Wednesday 28 November 2012

Brown Paper Packages.



So walking back from dropping the Nazgul at daycare this morning I composed the most outstanding blog post in my head, truly it was magnificent so it was deeply unfortunate that I got home and discovered that my brother will be speaking in the third person for the rest of the week AND (as if that weren’t enough) I got an incredibly exciting email from Tracknoreply@auspost.com.au and all the awesome fell completely out of my head. I then started this blog post but there was some kind of dancing/coffee/PC incident (I am not entirely sure of the details but we’re all fine) and it got deleted. Anyway, I have pasted the most exciting bits of the email below:

Please be advised of your article delivery status.
Article Number

Consignment Number

Total Articles
1
Date/Time
29.11.12 06:32:55
Current Status
Onboard with Driver
Location


Now this might be rather mundane info to many people but for several reasons I am so excited that I can’t possibly do a lick of work today (or most likely tomorrow). Firstly, I have very little contact with the outside world so I consider the postman to be a visitor. Secondly, I have discovered the awesome combination of on-line Christmas shopping, wine and My First Husband’s credit card number (Baby, If you are reading this just remember I am the best you can do okay?) so the contents of the packages are often quite a surprise. Please see below for an example of yesterday’s effort.
Now while this delivery wasn’t a surprise the fact that the cubby would arrive as my motivation left was. It stayed that way until My First Husband moved it outside with the resigned “What makes you do these things” which is one of my favourite quotes around here.

However, the third and most important reason is the parcel post guy. Now we have had the same delivery driver for years and he is generally quite a pleasant chap. I am still slightly miffed from the incident a few years ago when I realised after signing for a parcel the buttons on my shirt were undone and he didn’t even have the decency to look impressed. Seriously. But yesterday was the ultimate conversation
Me (opening the door): Hi
Post guy (handing me the electronic signing thingy): Do you even work?
Me (signing): Ummmm….I work from home a lot.
And he leaves without saying another fucking word.

I was/am absolutely delighted, it is not often that I meet someone worse at small talk than me but the fact that I know he is coming back today is just fantastic.  Even more so considering last night I had a couple of scotches and dyed my hair the colour that once prompted a co-worker to say “Did you mean for it to come out like that?” I really don’t think enough grown women dye their hair a primary colour that glows (I am not being hyperbolous here, it is glowing). Now my beloveds how to answer the door? So far I am considering constructing a facsimile of a lo-jack device around my ankle, or slipping him a note that says “Please contact ASIO, I need immediate extraction…they’re onto me”…..or I suppose I could just write my overdue report. Any suggestions?

 











































































Tuesday 13 November 2012

Conversations with Rainman

It will probably surprise many of you to know that Rainman isn't actually mentally deficient (we have had him tested). In fact, he has been put in several of the gifted classes at his school, is very athletic and can be quite articulate and charming...apparently. This makes me gravely concerned for the other 120 odd kids in his year. Below is very typical of the conversations I have with Rainman 20 - 30 times a day.

Rainman while swinging badly on a swing. (How can you not be able to operate a swing? I didn't even know it possible): Do you have a piece of cloth?
Me: No. Why would I bring a piece of cloth to the park?
Rainman: Because you don't have my hat in your bag.
Me: WHAT???
Rainman:  For you to hold onto and for me to try and grab but you didn't bring anything so it doesn't even matter now. Rainman suddenly  becomes extremely petulant at my horrendous neglect.

Now this is reminiscent of conversations such as the public argument because he wouldn't accept that the milkshake flavour was caramel not camel as he insisted, or the time he got mages (popular in fantasy novels and games) and paramedics mixed up but would not concede that paramedics can't alter time.



Thursday 8 November 2012

A day in the life: Friday 9th November


Heard the best phrase ever: "Fuck you lamp and fuck you Jeff".

Discovered their are no images on google for "salami baguette dildos"

My son handed in homework with his invention 'The Vibrator".

There are bonus fly-buy points at liquorland all weekend.

I laughed so much that I foamed at the mouth, dry retched and suspected I was having a heart attack.

It was the best day ever. 

Wednesday 7 November 2012

A Day in the Life: Thurs 8th November



People often ask me: why are you so angry all the time? Why can't you complete a sentence without a minimum of 15 swear words? Did you mean for your hair to look like that? Why are you so obsessed with alcohol and breasts? Do you think mocking your own children on the internet is good parenting? I think that the answer to these questions and quite probably many more can be seen below.

My First Husband is away at a conference. It is only overnight and like many, many of the married females I know, I was damn excited at the prospect. Last night was fine, the Nazgul was ticked off that a minion had left without her permission but soon enough she was in bed and I was kicking back with a glass of sparkling and watching a show about stupid British dog owners. This morning saw in a darker day for Crap Headquarters. 

6am: Got my usual wake-up call of "I waaaannnnntttt my MUUUUUUUUUMMMMAAAA" on repeat. I really must applaud the Nazgul on being able to shout but keep the whinging tone in tact while at the same time making a mockery of the "gentle alarm" I so diligently set on my phone each night. As soon as she sees me the whine changes to "I want you carry me" which considering I have a chronic joint condition and she is built like the cross between a garden gnome and a front row forward, poses quite a few technical problems. After I say no, she informs me she is an elephant and rolls around her bed laughing her insane little arse off (must remember to take this child to the zoo at some point because that impression needs a shit load of work). 

6.45am: After 12 of her personalities taking turns to be in control (Postman Pat and assorted minor roles, the entire cast of Yo Gabba Gabba, Bob the Builder, and some random cats) The Nazgul announces her breakfast is over. Seeing her take a deep breath, the kind she does before a whinge so intense that a catholic would consider it speaking in tongues, I head it off by asking her to wake Rainman up. She whines in a way that has me making moon eyes at the booze cupboard "Is not Rainman. Is Brobee", "Okay, then sweetheart can you get Brobee up” which causes her to launch into a complete mental fit crying "No I is Brobee". I have kind of blacked out what happened next and replaced it with scene from 90s sitcom Father Ted but the end result was she woke up Rainman by climbing into bed with him and singing sweetly to him. I was misty eyed as walked past and they were cuddling while playing with a torch...fool that I was. 

7am: The Nazgul adds foot stomping while crying and shouting that she wasn't finished breakfast and she was still eating those two sodden spoonful’s of porridge I had cleared away. After calming her down and furnishing her with more porridge. I watch my two shaved chimps happily chatting away and decide it is safe for me to go to the toilet in the next room rather than shit my own pants.

7.03am: Both children (and I use this term in its loosest possible sense) are screaming and crying. I don't mean shouting, I mean screaming like when the TV gets turned off in the rec room of a secure unit screaming.  I call out to Rainman to tell me what happened. I keep calling out more and more desperately for him to come here so was quite shocked to hear him running off to the other end of the house crying. I keep calling out for him to come here until I am shrieking. Eventually he turns up sobbing and says "Nazgul threw a spoon at me and just shouts at me”.  By this point The Nazgul is contributing to the symphony of horror by shrieking "I no love mummy and Rainman. Me love my daddy. DAAADDDY. Me no love mummy. Me no love Rainman" over and over.  Somehow I manage to calmly say “You go to your room for a few minutes and calm down, mate” Of course Rainman showed his acting skills by walking off as if he was going to his room but actually just stepped out of my line of vision and started provoking the Nazgul until she was in a berserker frenzy.


7.05am: Come out of the bathroom to assess the damage and using my Dexter-like skills to analyse the porridge splatter and spoon position quickly ascertain that Rainman was being a crap-pony once again. The most the Nazgul could have been guilty of was pushing her spoon away. Eventually exorcize the Nazgul enough to determine that despite her spoon being perfectly fine while I was in her eyesight as soon as I am no longer visible the only spoon she can eat from is the one Rainman is eating with. After every other spoon in the house had been rejected as “I no love that one” I brokered a deal whereby The Nazgul would take possession of the spoon equivalent of the Gaza Strip as soon as Rainman was done. 

7.15am: Tell Rainman to hurry up with the spoon. He puts the spoon down and stares at his sister. He has apparently forgotten the above in its entirety. 

7.25am: Trying to get The Nazgul ready for the walk to drop Rainman off at school and her at Day care but am constantly interrupted by Rainman, who despite being unable to get both shoes on in under 20 mins feels that my parenting of The Nazgul needs correction (the entire time The Nazgul has whined that it doesn’t want to go to day-care and has developed an alternate reality in which I am taking her to the park). While I am telling Rainman that he needs to put his other shoe on and shut up, The Nazgul disappears and begins shouting “I no love mummy. I no like my school. I not going my school. I going back to bed” and sure enough she is laying in her bed shouting out bitter recriminations. 

8am: Despite being told at 5 min intervals all morning we were leaving at 8am on the dot (to drop both children off I have to walk for 2 hours) As I am grabbing my keys Rainman walks past me, headed for the toilet with a magazine tucked under his arm. 

For the first half of the walk to school Rainman refused to talk to me and just walked one step behind me, glaring and muttering under his breath. This didn’t bother me so much as The Nazgul was still relentlessly protesting that she was not going to day-care and I was to take her home. Halfway through the trip his innate desire to drive me insane by monologuing kicked in. However, after he found the need to stand in the middle of a driveway of a construction site, adjusting some astro-turf they had put down and ignoring all my pleas to get off the driveway until I was shrieking like a mental woman so insanely that people in cars were staring, he returned to the sullen muttering about my intolerant ways. 

The Nazgul did not let up on the whining; whinging and general insanity about not going to day-care for the entire walk there. After dropping her off, I walked straight into a near-by McDonalds and shoved a bacon and egg muffin into my mouth like a proper mental. Which might not seem particularly remarkable or concerning to those of you who don’t know one simple fact about me – I wouldn’t have eaten McDonalds in a good decade. Generally my reaction to it is the same as most people would have to being asked to eat a live frog. 

And dear readers, this is why I am angry, swear, have hair in worse condition than a witch’s pubes, drink, and look down other ladies shirts at the supermarket.

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Highly developed time management skills

So it has reached the point where I have actual work to do and have run through every distraction I possibly could (do you know how hard it is find a pictures of dogs that look like Roy Orbison?) and so it came down to the choice of finally write the blog update that you have all been nagging me for, or do housework (I couldn't actually write the report I am meant to be writing, that would just be weird and wrong).

So while I am supposed to be all academic and scholarly, I am throwing myself whole-heartedly into watching videos of cysts being drained on YouTube (I thoroughly recommend "Operation Kill George" for any of you who are faced with competing and stressful deadlines) and inventing things. This week I have invented a nut sack holder attachment for gaming console controllers (it cups firmly and reassuringly yet is sensitive enough to transmit the varying intensities of the controller vibrations) and the perfectly positioned bar area in supermarkets where parents get discounts based on the decibel measure of their child's screaming and/or the length of their child's whining...Which while I am on the subject, reminds me of discussion I had with one of my friends recently, why did we spend so much time in the 90s ingesting dubious substances in bars and clubs?  These were places where we were having a good time anyway and we should have been high enough off the fact we were lithe and young. If ever I needed to drop a few of the old disco biscuits it's taking Rainman and The Nazgul through the supermarket or on public transport. Like bras without built in scaffolds, the days of experimentation and recreation are far far far behind my friends and I so the irony is not lost on me that now we are enduring experiences so excruciating that we could do with class A narcotics to get through. I saw the episode of the show ER years ago where there was a soccer Mum who was taking crystal meth just to get all her house-elf duties done, I never understood that episode before. I have also invented a cocktail for one of my friends who is going through hell with her son's sleep apnoea and surgery, I call it the stayin' alive: 
  • 2 spoons of instant coffee
  • 15 spoons of sugar
  • a generous dash of vodka 
  • 13 crushed old school cold and flu tabs containing pseudo-ephedrine 
mix with boiling water and drink until the sound of your kids no longer bothers you.

I have also devoted a fair chunk of my time to inventing new swear words, breaking one of the first things My First Husband ever taught me which is that any swear word can be infinitely improved by the addition of the word "rag" on the end (go and call someone a cunt-rag right now, their reaction really is a life changer). Indeed I married an artist. I have found my true linguistic skill is getting incredibly angry at Rainman in public and being surprised at what almost-swear words loudly escape from my mouth. Most recently I accused him of being an "ungrateful little crap-pony", I was surprised as the mother and children next to me but much less disapproving that she was.

I would love to fill you in on more of my inventions (I am thinking kleptomaniac vacuum cleaners might be the way of the future) but you know this has taken almost 16 mins and I am bored. I have better go watch clips of dodgy dermatologists excising 30 year old blackheads from an old guy's face.