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?

Too Many Cooking Shows Spoil the Broth

As usual, the girls and I went for coffee last Friday after school. Kazza enjoyed a scrumptious avocado and fetta smash, Lee-lee ordered a muffin, Kyles scoffed a savoury crepe, Shazza demolished a caramel tart with whipped cream on the side and I had nuffink.

I always remember what everyone else eats. I think it’s because I wish I was eating it but I can’t because of the menopause and the hormones and the, well, fat. 

It’s quite amazing I can recall what people eat in such fine detail as I spend twice as long as I should cleaning my teeth because by the time I’ve finished flossing the bottom row I forget if I’ve done the top ones and have to start all over. 

I can go on doing it for ages or at least until Scotto checks on me that I haven't passed out in the shower. 

But you ask me what so and so had for morning tea last Tuesday week in 2007, I’d be able to tell you.

Anyway, as we sat there chatting, the chef stormed out the front and he looked angry. He was ferociously staring up and down the pavement with what looked like murder on his mind. Like, if he’d had a meat cleaver or a machete I’d have ducked under the table or run screaming into the carpark leaving my fellow diners to their peril. They all had their backs to him so they didn't notice him and by the time he’d got through slaughtering them I’d be halfway to Brisbane I reckon. 

Luckily, he didn't go crazy but it started me thinking about how cranky the everyday, run of the mill chef must be getting with the plethora of cooking programs on the telly. Imagine all the wankers dining at restaurants and cafes complaining about how their tarts aren't quite tart enough or how uncrispy their crispy duck was. 

I’ve always found chefs to be slightly unhinged anyway, so I can imagine this sudden wave of phony expertise on all matters culinary has to be driving them mental.

I felt dismayed last night, because I’ve only just recovered from My Kitchen Rules dominating the screen and I see Masterchef has started up now. You can only look at a plate with merconium smeared artistically across it once and make a witty joke without it becoming stale. I was sick of bagging out Pete Evans and I was bored with poking fun at the pretentious dishes and Scotto was sick of me complaining so he passed me the remote control.

I found a David Attenborough show about what seemed to be an adorable mummy mouse in Texas or Mexico or somewhere… there were cacti in the landscape anyway. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly played comically in the background. She was a Grasshopper Mouse also known as a Scorpion mouse, and she gave birth to a litter of tiny mouses in a hole in the ground. 

One particular baby mouse, clearly a rebellious, a#*hole teenager already, after only a mere hour of life, left home and met up with a sinister tarantula, was almost eaten whole by a rattle snake and practically drowned in an unseasonal flood.

Meanwhile, Mummy mouse went out looking for him and nabbed dinner on her trip by snapping at a deadly scorpion and biting it into two pieces and lugging it back to her nest.

Then came the truly frightening part.

Mummy mouse sat back on her haunches, threw her tiny head back, fastening her psychotic beady eyes on the moon and howled like a werewolf.


I’m never going to Texas. I’ve never liked mice at the best of times and frankly I’d rather be confronted by a frenzied chef with a chopping knife after someone complained he overcooked the harvested lobster roulade.

I know you all think I make stuff up so here's the proof.

Question: What's creeps you out you the most? Scorpions, tarantulas, rattle snakes, howling mice or Pete Evans?

Blogger's Block: Why it's Happened to Me.

Dorothy

I've been waiting for something to inspire me. 

I can’t think of anything to write about even though I've only written one post this week which is unlike me. 

The reason is, I've been using all my creative energy writing the manuscript of my book.

Sorry.

I know how boring it is when one of your fool friends suddenly thinks they’re Stephen King and carries on with silly statements like, ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe the character (who I made up in my lunatic head) just did what they did when I was writing my novel last night!’.

That sort of pretentious crap even annoys me.

I would never say that because since I’m the one writing the words, my characters aren’t getting any of the bloody credit. I would never pretend to be swept away by an invisible muse who takes over my keyboard and gains possession of my simple mind.

No. My muse is all blood sweat and tears. And Google.

But I'm going to tell you all this now to protect myself in case I get arrested.

If Scotto is ever found bludgeoned to death on the kitchen floor, I’ll be the first suspect. But I didn't do it, okay?

The FBI (or whatever they’re called in Australia… AFP? Very boring sounding) will confiscate my laptop, have me handcuffed and be pushing my head down roughly into the back of a cop car, quicker than you can say ‘unsophisticated, waffling hack’.

Lately, I’ve been entering incriminating search terms into Google like these:

Ghosts: are they real and do they pull hair?

Paranormal psychics in Sydney and surrounding area

How do parents react when a very small child goes missing?

Sinister/evil/malevolent/scary stuff

Doppelgangers and their prevalence in Australia

What happens when you come out of an induced coma, do you remember being hit on the head?

End stage kidney disease and can you treat it at home?

Fraud and its penalties in NSW

Where can you buy bags of blood?

Crows and witch symbolism

How can I become a bikie?

What do people look like immediately after death?

How do you run someone off the road on a cliff?

What happens if you eat dirt from a grave?

How can you dissolve a body?


I could go on forever with the disturbing, creepy things I've searched for over the last two months but I don’t want to alert the authorities any further.

I’m of the writer's school of philosophy that subscribes to the, ‘Why do proper research when you can get all your information from the Internet’ way of thinking.

Some people say you should write what you know, but to be honest, I just don’t know very much.

If I wrote what I know, I’d start up a silly blog about five horrible teenagers who terrorise their mother with dangerous antics involving cars and only ever speak to her with savage derision, wouldn’t I?

Or I could write a blog about how a teacher almost has a nervous breakdown because her students run rings around her and her colleagues mock and torment her at every opportunity, couldn’t I?

But no. I’ve chosen to write a novel about things I’ve NEVER had any experience with.

A parent of one of my students, who happens to be a nurse, came in for a parent teacher interview a couple of months ago. Little did she know that she’d be inching towards the door attempting to escape my clutches as I relentlessly grilled her about ‘at home dialysis treatment’ after we’d talked about her son’s academic progress briefly.

She was a good sport about it but I had to make her promise not to tell my Deputy Principal I hijacked our meeting.

So anyway, I really don’t have anything to tell about this week except… I may be about to become a grandmother...

Huzzah!

Hagar and Meggles are making noises about buying a Chihuahua.

And last night I ate some meat for the first time since Australia day 2014.

Cooked by Scotto, who may or may not need to watch his back in the kitchen.

I think all this gory research has made me hungry for blood.

Have You Ever Worn Pasties?

So.

I arrived home last Friday afternoon to see that the pool guy had parked in my driveway in front of where I usually park my car. This was minimally annoying but I decided to park in Scotto’s space instead and let him figure it out.

What was more aggravating, was that Friday afternoon is a rare and treasured time of aloneness for me. Scotto is still at work and daughter, Lulu is usually serving éclairs at the donut shop where she works part time.

This aquatic infiltrator had disturbed my Friday afternoon equilibrium.

I made a coffee in the kitchen, trying to ignore his presence even though I knew he could see me through the back window.

Should I go and say hello? I wondered. It’s not like I’m Marie Antoinette and he’s the groundsman or whatever.

Eventually, I meandered out the back pretending to water the dead Bonsai Ficus plant Scotto bought me last Christmas.

“So… everything alright?” I fiddled with the shrivelled leaves on the Ficus.

“There’s something wrong with ye filter,” he growled in his Celtic brogue, twiddling his moustache.

I just made that part up he didn’t really have an accent or a moustache, but he’s a POOL CLEANER, get it?

Anyway, he fiddled with that filter for about a fudging hour and I spent a considerable amount of time working out which dog we’d be forced to sell to compensate for the thousand dollar pool filter expense that was sure to eventuate.

Finally, he rapped on our back glass door and I found him shuffling sheepishly, hiding something behind his back.

“I found this mangled inside ye filter,” he winced, holding up my daughter’s teeny, weeny bikini top.

I doubt he would even suspect it was my bikini top. Surely not?

Because that would be excruciatingly embarrassing for both of us.

I haven’t worn a bikini since girls delivered hamburgers at the drive-in, on roller skates.

It was my eighteen year old daughter, Lulu’s bikini top. But because of her sloppy attitude towards putting clothes away, now the pool guy thinks I go skinny dipping.

I told this story to Lulu as I held up the bikini top above my head in reprimand. “This could have cost us a lot of money!” I admonished.

“It looks gross, throw it out.” she scowled.

The very next day Lulu wafted into Poinker central, our bedroom.

“Do you guys have any masking tape?”

I thought she was, perhaps, manufacturing a university assignment prop or something.

“What do you need masking tape for?” I asked pleasantly, admiring the white chiffon playsuit she was currently sporting on her person.

“Nipple pasties.”

Scotto swiftly scurried away to his computer-filled, nerdy, safe room, with his hands covering his ears.

“You can’t put masking tape over your nipples,” I advised sagely. “It’ll hurt too much when you take it off.”

She looked at me as if I were Elephant Woman.

“What? You think I have hairy nipples or something, mother? Who has hairy nipples?”

“No one,” I replied, fossicking around in my drawer for the masking tape and glancing down my cleavage when I thought she wasn’t looking.

There are things that’ll happen to their bodies that these teenage girls don’t know.

If I put masking tape on my nipples now, they’d end up embarrassingly stuck to my belly button.



What fashion shortcuts do you take? Any tips?

Slow Sex

Jonathon the Tortoise

I recently read about a tortoise who’s 183 years old and still manages to have sex with three different female turtles a day. That seems excessive to me; even if he was still a twenty-three year old stud it's unfeasible.

Plus, I don’t know why those three female tortoises agree to it in the first place.

Have they not heard the saying, “Why buy the tortoise when you can get the milk for free”?

His name is Jonathon (that’d be right, Jonathon sounds like a bit of a randy name) and according to the website he witnessed “the coronation of eight British monarchs from George IV to Elizabeth II and a staggering 50 prime ministers”.

I’m sorry, but I think if he’s bonking three different girls a day he wouldn’t give a shit about monarchs of England, especially considering he lives in a zoo and is a tortoise.

I mean… what are the female tortoises even getting out of it? 

Not that we girls should view sex as something to be utilised as a manipulative strategy to ‘get’ things; things like a diamond ring, lifetime security, a cup of coffee delivered in bed in the morning, a night off from having to be the one to turn the lights out downstairs …

No. If we’re going to be using sex as a manipulative tactic we should aim for far loftier goals. And the secret is in the promise of amorous entanglement, girls. We don’t even need to actually engage in the sweaty, nasty, annoying reality of it all, if we play our cards right.

Just a wink and an oblique, suggestive nudge should do the trick.

Don’t be exploitive about it though girls. Use it solely for urgent, desperate times, like, when you don’t feel like going to the shop because you forgot to buy dog food. Or when it’s six o’clock on a Friday afternoon and you notice the wine’s run out.

But back to those female tortoises; I wonder if they compare Jonathon’s performance amongst themselves? Imagine the stress he must be under, knowing they all live in the same compound and talk about him behind his back, comparing notes probably.

There are two other male tortoises where he lives. One is called Speedy, which is completely unfunny because it’s like the complete opposite of what he must be, and the other male has the dull but strangely ironic name of ‘David’.

Jonathon has cataracts and can hardly see so maybe he thinks he’s bonking the same girl every day. But even so, three times is a lot, even if he’s in love with the tortoise he thinks he’s canoodling with, although in reality it’s three different tortoises.

All I can say is, I’m glad I’m not a female tortoise if the men are still that keen at 183 years of age.

And imagine how long he must take to get through the entire act.

You’d be able to watch the entire third series of Game of Thrones just waiting for him to get in the mood and the fourth series before he’s got to first base. He’d be so bloody slow. There are only so many shopping lists you can make in your head. The female tortoises couldn’t just lay on their back and think of England either because… well you know what happens to tortoises when they wind up on their back.

Jonathon lives on salad apparently. But I’ve been existing on salad for the last three decades and it doesn’t have that same erotic effect on me.

I guess Aesop was right. Slow and steady really does win the race.

But honestly, Jonathon needs to hang up his tools and get a hobby, like golf or Twitter.

Do you think 183 years old is too old to be still doing it?

LOL

I’ve been daringly writing LOL a fair bit in my comments on Facebook posts and on blog post comments lately and I must admit I feel a bit intrepid, daring, plucky when I do it.

It’s like the same adventurously youthful feeling I’d have walking into an eighteenth birthday party wearing a leopard skin mini skirt, stilettos and bopping along to Lego House by Eddie Redmayne. 

But sometimes I feel self-conscious writing LOL, as if I’m pretending to be someone I’m not, you know... being a middle-aged try-hard.

But now that I have finally embraced the whole LOL thing, it must surely be out of fashion… or at the very least not trendy… or just plain ‘gay’… or ‘lame’ or… ‘sucks’ or whatever they say now.

I always catch on to things five years after the fact.

It’s the same thing with awesome. Does anyone say that anymore or has it been relegated to the over 50s.

Is it now phat? or sick? or sweet?... and not totally awesome anymore?

I just don’t know.

I’d hate my teenage daughter, Lulu, to be walking out the door all dressed up on her way to the disco (or whatever they’re called now) and me say, 

“Have a great night darling, you look really FAT!” and be saying the wrong thing. How do you differentiate Phat from Fat in oral language? Is it in fact, okay to say oral anymore?

Or to be greeting my colleague who’s just lost 10 kilograms over the school holidays after a punishing regime of boot camp and strict adherence to the Paleo diet and say, “OH.MY GOD! YOU. LOOK. SICK. MOFO!”

I only recently found out what MOFO stands for. Previously I thought it was the equivalent to ‘cool dude’.

YOLO? I thought it meant goodbye… like hooroo (North Queensland for goodbye).

I wondered why people would look at me with concerned faces as I pulled out of their driveway, tooting the horn and cheerily shouting, "YOLO MOFOS!" at the top of my voice.

Texting is something else I just can’t get the hang of, particularly when communicating with my kids. I’m starting to think we adults are missing the secret messages hidden in the brevity of such texts. 

It’s a bit like the Da Vinci Code. Teenagers have invented a more succinct, efficient method of communication.

Lulu went to Melbourne this weekend and I asked her to text me a few times a day so I’d know she was still alive. It grants me ten minutes peace of mind each time I hear from her.

These are the only messages I have received thus far:

Thursday 19:36 (as she’s boarding plane): K

Thursday 23:23: Here

Friday 13:09: Alive

Friday 21:35: K

Saturday 11:30: Indeedy!

Sunday 10:14: Pick me up at 6:10

Sunday 10:14: Pick me up at 6

Sunday 10:14: Maybe 6:15

Sunday 11:06: Shit wait it’s 7 it lands

Sunday 14:38: Mum???

Sunday 15:13: Flt delayed now 8:00

I’ve analysed these texts and these are my interpretations.

Clearly I needed to transcribe these enigmatic puzzle-like texts by applying the Fibonacci integer sequence and see what I could decode.

Notice how at first I only received short abrupt, some might even say, bad-mannered messages.

By Saturday (the third day) Lulu used a three syllable word incorporating a small measure of enthusiasm (!). This clearly points to the fact she was beginning to miss me.

By Sunday you can see just how much the fruit of my loins is missing me (perhaps subliminally) because she has sent me no less than SIX WHOLE TEXTS!

Maybe I should send a mysterious text back for her to decipher...

Something like, Catch a taxi darling. LOL.

My Blog is Not My Diary

I saw this meme the other day and frankly it gave me the shits. I’m fairly certain the person who posted it wasn't directing it at me… or were they? Who knows?

The thing is, my blog is far from a diary. If it were my diary, this is what would happen:

The men in white coats would come and lock me away in room where I’d sit, rocking in a corner and sucking my thumb maniacally for the rest of eternity.

My husband would divorce me on grounds of my utter stupidity and annoying tendencies.

My kids would hate my guts and they’d never let me take their photo again.

My dogs would sue for defamation of character and breaking privacy issues.

My cat would ring cat helpline and dob me in to the authorities.

I’d have NO friends whatsoever.

The blogs I read, aren’t diaries either.

There are informative discussions and amusing anecdotes by the doyenne of Australian blogging, Mrs Woog at Woogs World. She's my favourite.

Tantalising recipes and side stories on brilliant blogs such as, Veggie Mama and House Goes Home.

Persuasive essays on current topics at Handbag Mafia and hilarious satire on Mumabulous and Hugzilla Blog.

I could go on forever. I really could.

I don’t read rubbishy magazines anymore because I’m far too entertained by real women writing real stories, not unreliable sensationalism about who’s bonking who and which celebrity just had a baby and named it Space Shuttle, and I’m not paying money to read them either.

Many years ago, a former friend had a very bitchy, public jab at me for using too many ‘big’ words. It hurt me and embarrassed me at the time, mainly because that’s part of who I am. I’m not being pretentious, I just happen to love words.

Plus I'm a bit weird... but I can't help that. 

It's what makes me, me and I'm not ashamed of it anymore.

 I enjoy the process of writing and creating something which may or may not be entertaining to others.

Of course bloggers want other people to read their work. 

If someone brings a meticulously decorated cake into work they want everyone to admire and eat it, don’t they?

Because that’s what it is to us bloggers; our creative energies expressed in words. 

It shouldn't be something others, who are not inclined towards reading blogs belittle and I’m getting bloody sick of it. 

Would you pick on someone in regards to their penchant for using multi-syllabic words?