What are your Anti-Resolutions?
Lessons learned -never-to-be-repeated again things? Tell us about resolutions you've broken before, the ones you'd never make - Make a list of 5 resolutions you plan to break! Make resolutions for someone - a celebrity or politician if you like!
A new BlogThis challenge (my first for the New Year!), how fitting as I haven't done one for a while...
I don't make resolutions, really, because I know I'll probably break them, although some years I do like to have a To Do list. So a list of resolutions I'd never make, with the lessons lending themselves from some of my previous entries (see the links throughout the post for backtracks), would easily go something like this:
• Never allow friends to be the tally keeper of a) my number of drinks, or b) the pourer/s of said drinks.
• Never read Twilight or any of the sagas. I've held out this long, no point giving in now.
• Don't bother with child locks or any other devices to prevent the young lady of the house from going where she oughtn't. She's onto me and should also be in the Safety Design Dept at Clipsal. They could use her.
• Never, ever, EVER cut corners with a sharp utensil in hand. And I don't mean literal corners (for running with scissors/knives would be even stupider), I mean short cuts that you think are oh so smart and time saving.
• Whatever I do, I must NOT put still-warm pureed vegies in the freezer! OHMYGOD why didn't I think they would expand out of the bag and then take me 3 months to chisel off the base of the freezer compartment where I stored them?? A recipe for disaster.
• I won't bother using a useless household item just to prove a point with my husband. Life's too short. And so is my broom handle.
• Never believe for one moment that I am more amusing than the dog. I just make good lunches and know how to turn on the teev, and that's all I feel useful for some days.
• And just on that dog, it is a MUST that she (they) never be given access to the underneath of our house. We're not made of money! And now we're going to freeze into iceblocks every winter, thanks to the more brain-stunted one.
• However, I WILL make it known that I shall be endeavouring to put more dress-ups on the dog. Because nothing makes me laugh harder.
• Never attempt to keep up with our lemon tree by way of cooking. Never think I've even got enough friends, relations and neighbours to ever want THIS MANY lemons. The tree is insanely productive.
• Never take my eyes off my complementary restaurant bread when my daughter is around (it's mine, I love them, she's got her own and it's too bad for her if she scoffs hers faster).
• Never, no NEVER, lend out my Matchbox cars to "friends"..... And I will be making sure I raise the LGBB to do the same. Yes, I'm still seething about the VW Golf. No, I don't think that's strange seeing as I'm a mid-30-something year-old woman and still love that particular friend to death, yet have never told her SHE HAS MY CAR.
• And here it is: my last-ditch effort to give myself some good old-fashioned reverse psychology and vow..... I will NOT finish my book in 2010. There. Lessee if that trick works so I can finally put closure to the last page and get it out there already. Sheeeesh!!!!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
How to word it
"So how many kids do you have?"
A question that makes me take a deep breath, knowing what's coming and that I have to quickly pop on a bit of armour, in case of the inevitable well-intended but ultimately dismissive reply.
Finally, after years of fumbling and not feeling terribly comfortable with the lack of impact that comes with me saying, "We have two daughters - (Lolly) who's 3 and Ellanor passed away when she was a baby, she would have been x this year," I have discovered what I'm going to say.
I was sitting with Steve watching Avatar in 3D the other night. Now, don't ask me why this came to me while I was there, for it's not really a movie where your mind can wander. But apparently, mine did.
I was thinking about the fact that, no matter how much I know Ellanor has meant to us and how "long" we had with her before she died (I get the feeling, often, that many people don't realise that not all prem babies are 'unresponsive' and 'just lie there'), whenever I describe us as having had 2 children "but just the one at home" or similar, it doesn't convey the incredible impact nor the inclusive nature of us as a family of four, even though one of us isn't here.
The sentence formed easily in my free-thinking mind. I'm very satisfied with how it sits, with me, and that it clearly indicates Ellanor is far from "dead and gone". Her essence has changed and shaped not only her parents, individually and as a couple, but also the nature of our parenting and how our family now functions. That kind of impact ought never to be unrealised, even in brief exchanges (where people would naturally have an understanding more of 'a family with two children' as opposed to the more alien 'family with one living and one dead child'.
So from now on, I'm going to be saying proudly to people who ask,
"We have two children - (Lolly) who's 3 and Ellanor who's been in our family for six years but passed away as a baby."
A question that makes me take a deep breath, knowing what's coming and that I have to quickly pop on a bit of armour, in case of the inevitable well-intended but ultimately dismissive reply.
Finally, after years of fumbling and not feeling terribly comfortable with the lack of impact that comes with me saying, "We have two daughters - (Lolly) who's 3 and Ellanor passed away when she was a baby, she would have been x this year," I have discovered what I'm going to say.
I was sitting with Steve watching Avatar in 3D the other night. Now, don't ask me why this came to me while I was there, for it's not really a movie where your mind can wander. But apparently, mine did.
I was thinking about the fact that, no matter how much I know Ellanor has meant to us and how "long" we had with her before she died (I get the feeling, often, that many people don't realise that not all prem babies are 'unresponsive' and 'just lie there'), whenever I describe us as having had 2 children "but just the one at home" or similar, it doesn't convey the incredible impact nor the inclusive nature of us as a family of four, even though one of us isn't here.
The sentence formed easily in my free-thinking mind. I'm very satisfied with how it sits, with me, and that it clearly indicates Ellanor is far from "dead and gone". Her essence has changed and shaped not only her parents, individually and as a couple, but also the nature of our parenting and how our family now functions. That kind of impact ought never to be unrealised, even in brief exchanges (where people would naturally have an understanding more of 'a family with two children' as opposed to the more alien 'family with one living and one dead child'.
So from now on, I'm going to be saying proudly to people who ask,
"We have two children - (Lolly) who's 3 and Ellanor who's been in our family for six years but passed away as a baby."
Friday, January 8, 2010
Where's your head at?
Aside from being a catchy Basement Jaxx tune (with a bizarre video clip), this question is a very good one to start the new decade.
Today, I'm still steeped in edits and alterations to the fast-approaching Part IV of Energenetics (the study of the energy behind the genetic/family lines and how to decode this and old patterns of behaviour - which are not intrinsically you but, rather, are learned or imprinted - in order to then consciously create your destiny and not blindly/unconsciously follow "the way we've/I've always done it/been/expected to behave and react", etc.).
A sentence from the work that stands out to me today is:
That switched something on in my brain. I literally almost heard the light go on.
Ping!
Today, I'm still steeped in edits and alterations to the fast-approaching Part IV of Energenetics (the study of the energy behind the genetic/family lines and how to decode this and old patterns of behaviour - which are not intrinsically you but, rather, are learned or imprinted - in order to then consciously create your destiny and not blindly/unconsciously follow "the way we've/I've always done it/been/expected to behave and react", etc.).
A sentence from the work that stands out to me today is:
"Your thoughts invoke your experiences and your feelings are an obvious reminder to change your 'negative gearing'."This healing somersaults the personality/feelings from taking credit for the reason for your thoughts and realigns your energenetic pattern to be more appropriate and aware that your thoughts invoke your experiences and that your feelings are an obvious reminder to change your negative gearing.
That switched something on in my brain. I literally almost heard the light go on.
Ping!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Show Me - Mint Royale
Auuuugh, sorry, luv, if you've happened across this post in the hopes I'd show you How To do something yummy with a Mint Royale chocolate something-or-other.
'Tis just this little music vid. By the group (although I hasten to add here that this film clip is obviously not them, possibly some 'fans'??). It is one of my very favourite get-moving, pick-me-up songs. Has been for years. There is a plethora of them, but I won't bore you with a list today.
For now, here is where I am (well... not on some dodgy tribal happening in the forest... just placing myself in the music, heading into next week and January 13th)
'Tis just this little music vid. By the group (although I hasten to add here that this film clip is obviously not them, possibly some 'fans'??). It is one of my very favourite get-moving, pick-me-up songs. Has been for years. There is a plethora of them, but I won't bore you with a list today.
For now, here is where I am (well... not on some dodgy tribal happening in the forest... just placing myself in the music, heading into next week and January 13th)
Saturday, January 2, 2010
My dear, dear Boo
Here we are again. So close to your sixth birthday, the anniversary of the day Steve and I became parents. Shocked and elated and scared witless at your early arrival.
I don't know if I have much to say, for how often have I said it? When I thought I couldn't possibly heal any more (and would always remain in a slightly broken, semi-pieced-back-together state and "so be it", I discover I have healed SO much more this past year - the fifth spent without you, residing physically in our family - I've read more, I've learned so much more from others (and about myself).
Could I really be ready to say that the grief is gone? By jove, I think I might be....
This is no easy task and if truth be told, it has begun a bit of a pain in my forehead just putting it "out there" to the wider audience that is the very anonymous, voyeuristic www. It in some way breaks my own deep-seated notion that, to convey just how deeply I love you and how irreversibly broken I was to lose you, I must always, always appear pained when I talk of you. It must always shine through. But something has changed in the lead-up to your birthday, since Christmas. No longer does my pain 'cloak' need to be worn by me. I get it now. I do, truly, get it. I don't need to wear it in order to prove anything. I've lived it. I've shared it. I've expressed it every which way, up, down, blown wide open, sideways, upside down, cynically, humourously.... and at the end of it all, I've still had to roll up my sleeves and do all the work (on myself) to get myself to a place of further healing.
Boo, I have always held close to my heart the imagery of all those moments that made up your brief life. The needlepricks, the bruising, the nurses (both the good and breathtakingly awful ones), the sheer panic of not being able to "fix" you with my boob, my hands, my ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to take the pain (and all of "them") away and stop you from being so uncomfortable, the brain bleeds, the horrendous possiting of your feeds and what that meant - were you getting an infection, were you reacting to my milk, were you simply too small and feeble to tolerate such an enormous feed - the dicey pace-setting of the cardiologists to get you to the point of surgery for your heart abnormality weighed up against the incredible pressure it placed your body under (not to mention your lungs, your breathing, your blood saturation), your desat rate which never went above 70 (and me, never even knowing what this really meant but that it was bloody dangerous and posed a life threatening danger to you from the get-go), the awful, heart-racing feeling of seeing your heart rate dip and stop, dip and stop whenever those nurses stopped their compressions, those same nurses as they cried while they performed their ultimately futile attempts to save your sweet, monumentous, precious life.
Yes. I can let it all go. I must. And I have. For now, the picture does not involve all that I have been this past decade. And it is not just you and I. Nor even you and I, your Dad and little sister. It is not just my "audience" here on this blog, who have collectively spurred me on, helped set my healing pace, cried and cheered with me through a few more pregnancies (both the successful and four more tantalisingly close but no cigar ones since having you) and seen me come somewhere near full circle. There are so many in the world who need that light. Just one little flicker of light.
It now becomes me as the torch bearer. I've pulled my head out, reached my hand up and said, "Okay, it's time." I can't even say I'm shitscared. That was last month. This time, on the eve of your birthday, I realise I carry with me all those images I mentioned above and many, many more. They are the snapshots of my time with you. My precious, everlasting, unforgettable time with you.
But they are also my past. From past life, whereby I was born again, out of the horror of losing you. Born into new gifts, awareness and abilities that I never knew would one day lead me to a place of solace where I would be bold enough to ever dare dream myself ready to reach a hand out and help lift another up who was going through the same thing. And now, here I am, readying to take with me those gifts you bestowed and entrusted to me, with that pained and anguished part of my past lovingly and respectfully moving to the background so I can take a position at the helm to be willing and truly in the moment for others. I couldn't do that with my own pain still breaking the surface.
I read your "fairytale" story again two nights ago. I still cannot get through it without crying. I just can't. It is SO incredibly beautiful. The meaning of it is ingrained in me as if you were telling it yourself. And you did, too, you cheeky l'il thing! I know you did, because I can feel your essence positively dripping from every page. If only people would pass it on, light that candle in their heart, stop forgetting...... how very enlightened would the world be then?
You. Baby girl, you and all your untold strength. You did it. You got me over the line. And I thank you, I thank you so, so very much. I wish you were always here to hold. Instead, I hold you in my forever. And ever.
Ellanor Ruby's very first - and only - blissful bath
I don't know if I have much to say, for how often have I said it? When I thought I couldn't possibly heal any more (and would always remain in a slightly broken, semi-pieced-back-together state and "so be it", I discover I have healed SO much more this past year - the fifth spent without you, residing physically in our family - I've read more, I've learned so much more from others (and about myself).
Could I really be ready to say that the grief is gone? By jove, I think I might be....
This is no easy task and if truth be told, it has begun a bit of a pain in my forehead just putting it "out there" to the wider audience that is the very anonymous, voyeuristic www. It in some way breaks my own deep-seated notion that, to convey just how deeply I love you and how irreversibly broken I was to lose you, I must always, always appear pained when I talk of you. It must always shine through. But something has changed in the lead-up to your birthday, since Christmas. No longer does my pain 'cloak' need to be worn by me. I get it now. I do, truly, get it. I don't need to wear it in order to prove anything. I've lived it. I've shared it. I've expressed it every which way, up, down, blown wide open, sideways, upside down, cynically, humourously.... and at the end of it all, I've still had to roll up my sleeves and do all the work (on myself) to get myself to a place of further healing.
Boo, I have always held close to my heart the imagery of all those moments that made up your brief life. The needlepricks, the bruising, the nurses (both the good and breathtakingly awful ones), the sheer panic of not being able to "fix" you with my boob, my hands, my ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to take the pain (and all of "them") away and stop you from being so uncomfortable, the brain bleeds, the horrendous possiting of your feeds and what that meant - were you getting an infection, were you reacting to my milk, were you simply too small and feeble to tolerate such an enormous feed - the dicey pace-setting of the cardiologists to get you to the point of surgery for your heart abnormality weighed up against the incredible pressure it placed your body under (not to mention your lungs, your breathing, your blood saturation), your desat rate which never went above 70 (and me, never even knowing what this really meant but that it was bloody dangerous and posed a life threatening danger to you from the get-go), the awful, heart-racing feeling of seeing your heart rate dip and stop, dip and stop whenever those nurses stopped their compressions, those same nurses as they cried while they performed their ultimately futile attempts to save your sweet, monumentous, precious life.
Yes. I can let it all go. I must. And I have. For now, the picture does not involve all that I have been this past decade. And it is not just you and I. Nor even you and I, your Dad and little sister. It is not just my "audience" here on this blog, who have collectively spurred me on, helped set my healing pace, cried and cheered with me through a few more pregnancies (both the successful and four more tantalisingly close but no cigar ones since having you) and seen me come somewhere near full circle. There are so many in the world who need that light. Just one little flicker of light.
It now becomes me as the torch bearer. I've pulled my head out, reached my hand up and said, "Okay, it's time." I can't even say I'm shitscared. That was last month. This time, on the eve of your birthday, I realise I carry with me all those images I mentioned above and many, many more. They are the snapshots of my time with you. My precious, everlasting, unforgettable time with you.
But they are also my past. From past life, whereby I was born again, out of the horror of losing you. Born into new gifts, awareness and abilities that I never knew would one day lead me to a place of solace where I would be bold enough to ever dare dream myself ready to reach a hand out and help lift another up who was going through the same thing. And now, here I am, readying to take with me those gifts you bestowed and entrusted to me, with that pained and anguished part of my past lovingly and respectfully moving to the background so I can take a position at the helm to be willing and truly in the moment for others. I couldn't do that with my own pain still breaking the surface.
I read your "fairytale" story again two nights ago. I still cannot get through it without crying. I just can't. It is SO incredibly beautiful. The meaning of it is ingrained in me as if you were telling it yourself. And you did, too, you cheeky l'il thing! I know you did, because I can feel your essence positively dripping from every page. If only people would pass it on, light that candle in their heart, stop forgetting...... how very enlightened would the world be then?
You. Baby girl, you and all your untold strength. You did it. You got me over the line. And I thank you, I thank you so, so very much. I wish you were always here to hold. Instead, I hold you in my forever. And ever.
You gave me back the Me I was destined to be. Thank you.
I love you.
I love you.
Ellanor Ruby's very first - and only - blissful bathRelief is only the half of it
I was up a ladder, painting yesterday afternoon.
From somewhere behind me, Steve called out to ask (completely unframed by any context, for not a word had been spoken for some time while I had been happily painting all by myself) -
"What would you suggest for getting into your chocolate house? Should I just put a fist through it?"
Without turning around, I advised him, "You'd better be standing there holding that chocolate and candy house I got for Christmas, or else... I'll be very scared."
I think he nearly dropped said house laughing at his highlighted faux pas.
Sorry for the smuttiness, people. But it was bloody funny.
From somewhere behind me, Steve called out to ask (completely unframed by any context, for not a word had been spoken for some time while I had been happily painting all by myself) -
"What would you suggest for getting into your chocolate house? Should I just put a fist through it?"
Without turning around, I advised him, "You'd better be standing there holding that chocolate and candy house I got for Christmas, or else... I'll be very scared."
I think he nearly dropped said house laughing at his highlighted faux pas.
Sorry for the smuttiness, people. But it was bloody funny.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Let's start the New Year right
And a Happy New Year to you all! I began the day with the sounds of a pitiful toddler crying, confused, coming at me with soaking wet pj's at 6:47am, after we had a night of swimming in a gloriously warm pool, meeting some new friends, party poppers and Dance Dance Revolution on the Wii, arriving home around 11pm (yah, yah, we're pikers... but parents first... which inevitably has often made us pikers). And was then greeted by her sodden bedding when I went in to see if she'd actually poured a jug of water on herself. Somehow. Nope, just a malfunctioning pull-up and a waaaaaay full bladder, apparently.
So. Anyway. I digress.
I've been hideously remiss in collecting a couple of awards (been working so hard I have hardly seen my husband and child for his first week of holidays and if I don't pull my finger out, I won't see him for the last week of his holidays either), so much so that I have been awarded one of them twice (thank you Peta and Allie!). And to one of my newest regular blogs, though she's not posted an entry in a while *forlorn eyes*, a big thank you to Darnonymous :)
Nawwww, 'tis lovely to still be thought of in this world where (apparently) everyone has a blog nowdays (I remember a time when I think I was pretty much the only person in my circle who had one, back in 2005!) and mine just feels so old, so tired these days. Or... no wait, maybe that's me.
Now, what I have to do is the obligatory ten things you don't know (or shouldn't or, possibly, may do if you've ever heard me talk while I'm tipsy... or just in the mood for a chat, which, c'mon let's face it, has been quite often in my life). Yada-yada, we all know how this works by now, people.
So here goes:
> I have shocking circulation. I reckon my little toes are purple (or at least a blueish shade) for 360 days of the year. In the cooler months, my fingers are all different temperatures - as in, pinky could be luke warm, ring finger warmer, middle finger positively icy, index finger normal temp and thumb warm. And different on the other hand. For fun, when I notice it's happened and my fingers aren't consistent temperatures with each other, I always make Steve (and I have to make him) grip each finger to see for himself what a freak I am. And he always goes "EUGHH!!" about it, like he's just stepped in dog poo.
> I holidayed with my family each year in a place called Peterborough, which is about 30 minutes (well it is if you're in a bongo - or Combi or punch buggy - van laden down with 3 siblings, parents and the family dog) further down the Great Ocean Road from Port Campbell - another absolutely gorgeous spot - and an hour north/east from Warrnambool.
> One year, at Peterborough, I was old enough to walk to the shops - by myself with my lolly money in hand - from our camping spot, but apparently too young to buy bubble gum yet. It was a strict rule in our house. One of many. "No bubble gum or chewy"... I never did find out "'til when". Annnnyway, this one time, at family camp, I took myself to the general store and selected an ice cream with my money. As I exited the store, I took a furtive glance left and right, to make sure nobody from my family was around (there were times there when we all just did our own thing and just meandered back to the tent at meal times). The place was deserted... not unusual for Peterborough in the early 80's. So I headed for the beach so I could walk back hopefully undetected as I ate my loophole in peace: The Bubble-O-Bill. Someone had thought of the brilliant idea of putting a whopping great bubblegum ball as a nose on the head of a... was he a cowboy? An outlaw? A sherriff? Ack, I can't remember. Anywho, I ate the ice cream around the nose, savouring it and all it's sweet "but I bought an ice cream, how was I to know there was *shocked horror* bubblegum on it??" glory. And then, the worst thing to ever come my way in all my eight years happened. The nose, which was heavy on the fast melting ice cream, fell in the sand.
> I once ate a Bubble-O-Bill nose that was covered in sand after I rinsed it (badly) in the salty river I was walking alongside.
> I have a phobia/strong aversion to hearing saliva sounds while people are either eating or speaking. SHUDDDDDER. I cannot tell you just how much it freaks me out. Sometimes, over the years, Steve has caught me looking at him with a very pained expression on my face, and he's coined the question, "Is my microphone too close to my throat, Len?" because whenever it's happened on the tv, I've complained that the sound people "obviously don't know they've put that microphone down his throat, I can hear every little bloody trickle!!!" and run screaming from the room.
> An odd addendum to the above point would be that I can tolerate this food-saliva sounds thing in one person and one person ONLY on this green Earth: the LGBB. In fact, I delighted (somewhat obscenely, for mine) when I would hear her take those loooooong throw-back gulps each time my milk came in. She had a very distinct sound while she drank, I didn't hear it in other babies. How ironic that my child be born with a microphone so close to her throat. And more, that I don't even think twice about tolerating it.
> One of my favourite movies is Young Frankenstein. If you don't know it (or if you do and can't stand it), there is something you need to rectify. Immediately. G'awn, shoo! Down to Video Sleazy with you! For those of you still here, this was one of the favourite scenes of my high school BFF - we would often request the other to "hold out your bowl then" and other such ridiculous things. Pleeeeease, if you love me (or even like me a little bit), watch til the very last line. Understand my 'umour:
> If I am walking on a footpath, anywhere, I am most often found looking down at the ground searching out the most crunchy-looking leaves. And I step from crunchy to crunchier, like a five year-old. I have even been known to bump Steve off the path, such is my Labradorian mono-focus. I have to fight the urge when I'm walking with others and look ahead so I don't start getting mesmerised by the leaves. The deliciously curly dry crunchy... see? It consumes me even to write about it.
> This one time, I got a babysitting job (I was about 13 I think) for a night. I was asked to watch a baby and a little girl of about 5. Their parents were holding a party inside and outside of the house and I was asked to stay overnight as it would be a "very late one". I said "SURE!" and gleefully took on my young charges. Well.... I can't be sure but I think there was lots of alcohol (I was such a prude in my youth) and maybe even some weed. There were drunken people, although they were the loveliest, greenie-hippie crowd ever, all over the hillside and in the back rooms of the house. I was too scared to go to the toilet. And then, when I plucked up the courage to go, I discovered there wasn't one in the house!! It was an outhouse toily. Oh dear oh dear. So you know what I did? I held on. I bloody held on all night! They partied until daybreak and I snuck outside, around people lying asleep on the ground, around their bin fire, around an old abandoned car.... sounds like their toilet was in Detroit.... and when I got to the toilet, ohmyfkngod it was putrid. That smell and sight still makes my stomach churn today.
You see, they had (being the good hippies they were - and I loooove hippies, don't be thinkin' I'm dissin' hippies!) a dry toilet. Yup. A no-cistern, pour a bucket of water and be done with it, toilet. And let me tell yewes, nobody, but NOBODY had been doing the bucket thing all night by the looks of it.
I ran all the way home and I have to say, even at that young age, I was really quite alarmed at the ease with which my mother would allow me to just flit off for an overnighter, at the age of THIRTEEN!, with people she had nevvvver met before, and then ask me when I got home if I'd had "a nice time." Where the hell was her head at?
> Not unrelated to the previous, busting-to-go-toily story, I am the only person I know who has (or who has discovered they have) three ureters. Those little tubes that deliver urine from your kidneys to your bladder. Yuh! I have two on the left and one on the right. So if you ever thought there was something funny-looking about me..... that was probably it.
Now, look, I suck at passing on awards in time and now, every last one of the people whose blogs I read have got either one or the other of these by now (and please excuse me if you've awarded me something and I've never come to collect it.. I told you, I SUCK at that! But I do love the recognition, don't we all).
Before I go, there is one person I'm gonna offer the Honest Scrap award to (just to see if she joins the throng - heh-heh-heh, I'm so evil) and that is.... Like A Dump Truck, who I admire for her bravery and stamina. And ability to consume so many fatty treats and admit to them, although granted, not so often on her blog.
So. Anyway. I digress.
I've been hideously remiss in collecting a couple of awards (been working so hard I have hardly seen my husband and child for his first week of holidays and if I don't pull my finger out, I won't see him for the last week of his holidays either), so much so that I have been awarded one of them twice (thank you Peta and Allie!). And to one of my newest regular blogs, though she's not posted an entry in a while *forlorn eyes*, a big thank you to Darnonymous :)
Nawwww, 'tis lovely to still be thought of in this world where (apparently) everyone has a blog nowdays (I remember a time when I think I was pretty much the only person in my circle who had one, back in 2005!) and mine just feels so old, so tired these days. Or... no wait, maybe that's me.
Now, what I have to do is the obligatory ten things you don't know (or shouldn't or, possibly, may do if you've ever heard me talk while I'm tipsy... or just in the mood for a chat, which, c'mon let's face it, has been quite often in my life). Yada-yada, we all know how this works by now, people.
So here goes:
> I have shocking circulation. I reckon my little toes are purple (or at least a blueish shade) for 360 days of the year. In the cooler months, my fingers are all different temperatures - as in, pinky could be luke warm, ring finger warmer, middle finger positively icy, index finger normal temp and thumb warm. And different on the other hand. For fun, when I notice it's happened and my fingers aren't consistent temperatures with each other, I always make Steve (and I have to make him) grip each finger to see for himself what a freak I am. And he always goes "EUGHH!!" about it, like he's just stepped in dog poo.
> I holidayed with my family each year in a place called Peterborough, which is about 30 minutes (well it is if you're in a bongo - or Combi or punch buggy - van laden down with 3 siblings, parents and the family dog) further down the Great Ocean Road from Port Campbell - another absolutely gorgeous spot - and an hour north/east from Warrnambool.
> One year, at Peterborough, I was old enough to walk to the shops - by myself with my lolly money in hand - from our camping spot, but apparently too young to buy bubble gum yet. It was a strict rule in our house. One of many. "No bubble gum or chewy"... I never did find out "'til when". Annnnyway, this one time, at family camp, I took myself to the general store and selected an ice cream with my money. As I exited the store, I took a furtive glance left and right, to make sure nobody from my family was around (there were times there when we all just did our own thing and just meandered back to the tent at meal times). The place was deserted... not unusual for Peterborough in the early 80's. So I headed for the beach so I could walk back hopefully undetected as I ate my loophole in peace: The Bubble-O-Bill. Someone had thought of the brilliant idea of putting a whopping great bubblegum ball as a nose on the head of a... was he a cowboy? An outlaw? A sherriff? Ack, I can't remember. Anywho, I ate the ice cream around the nose, savouring it and all it's sweet "but I bought an ice cream, how was I to know there was *shocked horror* bubblegum on it??" glory. And then, the worst thing to ever come my way in all my eight years happened. The nose, which was heavy on the fast melting ice cream, fell in the sand.
> I once ate a Bubble-O-Bill nose that was covered in sand after I rinsed it (badly) in the salty river I was walking alongside.
> I have a phobia/strong aversion to hearing saliva sounds while people are either eating or speaking. SHUDDDDDER. I cannot tell you just how much it freaks me out. Sometimes, over the years, Steve has caught me looking at him with a very pained expression on my face, and he's coined the question, "Is my microphone too close to my throat, Len?" because whenever it's happened on the tv, I've complained that the sound people "obviously don't know they've put that microphone down his throat, I can hear every little bloody trickle!!!" and run screaming from the room.
> An odd addendum to the above point would be that I can tolerate this food-saliva sounds thing in one person and one person ONLY on this green Earth: the LGBB. In fact, I delighted (somewhat obscenely, for mine) when I would hear her take those loooooong throw-back gulps each time my milk came in. She had a very distinct sound while she drank, I didn't hear it in other babies. How ironic that my child be born with a microphone so close to her throat. And more, that I don't even think twice about tolerating it.
> One of my favourite movies is Young Frankenstein. If you don't know it (or if you do and can't stand it), there is something you need to rectify. Immediately. G'awn, shoo! Down to Video Sleazy with you! For those of you still here, this was one of the favourite scenes of my high school BFF - we would often request the other to "hold out your bowl then" and other such ridiculous things. Pleeeeease, if you love me (or even like me a little bit), watch til the very last line. Understand my 'umour:
> If I am walking on a footpath, anywhere, I am most often found looking down at the ground searching out the most crunchy-looking leaves. And I step from crunchy to crunchier, like a five year-old. I have even been known to bump Steve off the path, such is my Labradorian mono-focus. I have to fight the urge when I'm walking with others and look ahead so I don't start getting mesmerised by the leaves. The deliciously curly dry crunchy... see? It consumes me even to write about it.
> This one time, I got a babysitting job (I was about 13 I think) for a night. I was asked to watch a baby and a little girl of about 5. Their parents were holding a party inside and outside of the house and I was asked to stay overnight as it would be a "very late one". I said "SURE!" and gleefully took on my young charges. Well.... I can't be sure but I think there was lots of alcohol (I was such a prude in my youth) and maybe even some weed. There were drunken people, although they were the loveliest, greenie-hippie crowd ever, all over the hillside and in the back rooms of the house. I was too scared to go to the toilet. And then, when I plucked up the courage to go, I discovered there wasn't one in the house!! It was an outhouse toily. Oh dear oh dear. So you know what I did? I held on. I bloody held on all night! They partied until daybreak and I snuck outside, around people lying asleep on the ground, around their bin fire, around an old abandoned car.... sounds like their toilet was in Detroit.... and when I got to the toilet, ohmyfkngod it was putrid. That smell and sight still makes my stomach churn today.
You see, they had (being the good hippies they were - and I loooove hippies, don't be thinkin' I'm dissin' hippies!) a dry toilet. Yup. A no-cistern, pour a bucket of water and be done with it, toilet. And let me tell yewes, nobody, but NOBODY had been doing the bucket thing all night by the looks of it.
I ran all the way home and I have to say, even at that young age, I was really quite alarmed at the ease with which my mother would allow me to just flit off for an overnighter, at the age of THIRTEEN!, with people she had nevvvver met before, and then ask me when I got home if I'd had "a nice time." Where the hell was her head at?
> Not unrelated to the previous, busting-to-go-toily story, I am the only person I know who has (or who has discovered they have) three ureters. Those little tubes that deliver urine from your kidneys to your bladder. Yuh! I have two on the left and one on the right. So if you ever thought there was something funny-looking about me..... that was probably it.
Now, look, I suck at passing on awards in time and now, every last one of the people whose blogs I read have got either one or the other of these by now (and please excuse me if you've awarded me something and I've never come to collect it.. I told you, I SUCK at that! But I do love the recognition, don't we all).
Before I go, there is one person I'm gonna offer the Honest Scrap award to (just to see if she joins the throng - heh-heh-heh, I'm so evil) and that is.... Like A Dump Truck, who I admire for her bravery and stamina. And ability to consume so many fatty treats and admit to them, although granted, not so often on her blog.
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