Just checking in to the blogosphere prior to settling in to watch 'Scrotal Recall'. I don't know if any of you have ever watched it, but it's quite good. Romantic/sexual adventures of a pommy bloke aged about 29/30. Good structure and acting. So I will be watching that one very shortly.
I am nearing the end of some annual leave I have taken. This makes me heave a sigh one would associate with the lovelorn and consumptive young poet lying on his bed as he pens a paean to the bonny young thing who barely notices him, or with whom he is having an illicit affair. I sigh like the bellows used to operate that organ in the Vatican (that's if it has bellows - I've never been into whatever Cathedral is in Vatican City; indeed I have never travelled to Europe). I don't want to return to work. I want to apply myself to my REAL work, which is churning out novels. I have one due out later this year, and it's called 'Howling On A Concrete Moon'. I ask, nay, BEG you all purchase a copy. The bills are piling up. My 14yo won't stop eating. I took him to buy school shoes, sports shoes, and soccer boots today and the store clerk measured his feet. Guess what? He now takes a bigger shoe size than his father! The fruit of my womb is gargantuan.
It's a joy to take two squabbling brothers on an hour-ish drive to a larger town to purchase school footwear. They both needed school shoes and joggers, and the older needed soccer boots. He has had a new pair of soccer boots every year for about six years. The joy of snapping at your older son to stop reaching around and touching the younger one's hair for no other purpose than to tease, harass, and annoy can only be matched by parking (barely adequately) in a crowded car park, and having the younger one ask where his thongs are. I should point out that if you are reading this and not an Aussie, 'thongs' here are what you call 'flip-flops'. 'I haven't got them', I replied, 'Aren't you wearing them?' He said he was not because he thought I had them. I asked the genesis of this theory; why would I have his thongs, and more to the point why had he not put them on prior to our departure. He said he had had his hands full. His hands were full with a stuffed toy depicting a character from the Minecraft series, so therefore it was not beyond the realm of possibility to scoop up his thongs. It sank in my child had come out on a shopping expedition with no footwear (ironically enough to purchase footwear).
I don't know what made me do what I did next, but I'm guessing it was my body's method of staving off insanity; I burst out laughing. So did my older son. We got out of the car and stood in the car park, still laughing. My younger one did not see the joke and became outraged at our mirth. He refused to leave the car unless we stopped laughing, but this made us laugh harder. Normally I would do something along the lines of losing my shit, but right then, all I could do was laugh. I did manage to stop the guffaws long enough to bluff him into getting out of the car, but I did have to nibble the insides of my cheeks.
But yeah, I was able to purchase the footwear without too much drama. Was lucky enough to get everything we needed in the one shop that happened to be having a sale. The gods smiled benevolently for once.
But fortunate shop locating aside, it did seem to be a day fraught with hassles what with kids squabbling and kids forgetting to bring along footwear so he walked around the shopping centre like a feral until I purchased his new joggers, which he promptly put on and walked around in. The trip home was really no bed of roses, either. The radio station seemed determined to play every sucky song it could think of. I negotiated the damnable car park to the strains of Paul Simon blathering something about 'me and Julio down by the school yard...' . You know something? I really like a lot of Paul Simon's solo stuff from the early Seventies, but that song just sets my teeth on edge. It annoys the living snot out of me. Can't explain it, it just bloody does. After a while, I was subjected to another annoying Paul Simon number, being 'Call Me Al'. I just loathe that one, too. I disliked that bloody 'Graceland' album with vehemence bordering on the psychotic. It didn't 'grab' me when I first heard it, and my then flatmate played it on a loop which drove me just about bloody insane. If that was not bad enough, I was also subjected to Rick-bloody-Astley, and my kids know the degree of detestation I have for his crappy song, so they decided to join in. It was the one moment of solidarity my kids enjoyed: they weren't annoying each other, they were annoying ME, by singing along 'never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down...' blahblahblah.
Oh, and who left the gate on the idiot farm open? One of them escaped, got into a ute, and drove along the New England Highway outside Singleton today. It pottered along waaaay below the speed limit, but apparently thought the overtaking lane was a signal to speed up. Once the overtaking lanes were petered out, it slowed back down. Every freaking time I prepared to overtake, the cretin would floor it, or else cut in front of me in the area where the lanes diverged. Strewth!
Well, it's just about time for my show. Tata for now.
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