Tag Archives: memories

Antisesquipedalianists Beware…

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I like words.  Always have actually.  Prefer crosswords to Sudoku and Scrabble over Yahtzee etc.  When I was in high school I used to get called a Walking Dictionary simply by virtue of having a half way decent vocabulary for someone my age.  Mind you it wasn’t difficult to have a more impressive grasp of the English vernacular than your average boy crazed, spiral permed, Duran Duran fan in the mid 80s. 

I recall one particular Geography lesson in grade eight where Miss Lowe (Miss Lowe was a freakishly tall and skinny, miserable spinster-bitch who wore patio dresses long after they went out of fashion) in a discussion about Papua New Guinean islanders, directed a question to the class about their gourd wearing habits – “Does anyone know what the word ‘phallic’ means?”  As was my normal habit I was busy doodling on the back of my notebook and so absentmindedly put up my hand… only to look up and find I was the only member of the class who had.  Which is how I ended up explaining the meaning of the word ‘phallic‘ to a bunch of giggling eighth graders at my all girl school!!  How embarrassment!  😐

Anyway, end of tangent – I have some letter magnets that I keep on my fridge which have been used over the last few years by household inhabitants and occasionally visitors to change into an interesting word.  Some word offerings have been known to sit on the fridge for many weeks, while others have needed changing the moment the creator has left the premises (thanks Surly for the ‘Fuckers’ you left for Angel to try and pronounce).  We’ve had impressive polysyllabic offerings, lewd and indecent ones and plenty of made up words too.

At the moment, in honour of my coming out as a closet wordsmith, the fridge says:

Which is a word you just don’t hear often enough.  🙂
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Thank God it’s over for one more year.

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So there ’twas…. another year and we’ve all bought into another over commercialized Christmas.  I simply can’t believe the stack of gifts that Angel ended up with this year.  After visiting with the in-laws this morning and him coming home with more new toys than any kid needs, I purposely went and removed some of the things that I was going to give him and will bring them out in a couple of months time when he’s bored.

On the actual day of Christmas my six year old son received…
one Batman Lego,
two boxes of Geomags
three kids DVDs
four Magic School Bus DVDs
five new books
some Starwars Lego
two Mosiac peg boards
one Cosmic Rocket Science Kit
a Cube World Party Cube
a toy Motorcycle,
two jigsaw puzzles
one Spiderman Lego
a funny monkey camp chair
a Crayola Explosion Pack
a Magic Kit
and the much coveted Tamagotchi!…..

……and probably other stuff I’ve forgotten off that list.  And what do you think the Small Child says as I put him to bed tonight after all the day’s excitement?  “Hey Mum, when’s my birthday, I want more presents!”  Yeah, I know… kid needs a little perspective.  😐   Anyway we’ve made it through the holidays safe and sound and all our family members are still on speaking terms with one another so…..  mission accomplished really.

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Fun Christmas meme stolen from Avitable…. I hope everyone had a fun day and thanks for all the SMS messages throughout the day.

1) EGG NOG OR HOT CHOCOLATE?
On Christmas day in BrisVegas? Neither… make mine a Gin and Tonic please… extra ice.

2) DOES SANTA WRAP PRESENTS OR JUST SIT THEM UNDER THE TREE?
Santa leaves stuff in a sack unwrapped at the end of your bed. Presents from the parentals were always wrapped and under the tree..

3) COLORED LIGHTS ON ON TREE/HOUSE OR WHITE?
No lights in the garden, no lights on the house but coloured garden lights on my tree in the house …. go figure.

4) WHO DO YOU WISH YOU COULD SEE AT CHRISTMAS?
Edouardo, preferably without his psycho wife.  MD preferably not to horribly scarred from Pakistan.

5) WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE HOLIDAY DISH (EXCLUDING DESSERT)?
Breakfast of plain muffins with cream cheese, smoked salmon, scrambled eggs and hollandaise sauce … It’s an English thing apparently…. yum. 🙂

6) WHEN DO YOU PUT YOUR CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS UP?
As late as Angel will let me get away with it… record this year they didn’t go up until December 18th, and knowing me they’ll be down again by December 26th.

7) FAVORITE HOLIDAY MEMORY AS A CHILD?
Waking up earlier than my sister and swapping the gifts that Santa left us… that and watermelon seed spitting competitions with my cousins down at Eltham.

8) WHEN AND HOW DID YOU LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT SANTA?
I have no idea how old I was… but it was Heather from over the back who was a bit older than us who spilled the beans. She was also kind enough to tell us where babies come from when I was about 6 or 7 too.

9) DO YOU OPEN A GIFT ON CHRISTMAS EVE?
Not usually, we spend Christmas Eve driving Angel around to look at the Christmas lights that the local neighborhood looneys have spent so much money to hang all over their houses.

10) HOW DO YOU DECORATE YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE?
I have the anal retentive Chrismas tree from hell… all the ornaments are silver or blue or little mirror balls. Have been told it looks like a department store one. It also has Swarovski crystal snowflake ornaments on it, which cost a fortune, but I seem to keep buying them each year anyway.

11) SNOW….LOVE IT OR HATE IT?
Ambivalent really…. I’m from Brisbane, Australia and don’t have a sufficient acquaintance with snow to have either a love or a hate relationship with it.

12) CAN YOU ICE SKATE?
Don’t make me laugh… tried it once I think… in a moment of madness while dating a Canadian.

13) DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FAVORITE GIFT?
Don’t know about favorite gifts… but how about some memorable ones –
Snoopy Tennis from Santa when I was about 12
Quiet Riot cassette tape from my Mum when I was 14
An ID bracelet from my very first boyfriend, Cookie.
A ‘here’s $300 go buy yourself something nice’ from useless boyfriend in my 20’s.
This year – some great new speakers and a pair of gorgeous pearl earrings.

14) WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT THE HOLIDAYS FOR YOU?
Get together, see who can buy the strangest gift (still winning that one with the Windsor castle souvenir teapot I gave to BigSal a few years ago), eat lots of yummy food (easier now that we don’t have to deal with Grandma’s grey boiled-to-death beans) pick political and religious fights with the oldies and raise eyebrows at how much our siblings spend on their kids.

15) WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE HOLIDAY DESSERT?
Everyone used to love my Grandmas boiled fruit pudding, but to be honest… not a fan. Personally I prefer Pecan Pie or maybe a bit of Sticky Date :P.

16) WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE HOLIDAY TRADITION?
Buying a leg of ham that you end up eating for the next few weeks.  Big bowls full of scorched peanuts.  Spending the afternoon playing whatever board games people might have received.

17) WHAT TOPS YOUR TREE?
A whimsical looking angel that I’ve been meaning to replace cos I hate her complacent countenance mocking me for being so angsty at Christmas time.

18) WHICH DO YOU PREFER, GIVING OR RECEIVING?
I prefer to give. Could be that I’m just ridiculously fussy or excessively hard to buy for, but I’ve rarely received an unexpected gift (where the giver hadn’t solicited suggestions) and absolutely loved it.

19) WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CHRISTMAS SONG?
Hate Christmas carols with a passion, and especially hate how they start in the stores in mid September these days. This isn’t my fav Christmas song, but kinda in tune with my usual Christmas demeanour.

20) WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST AT CHRISTMAS?
Edouardo…. I miss him every Christmas cos his psycho bitch of a wife wont let him talk to me anymore.  And this year MD… but at least he’s safely back from Pakistan.
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Other people’s kids…

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I know I said it’s okay…
 I know I said ‘accidents happen’….
  I know I said ‘it’s not you fault’…
   I know I said ‘it’s just one of those things…
    I know I said ‘don’t worry about it’…

BUT…. ararararararararararararararararghghghghghghghghghghghgh!

Poo!  Bum!  Piss!  Fart!  Crap!  Shit!  Damn!  Wanker!  Bastard!  Prick!  Fuckwit!  Dumbass!  Bloody hell!  Knucklehead!  Stupid!  Asshole! Fucker! Shit!  Goddammitt I already said that!  Grrrrrrrr!  Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuckety fuck fuck fuck!

My nephew, god bless the little darling, pissed his pants.  Not a big deal ordinarily, little kids have accidents when they’re learning to use to toilet, but … he was playing trains on my new turkish rug at the time.  Not happy Jan…..    🙁

Reminds me of the time we’d just bought our townhouse and newly furnished it, had a lovely new couch that was a gift from the outlaws, and my sister was feeding her newborn bub on my nice new couch, when the little rotter did a big sloppy shit that slid out the side of her nappy and all over my brand new couch which had been delivered the week before.  Nice runny yellow babyshit colour it was too. 

And now I have piss on my Turkish rug  🙁  … thank god it wasn’t the really good one.
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Whiplash has a cumulative effect apparently.

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I had a new physio this morning, as mine is off traipsing the Cradle Mount Lake St Claire walk in Tasmania this week.  I thought the whole ideology of physiotherapy was based around making you feel better?  After this morning I have my doubts though because this afternoon, I swear I feel worse.  I didn’t think the substitute physio guy was as aggressive as my normal chickie, but I am feeling rather battered and bruised about now.   Every time I go in there, they check out my range of movement, by getting me to do some simple exercises moving my head about to see where stiff or sore – which  feels kinda like an old dried up rubber band being overstretched, as I have a tendency to avoid these types of painful neck stretching movements at home.  Then it’s off with the shirt and onto the table so they can dig their pointy little fingers into my rock hard neck muscles to try and get the vertebrae moving.  And fuck it hurts.  I’m sitting here trying to come up with the words or some imagery that would allow a quantitative comparison as to how much it hurts exactly – but short of some of Mapplethorpe’s male genital torture photographs …no suitably painful enough imagery comes to mind.   Right about now, you’re probably pleased I couldn’t find a copy of the particular image that I was thinking of.  🙂

Over the years my tolerance for pain has gotten better… for example, my back pain was really really bad when I was pregnant with Angel – I had pain radiating down into my hands, and really bad pain in my lower back that simply would not go away and could not be ignored.  As the pregnancy progressed it got worse and worse.  My OB/GYN gave me natal safe pain killers and eventually was giving me some mild sedatives too as I was in so much pain that I was unable to sleep more than a couple of hours.  After a while, these didn’t seem to be having any effect at all and he was suggesting that I might try washing them down with a couple of glasses of red as this could help (I remember saying to him when he suggested I mix pain killers and sedatives with alcohol, “You do remember that I’m pregnant right?”).

Anyway, nothing seemed to alleviate the pain and I was getting really anxious about whether or not things would subside back to ‘normal’ when the baby was born.  Angel was eventually born early by c-section delivery and problem solved.  Back pain subside back to normal overnight.  The day after Angel was born, I was wandering around the hospital ward and ran in to my OB who was stunned to see me out of bed and we had a conversation that went something like this –

OB:    What are you doing out of bed?
Me:    I feel great, my back pain is all back to normal and all I have is a dull ache now.
OB:    But how about your tummy?
ME:    Ummm yeah… I have what I’d call a ‘mild abdominal discomfort’, but other than that I’m okay. 🙂

His jaw dropped and his eyes just about popped out of his head and then he dragged me around the ward to visit several other of his c-section patients who had been laid up in bed for days.  Something tells me he wasn’t taking me too seriously when I was complaining of pain during the pregnancy….

I guess what I am trying to say is… the pain I am dealing with since this last accident is worse then what I was dealing with during my pregnancy, it has been going on for two and a half weeks now, and I am starting to worry that it won’t subside back to ‘normal’.
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Help… I’m covered in bees!

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Well, actually I feel more like I’m covered in ants than covered in bees, but that’s a different story.   Okay, so this has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but is one of my favourite Eddie moments.  For a couple of months at the end of 1997, I went to London to visit the Queen… well not really the Queen…. just BluddyMary who – while frequently compared with the Queen for her expensive tastes, savoir faire and impeccable knowledge of obscure epicurean delights – is not actually The Queen per se. 

Anyway, I went to London to visit BluddyMary, and on the Tube ride back to her place from the delightfully warm and fuzzy welcoming Heathrow, she asked me what I was hoping to do while I was in town.  Being more than a little half cut from the tedious long haul flight where the alcohol (as usual) had been my primary in-flight entertainment… I said “Err… I dunno, the usual stuff, the V&A, the Camden Markets, the British Museum, the Tate and all that guff.  Hmmm, I’d also love to see an Eddie Izzard gig if he’s on…” which was greeted by the news that he had just finished doing a run at the London Arena and so much for that.

Got back to her flat, open the weekend paper, and lo and behold… there was a ‘One night only, Last show of the tour, Blink and you’ll miss it’ advertisement for an encore performance the following week!  Disco!  Tickets for only 12quid and Bob’s your uncle.  So… yeah…  🙂   I did get to see him in London after all…. think that was the Glorious show. 

And I’ve seen him twice more since then… Circle and Sexie tours when they came to BrisVegas.     

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