For the Parents of Daughters...

A little poem I wrote for the parents of daughters...

                Minotaurs

 I stare at the blackness 

where the shadows

creep on the flickering walls and the blurred,

grey corners leer.

Twist my head again, see

the glowing of the clock

on the shelf, throbbing with its news

and cruel barbs of malice; forcing me

from the cosy warmness to the frigid floor boards,

blindly grope the stiff blinds

dirty with dustballs, filth, cobwebs,

and the prints of my fingers

in the thick coating of grime…



See a taxi parked, a carriage

in black and white, like a magic coach

on the road it’s pulled to a stop

near the kerb. She is home

at last, with a wave

at the driver,

and her shoes clatter up the stairs. She is

safe. In a place where sentinels, watch

the clock on the shelf.



The knob of thread I offered her at birth

spools back. Like that bundle of string clutched by

Ariadne of Knossos

waiting alone, she

gripped the fraying fibre tight

as she shivered, hearing the roar

of the monster.



I kept her so close

in a spider’s web of the finest silk

netting while the dewdrops glistened

in proud joy. Too much to fear

in the ugliness

that wants her; danger springs

from the unknown plexus of life

where just a move, a slip, a lapse

can raze. How long? How long, til spirit bites,

and breaks free when she severs the cord,

amputates the string for good

and then soars through the air

in ecstatic pursuit

of mystery

and Minotaurs.



I could grasp and strain,

stretch my spider hand. She

was a borrowed treasure, but

it’s time now

to let go.

To my daughter, love Pinky xxx

Ten Commandments for Travelling with your Spouse

Travelling with your wife is a bit like downing shots of tequila. If you can ignore the sharp, bitter taste of prickly cactus, it will eventually make you feel all warm and mushy inside.

In order to possibly circumvent the illicit and mysterious severing of your bungee cord just prior to the big jump because you flirted outrageously with the curvaceous waitress at the hotel restaurant the previous night, let me direct you to Ten Travel Commandments which could possibly save your life...

1. Thou shalt not flirt with exotic, foreign waitresses. This includes raving on to the hot flight attendant about how brave and daredevilly you were at bungee jumping the previous day when you assume your wife/girlfriend is asleep in the plane seat beside you. Just because she’s wearing an eye mask and snoring louder than a Boeing 707 taking off doesn’t mean she’s asleep. She’s not asleep. She’s like a crocodile, sunning itself on a log watching you surreptitiously with a nictitating membrane (third eyelid). 

2. Unless thou art some mutant genetic anomaly who is willing to sacrifice his masculinity and ask for directions, thou shalt have a GPS installed on your phone. We know you want to solve the puzzle yourself and emerge victorious from the bowels of the Paris Metro thrusting your man bag above your head and screaming triumphantly like a Manchester United fan after they just knocked Barcelona out of the series, but it’s silly. All that your spouse desires is to get to where she’s going in the speediest way possible. You’re not exactly Marco Polo are you? However, you could end up like Burke and Wills.

3. Thou shalt not be selfish. Dost thou really need to pack two pairs of shoes? You’ll only be away for a few weeks; surely you can make do with the pair on your feet? Your spouse will need the extra room in your suitcase for her extra luggage and it would be wise to curry favour by offering it before she asks. And don’t dare to be foolish enough to ask if she can squeeze your toothbrush in her toiletry bag. That’s tantamount to asking for one more, filthy, bacteria-ridden person to be squeezed on to the last lifeboat leaving the Titanic.

4. On the subject of packing, thou should make sure to pack an adequate amount of underwear, and by adequate I mean more than adequate. The old, ‘inside out, back to front’ method of saving on washing won’t cut it now that you’re not backpacking around Vietnam with six of your grubby, Neanderthal mates. Don’t expect her to be washing the skid marks out for you in the hotel hand basin either. Just put them in a plastic bag and discretely bury them at the bottom of a bin on your way out in the morning.

5. Don’t attempt to channel ‘Jerry Seinfeld’ when thou gets the persuasive signal to come over for explosives/drug screening at airport security. Your clever quips emulating Seinfeld, like, “What? I look like a terrorist because I have a hipster beard?” will merely bring down the wrath of God and his heavily armed henchmen and won’t impress your partner when your flight is delayed because the Federal Police are mining your coal reserves.

6. Okay. Thou may get on the plane and thou and thy partner may have the choice of aisle versus centre seat. Dost thou really needst the aisle seat for extra leg room when thou knowst very well thy partner has a bladder the size of a small nut? Who art thou? Michael Jordan? Shaquille O’Neill? Or art thou not closer to George Costanza? Give her the damn aisle seat, thou!



7. Learn thou, the language and currency of the country thou art travelling to a little bit, so thou art able to haggle. But don’t be a cheap skate in third world countries and argue with a taxi driver because he’s charging you ten dollars for a fifty kilometre trip instead of five dollars. These people need every cent they can get from thy fat Western butt. Benevolence and empathy will win you points with your lady love. Besides, she doesn’t want to be left on the side of the road in the red light district of downtown Saigon because you were a tight ass.

8. Don’t let thyself be a dick. When you go somewhere romantic, like Rome, don’t stand there with your hands on your muffin top, sniff in a superior manner and declare, “Well, I can see they built this in a day.” Don’t climb to the lofty heights of the fabulous Eiffel Tower in Paris and say, “Looks like the scaffolding for a television tower to me.” Keep the romance alive and blossoming, not dead like a clouted mullet in the bottom of your tinny.

9. Thou shalt not force thy tedious passions on thy wife. If you desperately want to go to the Museum of Advanced Star Trek Mythological Creatures or an exhibition on The Journey of the Development of Graphical Interface Architecture and your spouse stifles a yawn, pops a Prozac and begins to snore with her eyes open, it’s probably best to let her go do what she wants to do instead.

10. Thou shalt try to savour the moment in each experience. Go to a restaurant in Rome and slurp up the same spaghetti noodle until your lips meet in a Bolognese sauce bloodbath. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and recite your marriage vows then release some helium balloons before security handcuffs you for littering and unruly behaviour, go to Mexico City and get drunk on Tequila shots for heaven’s sake. 

* This travel advice was largely sourced from the Old Testament, Disney movies, “Lady and the Tramp”, “The Aristocats” and the lesser known Disney movie “Herbie Goes to Tijuana”.

Have a safe trip!

Things That Fudging Annoy Me!

    

1. When the doona ends up scrunched up on Scotto’s side and I have nothing except a shred of flimsy cotton to protect me from the arctic blast from the air conditioner.

2. The fact we still have to have the fudging air conditioner on even though it’s winter because the Chihuahua wakes up at every beat of a moth’s wing and goes off barking and growling like a hound of the Baskervilles so we have to have the windows shut at night.

3. When Scotto shakes out the doona to give me more insulation at the same time I have a coffee in my hand and am balancing a laptop on my knees and I spill my wine, I mean my coffee all over me.

4. When Scotto starts swearing at the dogs because they won’t settle because he just unceremoniously shook them out of the doona.

5. The clicking sound of the remote that accompanies Scotto's cantankerous swearing when the Internet is broken and he’s trying to get stupid fudging Netflix to work through his laptop.

6. The dogs trembling beside me like nervous, sycophantic neurotics because they get scared when Scotto swears.

7. When I have to get up and go to the toilet just before I’m ready to go to sleep, after the dogs have eventually slunk under the covers and I've finally organised the doona to accommodate my shivering, skeletal frame.

8. When, after I’ve been to the loo, my nineteen year old daughter knocks on the door looking for toothpaste.

9. When after I’ve found the toothpaste for her I need to go to the toilet again.

10. When I get back to bed and the Chihuahua decides that because I got up, he has to get up and he won’t go back to bed and sniffs around the doona making Scotto swear again.

11. When Scotto snaps his laptop shut in an angry manner and swears again because Netflix still won’t work and I tell him to calm down and then he says he wishes a solar flare would hit the earth and wipe out all technology so we wouldn’t have to worry about it and I say innocently that he should just ‘turn the telly off’ and then he gets all huffy.

Anything annoying you lately?

Apparently I'm Cognitively Disturbed.

When I was bored this afternoon and floundering around on the Internet, I came upon an interesting site and did that ink blot test, you know, the Rorschach test, and I’m sorry to say, the results weren’t that good.

In fact, the scientists very gently advised me that I’m cognitively and psychologically disturbed. 

My Results!!!

Even though I suspected I might have been slightly eccentric (in a light hearted, whimsical way), I never dreamed it would come to this.

I made Scotto do it immediately after me, hoping it was all a terrible mistake… but apparently he’s normal… and I’m not.

So what does this mean? Should I check myself in somewhere? Should I start wearing a white jacket specially designed where the sleeves are sewn together and take to rocking in the corner of the room and howling at the moon?

Maybe I should have seen the signs of mental instability before this...

My obsession with dogs for a start, I mean, what normal person owns four dogs?

What normal person has five kids in six years, then, when the kids grow up, buys four dogs and a cat?

What normal person has violent arguments with the garage door and other inanimate objects when they don’t work properly? What normal person thinks plants talk to them and then writes about it on her blog?

What normal person makes major life decisions based on the title of the next song that comes on the car radio?

(I shouldn’t have told you that one, should I?)

I’ve often reassured myself when the notion, I’m crazytown, creeps into my thoughts, that the experts say if you THINK you’re going mad, then you’re not.

But here I am, seemingly mad as a cut snake, as crazy as a hat full of arseholes.

It’s not fair. I don’t want to be mad. What if I ever want to join the army? I wouldn’t pass the ink blot test. I’ll never be a policewoman, or a pilot, or a fireman or ambulance driver or anything else that requires a modicum of sanity.

I wonder if teachers are allowed to stay in their job if they’re mentally unstable. Maybe that’s what’s pushed me over the edge? The constant everyday struggle with little or no recognition has propelled me into the abyss of lunacy after all these years.

But now I think about it, years ago I applied for a job and it came down to between me and another girl. They gave us a psych test to make the final decision.  I was probably crazy back then too. I remember the guy telling me I didn't get the job because of the results of the test. Did he look at me with pity or was it fear? I can't remember.

It’s the word, ‘disturbed’ that disturbs me the most.

Maybe I should just take the test again. I think I know the answers now. I’m sure I could do much better next time.

Or maybe some of you could take the test and be all disturbed with me so I’m not so lonely here in the land of the nuts.

Please? Prove to me I'm okay xxx

A link to the test!

In the meantime, while you're doing the test, I’m off to run around naked, all through the neighbourhood, uprooting flower beds and singing Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport (because that’s what I usually do on Sunday afternoon).

Why I Love Twitter

Hardly anyone I know in real life is on Twitter. I can’t understand it because it’s so much fun. In fact, I think Twitter is helping to stave off the senility which I’m sure is eventually going to creep up on me one day.

My Facebook friends are all people I know quite well but my Twitter crew are from all walks of life and from all over the world.

Why do you love it so much, Pinky? Because I get to challenge myself every night coming up with amusing hashtag responses, that’s why. I scour the top hashtags every night and if there’s something that inspires me I’ll have a go.

These are a compilation of the ones I didn’t delete the next morning because they were so bloody dreadful. (Sometimes Scotto bans me from tweeting some I come up with because he thinks I get a bit risque.)

So, anyway, that's what I do to amuse myself at night when Scotto's watching zombie movies. Beats crosswords.

Have you embraced Twitter yet? Will you ever?

Pinky's Gender Bender

So, on Monday, a few of the teachers had to take the sporting kids to a ‘practise’ athletics carnival. Some teachers (not the lethargic, non-physical, unco-ordinated Pinky), had to accompany our sports teacher to this event. These lithe and nimble teachers were mandated to offload their classes on to the less energetic types such as myself while they were away for the day.

I saw on my allocated list I was to be delegated eight extra students from a lower grade, Eight! Since I only had four of my own students scarpering off to the ‘practise’ carnival, I voiced my concerns to the teacher who’d flagrantly offloaded her kids on to me.

“Just shut up, Pinky!” she bellowed at me as she huffed off. “Deal with it, Princess!” 

When the forlorn urchins turned up at my door in the morning I noticed there were seven boys and one girl. My immediate thought was that it was a bit cruel to send just one girl, with no friend, amongst a bunch of testosterone fuelled, rambunctious lads.

My second thought was that the cow had sent me seven freakin boys.

Don’t get me wrong. I love boys. I gave birth to four of my own. But I know full well how much trouble they can be. They just have so much... vitality.

The first little boy entered the class in tears.

“Why on Earth are you crying?” I asked him. “Is it because you’re in my class instead of being with your grade three teacher?”

He nodded despondently, tears threatening to spill over onto the worksheets he clutched in his tiny hands as he stared up at the dragon grade four teacher.

“Don’t be scared of me!” I growled. “No one else is.” 

I directed him to the cheeky faces of my own class, grinning in confident self-importance at him from their seats.

The solitary, little girl walked in through the door, her brown ringlets bouncing and a nervous expression on her face. She was such a pretty little thing.

“You sit beside Sharleen, my darling,” I said to her. “What’s your name, precious?”

“Trevor,” she replied.

“Sorry? What was your name again?”

“Trevor.”

“Could you spell it for me, darling?” I asked, thinking it was most probably ‘Treavahh', or even 'Ptrevar' (with a silent P).

“T.R.E.V.O.R.” she said, her voice taking on an impatient air.

‘Strange name for a girl,’ I thought. ‘Oh well, takes all sorts I suppose.’

Anyway, I sat the seven extra boys up in the back row where they worked industriously on their assigned sheets. I only had to shoosh them a couple of times.

Little Trevor sat at the front, between two of my gentlest girls and thoroughly enjoyed her day, colouring in unicorns with the girl’s glitter pens and nattering and giggling away with them in muted tones. 

She was such a sweet little thing.

It wasn’t until today, when I was on duty outside the junior boys’ toilets and saw Trevor, walk out wiping his hands on his shorts, that I realised he was actually a boy.

According to his teacher, he’s usually the typical fractious, hormone driven, trouble making boy-boy.

And yet Trevor was such an angel in my classroom?


Did I just do a reverse gender-stereotyping thing?

Pinky's Red Light District

This is actually me. True.

It looks as though I’m about to endure some undesired, early mornings. 

The bedroom blinds we recently had cleaned and repaired, fell down in a spontaneous, malicious fit of spite this afternoon and Scotto is away for the week so he won’t be putting them back up anytime soon.

Our bedroom faces south east so I expect the sun will blast through the window at some ridiculous hour. I’ll have to get dressed in the dark so I don’t traumatise any innocent person walking their bull mastiff past the house because you can see everything in the bedroom with razor sharp clarity when the lights are on. 

People driving past the house at night will have a panoramic view of me dressed in my enchanting cow pajamas, tucked in bed, reading my kindle each night. 

Image Credit

Maybe I could pull a chair up to the window, put on a clown wig and just sit staring out with a demonic, twisted smile painted on my face. I could scare away the ibis that steal the cat’s food, not to mention those annoying junk mail people.

Or I could put a red light on in the background and sit on the chair in the nuddy except for a feather boa around my neck. Someone might call the police about the weirdo woman at Number 29 and I could get the cops to put the blinds back up for me after I explain that it’s just that my husband has gone away for the week and I miss having a man around the house.


I’m a bit cranky because it cost a lot of money to have the bloody things cleaned and repaired and I think some slats were chipped and cracked as they crashed down in their magnificent display of bastardry. I’m not sure because I’m too frightened to look.

I’d like to blame the blind repair man who clearly failed to put them back up properly but it turned out his daughter played basketball with Lulu some years ago and he seemed like such a nice man I don’t think I can ring and abuse him.

This is why I never contract friends to do jobs for me.


I suppose I could hook up a sheet across the window frame. That’s going to look lovely and redneck isn’t it? Maybe I should scatter some empty wine bottles across the front lawn to complete the unrefined ambiance. 

Although the red light in the window sounds like more fun.

What do you think? Clown or red light?

Warning: Politically Incorrect Joke Ahead!

We’re lucky in North Queensland because the only animal that might attack you on land is a crocodile. I live opposite a river and there have been plenty of ‘Beware… Crocodiles!’ signs put up over the years. I don’t mean the dainty, mild mannered, freshwater crocodiles either, I mean the toothy, saltwater, bad boys.

The thing is if you’re confronted by a crocodile as you’re walking along the river, you can always scramble up a tree to escape its jaws. The beauty of crocodiles is they can’t climb trees whereas bears can, and so can lions. Whenever I go for a walk, I keep my eyes peeled for suitable trees to climb should a crocodile decide to scale the riverbank and lunge at me. I like the look of the ones with low branches because I don’t have much upper body strength.

We were having this discussion last night just before bed and I thought it might be an interesting blog post so I jotted down the word ‘crocodile’ on a note beside my bed so I wouldn’t forget about it.

Aren’t you glad?

It’s not very interesting at all really, is it? I don’t know why it seemed so riveting last night.

Wine, I suppose.

Scotto told me an extremely politically incorrect joke last night which I also thought would be something you’d like to read about and I jotted it down… but now I’m having second thoughts.

I was very excited when he started to tell me because Scotto rarely tells me jokes due to the fact I never laugh at them.

This one had to be funny.

“And then the guy said, ‘No. He choked on a sock’” Scotto finished off with the punchline and waited for me to snigger.

I sat in silence digesting it for a while. “You must have got it wrong, Scotto,” I frowned. “That’s not even slightly funny.”

He furrowed his brow in confusion. “No… that’s the joke. I’m sure I got it right,” but I could see him doubting himself.

“Tell it to me again,” I badgered. So he did.

“But that’s just silly,” I argued. “How would a grown man fit in a washing machine? It doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” he coughed nervously. “He wasn’t in a washing machine, Pinky.”

“Well, that’s still not funny. Why would there be a sock in the bath?” I was red in the face with frustration by now. I’d never heard such a stupid joke.

“Well, I thought it was funny anyway,” he sulked, gulping down his sav blanc.

Suddenly, the hazy cloud of stupidity cleared from above me, the traffic controllers waved my brain in for landing and I got the joke at last.

I laughed hysterically for fifteen minutes, choked on my own spit and pulled a muscle in my stomach.

I’m not sure if I should publish it on my blog because someone might get upset…

I’ll tell you what, I’ll put it in a small font so don’t read it if you have any qualms about people laughing at serious medical conditions.



Two guys were sitting on a bus and one told the other a joke.

“What do you do if you see an epileptic having a fit in the bath?

Throw in your washing.”

The guy behind them leaned over and said, "I think that's disgusting. My son died in the bath whilst having a fit."

The two men both went white and apologised profusely. “Did he drown?” one of the men asked.

The guy got up to get off and said, "No. He choked on a sock."


It’s awful isn’t it?

Bloody funny though.

Are you slow to get jokes? Got one to share?

Old Boilers Wearing Long Hair

I set fire to my hair on Saturday afternoon.

I was carrying a pancake flavoured candle and had my hair out and it must have connected with the flame and before I knew it there was flash of radiant orange shooting up towards my scalp. It smelt appalling… like burnt hair, actually. 

I shrieked, like Nathan Lane in Birdcage and Scotto came running into the room expecting to see one of the dogs ablaze in a fiery fur ball.

Serves me right probably, for having long hair when I’m an old woman.

I’ll be seeing my mother soon when I go down to the Gold Coast and I know she’ll disapprove of how long it is. I’m a bit frightened because I know she hates it with a vengeance. As far as Mum is concerned I should have had it cut off short as soon as I hit forty. She’s not the only one. Some of my friends have suggested I might think about cutting it off… you know, to give it some ‘body’. “You look like Cousin It, Pinky!” was just one sensitive comment among many.

It’s not that I’m trying to look like a teenager. Although sometimes when I’m on a walk, a teenager riding up behind me on his bike will turn around for a gawk as he passes and I can see the expression of horror on his face when he sees what a wizened goblin I am.

It’s just that if my hair’s cut short, it has exactly the same flat, straight, fine texture… except it’s short and makes me look like a radiation victim or a very wrinkled ten year old boy.

Plenty of older women have long hair. I’m not going to put images of Jane Seymour, Courtney Cox, Elle McPherson and Demi Moore up because obviously they’re famous and beautiful and I’m not… but why should the fact I don’t have a personal stylist stop me from having hair long enough to braid?

I had it cut into a short bob a couple of years ago (it was a self-flagellation thing and I deeply regretted it, it’s what I do when I’m hating on myself) and when I walked into the staffroom, the first thing someone said in a shocked voice was, “What have you done to yourself, Pinky?” I held back the tears, somehow, knowing it would take years to grow back.

When I was a little girl my mother made me wear my hair short, like a boy. It was because of the turn I’d put on when she tried to comb out the tangles, I guess. But it’s my choice now and if I want long hair I’ll have it.

When I’m sixty I’ll have a long grey plait and dress like a hippy. When I’m seventy I’ll wear it in an elegant bun and wear pearls. Scotto says he’s fine with it, except he’s jealous because he hasn’t got much hair at all to speak of.

I might never have it cut again and go for the Guinness Book of Records for the oldest woman alive with hair so long she can use it as a lead when she takes her German Shepherd for a walk.

You’d think by the time you reached your mid-fifties, people would stop telling you how to groom yourself wouldn’t you? 

But no, apparently it doesn’t fudging work that way.

Most recent photo of my hair... yes I was a bit pissed... shut up.

What do you think? A trim in order?

Liebster today, Pulitzer tomorrow!

Lovely lifestyle blogger, Kathy from 50 Shades of Age, has nominated me for a Liebster Award which means I'm mandated to answer some questions. 

Thank you Kathy! See you at ProBlogger soon.

1. What makes you happy? 

Friday afternoon coffee with my girlfriends and long boozy lunches with my husband. I also like long boozy lunches with my girlfriends and morning coffee with my husband. Christmas is pretty fun too. Of course I don’t mind baby’s giggles, puppies and unexpected windfalls either.

2. Why did you start blogging? 

I wrote some whinging stories about my teenagers and I wanted to make them public so I’d garner some sympathy. It didn’t really work as many readers suggested it just made me look like a despicable mother.

3. What is best thing anyone has ever said about your blog? 

A few people have said some lovely things but Jo Castro told me ‘Pinky’ is a disarming character and I really liked that. I think she meant disarming as in ‘enchanting’, not that she just wanted to put down her gun and walk away. I hope so anyway.

4. What is one piece of advice you would offer or one saying you live by? 

Don’t pick it or it will never get better. That goes for all sorts of things. (I just made that up off the top of my head but it’s pretty good actually, don’t you think?)

5. What are your top three bucket list items? 

To go to the Oscars, to win a Pulitzer prize and to own a meerkat. If I had a meerkat I would take it with me everywhere in my handbag and call it Timon. 

(I researched it and you can* keep meerkats as pets but they have smelly anal glands, which really won't make too much difference to the atmosphere in our household in the long run.)

* South Africa only.

6. What is your ultimate guilty pleasure? 

Eating an entire loaf of garlic bread instead of a proper dinner (like I did last night). I do like three teaspoons of sugar in my tea as well.

7. What is one product or service you cannot live without? 

Revlon (extra multi-purpose strength).

8. What is your favorite Australian travel destination? 

Sydney. It has shopping, history, pubs, restaurants, beaches and a lot of weird people to stare at. Lots of people walk around talking to themselves in Sydney which can be amusing if you're careful not to make eye contact with them.

9. What two countries make you the happiest to visit? 

I’ve been to England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, France, Belgium, China, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and the United States and I enjoyed them all. Nothing beats Australia though. I literally hug trees when I get back to Australia.



10. What is your dream destination? 

One of those luxury huts over the water in Bora Bora. I’d have a manservant and a woman-servant, a cook and a chauffeur. I’d like glass floors so I could see the fish swimming around and a connecting room for my meerkat.

I would like to nominate these people for a Liebster Award.

Sue from Making the Mundane Merry

Amy from Handbag Mafia

Alana from House Goes Home

Cate from Life Behind the Purple Door

Shauna from Shauna Round the Corner

But girls! If you've done this before you are welcome to answer these questions instead...

1. What's your favourite and least favourite word?

2. If you found out that due to a mix up at the hospital one of your kids wasn't yours would you give it back? *

3. What is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to you?

4. The last time you were pulled over by a cop?

5. The first thing you thought when you woke up this morning?

6. What was the last lie you told?

7. If you could have personally witnessed something historical what would it have been?

* You aren't allowed to pick your favourite child to answer this question.

And as for you... feel free to answer any of the questions in the comments! l'd love to hear from you x

What Famous Person do You Look Like?

With the cold weather I’ve been a bit wheezy. Only at night, when I get into bed and the windows are open and the last remnants of the “Antarctic Vortex” have insidiously spread their tentacles into my bedroom and the temperature has dropped to a freezing 20 degrees Celsius.

Yes, as I lay on my bed last night, my teeth chattering in the tropical nightmare of evaporated sweat, I reached into my handbag to fish out my Ventolin inhaler and noticed it was three years out of date. What would happen if I used it? I wondered. Maybe I’d turn into Spiderman or something. But I didn’t end up using it and just breathed through my nose until the wheezing settled.

I’m not an asthmatic but I do get asthma, just not very often. I get it if I laugh too much, if there’s cold air, if I eat pickled onions and drink some brands of orange juice… or if I drink rum and coke. I persist in drinking rum and coke, but always ensure I have my inhaler on hand because I’m a real Queenslander; bloody oath I am and I’m tough as bricks. What’s a bit of asthma when there’s rum and coke on the table for fudge's sake?

We noticed little Pablo the Chihuahua, was wheezing like a ninety year old emphysema suffering, chain smoker the other night and I looked up on Google to see if dogs get asthma and guess what?… they do.

One of my school friends had asthma when she was young and I remember adults whispering it was “an emotional thing”. Back when I was a child, asthma was associated with a highly strung, delicate personality. It was apparently brought on by a weakness in the thorax and a penchant for the dramatics. In other words, it was a sissy disease. Sufferers were advised to take up swimming or move to Darwin.

But now, I find out even dogs get it.

I went to the chemist to buy a new inhaler today and the girl behind the counter asked me if I was breastfeeding or pregnant and she didn’t even have the usual smirk on her face. I pretended to be unsure. “Noooo, I don’t think so,” I giggled self-consciously. “Let me see, what’s the date?” Then I began counting on my fingers with a ditzy look on my face.

I found it flattering in a way. The trouble is when you get to my age you take anything you can get as a compliment, anything. Although sometimes people think they’re giving you a compliment but you don’t fully agree with the sentiment.

Like the time a guy walked up to me in a night club and told me I reminded him of Cher.

Would you think that was a compliment? Think about it. 

I didn’t.

I’ve also been told I look like Annette Benning and a little known actress, Jenny Agutter.

Annette

Jenny

 Morticia has poked her dark head into comments regarding my appearance as well, quite a lot actually. I really need to rethink the same hairstyle I’ve had since I was fifteen.

I wish...

I've also been told I look like Mrs Bean. That knocked the wind out of my jowls, I can tell you. That friend was put in the 'people I secretly hate but force a smile when with them' file.

I know this post sounds like the roundabout, drunken ravings of a lunatic woman but I think the asthma medication has gone to my head a bit.

The Big Question: Is Life Pointless?

Boyhood

Scotto and I watched the first 2 hours and 35 minutes of Boyhood yesterday. It runs for 2 hours and 46 minutes but for reasons known only to its spiteful, unpleasant self, the Internet decided to be an arse. 

Scotto was very angry, called the Internet some very rude words and did an imitation of what he thinks the Internet actually looks like.

Scotto as the Internet

We were watching it on Netflix which has been a bit contrary of late and it just stopped and refused to finish the movie. I googled the end of the movie this morning and according to someone on Yahoo Answers (which is my absolute go to for expert advice), it wasn’t worth the film it was printed on anyway because nothing happened. 

Nothing happened for the entire movie when I think about it. 

A boy grew up... big whoopie do.

Boyhood won the 2015 Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture and was nominated for the Oscar so I suppose I don’t know everything after all (although I'd like to know who votes for these things).

The most poignant part of it for me was when both her children had grown up and were nicking off to college and Patricia Arquette broke down sobbing at the kitchen table and uttered the three words that really resonated with me… “What’s the point?”

Lately, I find myself driving along the road on my way to the shop and all of sudden I’m overwhelmed with an empty, maudlin emotion. My insides feel as though they’re falling through space and I have a horrible sensation that everything I do and say, is utterly and inevitably pointless. 

I’ve also been thinking about my children and how they’re all grown up and don’t need me anymore except for when they want me to look after their bitey dog or borrow a potato masher.

I had to write a descriptive paragraph for the online writing course I’m doing the other day and this is what I wrote…

Pinky stepped along the cracked, concrete path where green ants scurried in frantic confusion around a bloated, dead lizard. She ducked under a glittering web where a Saint Andrew’s cross spider hung like an exquisite, yellow jewel and inhaled the sweet air of last night’s rain deep into her lungs. A few more cautious steps around the corner of the trail and she’d see it. Something rasped in the undergrowth with a guttural squawk, making her jump to the left and graze her arm on the bark of the old mango tree. Her children had climbed that tree many years ago, singing out to her from its branches to come and see how far up they had negotiated its sturdy branches. Pinky could almost hear little Lulu’s gurgling laughter as she’d cling to the lowest branch, hanging upside down like a precocious fruit bat. Suddenly, there it was; the cubby house, obscured by meandering vines and its frame bleached by the weather, like the bones of a prehistoric monster discovered in an ancient rainforest jungle. She placed her hand on the ladder, feeling the slimy moss under her cold fingers. It had served them well, this wooden skeleton, this relic. It was going to take a crane to reclaim it from the garden and carry it to its final resting place. But for now, she would sit in it for a while and listen to the babble of her memories.



Is that not a tad sentimental? A jot schmaltzy? 

It’s not me at all, is it?

Not that I want the five hairy creatures hanging around me all the time with their cynical remarks and critical evaluations of my wine drinking habits, but it does seem I did quite a lot of work over the last twenty years to be now relegated to the pitiful nuisance I seem to have become to them.

Do you think they’ll ever come back to me once they’ve established their independence?

Am I just suffering from the empty nest syndrome I always laughingly joked would never strike me?


Or is life just pointless after all and we may as well get fat on Tim Tams and champagne?