't I finish watching this show?  It ends when your show starts.'  My less-than-sterling-parenting response was to yell, 'Oh, just go to hell!  I don't care!.'  I hate myself for doing this.  I hated seeing my beautiful son's face fall, and his eyes fill.  I sat down with him and hugged him, hard.  I cried and told him I was sorry.  I told him it's my stress over Dad at the moment.  He understood.  This isn't fair on my children.  I love them to bits but I'm so stressed to the max.  I hope their dad's back can be fixed soon.  But may God forgive me for shouting at my kids, and my kids forgive me, too.  I must work at forgiving myself, as well; I am only human (even if I've been roaring like something sub-human of late).

Local House Of Ill Fame

Over the past few days I've been having a bit of a laugh via my community FB page (and the local paper) watching the reactions and responses of people to the latest DA put before the local council for the prospective new business.  This business will be in the main street, just at the outskirts of town.  The business?  A brothel.  The proposed building is a three bedroom house in a business zone, and the 'improvements' will be showers and extending the car park at the rear of the building.  And you know something?  I am totally NOT against it.  The neighbouring businesses however, have been squawking and flapping like stepped on chooks.  They don't want the type of people it attracts (what?  People having sex?).  The proprietor of the health food/holistic remedies practise is concerned that a drunk potential patron (there's a pub nearby) will stumble into his premises by mistake because there is a sign offering massage.  I pointed out the sign offers alternative therapies such as aromatherapy, and it would be a very dense person who wandered in and believed the house to be a brothel, and only needs to be pointed in the right direction, and a very red-faced punter will skulk out and go to the CORRECT house.  Some folk have stated the industrial area of town might be better for location, but I reckon the proposed location is more safe for the patrons and workers, and safety is paramount.

Shit, I'm sick of people.  A brothel is a discreet type of business.  It doesn't have noise and neon signs flashing: 'GET YOUR NOOKIE HERE!'  The patrons entering and leaving are very quiet.  A pub in the area is far more disruptive, and I should know.  I'm diagonally opposite a pub and often will here some drunken revellers staggering up the hill on their way home.

Also, this is a mining town and for some reason, most of the pubs here advertise skimpies/lingerie waitresses.  Oddly, this is something I DO have a problem with.  It is tacky and tawdry, and objectifies women, IMHO.  However, the ladies have to earn a living, and the pub is entitled to provide this type of entertainment if the licensee so wishes.  So in the meantime, we have this sort of sleazy spectacle in the open, but people are getting uptight about consenting adults having sex behind closed doors.  Go figure.   The mining boom appears to be waning somewhat locally, so I don't know how it will go for the brothel.  An actress named Mrs Patrick Campbell, a good friend of Oscar Wilde, was asked to provide a comment on the proclivities of her good friend at the time of his trials.  She said she didn't care what people did, 'as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses.'  This is a favourite axiom of mine. 

Anyway, the House of Ill Fame is going through all the appropriate channels to operate, and it will pay rates etc.  If their application is knocked back, they have indicated they will appeal to the Land and Environment Court.  You go guys.  I hope you win.

What's funny and serendipitous about all this is today I read from the manuscript of my upcoming novel 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth' at an Arts & Culture Fair.  The chapter I read involves my protagonist, a town planner, attending a massage parlour!  I enjoyed the deliciousness of the coincidence, I must say.

The other thing I'm sick of, which isn't so amusing, is the local hospital.  No, not the staff.  They work so hard.  I'm sick of having to go there.  I attended a wedding this afternoon, and then my husband rang to tell me his back is locked up.  I had to leave the reception and my son travelled with him to the hospital (I'm looking after the younger one and his little friend).  I've collected my older son, and I'm waiting to hear from hubby as to whether/'when he can come home.  I was also there a few weeks ago when my little one had earache.  I was there a few months ago when hubby's back went AWOL.  The stress is doing my head in, and making me one miserable little blogger.  I know my husband is feeling worse than I am, but I hate seeing him in pain, and I hate the extra strain on me.  What I am, is proud.  Proud of our older son who was an invaluable help getting his dad to the car etc.

Oh, the wedding was very nice.  Very casual.  My former case manager married her long time de facto.  The adult children of her first wedding made a speech, and told him they loved him and he has been like a dad to them.  The big boofy guy got out his handkerchief and wiped away tears.  So did I.  Oh, bless.

And speaking of weddings, yesterday Mr Bingells and I celebrated fifteen years of wedded bliss.  Yes, at the moment there has been more sickness than health, but here's hoping it changes soon.

Earworms Before Trivia

I'm just spewing out my thoughts before I get dressed to go and play trivia.  Tell you what, if I catch that 40-something prick cheating again I'm going to say, 'Cheat on your fucking prostate test, too, do you?'  I know what I will answer if the quizmaster asks, 'What is the most irritating song to get stuck in your head for an eight hour period?'  I lived it today.  And here's the answer: it's none other than 'Lovin' You' by Minnie Ripperton.  Some people think it is a sweet, beautiful love song.  I think it is an audio emetic, and at the very least enough to cave the head in with the syrupy qualities.  It has this nauseating line 'every time that we oooooo, I'm more in love with you.'  Seriously, 'oooooo'?  ('Hey, baby, feel like a bit of 'ooooo' tonight?').  Oh well, I guess 'oooooo' rhymes with 'you', whereas 'fuck' doesn't.  The piece de resistance is this high note she hits.  It shatters crystal ware, your reading glasses, and a stray dog who has the misfortune to be passing by falls down bleeding from the ears.

Well, time to get dressed.  My hair won't be dry before I get there, but no matter.  I will survive.  And oh God, there's another song to get stuck in the head (but I don't mind that one too much).