I did a Britney

I made the Christmas pudding today.

I boiled and floured the cloth.

I put my biggest boiler on the stove to heat.

I carefully measured out all the ingredients and mixed them in a big china bowl.

I spooned the mixture into it's cloth and tied it securely.

I lowered it into the boiling water.

Then I went outside with a cuppa and a quick read of the paper before cleaning up (as you do). I came back in (after slightly longer than I intended. The house was starting to get that wonderful cinnamon and nutmeg smell. MMMM

I put away all the canisters and boxed up the leftover fruit. I put the rum bottle into the filing cabinet under TAX (anyone with an alcoholic in the family will understand this move). Then I went to put the recipe card away and....

Self raising flour?

I looked at the card.

I looked at my chock-a-block full flour canister.

I looked at the pudding bubbling away on the stove.

Self raising flour!

Bugger.

switching my brain off

I don't think I'm alone. I'm sure we all do it.

For some unknown reason, a song gets stuck in your head. It is usually (for me at least) a not very good song. Catchy. But crap.

As far as I know, nobody gets good music stuck in their head. Maybe the odd opera singer but not anyone I know. You don't hear people wandering around singing snatches of Rigoletto or Ave Maria or Georgian chant. Head-stuck music is not your refined or erudite stuff.

Another thing I have noted about the head-stuck music is that it is never something I actually like. I catch myself coming out with crap like Kylie's version of Locomotion and the theme song from Sesame Street or, even worse, a Kamahl song.

And, finally, the songs I have whirling 'round in there are never ones for which I actually know all the lyrics. So I don't sing a whole song in my head (or, occasionally, right out loud), I sing bits of it over and over and over.

Today I am having one of those disliked, crappy, catchy, half-remembered song-in-my-head days. This one is worse than most. This time the song is not just crap, it is total and absolute undiluted crap.

Do any of you out there remember Bazza McKenzie? Or even his alter-ego, Barry Crocker? Have any of you even heard of him? Well, he is one of those things that cause huge (and I mean HUGE) cultural cringe amongst Australians. Even worse than the crocodile hunter or Fosters. The sort of cringe-worthiness that nobody ever EVER admits to owning/watching/enjoying.

Yeah, well, I have a Bazza McKenzie song stuck in my head. (Correction - parts of one.)

I woke up with that song in my head. I have had music playing ever since (NB None of that music was Barry Crocker!). I have sung along to songs I do like and danced to rhythms that would normal sink into my soul. I have blasted everything from Dvorak to Metallica to Corrs at myself. To no avail. Over it all I find myself humming/thinking/muttering....

"...if it was a rainin' virgins (virgins) I'd be washed down the gutter with a poof, When I feel my heart strings stirrin' (stirrin') The girls just all tell me to bugger off...."

and

"...I'm as happy as a bastard on Father's day..."

I don't even know if they are parts of the same song. Or whether they are even the correct lyrics. I don't know where or when I heard it. Certainly not recently.

I just wish Bazza and his bloody crappy song would leave me alone.

Out damned song.

"we'll all be rooned" said Hanrahan....

It's a while since I put in anything productive here.

It isn't as if I haven't had time or that I have been doing nothing or that I have no news. It is purely and simply laziness. It is one of my more endearing qualities!

Everyone in the family is well and busy. I could catch you up on all their news. But I'm not going to. I am going to bitch and moan for a while.

It is OK to bugger off if you want.

I spent yesterday with a girlfriend. We went up to the city together so a fair bit of time was used up sitting and chatting in the car. By the time we got to the city and I dropped her off for her job interview, I was experiencing a new and disconcerting feeling.

Usually she and I are the best of mates. We chat up a storm about anything and everything. We are well versed in solving the world's problems. Yesterday, as we got toward the city, I was having to suppress a strong urge to tell her to shut the fuck up. As I watched her walk toward the building for her appointment I experienced a huge sense of relief. Neither of these feelings are the usual result of our time together.

I doubt whether she was speaking any differently than normal. Her subject matter was some of the same stuff we have covered before. It wasn't her that was different. It was me.

For the rest of the day I spent quite long periods biting my tongue. I'm not saying it was all bad. Sometimes the old camaraderie was alive and well. And at other times I wanted to wring her neck.

It was the diatribe of office gossip, he said she said, relationship problems and petty wrangling that got on my goat. The over analysis of words and situations and the huge leaps to conclusions. Not bad stuff, probably pretty routine. Just petty. And, at times, malicious. And narcissistic.

None of this is new stuff. It always comprises a portion of her news and updates. And, normally, I can talk it through with her, try and find a happy path through the maze she perceives. Yesterday it just pissed me off.

Maybe it was in reaction to the call I had from my daughter the night before. She is always circumspect in what she says. There is a lot she can't talk about and a lot we will never know. But I know when she is unhappy and when things are bad, no matter how little she says or how much she understates the trouble. She is in a bad place where bad things happen and they happen, if not to her directly, to those around her. In combination with what she says (or doesn't say) and what is reported on the news, I can make pretty accurate guesses.

The call on Sunday was one of those calls which was more about guesswork than news. The bad things had been happening.

My friend was angsting about the delay in an answer to a text message and the inferences the words used implied. Agonising over a perceived insult form a colleague. Pissy about a possible snub from her mother. Sweating about which frock to wear to an social occasion to most impress. She had wept buckets over a slight that may or may not have occurred.

It all struck me as childish, puerile, self-indulgent twaddle.

I know we all have a different scale of values. What is important to one person is unnoticed by another. And, on the grand scale of things, most of us who live in a privileged western society have very little cause for real angst. We might go hungry but we aren't starving. We won't lose our babies to malaria or dysentery or famine. We won't have guerrillas raid our village and chop us all up with machetes. Most of us receive succour beyond the wild imagining of the majority of our fellow man. We are safe and secure and, by world standards, pampered.

Millions of people out there are none of those things. They are cold and hungry and in danger. They are diseased and dying. They are persecuted for their colour or race or religion or sect. They live in fear and privation and desperation. They suffer war and hatred and pain. They are usurped and lost and alone.

My daughter is in a bad place and, quite frankly, I don't give a flying fuck about the trivia that obsesses my friend and her ilk. It is an indication of our spoilt state that we have the luxury to only have petty discontents over which to agonise. Instead of sweating the minutiae of our pampered existence, we should all be counting our blessings and thanking whatever deity we recognise that we can do so.

Maybe, just maybe, if we learn to appreciate what we do have rather than concentrate on what we don't, we can also learn to find the happiness we all seem so obsessed about finding, yet seems so elusive in our indulgent lives.

Happiness is out there, people. It exists in your life. It is inside you. All you have to do to reach it is start seeing the sliver linings instead of the clouds.

Happiness is not some huge thing that jumps out and grabs you. It is in the small things. Smelling the air, sharing a smile, dancing, staring into a fire, making snow angels. Happiness is not some elusive ideal that we must seek, it is right there in front of us, every day. Look past your petty obsessions and see. It's right there. It can't be found in things or in relationships or in work. We have to take it with us.

There are way too many Hanrahans in this world and not nearly enough Pollyannas.

OK, I'll shut up now.

upsets in circadian rhythm

Somewhere outside, a rooster is making a hell of a racket.

There are magpie carolling.

I'm having the worst hot flushes I've had in months.

I have diarrhoea.

It is ten to one in the morning.

Mother Nature has fucked up.

Badly.

old dog, new tricks

Having a bald head is an interesting experience.

For a start, it definitely helps with the hot flushes. A quick nip outside and all that excess heat is dissipated into the winter sky from my hairless scalp. Well, not quite hairless any more. I have stubble. (Can stubble be soft? I have soft stubble. Maybe I should call it bum fluff.)

The most interesting part is the reactions of people.

Strangers gawk and mutter about me under their breath once they think I am out of earshot (which, apparently, is immediately after they walk past me). Children blatantly stare. Teenagers laugh and point. Friends make jokes. My kids tell me I look like their father and "never mind, it'll grow back".

But the strangest of all are acquaintances. People with whom I am friendly but are not friends. Like the people at the local shop. Or at the gym. Or nodding-in-the-street neighbours. These people say nothing. they don't look (if fact they studiously avoid looking). They don't ask. They don't mutter or stare or point. There is absolutely no acknowledgement that I am as bald as a badger (which, by the way, are not bald at all so, maybe, I am as bald as a baby's bum).

My PT asked some pointed questions about "are you well?" and "are you up to a full session?" but there was no "OMG you're bald!". Not a single comment about the huge fiery red patches on my scalp with their lovely silvery scales (which, BTW, are looking much improved).

I know people notice. I notice them noticing. Then avoiding. There are lots of solicitous comments about my health and well-being but not a single question about why.

I have come to the conclusion that they assume I have cancer and the bald head is from chemo!

This was backed up last night when a total stranger, an elderly woman in the ticket queue, patted me on the arm and told me to be strong and fight, that I would be OK. I didn't have the heart to tell her that no-one has yet died of psoriasis.

WARNING - movie spoiler ahead

I don't often go to the flicks. There is very rarely anything I fancy so much that I can't wait for it to be on Foxtel.

Tonight the overlord was away at Rotto (at one of those meetings/conference/bonding exercises which are the managerial excuse for a company sponsored piss up). My mate and I decided to go out for dinner and then to the pictures.

We went to Cicerello's to eat. I had salt and pepper calamari and a salad. She had some appalling thing with battered pineapple rings, heaps of chips and some anonymous fish. We had a bit of a walk along the foreshore and then headed to the cinemas. We saw the new Die Hard

OMG is that man hot. Hot hot hot. He might be over 50 but he still stirs my loins.

Like all episodes in the Die Hard saga, you have to leave your reality at the door. Suspend reason. It is 2+ hours of total fantasy. Non-stop, gory, no-time-to-breathe fluff. It was great!

When we walked back to the car (after we had wiped the drool off our chins and regained our composure), we had a bit of a dispute about the best bit. Donna insisted it was when he blew up the helicopter with the car, I was tossing up between the stunt driving with the semi on only one set of wheels or when he shot the bloke through his own shoulder. And, of course, there was the whole suspense of waiting for him to say "yippy kai ai". Or the bit where he punches the Asian chick in the head. Repeatedly.

All typical Die Hard stuff. Just more and better. Gotta love Bruce Willis in John McClane mode.

Did I mention how damned hot that man is?

parcels from home

I got a letter from my sergeant today. Thought I'd share a few excepts.

"I am settled into my shipping container now, my home away from home. At the moment there are only two of us in there, me and a very young RAAFie that puts her make-up on with a paint spatula. She’s a tiny little thing and into Hip Hop, but is the pick of the lot when it comes to roomies. She is quiet and a bit nervous about sharing a container with a AJ SGT. As scary as I am."

"The mess is pretty good, we haven’t had fresh salad for a few days but their are doing they best. The curry bar rocks! One of our contractors can get local food for us, the best Indian and Pakistani foods I’ve ever had!!"

"One of the Aussie girls was a hairdresser before she joined the army and has deployed with all her hairdressing trunk. So we won’t have to use the crap Yank hairdresser. The boys are particularly pleased, no high and tights."

"...the poo farm that is our constant neighbour. Honestly, who builds a base next to a poo farm? All seems right in the world and then a pungent stench of poo moves across your nose. And a poo farm and 40-50 degree days do not make for a good combination."

"I got my first mail (Grandma letter), although I have noticed that Grandma has not bad writing when it comes to grandma writing, one of the boys got a grandma letter, none of us could make any of it out, expect the love Grandma bit at the bottom. Grandma letters a pretty special here; it’s a bit of a big thing sharing Granny news. Only Dear John letters are better."

"We have a family wall. So far we are the best looking family bar none!! There are some ugly children out there. Princess is above and beyond in a wall full of dog pictures."

"....this is my wish list: .... Body shop lip balm – most of the other balms just don’t cut it – in fact anything body shop, smelling nice here is a luxury – between the dust, dirt and the poo farm next door"

Now I had better get back to packing boxes to fulfil her wish list.

tracking the source

For quite a while now, there has been a rather unpleasant smell in our bathroom. A pissy smell.

I had been blaming it on the husband. Any woman that has lived with an aging husband will know that this is quite a legitimate assumption. Old men can't aim. My grandmother once told me that improving men's aim is a valid argument in favour of circumcision. With the persistence of the stink, I was getting to the stage of booking the surgery.

I had done all the standard things to combat the smell. I'd scrubbed floors, walls and toilet bowls with liberal sploshes of White King. I had put in one of those plug-in anti-stinkerators. I'd bought an Airwick. I'd muttered about pissy old men under my breath and given him dirty looks. You know, the usual stuff.

Last night I discovered the real culprit.

I was cleaning my teeth, ready for bed, when Skank wandered in. She did a few purry-rubby boglaps of my ankles then headed for the corner. She carefully lined her arse up with the bottom of the shower curtain and then sprayed vigorously into the folds.

EWWWW

I yelled (as you do) and she took flight, straight out the back door (which was conveniently open for any pee-needing pets to use).

Needless to say, bed time was delayed. The shower curtain came down and went in the washing machine. The scrubbing brush and bucket came out and more White King was sploshed on walls and floors. There's nothing quite like an anti-catpiss cleaning binge at 1am.

Our bathroom no longer smells like old man. But I am left with questions.

I'm not asking why she chose to pee on the shower curtain. I am not asking why she chose to ignore the nicely open door and the lure of the giant sand tray that is our backyard. She is a cat. Cat's are a law unto themselves. They need no excuses. I'm not even wondering why our dainty little lady backed up to pee like a tomcat. Again, cat = no reasons required.

What I want to know is what could possibly have attracted her to the bloody curtain in the first place. I need to know so we can stop doing it.

and the winner is.....

My goodness, you're an imaginative lot! If there were prizes for cleverness and humour (which there wasn't), we would have a lot more winners.

Nobody answered all the questions correctly, so the prizes are going to be split.

Pirra gets a reward for being the first to say it was MY hair from MY head.

Lisele gets a parcel for mentioning that the hair was in a container (althought it had nothing to do with oinks, eggs or styrofoam).

And the one and only Minister of Silly Walks managed to guess the closest weight (it was a measly 175g or just over 6oz for you old fashioned types).

I don't think my page has got an email link on it but, if you winners know it already, zap me off a note with your snailmail address and I'll get prizes into the letterbox. Otherwise I will contact you with an email addy for me.

Oh, an in case you were wondering, it all got lopped off to better treat the psoriasis on my scalp. I shan't revolt you with details or scare young children with photographic proof of my baldness. I will leave at unmentioned grossness with the disease and horror that I look like an old man without my hair.

what the.......?

OK. There will be a nice prize in the mail for the first couple of people that can answer these questions.

1. What is this that I photographed on my kitchen bench last night?

2. Where did it come from?

3. How much does it weigh?

yeah, yeah, in a minute.....

When we first bought this house (more years ago than I care to remember), it was pretty bloody obvious that the previous owners had done everything on the cheap. The house itself was well up to standard. It was the extras that were (basically) shit.

The paint was the cheapest, flaky, powdery stuff. The BIRs were (cringe) chipboard, as were the vanity and the laundry cupboard. The stove was the least expensive on the market. Power points were an absolute minimum. The lino was WA salvage quality (we're not fancy but we're cheap!). The curtains (if they even qualify for the name) were Kmart sheets with gathering tape (roughly) sewn on. Door furniture was revolting plastic knobs. Light fittings were bald bulbs.

And then there was the carpet. Oh god, the carpet.

It was nylon. Glossy. Static-y. A random swirl of gold, brown and white. Raw edged. Rubber backed. Glued to the floor. Totally, totally gross.

We had four kids under 8 and bugger all money. We slowly plugged away at the things we could change on our meagre budget.

The bedrooms of pink, blue, mauve and lemon paint were covered in cream. The living area's grunge green got the same treatment. The chipboard built-ins were ripped out and replaced with free standing robes and cupboards. Power points were doubled and new ones installed. The sheets came off the windows and were replaced by blinds. Plastic knobs were changed to brass levers. Bald bulb were covered or changed to recessed light and spots. The stove was eventually traded for something a little more up market.

And then there was the carpet. Oh god, that carpet.

It was going to be a big and expensive job to replace and had to deferred until we had less kids (and therefore less expenses) at home. About five years ago we girded our loins and got tiles in the living/kitchen areas. We laid them ourselves so the money went further. A shitty shitty job but well worth the effort.

With Jack coming in a few weeks to do the renovations on the spare rooms, the last of that revolting nylon atrocity has to come up. It has been covered over with other carpet in the bedroom but the passage has the last visible remnant. All of it has to come up.

When we did the tiling, preparing the floors was my job. I discovered then that elderly, well walked-on cheapo carpet is crapful to get up. Not only are the edges choked with contact cement, the tracked areas have welded the rubber backing to the floor. It is a real elbow grease job to get all traces off. I spent days and days with wire brushes, scrapers and turpentine scouring that floor.

I started on the latest lot the other day. The bedrooms aren't too bad. Most of it will come off pretty easily. But the passage is a different matter. The most trodden bit of floor in the house, it has had 20+ years of kids, dogs, spills and muddy feet. And it has done it's job well.

I pulled it up yesterday. Well, more accurately, I tried to pull it up. What I ended up doing was ripping the carpet off the rubber. Because that rotten (both literally and figuratively) black backing is 100% welded to the floor.

The wire brush has been dusted off. The scrapers have been sharpened. Several bottles of turps have been assigned. The garbage bag is lined up., waiting.

And I am sitting here writing about how shitty it is going to be because I really really really don't want to get started.

Procrastination is me (and I do it so bloody well).

do budgies come in khaki?

Sometimes totally random things happen. Like the phone call I got yesterday from the Middle East. Always good to hear from my kids but sometimes the randomness is an unfathomable challenge.

The conversation went something like this....

"Hi Mum"
"Hello yourself"
"Hey, Mum, just a quickie. What do you call that white stuff that budgies sharpen their beaks on?"
"Cuttlefish?"
"Yeah, that's the stuff. Can you send some over to a mate of mine?"
"Over there?"
"Yeah"
"OK. What on earth does he want cuttlefish for?"
"His budgies"
"O....k... Can I send it through customs?"
"Yeah. It's all good. His number is 0000000 and his name is Sgt Pete XXXXX. Same address as me."
"OK then"
"Sweet as. Gotta go. Cheers Mum."
"OK Stay safe"
"Wilco. Bye."

As I said, totally random. Approaching the bizarre.

But, it is nice to know that life in the hot place isn't completely without the comforts of home.

sunshine is the best medicine

Remember that old Carpenter's song....

Talkin' to myself and feelin' old Sometimes I'd like to quit Nothing ever seems to fit Hangin' around Nothing to do but frown Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.

What I've got they used to call the blues Nothin' is really wrong Feelin' like I don't belong Walkin' around Some kind of lonely clown Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.....

That pretty much sums up how I've been feeling since I got back from Queensland. It's been cold and wet and miserable, and so have I. I've sat and watched the rain and thought dark thoughts (when I was actually thinking at all). I've achieved not much more than the minimum. I've basically been moping.

But yesterday was neither Monday nor rainy.

I felt like the cloud had lifted from more than just the sky. I spent most of the daylight hours in the garden (where the hell did all those weeds come from?). It was a good day and I feel better for it.

I also got to speak to all three of my girls. B called from her converted sea-tainer in the nasty place. She sounded happy and bouncy. She is sharing a Canadian mess and they have a Tim Horton's franchise there. She's always been one to make the best of a bad situation and (with the help of Tim Horton's Boston Cream) she'll make it through her time in Arseholestan.

T didn't have any specific news. She just floats through life in Grayland. She's happy. That is all that counts.

I spoke only briefly with my baby. She was basking in the tropical sunshine on The Strand, checking out the local (non-AJ) talent. She, and her new mate Rhiannon, were filling in some time whilst awaiting a call to pick up her BIL from the barracks. That conversation ticked off the final item on my are-my-girls-OK list. She's happy and settling in well.

I also had a good gossip with my Mum. My darling sister is being a turd and an arsehole and not very nice at all and we had a good laugh over her childish antics.

Between the sunshine and the love over the lines from my most beloved women, it was a pretty bloody good day. If I had managed a quick call with my son, it would have been damn near perfect.

It seems my blue funk is over. We can return to our regularly scheduled programming.

returned

I'm back.

Well, my body's back. My head is still somewhere over East, I think.

It was a good trip. And a bad trip.

Good because I got to see two of my girls (and stock up on cuddles for the next little while). Bad because I had to watch my big girl walk through those customs doors, on the first leg of her journey to a not very nice place.

It will take me a little bit to find my bearings again. And catch up on the doings of all my buddies. Maybe tomorrow there will be a proper update and some comments in guest books. Until then, the main thing is, I'm back.

Sort of.