Pinky Blows Her Whistle.

                                     Whistler's Mother

Check out the very famous portrait by James Whistler which he painted in his London flat (1879) where he’d recently bustled his Irish model-mistress out to make room for the impending visit from his pious, prim mamma bear, Mrs Whistler.

A bit of a rebel, James had been kicked out of school for his appalling grades then fired from his job in the war office and had gallivanted off to Europe where he incorrectly assumed he’d completely cut the apron strings and could live a Bohemian existence with all the hedonistic benefits.

He was wrong.

Like all fretting, concerned mothers, Mrs Whistler hunted her son down, sailed across the Atlantic and stymied his hedonistic life style by her very presence alone.

What was going on in her head as she sat posing for those long hours I wonder?

You know, Mrs Whistler and I have a bit in common as she too gave birth to four sons and a daughter. 

That mildly sour expression on her face is one I’ve spotted many times as I’ve glimpsed my strained reflection in the shiny, Smart Phone screen when about to call one of my five pleasure-seeking mavericks.

Sitting tensely, staring at a blank wall/window with my fists, jaw and thighs clenched tightly enough to crack a walnut whilst waiting for one of the renegades to arrive home is exactly how I appear on any given weekend.

This weekend was a particularly Whistlery weekend as seventeen year old daughter Lulu, decided to go on a road trip 400 kilometres north of here with her girlfriend.

“But you’re both still on red P plates!” I beseeched. “You’ve only been driving for a couple of months!”

“We’re going mother,” she pouted defiantly.

“You won’t be able to book accommodation anywhere because you’re both under eighteen!” I cautioned passionately.

“Already booked a very nice hotel thanks,” Lulu smirked.

“What if you break down in the middle of nowhere?” I needled, tears running down my cheeks.

“Roadside assistance,” she flipped back confidently.

Then there was the threat of a cyclone hanging ominously off the coastline. What if they couldn’t get back because of floodwaters… or worse still, attempted to drive back in the rain?

I rang my parents hoping they’d have some guiding words of wisdom for me.

“We wouldn’t have been able to stop you from doing that at seventeen, Pinky,” offered my father unhelpfully.

So I sat like cranky Mrs Whistler for the greater part of this weekend waiting for the promised hourly texts which never materialised and visualising every possible tragic scenario befalling my only daughter in my mentally twisted head.



The girls are back now, safe and sound. But next time I might do what the canny Mrs Whistler did and drive up myself and check in to the room next door to them. 

That’d spoil their bloody weekend wouldn't it now?

                    Thanks to Scotto for the excellent Photoshopping!

What Defines a Bully?

                                We do put sunscreen on his nose every day.

Our lovely man had just arrived to clean up the jungle in our back yard and I asked him if he’d like me to put Borat, our woolly mammoth of a German Shepherd, in the pool area to allow him easy access through the side gate so he could lug various palm fronds out to his trailer without disturbance.

Willy the terrier, an aficionado of escapism antics, was also in the forefront of my mind so I decided he would have to be locked away for his own safety as well. 

As I let the big boys onto the back patio an uncompromising Chihuahua by the name of Pablo Escobark tore out of the house with misplaced vengeance and aggressively fronted all up in Borat’s grill, barking violently in the shepherd’s snout,

“You theenk you’re so tough Holmes? What you goieeng to dooo?? Huh? Huh? Come on... fight me you seeesy!"

The gigantic shepherd turned away like the defendant who’s been well tutored by his lawyer. But onward the belligerent Mexican midget relentlessly harangued,

“Just because you the beegest doesn’t mean you da boss! I will cut you Esay! I will cut you beeg time!”

Suddenly the Shepherd, tired of the taunts, snapped and cornered the nasty little Latino against the water feature.

Pinky stood in frozen horror as her two fur babies recreated a scene from a terrifying Stephen King movie.

Little Pablo was trapped, screaming in distress and agony, but his screams were drowned out by a performance a la Pinky which would make Sarah Michelle Geller cringe in shame. 

Hearing Pinky's hysterical shrieks,the gardener came running and he witnessed her desperately attempting to wrestle the tiny parcel of South American Chilli Dog from the giant Beowulf's salivating jaws.

Eventually the Shepherd let go and Pablo hobbled whimpering and damaged into the house. Pinky locked the huge, murderous hound in the pool area and went to seek out the injured victim, frightened at what she’d find.

A bloody pulp of Chihuahua necessitating an urgent trip to the emergency weekend vet, perhaps? The thought was sickening.

Astoundingly, Pablo was intact. Not one single abrasion. Not a hair out of place, in fact.

My first instinct was the Shepherd must go. We’d find a nice home for him. We couldn’t possibly have such an aggressive animal in situ at Chez Poinker. What if children came to visit and the same thing happened to a child… but worse?

Then I thought about it more closely. Borat could have easily snapped Pablo’s neck if he’d chosen. One assertive bite from his jaws would have been a decisive finale to the Chihuahua’s short but hostile existence.

Instead, my beautiful German Shepherd decided to give the little b#stard a bit of a fright, teach him a lesson about respect and let the little sh#t live.

I know who the true bully was.

                                    Pablo Escobark

I love my German Shepherd.

The Nocturnal Dreams of a Silly Old Woman

                                      The Bondi Vet

In Freudian dream analysis, content is both the manifest and latent content in a dream, that is, the dream itself as it is remembered, and the hidden meaning of the dream.

Nothing inspires my blood pressure to significantly drop triggering compulsive and rude yawning than when someone starts telling me about the dream they had the preceding night. It might be fascinating to the dreamer but is excruciatingly mind-numbing for the unfortunate addressee.

With that in mind... I’ll try to keep this brief.

There are a few recurring dreams which disturb Pinky’s beauty sleep and I love nothing more than to try to deconstruct and analyse them.

Whilst I don’t have the classic “Naked” dream I often experience its cousin; the “Wearing No Underpants” dream. In this particular nightmare I’m always wearing a t-shirt in which I walk around in public desperately and unsuccessfully attempting to cover my ‘Republic of Labia’ by stretching the garment downwards and over.

Clearly, this dream is a subconscious revelation about Pinky’s reluctance to display private facts about her secret lifestyle. Things like the fact she scrapes gravy off her plate with her little finger and licks it off or that she wears a Velcro hair roller in her fringe every morning.

In another horrible and oft repeated nightmare, I awaken trembling, sweating and gasping. It’s the one where many years ago I apparently buried scores of dead bodies under the house and the police are doing an investigation and are about to start an excavation exposing my heinous crimes.

Do I have to explain how I interpret that little gem? 

Personally I don’t think I’ve done that many things to be guilty about but according to Freud the subconscious mind never lies.

Of course, I also have that old chestnut where my front teeth fall out and I put that down to the guilt I shoulder when I’ve been too lazy to clean my teeth before bed.

However, last night’s dream was especially difficult to decipher.

I was working at a food booth at a school fete and working at another booth beside me was none other than celebrity, the “Bondi Vet”. 

The Bondi Vet kept staring at me with his unsettling blue eyes and after a while a middle-aged Sri Lankan lady (who bore a striking resemblance to my Uro-Gynaecologist) approached me and informed me quite passionately that the Bondi Vet wouldn’t stop talking about me and was indeed, completely in love with Pinky. 

I was very flattered even though I didn’t fancy him back (despite my admiration of his large chiselled jaw)... and then I woke up.

I fleetingly thought about shaking Scotto awake and regaling him with the details of my brush with fame but immediately had second thoughts. I didn’t want Scotto to be jealous of the Bondi Vet.

Why? Why? Why? Why did the Bondi Vet find me to be so alluring?

I gradually nutted the pieces of my previous day together and it all began to make sense.

1. Daughter Lulu, had come home yesterday and told me how she’d handed in six resumes to various veterinarian surgeries around town seeking a job to fill in her gap year.

2. I’d spent some time last night looking at photographs of a storm approaching Bondi Beach.

3. I’d spent 40 minutes talking to my parents on the phone about my trip to the Uro-Gynaecologist.

Bingo!

And as far as the Bondi Vet and I go… it would never have worked out.

Firstly I’m happily married to Scotto and secondly, if the B.V. and I went out in public, people would mistake me for his elder sister and I really couldn’t stand the snide remarks.

What about you? Do you ever have recurring dreams?

Linking up with Grace, at With Some Grace!

Why Teachers Deserve Oscars

                                          

I have a collection of elaborate and contrived facial expressions I use in my classroom which are designed to express my displeasure... while at the same time save my vocal cords from a fate worse than Christopher Walken.

Firstly, there’s the refined, “Why are you using your Smiggles scissors to cut the Smiggle’s eraser your mother paid an outrageous amount for into twenty pieces?” look.

Every second day, it seems to be the “Get that poor, wretched grasshopper/cricket/moth you found on the oval and is currently imprisoned in your grass-filled lunch box out of the room as it’s distracting every other child in the class” face.

There’s also the subtle but effective, “Please don’t 'pick your nose/swing dangerously on your chair/poke the Smiggles pencil in your ear' when I’m reading the class a story. I can still see you because I know how to read using eye contact” look.

Sometimes I pull the “I wish you’d stop loudly calling out ‘Bugger!’ every time you break the lead in your pencil. I know you probably picked it up from Mum but it’s not really appropriate” look.

Occasionally I stand staring at the back wall with my quietly threatening, “You guys don’t know it but I REALLY hate standing in the frickin hot sun at Thursday afternoon sport and if you don’t shut the hell up we’ll all be sitting in the classroom when Thursday comes around learning about 3D shapes, so go ahead make my day” look.

And very, very rarely I give the psycho-killer look. 

The evil countenance where my eyes roll back in my head as if to say, “I just gave an explicit instruction, I role played it, I wrote it on the board, I had you repeat it twice, I played Hangman to reinforce it, I wrote a song about it and sang and danced it, I designed a board game about it and hung up bunting and made a cake to celebrate it… so, if you are standing here with that cute confused look on your face asking me ‘what are we supposed to be doing Mrs Poinker?’ you’d best ask someone else in the classroom if you ever want to see your mother again.”

This is why Botox injections should be tax deductible for teachers.

Are You an Attention Seeker?

When I was about eight years old, my little sister Sam caught Scarlet Fever, which you don’t hear much about these days but basically it’s a Strep infection gone silly. 

Before the discovery of antibiotics it often caused death via kidney or heart disease but because of the vivid red rash all over her body, Sam’s illness was quickly diagnosed and she received the appropriate treatment. 

I recall deeply resenting the extra attention conferred on Sam and spent a lot of time silently drifting around the house seething with jealousy.

I shared a bedroom with Sam but never developed a rash of any description so seemingly escaped infection. It didn’t stop me complaining to my mother how I felt unwell and kept getting a burning sensation all over my body, though.

Two weeks after Sam’s rash disappeared her feet and hands began to peel as a result of the high fevers. Strangely, little Pinky’s extremities began to do the same thing. A few weeks later every cut I had developed into a festering boil and eventually I was taken to the doctor who immediately ordered blood tests.

I’d had Scarlet Fever at the same time as Sam but no one knew and I’d consequently developed kidney disease. My blood was filthy; full of sediment and I was sent to hospital for three weeks of complete bed rest (not even toilet privileges), a restricted diet and medication via three injections in my pin- cushion butt every day.

I didn’t feel sick at all and I was in the children’s ward with about five other kids. It was Pinky’s dream come true having my (guilt-ridden) parents fussing over me for a change, instead of my little sister getting all the attention.

The other kids in the ward weren’t drastically ill either so they spent a lot of time on my bed playing cards and board games. One kid had a patch on her eye after having a fish hook flicked into it. Another girl’s arm had been badly broken after becoming caught in a wringer and another boy had been stung by a box jellyfish.

One day, Dad brought up the best present I’d ever received in my life; a transistor radio with earplugs and everything! 

I had a bed by the window and could see my parents crossing the road armed with grapes, toys and letters from my class whenever they diligently paid little Pinky a visit. I’d urgently shoo the other kids off my bed and assume a melancholy, despondent position with my back to door and desperately try to summon up a miserable tear or two for dramatic effect whenever I saw them coming.

                         This was the window to the children's ward.

This was my show and I had to milk the attention for all it was worth.

My theatrical ruse was discovered one day when Dad came up to talk to the matron and caught me laughing, playing and eating prohibited lollies with the fish hook kid.

Fortunately, or unfortunately for Pinky (whichever way you choose to look at it), the miraculous benefits of Penicillin cured my kidney ailment and I was sent home from hospital.

The first night home I recall my shock and outrage at being treated normally again. I feigned a headache and wouldn’t leave my bed, refusing dinner and crying non-stop. I could hear them all outside watching television and enjoying themselves while I wallowed in self-pity.

I have another vivid memory from when I was about six years old and we were at my parent’s friend’s house for dinner. Aunty Betty (as we called her) had made some delicious parfaits for dessert. Parfaits consisting of layers of cake, jelly, custard and cream and served in big glasses were very big in the sixties.

For some inexplicable reason I decided not to accept the offer of dessert. I really, really wanted it; I craved it, but enjoyed the attention I received by refusing it even more. When the adults eventually grew tired of trying to coerce me into eating it, I hid under the table to garner more of a response.

Meanwhile, little Sam sat at the table spooning the delicious dessert into her small mouth enjoying every bite as her tragic sister huddled under the table like a whiny victim of her own making.

Do the words; martyr, needy, unpleasant, and melodramatic come to mind?

I don’t know why I was such an attention-seeking brat and I sometimes question if my irritating, childhood personality flaw has disappeared or still hangs around my neurotic psyche?

I tend to play the martyr card in many situations and it never ends well.

When I separated from my first husband I decided to stop eating for a few years. Was I subconsciously bleating for attention… “Look at how thin I am, somebody come to my rescue” or merely taking of control of the one area of my life I could; eating? Maybe a bit of both, but the day I stepped on the scales and they registered 43 kilograms I frightened myself into eating again.

When I have a fight with Scotto, the first thing I do is chuck my dinner down the insinkerator. Using food as a manipulative tool maybe?

When Lulu was rushed to hospital with a burst appendix I neglected to eat for the three days she was in hospital; self-punishment born from guilt at not getting her to a doctor sooner, perhaps?

Whatever the reasons for the use of my self-deprivation, I think I’ve finally realised it hurts no-one but myself. Time to grow up and be the first in line to ask for my just ‘dessert’ I think.

Have you clung on to any bad traits from your childhood?

Pinky's Panties

“I keep feeling a cool draught when I use this towel,” muttered Scotto, as he shaved in front of the mirror this morning.

Wondering what the hell he was talking about I poked my head around the bathroom door.

                     Photo has been blurred. Scotto's not really a Ken doll.

“Oh! I see what you mean…" I gasped, "maybe we should call in to Kmart this morning and buy some new towels,” 

I acknowledged, staring at what could loosely be labelled a 'thread-bare towel' draped around Scotto’s waist which unexpectedly revealed a pair of cheeky buns.

I’d only just peered into my undie drawer and was dismayed to discover the only pair of clean knickers left were a hot pink lacy number which my seventeen year old daughter Lulu had given me at Christmas.

You know the type… nasty little French things with the propensity to sneak up your butt giving you a wedgie with every single step you take.

“I need to buy some new undies and bras as well so we may as well go out this morning and brave the walking dead at Kmart together,” I decided.

So there we were, dodging the zombie mob at the shops; Scotto leading the way with Pinky trailing behind sporadically checking over her shoulder each time she needed to pick her panties out of her bottom.

Ten years (and five kilograms) ago, back in the heady days when Scotto and I first met, we’d often call into a little, specialty lingerie shop where I bought all my underwear. We eventually had to stop going because it became uncomfortable when the girls behind the counter began to know us by name.

“What about this?” Scotto would grin holding up a naughty nurse ensemble.

“Maybe…” I’d reply. “But only if you promise to mow the lawn this afternoon.”

“Or this policewoman outfit?” he’d beg.

“Sure thing,” I’d promise. “As soon as you hang those pictures up in the hall.”

(I know it sounds like emotional blackmail but it works a treat girls.)

But as I said, that was ten years ago and things are different now.

Comfort and security are the name of the game when selecting my underwear now.

Not quite Bridget Jones’ grannie pants but somewhere between what you’d expect Jessica Rabbit and Marge Simpson might wear; closer to Marge if I’m being truthful.

Beige, cotton, dependable and a size larger than I need so as not to feel restricting are what I seek out. The baggy bum does make me resemble an over-sized toddler who needs their nappy/diaper changed but nevertheless they’re exceedingly comfy.

I bought six pairs.

“One for each day of the week and on the seventh day I can just turn one pair inside out!” I joked to Scotto.

“Or you could go commando!” he winked back.

Seems all is not lost...

P.S. If you think I’m a terrible wife for posting the photo above, I did ask Scotto if I could put it on my blog and he gave a definitive ‘thumbs down’.

“Why not?” I asked, expecting protestations regarding over sharing and modesty.

“Because I look fat,” he complained resentfully.

What about you? Do you go for comfort or glamour when buying underwear?

Some Things You Really Don't Want to Know!

                               

Some time ago my sister Sam told me about a website I’d never heard of before. I may be late to the party and you and every man and his bone has already heard of it… but maybe not.

“It’s awful,” Sam cringed, “you type in the country you live in, your parents’ ages and the average amount of times you see them a year.”

“Yeah… and what? It tells you what a slack arse daughter you are?” I asked swallowing in guilt, trying to recall the last time I called the oldies.

“No,” she murmured in a hushed tone. “It tells you how many more times you’re likely to see them before they die. It’s worked out using national statistics and life expectancy.”

‘A bit morbid,’ I thought. ‘I’ll be steering clear of that gloomy harbinger.”

But just like the curious box that allured the wayward Pandora, the site of macabre mystery beckoned me and before I knew it I was typing the details into the text box on the site.

I can’t reveal the actual figure it displayed as occasionally my father reads this blog (only to provide him with further evidence his eldest daughter is indeed an idiotic time-waster) so let’s just think of an arbitrary figure.

Imagine the result was eight times; I’d see my parents eight more times before they drove the grey nomad trailer up to the stars towards a celestial eternity of lawn bowls, All Bran and bickering over the speed limit.

Eight more times certainly doesn’t seem like much does it? 

But what are you supposed to do? You can’t suddenly start dropping in on them all the time. If you decided to visit them once a month instead of the usual annual trip you’d dramatically cut their life expectancy by years. 

I don’t think they’d be too impressed with that.

I guess you could leave the eighth visit as an undetermined mythological date in the future thus ensuring your parents lived forever… but then you’d never see them again anyway.

Or you could space out the visits to every five years guaranteeing them both living well into their one hundred and thirties. But isn’t that defeating the purpose of the site i.e., encouraging progeny to be more attentive towards their elderly parents in their dotage.

Whatever the solution is, I don’t know.

But if my father does read this post I’m pretty sure his next Google search will be,

“How many more times do I have to see my brainless daughter, Pinky again before I finally find peace in perpetuity?”

See Your Folks

Pinky's Wild Side!

I wonder if people who live overseas really do think we have kangaroos hopping around in the streets and crocodiles in our backyard pool here in Australia?

The thing is…. they really wouldn’t be that far off the mark. Even though the Poinkers reside in the heart of suburbia in a city of almost 200 000 people, because we live on the banks of a large river we often spot wallabies and kangaroos hopping cheerily across our front lawn. 

Even more bizarre... the council put a sign up about eighteen months ago three hundred metres from our front door step warning of a saltwater crocodile sighting in the area. The fear of a crocodile possibly lunging at me from the grassy riverbed forced me to take the Chihuahua out for a walk as accompaniment so I had something to offer as bait other than my torso.

I’ve seen huge flocks of enormous pelicans floating on the river and even a little echidna creeping out of a thick clump of grass one dusky evening.

My sister Sam, who lives around the corner, has a sassy family of possums who visit the back patio each night and allow her to hand feed them.

My parents, who used to live in the same suburb, found a dead Taipan in their backyard and there’ve been more than a few times I’ve been stopped on the path whilst on my walk around the river by someone lethargically cautioning me, “There’s a bloody snake up ahead, watch out.”

I have a friend on Twitter by the thought-provoking name of Slow Country Cowboy (“Slow” for short).

Slow hails from Nashville… home of country music, the Grand Ole Opry, Honky Tonk bars; and according to him he saw some very interesting wildlife when he was grocery shopping one day.

Recently, I tweeted I’d seen kangaroos swimming around in my backyard during the recent downpour and I’m not sure Slow believed me so… on my walk today I braved the insidious plague of blood-sucking mozzies and stood on the river bank for as long as I could stand it in search of the elusive wallaby or two.

As you can see by this photo I was successful and have since tweeted him the photo.

Now it’s Slow’s turn.

I want to see the proof of Slow’s alleged sighting of Nashville’s very own wildlife… Keith Urban shopping at the Piggly Wiggly.

Pinky Discovers Familiarity Breeds Contempt!

                                           

The word “blog” is a truncated version of “web log”. A log is a journal… a diary of thoughts, events and disclosure. It’s for this reason, despite some hesitance; I feel it is perfectly okay to write about a surprising and unwelcome revelation regarding myself that has recently and decisively come to light.

I’m tactless, insensitive, brash and oblivious to the feelings of and subjective injury I inflict on others.

Many years ago when I worked as a Sales Executive for a hotel chain I befriended Cathy, a secretary to the Banquet Manager. 

We’d been casual friends for about a year and it was commonplace for me to pop downstairs to her desk and engage her in comical banter, to-ing and fro-ing as you do. As her birthday was coming up I thought it might be a nice gesture to buy her a birthday card and present it to her with my best wishes.

The card I chose was a droll but comical one with a picture of a wild eyed, outrageously overdone drag queen on the front blowing out a candle. It had “Happy Birthday You Crazy Bitch” on the front which I found to be mildly hilarious and I wrote a nice message inside the card and popped in a chocolate.

Leaving it on her desk in her absence I went on my merry way hoping she’d appreciate what I believed was a thoughtful gesture.

I couldn’t have been more wrong if I’d presented a birthday card to Martin Luther King Jnr with a photo of the Ku Klux Klan blowing out candles on a cake in the shape of a noose.

“Pinky I need to talk to you urgently,” hissed the Banquet Manager closing the door to his office firmly.

Apparently Cathy had found what I thought was an innocently silly card to be distastefully offensive and had put in a formal complaint about me. I was severely rapped over the knuckles for my odious choice of birthday greeting and Cathy never spoke to me again averting her eyes whenever I walked into the room.

Now many of you may be nodding in agreement right now and questioning whether or not you should be reading the blog of such an inappropriate and hateful person such as Pinky, but to be honest, at the time I was reeling in shock, hurt and bewilderment.

It was a freaking joke for Pete’s sake. A playful humorous joke and no more.

Just recently I found myself in the exact same situation. It seems for the last few months Pinky has been making what she thought were light-hearted comments to someone she thought she was close to. It seems she was wrong again and instead of the recipient believing my jokey comments were all in the name of good humour, the victim of my verbosity has been silently stewing in resentment until the coffee percolator finally blew its lid and scalding liquid has spewed forth blistering Pinky’s sense of reality.

Despite attempts at an apology Pinky has once again been given a serve and is now questioning whether she should ever speak out loud again… to anyone.

How do I know if I’m being overly familiar? Invasive? Impolite? Inappropriate?

Am I suffering some sort of deficiency in conversational subtlety? Just like an immature child, or someone on the Autism Spectrum am I incapable of discerning other people’s feelings adequately?

Or is it that some people need to grow a thicker skin?

What do you think?

What if Abbot makes us all live like Old Age Pensioners?

                                       What Pinky would look like as a pensioner.

If our Prime Minister, Mr Abbott is suggesting the S.P.C. workers drop their yearly income by $20 000 - $30 000 (lowering some workers wages to $33 000 p.a. in order to save the company), what’s next?

Teachers? Nurses? Tradies? Shop Assistants?

It’s a bit brazen for someone who earns a reputed $340 000 a year don't you agree?

If my pay packet dropped by $20 000 a year my life would transform considerably; in fact I’d have to live like an old age pensioner.

With this in mind, Scotto and I decided to spend our “date day” on a sort of budget; pretend we were old aged pensioners and see how it turned out.

Normally we’d ask one of the kids to drop us into the city for our epicurean odyssey but as no Poinker teenagers were to be found on Saturday morning we decided a taxi, about a fifty buck fare, was far too extravagant and we should catch a bus. 

We sat in the sun at the bus stop for at least twenty minutes with our innards cooking in the steamy heat and just like a lettuce leaf in a lunchbox left in the sun, Pinky’s carefully blow-dried hair wilted, sticking to her forehead in long, greasy strands.

If I was a pensioner I’d have a neat, grey perm though so I suppose the dripping tendrils wouldn’t be as noticeable.

Scotto had suggested we drop in and check out the latest installation at the Art Gallery as firstly, it’s free and secondly, it was still too early to have a glass of wine as the only bus we could catch had us in the city before noon.

The last exhibition we went to was outstanding so I was looking forward to it. Little did I know but Scotto had cunningly hoodwinked me by neglecting to mention the gallery was currently hosting a Lego display. Sharing the usually peaceful gallery with a multitude of squabbling rug rats was not the cultural event I’d had in mind. I nearly left him in the playroom but he was too tall to be allowed in.

             The Millennium Falcon (according to Star Wars expert Scotto)

Once Scotto’d had his fill of geekism we strolled across the bridge to the Yacht Club for lunch.

Just when I thought we'd escaped my husband's youthful fantasies I then had to wait inside by myself for a good ten minutes when someone noticed the chef's car parked outside... dammit! 

                           "KITT" from Knight Rider

Noticing the Yacht Club members' prices for meals were five dollars cheaper, it was clearly imperative we join up immediately. 

That’s what pensioners do isn’t it? 

Look for the bargains? Join clubs? 

At fifty dollars a year membership fee, I’d recoup most of that by bringing my kids here for dinner in one night. It knocked ten dollars off our meal bill there and then!

Despite developing seasickness by merely standing on a pier, Pinky is now a card-carrying member of the Yacht Club.

Inspired by this turn of events we crossed back over the bridge after lunch to join the local Rugby League club and have a bit of a spin on the pokies since that seemed a very pensioner-like thing to do.

Three minutes later, when we’d been stripped of our ten dollar futures investment we decided to head on over to the beer garden across the bridge where our friends, Dolly, Julie and Val were ensconced. 

It was time for a bit of a turn on the dance floor to the elderly band, 'The Reclining Rockers' who cater especially to the hipsters. When I say “hipsters” I mean people who’ve undergone hip replacements.

The ambulance is always on standby in case someone becomes overexcited and throws their back out whilst jiving to Status Quo’s, “Roll Over and Let Me In”.

Before long it was time to farewell our mates and catch the late bus home.

                             Scotto bidding Dolly an affectionate farewell...

All up the cost of the day was a $6.00 return bus fare, $10 pokie fee and a $12.00 meal of fish and chips each. That sounds reasonable for a pensioner’s all-day outing, doesn’t it?

Add in the drinks and membership fees though and we may have to start thinking about re-mortgaging the house.

Linking up with Grace for FYBF!

How to Survive A Swimming Carnival!

The logistics of organising 700 kids into freestyle, backstroke and breast stroke races, booking an adequate amount of buses, begging for crucial parental volunteers, setting up tents and micro-managing rosters is no easy feat and our P.E. teacher at school, Alan, is a veritable genius when it comes to this type of organisation. 

It may very well have been a Freudian slip, not a typo, when our Deputy Principal sent out a group email one day addressing him as Anal instead of Alan.

It pays to be extra nice to Alan around the time of year when he’s busily coordinating the rosters for the 'Dreaded Swimming Carnival'. If you manage to draw the short straw you could end up as a “Team Manager” in the bleachers supervising a couple of hundred manic and well-chlorinated kids as they scream out their war cries like an agitated, drunken crowd at an Arsenal vs Manchester United football match. Your eardrums wind up peeling, then spontaneously detaching themselves by the end of the day.

Pinky was given a reprieve this year and was delighted to discover her favourite P.E. teacher in the world had rostered her on to one of the more prestigious duties. ‘Time Recorder’ was the official job description I think. 

Kaz and I were commissioned the dual task and were sat under a shady tent at a satisfactory distance from the uproarious mob.

I think Alan has finally noticed that I am indeed one of the oldest teachers on staff and am really verging on ‘frail little old lady’ status and thus took pity on me, God bless his little Adidas socks.

Not to say Kaz and I enjoyed a cushy day while our colleagues slaved in the sun. There were moments of intense pressure as every two minutes the eight top swimmers lined up for us to record their name, sport’s house and swimming time. We thought we had it down to a fine art until one little girl threw a curve ball.

“House?” I asked her as she stood dripping before me.

“Sixty-eight Park Drive,” she replied radiantly. I was thrown into confusion; it was hard to hear with the riotous background noise.

“No sweetie… what’s your HOUSE?”

“Sixty-eight Park Drive,” she repeated gazing patiently at the stupid teacher.

Kaz, noticing the exponentially expanding line behind the little girl interrupted.

“No dear, what’s your house colour?”

“Um… well it’s a sort of a greenish-grey with a white front door,” she answered thoughtfully.

I don’t know how but we managed to hide our giggles until she’d gone.

The day miraculously finished dead on time and after a more subdued bus ride home than on the way there, I bumped into one of the little grade three-ers on her way out the school gates.

“That was the best day of my LIFE!” she squealed.

So thank you to all P.E. teachers around the world. You do a great job and the kids do appreciate it.

And Alan… if you’re reading this I’ll make sure I slip another carton of Crown Lager under your desk next year as well!

Posting at "With Some Grace" for FYBF!

Marge! Marge! The Rains are Here!

The wet season has finally arrived! We received more rain here yesterday than for the entire February average... and don’t we know it.

The house stinks as either the damp atmosphere is allowing previously disguised smells to emanate out of hidden crevices, OR a skittish Tom cat pissed all over our patio in pernickety avoidance of getting his precious paws wet.

I’ve had two over-enthusiastic motorists almost run up my rear end on the slippery roads and been forced to shake my intimidating fists Vin Deisel-style at them from the aggressive-looking 'Golden Boy'.

Rally driving skills are once again required as potholes the size of the Chicxulub crater re-establish themselves on the sealed-on-the-cheap roads.

Despite whinging about the lack of rain for six months, everyone suddenly begins to say things like, “I wish this bloody rain would go away, I can't get the washing dry.”

But the worst thing is, as soon as there’s a hiatus in the downpour, a menacing cloud of mosquitoes the size of crows appear, siphoning through the window, biting on the bony bits of our toes, making it frustratingly impossible to scratch the itch out.

We happen to live on the upper banks of a river. If you peer closely at this photo (taken from the front of the house) through a magnifying glass, you may be able to make out a trickle in the distance.

A few hundred metres along the path, the salty end of the river widens a bit.

A couple of hundred metres further and you come across the weir, where the fresh rainwaters rush over on their way out to the ocean. The weir only overflows once a year in the wet season.

I love this river. It’s in my blood. I grew up on the other side of it and used to daringly and dangerously ride a bike across the narrow weir wall in the dry season with my twelve year old friend, Lindy. Our mothers never knew.

After I gently pass away at the age of 104, whilst singing a karaoke duet of "I Will Survive" with Scotto at a Euro-trash nightclub in Ibiza; I would like my ashes to be lovingly sprinkled on the banks of this river.

The trouble is; this river has a bit of a bad name. 

The Ross River. 

The very same river the nasty mosquito borne virus, Ross River Fever is named after. 

You know… fever, chills, muscle aches, rash, fatigue, aching tendons, swollen lymph nodes, headache, especially behind the eyes, joint pain, swelling and stiffness.

I’ve known about a dozen people who’ve been debilitated by this disease and every single one of them lived on the banks of Ross River.

Scotto and I, at this very moment, are sitting in our lounge watching My Kitchen Rules whilst being besieged by immoral, winged creatures of the night who’ve casually cruised up from the malevolent, swampy depths of this very same waterway. 

Better get out the Aerogard eh, Marge?

Sometimes I Just Refuse to Swallow!

“Pinky! What’s this?” yelled my mother furiously, as she stood in the toilet pointing down into the bowl. 

I peered in nervously; half knowing what would be there. And sure enough there it was… a brown, multivitamin capsule bobbing around in the water like a tiny, stubborn cork.

Mum worried about how thin my sister and I were as kids and was always forcing appalling thick, dark green, iron tonics upon us. I could tolerate those by holding my nose as it slithered down, but I had a pathological fear of having to swallow a pill. 

I’d pretend to take it by hiding it in the side of my mouth then make a speedy detour into the toilet where I’d spit it out. This particular capsule had declined the invitation of a river cruise through the sewer system out to sea and I’d been sprung.

There seems to be an art in swallowing tablets without carrying on like a pork chop but I’m afraid I’ve never mastered it. 

Usually, I stand at the sink for at least three minutes with a full mouth of water and the tablet swishing around inside… daring myself to just do it. 

Eventually the swallow reflex kicks in but my throat closes up in terror causing the tablet to become stuck halfway. Panicked gagging ensues and the tablet is inevitably sicked up like a cat regurgitating a hair ball. 

It’s not a very nice thing to hear... or witness. The family’s anxious enquiries died off long ago on hearing the awful retching, recognising it’s only Pinky in the kitchen attempting to pop a Panadol.

Imagine my horror when I picked up my prescribed medication on Saturday and espied these monsters, which appear to have been designed to be ingested by some type of equine animal.

                      I put one against the car for perspective.

So far I’ve managed to get one out of six down the cake hole. The first was by crushing it up and unsuccessfully mixing it with a half glass of milk. The crunchy, bitter remnants stuck in my teeth and repeated on me for the next few hours.

I tried mixing a crushed tablet with some crunchy peanut butter in order to disguise the lumps. It was a putrid and abortive exercise.

“Maybe I could stick it down the back of your throat and hold your snout shut until you lick your nose?” suggested an unhelpful Scotto (who has the responsibility of giving the dogs their worm tablets).

I found this site How to Swallow Pills in Twelve Steps which provides swallowing strategies and I intend working my way through them all until I find a solution.

In the meantime, do any of you have any suggestions?

There's More than One Way to Skim a CAT Scan.

                       Scotto helping the cat read Pinky's CAT scan.

Remember my story a couple of months ago regarding my (then) doctor’s suspicion I may have been gestating a kidney stone? Could I Be Carrying my Sixth Baby?

Well... after an inconclusive ultrasound I was sent for a CAT scan.

I was frightened when I read on the Internet they inject you with the contrast dye. In fact I didn’t sleep for the week before my appointment and drove Scotto up the wall with my neurotic, hypochondriac hysterics.

“My friend Nettie’s Aunt went into kidney failure from the dye and now she’s on dialysis for the rest of her life!” 

I spluttered at Scotto on the morning of the procedure.

“How old was she, Pinky?” he demanded.

“Eighty-something… and I admit she only had one kidney to start with… but even so!”

He had to practically push me out the door.

The next day I sat in the doctor’s surgery as she perused the results of the CT scan, attempting to read the expression on her face.

'Was I dying? Was this the end for Pinky?'

The doctor wore a troubled, almost irritated expression; this wasn’t looking good.

“Unfortunately…” she sighed dramatically. Adrenaline shot through my body, my breath quickened in fear and I tasted metal in my mouth.

“Unfortunately… the CT scan isn’t showing us any more detail than the ultrasound. Why didn’t you have the dye injected?” she asked in a slightly edgy tone of voice.

“Um,” relief flooded my body. “The technician said I didn’t HAVE to have it if I didn’t want it.”

The doctor stared at me for a few seconds of intensity and scribbled a note on her pad. She was probably writing something mean about me being an annoying patient or something.

“I’m sending you to a specialist,” the doctor said wiping her hands of me like Pontius Pilate did when he sent a certain Someone to see King Herod. “She’s a Uro-Gynecologist and should be able to sort out all your problems for you.”

So, yesterday I fronted up to my very own Uro-Gynecologist after an apprehensive two month wait.

She didn’t care about me chickening out of the contrast dye. She seemed to be able to read the CT scan perfectly.

“One of your kidneys is slightly enlarged as is the opening to one of your ureters,” she declared. “It could be the result of a few factors; stones, a congenital fault, a kink, or even a foreign body… but that’s unlikely considering your history,” she added whilst quickly scanning my form.

I was prescribed some straight forward tablets and have to schedule another ultrasound in three months. My kidney function is perfectly normal and she didn’t seem at all concerned. I practically skipped out of the surgery in joy.

I’m not dying!

However, one thing continued to puzzle and intrigue me. How could a foreign body possibly get into a ureter and why did the doctor think it was an unlikely scenario for me?

So… I looked it up.

It seems, the most common way is for a foreign body to be poked up into the ureter by the patient themselves!

I read a case of a fifty year old man who had, for autoerotic purposes, rammed a rod up his ureter and when it became stuck then inserted a magnet. That trick also failed so he did what any straight thinking auto-eroticist would do and poked another magnet up to retrieve the first. 

And wouldn’t you know it, the two silly magnets stuck together leaving the gentleman in a spot of bother.

If you think this is more of Pinky’s utter rubbish and I’m making it up, then here's the link. There are even photos for the more quizzical amongst you!

One thing I’m very relieved about however, is that my Uro-Gynecologist (after looking at my history) did not believe Pinky is the type of person who would experiment with her ureter in such an irresponsible manner.

Always the Bride and Never the Bridesmaid.

I’ve never been asked to be a bridesmaid and I’m damn sure it’s not because I look like Jennifer Hawkins and none of my friends wanted to have me outshining them on their special day.

On reflection, it doesn’t say much about my excellent qualities as a friend really, does it? Even my sister Sam, robbed me of the opportunity and highly esteemed title by sneaking off to a registry office and not even inviting me to the event.

I’ve had a lot of close and cherished friends over the years and partook of many a wedding ceremony; but no bride ever thought Pinky quite made the grade sufficiently to ask her to be a bridesmaid. .. and the boat has well and truly sailed, my friend. 

In fact it sunk years ago, was raised from the murky depths and sold for scrap metal to Auscon.

As an aficionado of pink taffeta,(You should really read this post!) this lack of recognition by my friends has always been a bugbear with me.

I was, however, asked to be the God mother of a friend’s child many years ago... which was a bit of an honour. We’d been friends since thirteen years of age and were about twenty at the time.

Then, four years later, we had a major falling out. 

A major falling out. 

We didn’t speak for twenty-eight years.

Twenty-eight years… including three marriages (okay, two of them were Pinky’s), two divorces, the birth of seven more children between us, the caring for and subsequent passing of two parents (my friend’s), and many other major life changing events, not to mention the absence of about a zillion shared wines and coffees, many hideous haircuts (Pinky) and a few hundred kilograms in transit (Pinky).

About a week ago my friend and I serendipitously reconciled. We’d been literally “caught in the rain” together and one shy smile led to another. Last night we spent a girly, sacred few hours drinking wine, eating cheese and catching up on the last twenty-eight years.

It’s funny how you can just pick up where you left off. There were many tears and much laughter as we rehashed old memories and resurrected our friendship. 

The moral of the story is... it's NEVER too late to make peace.

There’s only one thing that worries me deeply about our fortuitous reunion though… I now have a sh#tload of birthday and Christmas cards/presents to catch up on for my thirty-two year old, computer engineer God son.