An Introvert's Guide to Christmas Parties

“Goodnight!” I said to Kyles at 8:00 am yesterday morning.

“What are you talking about, Pinky?” she screwed her face up at me.

“Well Kyles, you always tell me I nick off and leave the staff Christmas party without saying goodbye to you so I’m saying goodbye now.”

It’s true. I have a terrible habit of reaching the critical point of my ability to mingle and be nice to people in social situations, urgently tap Scotto on the shoulder and do the bolt. A bit like Cinderella I suppose. But like a fat, old Cinderella… and I usually need to flee the scene at about ten o’clock, not midnight like my glass slipper wearing sister.

It has something to do with being an introvert I think. I can only put on the vivacious act for a limited amount of time before crashing like a cheap Dell computer.

Our Christmas party last night, consisting of 120-ish teachers and staff, was organised by the inexhaustible Kyles and the efficient, capable Kaz. 

Scotto and I created the slide show which has been our special job for the last six years. Can you believe they trust us?

A couple of years ago we had a Hollywood theme and Scotto made up about twenty Photoshopped movie posters. This was what he did with ours…

Pinky and Scotto

Three of my colleagues look so much like the actors we could barely tell them apart.

Kaz as Liz Hurley

Kristen as Diane Lane

O'Reilly as Ben Stiller

This year we went for a Game of Thrones theme and kept repeating shelved, corny jokes about our colleague, J.B. (Hodor) much to the delight of the half-pissed crowd.

JB as Hodor!

Our table consisted of the usual suspects.

(L-R top) Kaz, Troy, Liam, Scotto, O'Reilly

                            (bottom) Pinky, Lee-lee, Jenna, Shazza, Kyles!

And of course the girls had to have a special photo taken.

Bzzzzzzzzzz!

Scotto accidentally put chocolate sauce on his roast beef at the buffet (I know this sounds like more of Pinky's made up bollocks but it's true).

Roast Beef a la Nestle

He ate it anyway.

I explained to O’Reilly why us sheilas hate the moustaches blokes grow for Movember (even though we know it’s for a good cause). 

“You know us girls can grow moustaches in Fanuary!” chimed in Lee-lee.

“Where would we grow them?” I asked innocently.

Apparently it really is a thing...

Ahhhh… a fine time was had by all.

But sure enough at ten o’clock the panic set in. I looked around and suddenly there were too many people in the room, too much noise and I began to perspire.

I started thinking about how sick and hung-over I’d be the next morning if I wasn’t tucked in my bed within the next half hour.

I found Scotto and poked him in the ribs; the secret signal.

“You’re not going PINKY!” screamed Lee-lee. “It’s only about frickin… six o’clock, you slacker!”

Kyles caught wind of my planned exodus and immediately put me in a head lock.

“Say goodbye!” she threatened. “Say goodbye to me Pinky or I’ll never talk to you again.”

So I did. 

And I was tucked in bed by ten-thirty.

Today, as I sit here in a frail physical condition, sucking on an icy pole in an attempt to loosen my dehydrated tongue from the roof of my mouth, I wonder how come I wound up with a bloody hangover anyway.

Do you go home early from parties or are you a dirty stop out?

The Book of Pinky

My bloggy friend Hugzilla, who writes so dern tootin, granny-slappin good (in fact she’s hotter than a goat’s butt in a pepper patch), has tagged poor lil me in a post.

This is what she went and blabbed about me… “Because she’s a teacher, so she be real smart I reckon.”

Well listen lil lady, just cuz you’n is a teacher don’t mean diddly squat. 

Ah’ve known plenny a teachers what ain’t right in the head… a bit touched if ya know what ah’m sayin.

Ah’ll have a go at these here questions but ah dunno if ah’m up for it.

Ah’d like to say I was happy as a puppy with two peckers about this but it got me worried. But, ah had to decide if ah was gonna poop or git off the pot, so here’s what ah came up with.

Do you snack while you read?

When ah was a young’un, sometimes ah liked to fix up a mess a tater chips with mater sauce to have beside me while ah read ma book. These days I is too fat around the middle to partake of such a fine luxury.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?

Tarnation! Ah would never dream of desecratin’ a book! Although ah do recolleck drawin in some of those learnin books we had at the you-nee-versit-ee.

Fiction, non-fiction, or both?

Ah was reared up to read all kinda books so ah don’t favour one over ta other.

Hard copy or ebooks?

Ah don’t like to tote around a pile a books cuz it makes me meaner an a striped snake so ah read all ma books on ma Kindle.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?

Beats the heck outta me? Ah just read til ah fall asleep cuz I’m usually drunker than Cootey Brown.

What are you currently reading?

Ah’m readin Gillian Flynn’s “Dark Places”, cuz she’s finer than a box of snuff, and ah love all her dern dang books.

What is the last book you bought?

Ah don’t like to chew ma cabbage twice! Ah just dang told ya that one!

Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?

Ah went to the schoolhouse and done all mah learnin’ but ah ain’t smart enough to read two at the same time, gol durn it!

Do you have a favourite time of day and/or place to read?

Ah like to sit in ma rockin chair on ma porch as the sun sets, with the jarflies chirrupin and the lightnin bugs floatin around me. But usually the critters need feedin’ so ah wait til bedtime.

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?

“Replay” by Ken Grimwood. I knowed it was gonna be a goodun from the first page. Ah’ve read that dang book three times already and will be readin it again direckly.

Is that all you need to know ya nosey parker? It’s hotter than blue blazes up here yonder in North Queensland and ah’m aimin on goin for a dip up yonder a ways, down by the crick.



See you’all later alligator!

Oh! And ah tag Alana from House Goes Home cuz ah love her'n and Kez from Awesomely Unprepared cuz ah dern dang love her'n too!

Linking up with Grace at With Some Grace for #FYBF

What the Hell's that on the Classroom Floor?

The bell rang as usual at 8:30 this morning.

Another day… another five cents.

My class sat expectantly, waiting for instructions from their Yoda (me) when I first noticed it. And I knew... I just knew those bright, keen faces were watching me, ready to bring me to my knees at the slightest sign of weakness.

“Never show your white belly, Grasshopper,” my Deputy told me some years ago.

So I didn’t let on what I’d seen. What I'd just spotted on the blue carpet. I’d keep it close to my heart.

“Darius! Would you hand out the maths books please?” 

I requested, eyeing the point of interest clandestinely, attempting to ascertain what the hell that thing, sinuously enmeshed in the carpet fibres, was.

It looked like… but it couldn’t be… but what if it was?... where did it come from?

A rat?... no, a rat would be too small. A possum? Doubtful. .. a possum wouldn’t be able to get into the classroom.

Or God forbid… could it be from a human? It wasn’t entirely incredible.

The chocolate hued specimen was about 4cm long and probably too small to have emanated from a child, and yet… with the lack of dietary fibre pandemic in ten year olds… who knew?

This was Code Red. No one could know about this. Not a soul.

I mean… you do remember the scene from Caddyshack? 



“Complete week thirty-seven in your Mental Maths books please,” I lilted nervously in my fake, ‘nice teacher’ voice. 

I didn’t want to alert the natives to what was possibly going down. 

That would be disastrous. There’d be hysteria. Pandemonium.

Glancing around to make sure no one was watching I snuck over to the tissue box and urgently grabbed a fistful.

Sashaying casually up to the object on the carpet, I swooped it up with the deftness of the Men from Uncle. I may as well have been suspended from the ceiling by optic fibres (or whatever) I was so stealthy.

Like a stealth bomber. Like Harry Potter and the snitch.

No one saw me. Not a one.

I had a quick squiz at the brown, squishy morsel encased in the Kleenex in my palm.

“Is it a clump of sultanas dropped from a lunch box?” I pondered. “Should I smell it?... Best not to.” I surmised stoically.

I threw it in the bin, unsniffed.

“What was that Mrs. Poinker?” asked Darius, eyes bulging suspiciously as he walked past me, laden down with maths books in his arms.

The children of the corn put their pencils down in unison. 

Staring at me with their laser like eyes.

“Nothing Darius,” I coughed. “nothing you need worry your little head about.”

The children of the corn bowed their heads once again to their Maths books.

Some things are best kept quiet for the sake of the greater good.

A Dog's Life

 “What's the matter, Pinky?” Scotto asked me yesterday as I choked and sobbed in bed watching this video on my lap top.


The cynic in me wants to believe it’s a set up but I know in my heart it’s not.

Dogs do grieve. I remember when I was a kid we had a Doberman Pinscher. When his long term companion, Zorba the poodle passed away, he tore up an entire single mattress they’d slept on together. He was never the same.

I’m a dog lover in case you hadn’t noticed.

Back at the beginning of writing my blog almost two years ago I wrote two tongue in cheek posts about why I love my dogs more than I love my teenagers.

Here and here!

Here’s part three…

Why I Love my Dogs more than I Love my Teenagers



All my dogs will want for Christmas is a $5 cow hide bone not ‘Just give me cash and don’t worry about a card’.

Bliss!

My dogs don’t put on a load of washing and leave it in the machine for three days.

My dogs don’t keep me awake worrying all night when they go to Full Moon parties.

My dogs don’t leave their hair straighteners on all day when everyone’s at work.

My dogs don’t speak to me from three rooms away and expect an answer.

My dogs don’t agree to take palm leaves to the dump for me in their Ute on Saturday, and then go away for the weekend instead.

My dogs don’t eat all my roast capsicum dip without asking.

My dogs don’t go out and leave the back door wide open.

My dogs don’t use my ‘delicates’ washing bucket as a spew bucket after Full Moon parties.

My dogs don’t give me scathing looks as they pass me in the hallway.

My dogs don’t go out wearing Band-Aid sized miniskirts against my wishes.

My dog would never get a loan from Cash Converters for a tattoo.

And finally...

My dogs always come straight away when they’re called to dinner.

Did the video at the top affect you? Are you a dog or cat lover?

Linking up at Laugh Link with 

Have A Laugh On Me | Melbourne Mum | 

  26 Years and Counting 

How to Make a Volcano

My class of nine year old cherubics have been studying a science unit on land forms this term and my Grade Four colleagues decided it would be a good idea to have the students make paper mache volcanoes. The idea was to invite parents in to watch a dramatic eruption of bi-carbonate of soda and red-tinged vinegar spew forth from the magnificent creations.

I was understandably hesitant but eventually buckled under peer pressure from the other bossy teachers.

Of course I researched the process on Google and was unimpressed with the spectacular mess I could see would inevitably be part of this folly.

I'd like to forewarn and forearm anyone who may be considering embarking on such a senseless venture.

Step 1

Collect as many empty cling wrap and Alfoil cylinders you can. They can be cut in three and blu-tacked onto paper plates as above. Do not be foolish enough to bring empty toilet rolls into the classroom. The children will react with hysteria and spend all their time examining the rolls for residual poo. If you are somehow able to reassure the kids the toilet rolls were nuked in a microwave to get rid of germs, your own children will refuse to ever use the microwave again and you'll have to buy a new one.


If you run out of cling wrap rolls because, even though you're a primary school teacher you can't work out what twenty-six divided by three is, then you can always make cylinders out of cardboard.

Always use a flour based glue for the paper mache because when someone becomes over excited and flaps a glue-sodden hand in the air causing Clag-based glue to spray in your eyes it can really sting. 

Believe me because I know.

Flour and Water Glue

Don't be a know-it-all. Always do your research. Just because you assume one cup of flour in 10 litres of water will make glue doesn't mean it does. It will just make slightly cloudy water. It's one cup of flour to one cup of water. Read the instructions readily available on the Internet.

Ensure you carry the glue to the various tables. If you let one of your minions do it they'll most definitely spill it, not tell you about it in their anticipatory flurry and you'll slip over on it. 

You'll jar your neck. It won't be bad enough to warrant worker's compensation but just bad enough to give you a stiff, whip-lashed neck for a week.

Step 2

Rip up the newspaper before the boys can get to it and start chortling over the underwear advertisements. Don't wipe your hands on your face afterwards or you'll wind up doing your grocery shopping that afternoon looking like a chimney sweep.

What do you call a group of volcanoes?

Step 3- Painting the volcano

When you get to the painting stage only put out red and brown paint. If you give them a choice the girls will all paint their volcanoes like a rainbow and add a plethora of jaunty unicorns grazing on its psychedelic slopes. It will take away the authenticity of the project.

An 'Irritation of Volcanoes'?

Finally, whatever you do don't make the volcanoes two weeks ahead of when you actually need them. You'll have to store them on the floor and the largest boy in your class; the one with precocious growth development, the one who looks like he might need to shave in the morning, will tumble over on top of at least six of the hideous things. There'll be rabid histrionics in the classroom and you'll have to start the whole bloody process again.

Next week! How to make a working simulation of the Hadron Collider!

(Just joking).


What's your best craft project story?

Linking up with Trish from My Little Drummer Boys!

Teach your sons to cook, woman!

With the final two of my four sons recently moved out of home, I find myself thinking about house fires a lot and whether or not my boys have planned an emergency exit in the dead of night from their tinder wood lodgings. 

I worry about a lot of things really... but two dangers which hadn’t occurred to me were starvation and accidental poisoning.

Padraic, my nineteen year old who’s moved into a rundown death trap with three of his mates, was over for dinner on Monday night.

“Can you put some spag bol into a container for me to take home please Mamma Bear?”

“Sure, Padraic,” I answered. “How’s the money situation going?” 

Sometimes I wonder how he’s existing living out of home on a first year apprentice wage.

“I have eight bucks until I get paid on Thursday,” he sighed with a small degree of pathos added.

As I said, it was only Monday.

I ferreted around the kitchen, packing up various items of foodstuffs for him. I didn't want to hand out money to him. 

That’s no way to teach him to budget is it?

“Can I have a toilet roll?” he asked as we sashayed past the bathroom.

“Here you go,” I said, plonking toilet rolls into his burdened down arms. “Take three, sir.”

“Can I have four please, Mamma Bear?”

I fretted about him all night as I tossed and turned in bed.

On Tuesday after work, I called into the supermarket. Things were clearly desperate on Bachelor Avenue. I loaded up the trolley with fruit, two minute noodles, bread, milk, cereal, ham, cheese, soap and toothpaste and paid a surprise visit on 'Ric, Neil, Mike and Adrian at Codrington Road, Bristol'.

The Young Ones

When I arrived, Padraic and his mate Ben, were hefting a queen sized plastic clad mattress and bed frame into Padraic’s bedroom.

“Where did that come from?” I asked.

“A-Mart! Only cost me $350 Mamma Bear!”

Oh, I thought. That explains why he has no money for food. His priorities lean more towards enticing the ladies into his den of iniquity rather than spending his cash on the essentials of life… like food and toot paper.

On Thursday night (payday), I received a call from Padraic requesting advice on how to cook a curry. He’d bought a tray of stir fry beef strips and a curry kit I’d recommended (which is a cinch to cook if you follow the simple instructions).

Very authentic curry!

Padraic and his housemates were stuck on step one.

“Mamma Bear! I need to know how to brown the meat. Do I cook the black thing with the meat?”

What black thing? I thought.

“You know Mamma Bear… the black pouch under the meat on the tray.”

“NO!!!” I screamed down the phone. “That’s just the pad to soak up the blood! Why the hell would you cook that, Padraic? It’s plastic! You’d poison yourselves!”

“I thought it was sauce, Mamma Bear.”



Anyway, he managed to cook a meal for himself and his housemates and I don’t think anyone was hospitalised as a result.

Text message from baby son.

I, on the other hand, had to take a tranquiliser and stiff drink or two to calm myself down.


I just hope to hell those boys don’t have a gas stove because I really don’t want to know about it if they do.

Have you taught your kids how to cook?

Has Pinky failed as a mother?

Bluetooth Blues

Cornelia Frances

I was flying along the motorway this morning with my greying locks drying in the blast of the air con, when my karaoke accompaniment to the Eagles’ Hotel California on the radio was suddenly interrupted by the overbearing crone who lives in my dashboard.

CLICK “You’ve have a text message from… A. Scotto. Hubby,” she interjected in her patronising tone.

“Do you want to read it? Or ignore it?”

I really can’t stand the woman in my Blue Tooth. She sounds like a toffee-nosed mixture of Cornelia Frances and Penelope Keith.

Penelope Keith

Not that I have anything against Penelope and Cornelia. In fact for a long time I thought they were the same person. But I don’t like the sound of the bossy, stuck up piece of work who lives in my dashboard.

Scotto’s Bluetooth lady is much more sultry; she has a sexy, lilting Caribbean accent. I imagine her to look like a Bond girl or something. In fact sometimes I feel a bit jealous when I hear her flirting with him in the car.

“Read it!” I yelled, as a suicidal motorbike overtook me on the left and I very nearly accidentally took him out.

I was shocked. Normally the bia-tch makes me say “Read it!” at least five fudging times before she stops pretending not to understand my Aussie accent.

She read the message, CLICK “Do you need your school laptop?”

“Fudge!” I shrieked. I never take my laptop home because if I do I always forget to bring it back to school… like I just did today. I can’t survive a school day without my laptop. It has EVERYTHING on it.

CLICK “Do you want to reply or are you done?” she asked with her imaginary eyebrow arched in contempt.



“Reply!” I shouted.

CLICK “What is your message?” she asked in an almost pleasant tone.

“If it’s not too much trouble could you please drop it out to the school?” I said which extreme care and clarity in my articulation. 

It was a bit of a hike out into Woop Woop land for Scotto but I was desperate. All my reports and gradings were on the laptop.

Penelope/Cornelia repeated my message perfectly. 

I was in shock. This had never happened before. It was unprecedented. I’d never gone this far in a conversation with Penelope/Cornelia before. Usually I lose my temper with having to repeat things over and over and scream obscenities at her until she hangs up on me.

CLICK “Do you want to send it or change it?”

I smiled at the dashboard. Maybe she wasn’t such a vicious, snotty bitch after all.

“Send,” I chirruped gaily.

There was a pause.

CLICK “I’m sorry, did you say send or change it?”

I squinted suspiciously at the panel. “Send!” I repeated in a slightly louder voice.

CLICK “I’m sorry, did you say send or change?”

I tried it in a more natural voice.

“Send,” I stated, with a pinch of carefree nonchalance.

CLICK “I’m sorry, did you say send or change it?”

You’re not sorry you sly old bat, I thought. I detected a supercilious attitude in her tone this time.

“SEND!” I screamed one more time.

There was a pause and for a few seconds I suspected I might have broken it.

CLICK “I’m sorry, did you say send or change?” the voice repeated again.

“Fudge you! You stupid, moronic piece of bullsh$t! I said SEND! SEND! SEND! SEND! Are you an idiot or just pretending to be stupid? FUDGE OFF!”

CLICK “I’m sorry, did you say send or change?”

I didn’t make a peep; just glowered at the console. I heard her gently hang up on me.



When I arrived at school I rang Scotto ‘old school’ style and he obligingly brought out my laptop so all ended well.



But I’m going to get that bia-tch back one day.

How do you feel about Bluetooth?

Linking up with Jess at www.essentiallyjess.com for #IBOT

Pinky's Report Card

It’s school reports time again, hip hip hooray! Don’t worry though… I have it all in hand. I only have twenty-six to write this year instead of the outrageously unworkable twenty-seven I had to write last year.

I had it all worked out for this weekend. I was intending to party hard on Saturday and clean the entire bottom level of the house and start on my report writing on Sunday.

I definitely partied hard on Saturday; lunch at the Leagues Club with the other golf widows, Kyles and Rona at 12:30 sharp, followed by drinks in the afternoon for my sister Sam’s birthday. 

I know it sounds like quite a lot of drinking but this old chook knows how to pace herself. I’m a child of the Eighties. I have a liver of stainless steel.

Anyway… It seems I must have caught a bug or eaten a bad prawn because I woke up this morning with a pulsating headache and feeling as though a cockatoo had done its business in my mouth. Every time I stood up I’d be gripped by a wave of nausea and feel as if I was about to faint. My fox terrier kept sidling up to me on the couch and sniffing around my heart area.

“I think the dog is trying to tell me I’m about to die,” I bleated to Scotto. He was living through his own personal self-inflicted hell and barely grunted in response.

All this meant I was unable to clean anything at all except the mystery drawer under the goldfish area. We haven’t had a goldfish for at least eight years but a goldfish once lived there so we still call it the goldfish area.

Mystery Drawer

The main reason I so urgently needed to clean out the mystery drawer is because I also needed to clean out the ‘plastic container’ drawer underneath as this little poopette...

Hagar at 4... how bloody cute.

...is moving out with his delightful girlfriend, Meggles on Tuesday and I wanted her to be able to find all her Tupperware.

Yes, you heard correctly. Hagar, my third son is moving out, close on the tail of his younger brother, Padraic. Now there will only be one little Poinker left in the Poinker mansion.

I will no longer have anything to write about so you can expect a lot more posts about Chihuahuas and Miniature Fox Terriers.

And I achieved nothing in the report writing department except this:

Pinky is an easily distracted and restless student who doesn't seem to be capable of applying herself. Her organisational skills need improvement and she is still learning to use self-control in the classroom. She is a popular student in her own mind but irritates others at times with constant chatting and leaving her seat. Pinky’s sense of humour lacks originality and it is hoped she will grow in maturity and try harder next year. I wish Pinky a happy Christmas holiday period and good luck in 2015.

Pinky's Poem about Writing Reports

Do you have a mystery drawer?

Pinky's Melbourne Cup Day Tip!

Mmmm... Pinky's Spaghetti!

“Why are they talking like that? Like… in those high voices?” asked Lulu as she sat slurping up her spaghetti whilst sitting on the floor in the lounge room tonight. 

We were watching some jockeys on the telly talking about the Melbourne Cup, which takes place tomorrow (in case you’ve been hiding under a rock or you don't live in Australia).

“They have high voices because they’re small and they have small vocal cords,” I answered knowledgeably. “They have small everything.”

Scotto sniggered.

“What?” I stared at him.

“I meant hands!” said Scotto. “They have small hands. Maybe they have helium balloons off stage they keep sucking on.”

This is very politically incorrect I know. My friend Kyles will be up in arms about this post. 

It’s... ‘shortist’.

Look… I’m not criticising small people. My uncle was a jockey. My mother’s side of the family are all notoriously under five footers. There’s a famous family story about my 'four foot eleven' Granddad Jo, slipping into a sideshow at the local agricultural show in the fifties and all the ‘pygmies’ (gawd knows what appallingly politically incorrect sideshows they had going on then) halting their act to stop and stare at him, gawking at his unusual lack of height. They aggressively pointed their spears at him and began to yell in hysterical, accusatory tones… they had to bustle him out, so the story goes.

I’m a good five foot six inches tall, at least five inches on my diminutive mother... and my own kids eclipsed me in the height stakes years ago. 

What the hell’s happening? Each generation is overtaking the last. And it’s not a new thing. Try going into a house made in the seventeenth century. You’ll scone yourself on the door frames. The beds were so short you’d have to saw off your feet to get a cramp-free night’s sleep.

I mean… just how tall is the human race going to get?

And who will be the jockeys then?

They’ll have to invent really big horses or something.

My tip for the Melbourne Cup?

Mutual Regard!
Protectionist

What's your tip?

Am I a Vain, Narcissistic Blogger?

When I look back at some of my posts over the last (almost) two years I wonder what opinion you've all formed of me.

Vain? Self-promoting and big-headed? 

After all, almost every post features a photograph of Pinky in some form or another; my grinning dial Photoshopped onto someone else's body by my ultra clever husband, Scotto.

Barbie Pinky

Devil Pinky

Leprechaun Pinky

Pinkerella

X-Rated Pinky

Pamela Pinky

Pinky of the Damned

Pinky McGonagall

Ellen Pinky

Catwoman Pinky

But along with those glamorous Photoshops are some fairly unflattering ones.

Humpty Pinky

South Park Pinky

Buried Alive Pinky

Dame Pinky

Wilma Pinky

Pinky and Kel

Cranky Pinky

Pablo Pinky

Porky Pinky

Pinknocchio

Don Draper's Bride- Pinky

If you're bored and you'd like to see a silly lip-sync video Scotto and Pinky made about Jon Hamm aka Don Draper click  here if you dare!

Santa Pinky

Fairy Godmother Pinky

Aged Pinky

How Pinky's students see her!

Really Old Pinky.

Whistler's Mother Pinky

These are just a few of Scotto's Photoshops and if you look closely most of them have used the same one or two photos.

 I'm sure you'll agree... the man needs a round of applause.

Scott's Photography Website here!

So... am I a narcissist or just a crazy nutcase?