How Pinky Hacks Life!

My blogging friend, John Anthony James, wrote recently that he’d just completed the fourth draft of his manuscript, “The King Amongst the Shadows”. 

I almost died of shock. Who in their right mind would fiddle around with a manuscript that many times? Surely I’d rather burn it than become a slave to it? Who’d have the patience for that? 

A crazy man?

It was about a week later, I realised that I’d planned on calling the second draft of my manuscript, The Bronze Edition, the third draft, The Silver, and the fourth draft (yes, I said fourth) the Gold Edition. 

This is what I do you see, I regularly fool myself into thinking any daunting task I have to do, is not really what it is. I give it another name so I don’t think I’m doing it. I like to break things down into steps too, so that the tedious task I’m currently doing, doesn’t seem like what I’m actually doing.

For example, yesterday, I knew I had to wash Willy, my silky terrier. He was so filthy he looked like he’d been rolling around in volcanic ash. He looked like something you’d see in a museum in Pompeii and I knew it was going to be a most unpleasant task, possibly inviting a nasty bite which may or may not require a tetanus shot. 

Willy

So I filled the tub in the laundry with hot, soapy water and made myself a cup of coffee, relaxed and pretended I was going to leave it at that. After ten minutes, when the sound of running water was a distant memory in Willy’s mind, I walked out casually to where the matted dog sprawled, sun-baking on the concrete and swooped down on the unwitting creature before he had a chance to bolt. 

I swiftly carried him into the laundry before he had time to blink and plonked him in the tub so that only his head appeared above the rapidly browning bubbles. I let him soak for a bit while his eyes adjusted to the dim light, then pulled out the plug and doused him with a surprise bucket of rinsing water. Before he’d had time to catch his breath, he found himself back outside, wrapped in a fluffy towel with his toenails painted. 

It was more of an alien abduction/kidnapping than a bath really, only there were no anal probes.

When I have to vacuum, I tell myself I’m not really going to vacuum; I’m just getting the vacuum cleaner out of the spider infested cupboard under the stairs. After I’ve done that, I send a few tweets or answer an email and when enough time is passed, I eventually pull that annoying, twisted cord out of its hole and plug it in. 

I might then wipe the kitchen counter down and file my nails before actually switching it on and giving the kitchen a good going over. Once I’ve done the kitchen, I’ll bring a few things in from the clothes line and check the mail. Bit by bit, the entire bottom floor is vacuumed but somehow I’ve tricked myself into thinking I’m not really doing it.

Getting out of bed and going to work can be challenging so I tell myself I’m not really going to work, I’m just getting a coffee to take back to bed. 

As I’m driving to work I imagine that once I’m there I’m just going turn around and go home again. When I’m in the classroom, I tell myself that at morning tea I’m going to feign illness and go home. 

By lunch time, the day is almost over so I make a promise to myself I’ll be taking a sick day off tomorrow and surely I can get through one more hour. I do this right through until Friday when it’s the weekend. On Sunday night, I begin the entire ridiculous charade over again. 

Cooking dinner; I get the saucepans out then I sit with a glass of wine and watch the local news. After that I might pour some oil into the saucepan and take the meat and vegetables out of the fridge. I’ll go back and watch more television. Later, I might cut something up and chuck it in the saucepan. I’ll meander in and out, sipping wine and watching the telly. In my mind, I’m not really cooking; I’m cruising in the kitchen and having a nice time.

It doesn’t always work of course. Sometimes, silly and gullible as I am, I can’t even fool myself.

What's your favourite life hack?

Linking up with Jess from Essentially Jess for #IBOT

Dear Harper Lee: The Rainbow Connection

To Kill a Mockingbird

Dear Ms Harper Lee,

For the last two days I’ve been reading your book, “To Kill a Mockingbird” (or “To Kill a Monkingbird”, which is how Scotto and I saw it incorrectly labelled in a video shop one day and fell about laughin’ fit to die until we thought we might be kicked out by the pimply teenager in charge of the store).

Heck, I read your book in grade twelve under the duress of my teacher, then again when I was a more mature thirty year old, and then yesterday.

I’m sorry for the peculiar fussing that went on regarding your book Ms Harper.


First there were rumours you didn’t write the book and that it was your childhood friend, Truman Capote, who wrote it and now people are casting doubt that you, now 88 years old, wrote the sequel, Go Set A Watchman (which is about to be released), set 20 years after your first book. 

I reckon back in 1960 there would be some backlash to a woman winning the Pulitzer prize, but questioning your authorship today is just ‘plain damn mean’, as Scout Finch would say.



I know this seems mighty pretentious but I have to mention to you my favourite quotes and pretty turns of phrase in your book. 

Not only that, but in light of the recent Rainbow= Equal marriage rights debate, I cannot help but feel your book’s relevance today. The principles and concepts your book is founded on, perfectly reflect the unjustifiable fear, judgement and suspicion surrounding the concept of gay marriage today. The Christian hypocrisy evident towards the African Americans back then seems mighty similar to what's going on now.

I know it was naïve of me but the day Barack Obama was elected president of the United States I went to work, whistling in joy, thinking… well that’s it then folks, no more race problems; the most powerful job in the world has just been given to an African American, no one can be racist now, can they? Hmmm. didn’t quite work out like that did it? 

I'll bet you cheered that day though, Ms Harper.

Anyhow, this isn’t a book review, just a tribute to some of the luscious description you’ve used. Golly gosh you’re a genius with words Ma’am. I’m afraid I sat like a ding bat as I read, scribbling down the particular phrases that struck me as pure gold.

I love the way Scout described her ancestor, Simon Finch as a man, “whose piety was exceeded only by his stinginess.” It made me chuckle and brought to mind a few people I know.

One of my favourites was this quote,

“Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweet talcum.”

Made me want to eat teacake and cover myself with baby powder…

In describing the teacher you said, 

“She looked and smelled like a peppermint drop.”

Although Atticus Finch was such an admirable man you captured his strength and Scout’s respect for him with descriptions like these,

“His voice was like the winter wind.” “He pinned me to the wall with his good eye.” And “His voice was deadly.”

Your description of Mr Ewell on the witness stand was so outstanding I had to read it several times before I could go on,

“… a little bantam cock of a man strutted to the stand, the back of his neck reddening at the sound of his name.”

Your account of the women at the missionary meeting made me laugh and cringe.

“She played her voice like an organ.”

And

“Her voice soared over the clink of coffee cups and the soft bovine sounds of the ladies munching their dainties.”

But although I wallowed joyfully in your melodious words the messages in your book truly hit home.

Scout: “Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.”

Aunt Alexandra on inviting Walter Cunningham home for dinner: “I didn’t say not to be nice to him. You should be friendly and polite to him, you should be gracious to everybody, dear. But you don’t have to invite him home.”

Scout: “Now Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”

Atticus: “You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”

Scout: “Atticus, he was nice.” Atticus: “Most people are Scout, when you finally see them.”



Ms Harper, you gave the reason you never followed up with another book after “To Kill a Mockingbird”, was because you’d said all you had to say.

Why shoot, I reckon I can see your point. But I damn well can’t wait for the next one.

Love Pinky xxx

Do you scribble down beautiful phrases as you read or am I the only one? Have you read this timeless book?

Linking up with Grace from With Some Grace for #FYBF

What Do You Remember From When You Were Eight?

When I was in grade two at school there was a spiteful, old crone, Mrs Sharp, who’d come in to the classroom for ‘hanky inspections’. 

She gave all the kids in our year level a ranting, venomous lecture regarding the different varieties of hankies available; checked, floral, striped, bordered… whatever the fudge you can think of. If you didn’t have a presentable hanky on inspection day pinned to your uniform, you were smacked, with stinging hostility, on the hand with a ruler.

I never had a hanky because my forward-thinking parents didn’t believe in them so all I had to present was a severely crinkled white tissue I’d stuck up the side of my knickers. 

“Dirty, filthy things tissues are,” she’d scowl at me as she whacked my pink palm with glee. Meanwhile, the other kids would all have their snot-smeared cotton hankies safety pinned on the front of their tiny, bacteria infused bodies and she’d smile at them ingratiatingly. “You’re a good clean girl,” she’d say, glaring back at disgraceful Pinky in contempt.

Teachers were arseholes back then weren’t they?

Anyway the reason I’m writing about this is because I’ve just done a reading from a module from a course I’m doing with the Australian Writer's Centre on Creative Writing.

Yes, yes, yes I know... I just finished writing the first draft of an entire novel, but I like to do things backwards. You know… when all else fails- read the instructions!

One of the readings, talked about doing a type of stream of consciousness from when you were only eight years old. It’s not that easy!

This is what I came up with…

Monkey bars and kids breaking arms once a week (mainly boys), Miss Callaghan’s short, bristly brown hair and bitchy, holier than thou attitude, playing out of bounds in the park next door, squishing tamarinds underfoot, skidding on tamarinds and eating tamarinds with my mouth and gums peeling back at the sourness. Playing ‘tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief’ and being laughed at because I was going to marry a beggarman (I married a Weaver so take that!), white bread cut in triangles, camp pie, boys scaring the girls with a grasshopper carcass, sitting on my front lawn in a Virginia Woolf type of reverie and my crush Stephen McDowall driving past in his father’s ute after soccer training and telling everyone the next day how he saw Pinky, sitting like a dork on her front lawn, Mum’s dressmaker, two identical gingham dresses in pink and purple, the hairband I insisted on wearing and sneaking to school against my mother’s wishes, vampire movies (Count Yorga) at the drive in. Even at eight, sucking my thumb and squishing a singlet to my nose for comfort, constant earaches, tonsillitis at Taronga zoo, the neighbour’s kid having hepatitis which made me scared I’d catch it, being on a local TV show with a clown and getting into big trouble for being a show off, watching Daktari on Saturday afternoon with Clarence the cross-eyed lion and Judy the chimp, running all around the house with tinsel in my hair because I wanted long hair because my Mum made me wear it like a boy, packing up Cuisenaire rods and my teacher cracking up at me for getting confused.

It was an interesting exercise, I’m sure there’s plenty more. 

What do you specifically remember from when you were eight? Anything?

Do You Have a Bitchy Resting Face?

Today was the last day of school and we teachers walked our primary kids up to the senior section of the college to watch a talent show. It was pretty good as far as talent shows go and I enjoyed all of it.

“You didn’t look too enthralled with the show,” commented my friend Lee-Lee when we were sitting in the staffroom later on.

“What do you mean?” I asked, draining my coffee cup and staring at the bottom wishing there was more.

“Well, every time I looked over at you Pinky, you were scowling at the stage,” she said. “You looked as though you wanted to rip out your throat in boredom.”

“Really?” I was shocked. “That was probably just my Bitchy Resting Face,” I shrugged in disappointment.

I’d been trying to look encouraging and animated the whole time so I was surprised she thought I looked so sour. I deliberately kept the corners of my mouth upturned and my eyes twinkling in a merry, kindly sort of way. Possibly though, I’d looked as though I was sneering or something.

Then it occurred to me that maybe that’s the reason why some people take an instant disliking to me.

Perhaps that’s why the deli lady didn’t want to serve me the other day.

Maybe that’s why I never win anything or get any awards for anything. It’s why I’m never nominated or remembered… it’s why I’ve never managed to talk my way out of a speeding ticket.

It’s my demonic BRF. It puts people off.

I’m not much of a laugher either. Not many people can make me laugh out loud. Scotto can, especially when he does his South African veterinarian/Northern England miner impersonations, but he savours those moments when I giggle uncontrollably because they’re so rare. Usually I just nod my head in acknowledgment if I think something is hilarious. It’s awful that I don’t laugh. I love people who laugh all the time; I’m drawn to them, especially if they laugh at my jokes, so why can’t I laugh?

I know… BRF.

It’s why I love social media. I can write, ‘LOL, LOL, LOL! Rolling around the floor! Just spat out my coffee! Lol!’… even if all I’ve done is breathed out a subtle, ‘He he he’ and smiled a bit.

Inside I’m lolling though.

At school, my teachers would often put down their chalk, interrupt their lecture and say, “What in God’s name are you frowning at Pinky?”

I wouldn’t be frowning at anything. It was just my earnest ‘I’m paying attention’ suck up look.

Some people look like they’re smiling all the time. People with protruding teeth and dimples always look happy and friendly. The thing I fear the most is that my face is only going to get worse as time marches on and gravity really gets a hold. I’ll be known as a disagreeable, bitter old woman when all the time on the inside I’ll be laughing and smiling in hilarity.

We were having a class general quiz the other day and one question I asked my ten year olds was, “What country does Lego come from?” (Answer is Denmark)

One of my favourite tiny terrors piped up with, “Legoland!”

It struck me as highly amusing and I burst out laughing in great hiccupping guffaws.

The class just stared at me in horrified fascination. I don’t think they’ve seen me laugh at all in six months. Their little eyes were bulging and I think they thought I was choking or having some kind of old lady convulsion. Slowly they began to smile when they realised the miracle that has just occurred. Mrs Poinker had laughed.

I suppose the only solution is surgery. I need to have a couple of huge choppers implanted and then it would look like I had a permanent smile.

What do you think? Do you laugh out loud a lot? How’s your resting face?

Would you like your son dating an older woman?

Thaddeus, my 25 year old son and Jonah (24), are in Vietnam. They went on holidays with their mates (Newman and Dazza) and for a tiny moment I thought I should worry about them... but then I heard both of them bickering on my couch before they left, like old dithering women, about who managed to get the best deal on travel insurance and I realised that no… they’re responsible grownups now.

Not so, my delightful eighteen year old daughter Lulu, who sent me a text today.

“Do we have any hereditary stomach diseases in our family history?” she’d casually texted.

My knees buckled and my heart rate quickened.

Was she at the doctors? She’d seemed fine last night as she’d scoffed down her spag bol. What the hell was going on?

So I texted back a nonchalant, “Why?”

“I’ve just been to a psychic and she said I might have a hereditary stomach problem,” she answered.

I was instantly frenzied with self-centred curiosity.

Me: No, no stomach problems in the family. What else did she say? Did she mention me? Am I going to die soon?”

Lulu: No. But she did say you were moving house soon.

That’s true, I thought, maybe this psychic's the real deal.

Me: “Did she say I was going to become a famous writer?”

Lulu: No. Lol! She did say you might be going to go on a holiday at the end of the year on a boat.

Oh well, I thought. At least I’m still going to be alive at the end of the year. So far so good.

Me: Did she say anything about me at all??????

Lulu: She said you were tired and you needed a change. She said you are a well-respected woman.

Well. That was enough to put me in a good fudging mood for the rest of the day. If a clairvoyant said I’m a well-respected woman I’m going to take that as gospel. It must be bloody true. I’m WELL respected. Not just respected. WELL bloody respected.

But by who, I wonder?

Anyway, my mood was further cheered up on my way home by running into my colleague Megan, who has the exact same car as me, at the service station. I know it’s childish but I had to take a photograph of the ‘twins’.

The Evil Twins.

But then my jolly demeanour was severely diminished at the deli counter at Coles a mere fifteen minutes later.

I glanced over surreptitiously as I crouched in between the lettuces and broccoli and seized on the glorious fact that not only was there nobody at the deli counter waiting to be served, but there was actually a staff member standing behind the counter. No need to do star jumps to get their attention! Bonus! 

I maneuvered that shopping trolley over faster than it takes a Cole’s avocado to turn brown in the fridge.

The woman behind the counter was packing chicken legs in one kilogram bags like she was packaging crack for a drug run and completely ignored me. About ten minutes later, a wizened, elderly woman sidled her trolley up next to me while I waited. She smiled at me benevolently. 

I knew this wasn’t going to end well.

We both watched the sweaty deli assistant packing up the bags, bag after fudging bag, until eventually she finished and looked up at me and asked absently, “Did you want seven kilograms or eight, luv?”

I stared at her in disbelief, tapping my foot in impatience. “I didn’t order chicken legs,” I replied, a tentative glint of insanity in my eyes.

She shrugged, bored, then she turned to the old lady, “Can I help you, dear?” she asked, ignoring me completely.

The beautiful old lady gestured towards me, as I slouched and scowled like Gollum behind my trolley, angry and belligerent. “This lady was before me,” she said kindly.

I was soooo pissed off. I could never allow myself to be served before an old lady, even though I knew I was there first and had already been waiting for a bloody inordinate amount of time.

I cracked the shits.

“Never mind,” I said through gritted teeth, waving my arm dramatically and stomping off. “You go first!”

Both of them looked at bit startled, I think. It wasn’t the old lady’s fault. Stupid, annoying deli woman.

Anyway, back to the psychic. Lulu said the tarot card reader prophesied that one of her brothers was going to meet and form a relationship with an older woman. That could be good or bad. I can’t decide. I don’t really want a forty year old daughter-in-law.


It better not be anyone I know… just saying.

Do you find the deli to be an excruciating part of your shopping?

Do you think I should embrace this possible older woman into the family?

Should You Do More with Your Life?

Hey! Saint Peter!

I know many of you aren’t religious, but as I pad reluctantly through the gloomy, inexorable corridor towards death (I’m 54 after all) I sometimes dread facing up to my slack attitude and indiscretions of the last five decades.

I can picture it now... Saint Peter watching me slinking up to him as he stands there at the golden arch; a mullet wearing, tattooed bouncer at the gates of heaven.

“Ermagerd! It’s that PINKY!” he’d snigger to the angels standing astride him. “Can’t wait to hear what bullshite this little tart’s got up her sleeve.”

“Morning Pinky!” he'd remark cheerily, stealing sideways mocking glances at the archangel Gabriel and the others. “Shall we get started then love?”

I’d stand, my feet shuffling and my right eyelid quivering with nerves.

“So, Pinky. Please explain your annoying penchant for feigning helplessness whenever the toner at the photocopier needs replacing?”

I’d stammer, “Bbbbut… the office ladies are so good at it. I didn’t want to deprive them of their jobs. They like doing that stuff...”

There’d be sniggers amongst the angels.

“Please clarify, Pinky, why, when you are in a bad mood in the morning you persist in doing squealies as you pull out of your driveway?” St Pedro would continue mercilessly.

I'd be quaking in my ugg boots as I shakily replied, “I just hated it when my electric garage roller door always made me late because I have to get out of my fudging car and push it up manually because my husband won’t put WD40 on it because he thinks it might drip on his stupid matte-finish car.”

Saint Peter would shake his head in disappointment, pause, and say, “There’s no need to blame others, Pinky. Please enlighten me as to why you haven’t cleaned your windows even once in the thirteen years you’ve lived in your house?”

I'd lower my face in shame and my bottom lip would tremble.

“What about illuminating us all to the fact as to why you wore your bra for three days in a row without washing it?” The angels would guffaw and poke each other, sniffing under their arms in contempt.

“I don’t sweat!” I’d scream. “For the love of GOD! I don’t sweat!”

“Okay, we can understand you don’t sweat. But can you please provide explanations about why you persist in wasting time writing tipsy Twitter hashtags late at night that aren’t even slightly funny, annoying friends on Facebook with photographs of your irritating Chihuahua accompanied by tedious, unamusing captions, writing lacklustre short stories and entering competitions much to the chagrin of the organisers and continuing to bore the public with stupid, inane blog posts about your unfortunate children and the like?”

I would shrink like a … shrinking violet, a tear would roll down my cheek.

“But what about the time I fostered all those children?”

“You never did that, Pinky,” he’d frown.

“I walked around Australia to raise money for a charity!” I’d triumph.

“No, you didn’t.” Saint Peter would sigh.

"I was sponsored for shaving my head and being doused in an ice bucket!" I'd entreat.

"Not in this life honey dolls." The chorus of angels would double up in mirth.

“But I did raise one thousand dollars for the children’s hospital once,” I’d whimper.

“That’s not good enough!” he’d roar. “You should have done more with your life you silly woman!”

And that’s when I wake up.

I think I need to do more with my life. It's almost gone and I've done so little.



What do you think? Would you like to do more? Or do you think sometimes the whole "Look what I'm doing for other people" thing is a bit more like 'Look at what I'm doing.'

What would you Choose as a Pen Name?

I entered a short story competition the other day. I won’t bore you silly with the details about the story I wrote but it was quite a disturbing story. Scotto read it and turned to me afterwards with an even more agitated look than he usually gives me after reading my stuff.

He looked at me as if he thought I might be a trifle unstable. And by that I don’t mean, he looked at me as if I were an ‘unstable trifle’. 

He looked at me as if I might be psychotic, and as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue our cohabitation. He had a certain cautious, uneasy expression of distrust on his pinched face and just put his laptop down and left the room abruptly, shaking his head. 

We never spoke of it again.

The short story had to be about crime and I came up with an idea as I drove home from school last Friday. At first I thought I might write about a teacher who goes off the deep end and starts picking off her students one by one, tying them up, putting masking tape over their mouths and tickling them with a feather until they screamed for mercy… “JUST STOP CHATTING! I’d… the antagonist would scream… “I’M SICK OF YOUR INFERNAL CHATTING! I’M GOING TO TICKLE YOU TO DEAAAATHHHH!”… but I thought one of my parents might unfortunately happen upon it and contact the teacher’s registration board and have me struck off the list of employable teachers.

Then I thought I might change the word ‘teacher’ to ‘bus driver’. I’m sure there are plenty of school bus drivers out there on the brink of a psychotic episode. But then I thought it could actually happen one day and I’d get the blame somehow. You know… for putting ideas into other people’s heads.

So I wrote a story excluding any mention of teachers or traumatised bus drivers and sent it off. Now I just have to win it and become famous.

But the trouble is I’ll never be a famous author because I don’t have a middle name. That’s how much my parents cared about me when I was born.

“What shall we give her for a name?” my mother asked my father all those years ago as they looked down on their scrawny, jaundiced baby girl.

“I don’t know,” he replied, sucking the sugar from a donut off his pinky finger and holding it up in the air to dry. “How about Pinky?”

“Yes, I like that. What about a middle name?”
“Nah. We don’t want her to fit in and be well-adjusted. We want her to always feel like an outsider. Let’s not bother.”
None of the kids or teachers at school ever believed I didn’t have a middle name.

They just thought it must have been such a hideous name I wouldn’t own up to it. I actually got into trouble by my grade seven teacher because he accused me of lying and sent me to the office when I couldn’t come up with a middle name.

I gave all my kids middle names; nice daggy ones so that they’d be laughed at when they had to say them out loud in class. At least they’d fit in, I thought.

Anyway, I thought I’d make up a pen name and I’d workshop it with you so that when I’m famous and you see my name in print you’ll know it’s me.

I always liked those silly names some of the sixties actors had, like Lorne Greene and RipTorn.

If I wrote a medical romance I could call myself, Candida Spore.

A murder mystery novel: Achilla Storey

A fugitive story: Heidi Seek

A school staffroom drama: Matuna Stinks
Okay that’s silly. I just need a middle name so I can fit in with J.K. Rowlings, J.R.Tolkein, P.G. Wodehouse and C.S. Lewis.

When I was a young one I always liked the name “Destiny” like the blonde puppet from the Thunderbirds.

How about “Destiny B. Eckons”?

On the other hand, I’ve also always quite liked the name, Bernadette. It has a certain ring to it… Bern-a-dette Poinker. You like?



What would you choose as a pen name?

Linking up with Jess from Essentially Jess for #IBOT

Why I'm Not in a Hurry to be a Grandma!

Hagar has just come to collect his boy, Diego and I must say it’s true about grandchildren. It’s lovely when they come to stay but even lovelier when you hand them back to their parents.

I arrived home on Friday afternoon, to find Hagar and Meggles in my driveway and Scotto nursing the baby Chihuahua Diego, who we were to babysit. 

Ees he going to eeet meeee?

Hagar left enough food to last Diego a year but it was that dried stuff which is supposed to fulfill all their daily nutritional requirements. 

I’ve always thought exclusively feeding dogs dry food is cruel and way too Spartan. That was before I experienced the amount of poodoople coming out of that little Chihuahua’s bottom. I’d had plans to go up the shops and buy him some tasty mince as a treat but it was clear after the first hour he was ingesting enough fibre to keep a fertiliser factory in business for a decade.

“I’ll sleep in the spare room with him,” I said to Hagar as he stood with tears in his eyes, clinging to the Mogwai creature in desperate emotion before he left.

“Don’t roll over on him, Mum!” warned Hagar, forgetting that not only have I slept with numerous puppies but also five newborn human babies without suffocating any of them with my apparently dangerously, corpulent body.

Pablo (my Chihuahua) snarled at Diego every time he laid eyes on him and it was clear that they’d have to remain separated for the entirety of the weekend. This meant shifts of ‘puppy in the bathroom’ and ‘big dogs in the laundry’. It wouldn’t have been nice to witness a ferociously jealous Pablo rip Diego’s tender throat out.

It was quite stressful let me tell you.

Last night, I woke up with a start in the spare room after feeling around in the bed with my foot, to find that Diego was nowhere in the bed. I frantically leaped out of the bed; turned on the light in a panic and searched for the mouse-like creature, thinking that I’d have to explain to Hagar his puppy had been abducted by aliens. 

Then I remembered that awful cartoon about the fat lady who’s lost her Chihuahua and wondered… just for a second… could he have? Could I have?

Image source

But then I found Diego snuggled on the floor, fast asleep under the edge of the quilt. He must have slipped off silently and not even woken up. He was curled up like a strange, furry caterpillar in a cocoon.

I couldn’t do any work because Diego was so needy. Just like his bloody father was at that age. I tried feeding him milk treats but it made him hyper-active. I have so many razor-like teeth marks on my wrists I look like a crack whore.

I sent Hagar a text at about 3:00 pm today asking when he was going to come to pick up his “fractious, bitey nuisance of a brat” and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I’m not in such a hurry to be a grandma after all.


Hmmmf.

Don’t Read This Unless You Have a Strong Stomach!

So there I was in front of my Grade 4 class last week ranting hysterically about a history assessment task they were about to complete. 

I try not to be too dogmatic when I’m delivering such rants but I can’t help it. 

My eyes go all bug-like and my voice becomes as shrill as a fish wife. 

It’s just that I want them to do well.

“So we all know what ‘Trepang’ is don’t we?”

There were quite a few blank faces staring at me (what with sausage rolls at morning tea and hand ball on their minds).

We’ve been studying the arrival of the First Fleet and the First Australians you see and I was sick to the gills of seeing the answer to this question on test papers over the past six years.

What did the Aborigines think the people on the First Fleet were when they first saw them?

(a) Spirits

(b) Europeans

(c) Aliens from outer space

(d) Trepang



For the whole term we’ve learned that ‘trepang’ are actually freakin sea cucumbers, but you would be gobsmacked the amount of students that answer ‘trepang’ on this question.

You probably don’t think that’s funny and I agree, it’s not.

It drives me insane.

“Do you really think that anyone would be mistaken for a sea cucumber?” I asked in an exaggerated Russell Brand type, highly dramatic impersonation.

Anyway, I carried on so much before the test I failed to notice that one of my minions was turning grey in his seat and had spewed up in his hands at his desk.

Two girls either side of him suddenly sprang from their seats shrieking and I was forced to cease my Nazi-like tirade about sea cucumbers.

It was a bit disappointing because ‘Snug’ the spewer had broken my ten year record.

Remember in Seinfeld (I’m a huge fan) when Jerry broke his ten year non-throwing-up record.

The Entire Collection!

In a decade of teaching primary school kids, no child has ever vomited in the classroom on my watch, but thanks to Snuggie that inimitable record is now broken. 

Bugger!

Fortunately, my teacher aide, Mrs W. happened to meander into the classroom about two seconds after the unexpected, exorcist-like purge and took full control of the situation.

“Were there any chunky bits?” I cautiously enquired after she’d been to the office, commandeered the special stuff to cover it, and … you know… get rid of the smell and just conceal it all completely so I couldn’t see it at all...ever.

“No, it was just bile,” she answered, just a bit too nonchalantly for my liking.

Bile reminds me of livers and I don’t like thinking about livers, or anything to do with bile, or liverish substances (except pate which is delicious if you don't think about it too carefully).

Later, I worried that I’d made Snug so nervous about the ‘trepang’ question, I’d been the one to make him spew, (I'd hate to be one of those teachers... shout out to Mr Hudson in Grade 7 circa 1971) but Snug was away for the next three days with the flu so I don’t think I caused it after all.

Don’t think I’m a sook because I spent a decade washing my own children’s chunky bits off quilt covers and poking it down the drain in the early hours of the morning. 

I’ve seen more spew than you've had hot chunky dinners. 

Sorry about that analogy.

The big question of today is:

Do you think spew or poo from kids other than your own is more objectionable?

Doggy Style

Grandma Pinky

No! Stop it!

I know what you think this post is going to be about.

Sorry to disappoint you but this post is NOT about glamorous outfits for pooches.

This post is about how I know I’ll make a fudging, fantastic Grandma.

Hagar, my 22 year old son, brought my first grandchild over last week.

As I clutched by baby grandson close to my chest, I felt my soft upper limbs turn instantly to wobbling tuck shop arms, my D cup boobs turn into a droopy, massive bosom and my spare tyre transform into a soft platform ready made to cushion a small head.

My long, brown hair shrivelled and coiled up into a grey perm and my dentures slipped out mid kiss.

My voice turned into my mother’s and I found myself bleating things like, “Come to Nana, darlin.”

“Did naughty Daddy feed you dinner before he brought you over?” and “Would you like a treat? Follow me into the kitchen, sweetheart.”

His name is Diego and I’m in love. I volunteered to babysit him next weekend when Hagar and Meggles go to Diego’s other Grandma’s birthday party in Mackay. 

(Happy birthday Nana Jo!)


I was a bit scared telling Granddad Scotto, I’d volunteered to look after the grand kid all weekend but I think he’s going to love it.

Awwww.

Yeah, I'm doing grandparenting doggy style.

On another subject... I finished the first draft of my fiction manuscript. All 70 000 words of it! I told you I'd do it.

I'm not going to publish the last three chapters online so if you've been reading along please leave a message in the comments below and I'll email them to you. I'd hate to leave you in suspense after all your loyalty.

I will take down the chapters I've already published in a few days as well while I revise, edit and rewrite.

Other writers tell me that's the hard part but I don't agree... yet!

Hopefully now I'll be able to write more entertaining posts as well.

I'm sure you've been waiting to hear that, hehe.

What sort of grandparent do you think you'll be?

Little Lies

It’s report writing time for teachers and people tend to get a bit tetchy, what with all the added stress. We’re snappier than a float of baby crocodiles at the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary.

The other day in the staff room, I happened to comment on how well our local football team, the Cowboys, have been playing lately. I like to try to fit in, you know… like a normal person. It’s a hard act to maintain but I do my best.

“Geez, those Cowboys are doing well aren’t they?” I said jovially, looking around at my colleagues.

There was a stunned pause.

“What would you know, Pinky?” quipped my tiny, but vicious friend Kyles as she peered at me dubiously over the rim of her teacup. “You don’t follow the football.”

“How do YOU know what I do?” I counteracted in an equally hostile fashion. “You don’t know everything I do! I love the footy!”

“Well you never come to the games with us when we ask you.” She picked her teeth with her little finger in a taunting, offhand fashion.

“That’s because I don’t like sitting on a grass hill in the humidity with all the bogans,” I countered with an element of cunning.

“And you aren’t in the footy tipping either,” she added, as several people at the table nodded in agreement.

I could feel myself losing ground.

I was outnumbered but luckily the bell rang and I scarpered off to hide in the queue outside the ladies loo.

My friend Kaz, annoyed me the other day too by commenting that in all the years she’s known me I’ve never cooked anything from scratch.

“Chicken wings!” I blustered in an explosion of outrage.

“Pre-marinated chicken wings from Coles don’t count,” Kaz retorted, causing everyone in the vicinity to laugh rowdily at my expense.

So with the combined pressure of report writing and malicious accusations of being a sham cook and phony football fan, I seethed and raged for about a week until finally, I concocted a plan.

When Scotto and I went to lunch on Saturday I insisted we stop off at the stupid Cowboys League's Club so I could buy a bloody t shirt to wear to school on Monday just to prove to all those mean, skeptical people, I do follow a football team.

Not only that, but on Sunday, I bought the ingredients to make a Malteser Slice and clicked on to Bake, Play, Smile.  to get the recipe and actually made it from, you know, scratch! 

I’m in my forties fifties and this is the first slice I’ve ever made in my life. I even bought a special tin thing to make it in.

The base.

I made sure to serve it on a Cowboys supporter’s plate I’d bought especially, just so I could rub Kyle’s little button nose in it.

“See!” I gloated. “I told you. I DO support the Cowboys and I CAN cook!”

Stick that in ya gob!

They must have believed me. The next afternoon when I went out to my car I found it to be desecrated with Cowboy’s paraphernalia. 

Kyles and Kaz just happened to be in the car park when I made the grim discovery.

“It’s great!” I feigned enthusiasm, my heart sinking. “Just what I always wanted…”

“We thought you’d love it, Pinky. What with you being SUCH a supporter and all.” They both wandered off to their cars, cackling like a couple of hyenas.

So for the rest of the footy season I have to drive around with bloody flags flapping around and random observers thinking I’m a lunatic football fanatic. 

Cowboys No. 1 fan apparently.

As if my car didn’t look ridiculous enough already. 

Go the Cowboys...

Do you follow a football team?

Linking up with Grace from With Some Grace for #FYBF

Taking Stock: In my Classroom

Watching: a lot of YouTube videos about fractions and how one half equals two quarters, even though I’m the only one in the classroom paying any attention to the videos because the students are all too busy eyeing off the hornet who naively wafted through the window and is unwittingly causing mass terror and unmitigated screaming. Frankly, it’s giving me a headache and I’ve decided I don’t like hornets or fractions.

Only good hornet is a...

Making : comparisons between one hundredth of a slice of pizza and one half and desperately trying to explain that even though one hundredth sounds like more, it’s not. Have they ever seen a pizza cut into a hundred pieces anyway? That’s just silly.

Cooking : up a storm in mathematics education on a global level and sure I’ll be seconded by the United Nations to work for UNESCO at any minute.

Reading : between the lines when my student tells me his cat has been sent to live on a rural property because it kept pooing on Dad’s shoes.

Wanting : in etiquette when I race up to the staff room at lunch time and push other colleagues out of the way at the fridge before all the full cream milk goes and I have to endure skim milk in my coffee.

Looking : over my shoulder when my class is walking in a line behind me to make sure no one is doing cartwheels/spraying others with their water bottle/imitating the way I walk in a mocking fashion.

Playing : my cards right when I send my cutest student (with a lollipop) up to beg the office ladies to photocopy two extra homework sheets because I accidentally used the originals to mop up a dead hornet.

Wasting : away to a shadow because all my lollipops are being used to bribe the office ladies.

Sewing : when my ten year old student says, “Mrs Poinker! Marigold touched my Smiggle pencil,” or “Mrs Poinker! She looked at me with her eyes,” and I keep repeating “So? So?”

Wishing : I’d come up with the idea of flogging cheap plastic stationery at exorbitant prices to gullible children.

Enjoying : the five minutes of meditation we have after big lunch every day. It’s three hundred seconds of peace… except for a couple of rebellious fifth columnists I need to compete against in a savage staring competition until they eventually close their eyes in reluctant submission, of course.

Waiting : for the doctor to tell me my blood pressure has finally reached the stage where teaching is a death sentence and I must go on to worker’s comp immediately or risk suffering a catastrophic stroke in front of a bunch of traumatised ten year olds. Oh I can’t wait for the day!

Liking : when a kid in my class has a birthday and brings in cupcakes with one for the teacher.

Loving : when the cupcakes have really gooey icing so when I hand them out I get to lick the extra icing off my fingers before I hand out the next one. (Jokes).

Needing : a mother in my class who knows how to cook delicious, chocolate, birthday cupcakes with whipped fresh cream that come under twenty calories each.

Smelling : my hands after I high five my students in the morning. You can never be too careful.

Noticing : a cheesy odour on my hands and wondering?? What could it possibly be?

Hoping : that anti-bacterial hand wash lives up to its hype.

Knowing : reports are due in a week and I haven’t finished all the assessment yet.

Thinking : myself sick about how all the student’s results are logged into one flimsy, record book and if I lost it I’d be up shite’s creek and how the scenario is especially likely considering my propensity for losing things.

Feeling : a bit creeped out that even though I know I’m dicing with trouble I’m very haphazard with the record book.

Bookmarking : employment opportunities in horticulture or cleaning in case I lose my record book, can’t write my reports and get my marching orders.

Opening : a can of tuna in the classroom and all the kids on lunchtime detention complaining about the smell.

Giggling : nervously when one of them asks me if I’m eating cat food and I check to see I’ve brought the right can from my pantry.

Listening : skills are underrated. If children listened I wouldn’t have to say, “I already said it five times, why weren’t you listening instead of poking holes in your Smiggle rubber with your Smiggle pencil under the desk.”

And one for luck…


Questioning : whether when I ask my class, after numerous science lessons and chaotic experiments, how we know gravity exists and one student tells me, “Because it says it on the Internet” I should stick to teaching and not consider a job in horticulture anyway.

Okay, what have you been liking, listening to and hoping?

What happens when you replace kids with dogs.

Languishing in luxury

When my fox terrier, Celine, has to have her annual parvo virus shot, a certain protocol needs be put in place. Firstly, I must call the funeral parlour to arrange which doggy songs we need to play for her inevitable and untimely departure, then, I have to arrange for the pall bearers, Pablo, Borat (German Shepherd) and Willy (Silky Terrier) to be groomed and coached in preparation for her requiem mass, and thirdly I have to be prepared for the Camille-like languishing which must surely precede her demise; the vague cough, the plaintive facial expressions and the croaking entreaties for water.

Yawn. My fox terrier is a hypochondriac.

I know when my kids had their measles/mumps/whooping cough (whatever) needle, they had a minimally tender arm for 24 hours… but this dog is unbelievable. She needs to be carried out the back door for wee wees, carried up and downstairs to bed, refuses hand fed treats and moans theatrically every time I walk past her.

It’s like living with an eighteenth century consumption patient.

She sits shivering on the couch staring with googly, dilated eyeballs whilst Scotto and I bring her ice blocks to lick in order to stem the fever. You can’t touch any part of her body lest she scream like a banshee and God forbid anyone try to coax her from her eyrie on top of a half dozen pillows on the couch.

Even Monet would gag at the histrionics.

But I know the next morning she’ll awake, shake out her ears like Dumbo and forget the entire experience, whilst I will have lain awake all night, imagining finding a cold, stiff, hairy carcass at my feet when I stir from a restless and sweaty sleep in the morning.

People say when your kids grow up you find peace at last- but it’s not true. Idiots such as myself, replace children with dogs. And dogs are far worse let me assure you.

We took Pablo the Chihuahua with us this morning to have his claws clipped while his sister Celine was going under the ‘knife’. 

“He’s become fat!” Our vet, Chris, was shocked when he spied the corpulent Chihuahua. It’s true. Pablo has beefed up a bit. I still thought it was a bit rude though. Pablo has a Mexican metabolism; those from south of the border like their siestas and enchiladas with extra cheese and sour cream on the side. It’s a cultural thing.

But do you know it costs twelve dollars to have a dog’s claws clipped? That’s almost as much as it costs me to have a manicure. Maybe I should be booking into the vet to have my fingernails done.

But now we find out the bloody fox terrier has to have its teeth cleaned. The procedure apparently requires the mutt to be placed under a general anaesthetic which all up should only cost a mere fudging THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS!

How long since you had a scale and clean? Ninety bucks tops? 

Do you think I should just take my dog to the dentist?

The Sex Scene What I Wroted

Well dear friends, I wrote my one and only sex scene in the first draft of my manuscript today. Before you get excited and rush off to read it, let me warn you… it’s not very titillating. In fact, the word titillating is probably far filthier than anything you’ll find in my sex scene.

Why? I hear you ask. Why didn’t you make it all juicy, and wet and have secretions in it and all that sort of stuff?

Because it’s not called Fifty Shades of Dorothy, that’s why. 

Personally I find reading sex scenes to be embarrassing; even if I’m sitting and reading by myself, with no one looking over my shoulder, I still get all clammy. I think sex scenes can also sound a bit corny when authors use phrases like, he penetrated her, her womanhood was on fire, his manhood gleamed in its tumescence.

My womanhood has never felt like it was on fire and if it ever did I’d go to the doctor or at least buy some cream from the pharmacist. I don’t like the word penetrate. It reminds me of when I stood on a wire once and it penetrated my big toe. Tumescent manhood brings to mind a mushroom for some reason and I’ve never seen a gleaming mushroom.

To be honest, my sex scene never got past first base. It did… but only after the door closed behind them.

Even then, I found describing the act of kissing to be difficult to write about. I avoided any mention of a tongue. No slimy tongues penetrating any mouths in my sex scene.

No. My novel is not based on the life of a nun, but I don’t want my father reading this book and arriving at the doorstep challenging my husband to a duel because he thinks I’m writing about myself and the things I may or may not get up to. 

Not that Dad would do that.

My father wrote a manuscript a couple of years ago which included a sex scene. My sister, Sam, is still traumatised by it and brings it up at least once every six months. It didn’t worry me at all because I skipped the sex scene completely when I read it. Whenever she talks about it I cover my ears and begin singing, “Lalalalala” like a child.

Most sex scenes in books are fairly unrealistic too. I mean, has any leading lady in a novel ever suffered from fanny farts after a sex scene where she engaged in extra strenuous sex or after having sex in a swimming pool?

Not that I know about fanny farts personally, but I’ve read about them in various medical and scientific journals.

The girl in the novel never suffers from debilitating urinary tract infections twenty four hours after the sex scene does she? 

You never read about someone being spiked in the chin by an aggressive bristle and saying, “Right that’s it! Get off me and don’t touch me again until you’ve had a proper shave you big ape.”

The heroine in the book never stops in the middle of a sex scene and says, “Shite. I forgot to buy dog food and the shops shut in ten minutes.” Or “Do you think you’ll be finished by the time Game of Thrones starts?”

No. It’s a bit like Hollywood the way a lot of authors write sex scenes. Everything is smoke and mirrors, musky smells and clean sheets. They just don’t reflect real life.


Which is why I’m counting on the fact anyone reading my book will just think, ‘Oh, she's written a sex scene, I think I’ll just skip this bit.’

Do you feel self-conscious reading sex scenes?

If not what's your favourite one?

Did you like maths when you were in school?

Maths isn’t my favourite subject to teach. It wasn’t my preferred subject when I was in school so I like to get it out of the way and teach it first thing in the morning when the kid’s minds are still fresh, not sullied by the “who stole my soccer ball at lunch time” or “who accidentally/deliberately kicked me in the nuts during handball” or the “who threw my lunchbox on the ground and stomped on it” type of ‘after lunch dramatic scenarios’.

So anyway, I had this written on the whiteboard at 8:30 yesterday morning and asked the class.

“What is symmetry?” I glanced around the room with an unwarranted optimism.

One hand tentatively went up and I looked over hopefully.

“Is it where they bury dead people?”

I was perplexed. What were the grade two and three teachers teaching these kids?

“No. That’s a cemetery. It has nothing to do with dead people. This is symmetry, not cemetery.”

Another hand went up, waggling enthusiastically.

“Is it to do with Frew Noodles?” he asked, cocking his head to one side adorably.

I scanned my brain.

‘Frew Noodles? Were they a type of symmetrical Asian food I’d never heard of?’

“Pardon?” I asked politely.

“Frewn. Oodles,” he repeated slowly, as if I were a backward idiot from the Ozarks.

“Sorry. Just say it one more time for me.” I was beginning to doubt my sanity/hearing.

“FREW NOODLES!”

No. he definitely said, ‘frew noodles’.

“What are frew noodles?” I’d given up by this stage and was staring over at the staff room through the side window, longing for a coffee.

“They’re what you have when people die,” he sounded very exasperated.

“Oh… funerals,” I finally realised, defeated and ready to hang up my name tag and whistle. “No. That’s still about dead people. It’s nothing to do with dead people.”

Frankly, I think they were all highly disappointed we weren’t about to learn about the dearly departed.

My question to you all is this.

When have you ever had to determine how many lines of symmetry there are in a given two dimensional object in your everyday lives?


Do you think we need to review what we’re teaching our children?