Medical History of a Wine Drinker

I finally went to a doctor on the mountain the other day because over the last few weeks I've lived with an ear that’s pretty much one hundred per cent deaf… plus I’ve had an itchy, brown spot which rudely appeared near my eye six months ago which I’ve been watching with suspicion, plus a red spot on my nose emerged which I assumed was a skin cancery thing and my nose would have to be unceremoniously removed toot sweet. 

Not that I'd miss my nose on an aesthetic basis.

But after some frantic, medico-google-research I eventually deducted I had a severe case of filthy ear wax, plus a life threatening melanoma, so I booked in for a skin check and an ear syringe job. 

No biggy...

What I didn’t know was that this doctor was one of those annoyingly ‘thorough’ types. You know, the ones who do their jobs properly and take your blood pressure and insist on blood tests and stuff.

Plus he asked me some highly personal questions about how much ‘akahol’ I drink.

I tried to remain resolute. “Three drinks a day!” I declared with a certain doe-eyed innocence.

“Every day?” his eye brow was raised as he typed the information into the manifesto. “You know that’s too much for a woman. Sometimes men drink that much because they’re… not feeling good about their life…”

“I love my life,” I retorted indignantly. “I’m not depressed. I just love the taste.”

All this time I was strongly suspecting he was doing what most doctors do and tripling the amount I admitted to drinking in his head.

I know they do that.

Good news: no skin cancer. 

Apparently my brown spot is merely a barnacle (his words).

It seems I’m growing barnacles now.

What next?

He looked in both my ear holes. No wax. My eardrums were all out there, shining like dew-encrusted mushrooms.

That’s not very good because… why am I deaf in the ear hole?

So now I have to go for hearing tests.

The deafness could indicate glue ear, nerve damage from the recent shingles attack, or maybe a brain tumour.

Surprisingly, I’m suspecting nerve damage. I feel a brain tumour is very unlikely because I haven’t had a headache for years.

I told the lovely doctor I most probably wouldn’t go for the blood tests he wanted to prescribe because I’m afraid of medical tests and doctors.

He looked a bit pissed off. “We aren’t here to hurt you, you know,” he said.

“I know,” I nodded with expert contrariness. "You doctors are all lovely." 

“Why are you afraid, then?” he asked, his face a picture of befuzzlement.

“I’m just scared of the results,” I mouthed silently.

“But that’s just silly. We can’t make you do anything,” he cajoled. “Even if your liver is shot to pieces you could still have one drink a day.”
“I know,” I agreed. “Print out the tests and we’ll see… maybe I’ll go.”

Maybe I will.


Or maybe I FUDGING WON’T.

It's a Myth Sex Keeps You Warm, Jon Snow!

Jon Snow looking very pissed off.

"It’s a myth that sex keeps you warm, you know nothing, Jon Snow."

That's what I said to Scotto this morning.

Since moving to the mountain the cat has doubled in size. I think the cold weather agrees with her. Even though we’ve been accidentally feeding her twice as much as normal she still seems insatiably hungry.

Murdered in the Battle of the Bastards

Three of the dogs have gained kilos of extra weight… as have Scotto and I. I tried to use the excuse that I was just fluffy because my winter coat had come in but you can’t lie to yourself forever.

My daughter, Lulu, is coming to visit next week and I’m sure she’ll notice our double chins and pudgy cheeks. She won’t notice the fat anywhere else because it’s swaddled in tracksuits, large coats, Ugg boots and beanies.

As Jon Snow said on the telly last night, winter is bluddy here.

I’ve been putting a hot water bottle in the dogs’ bed before I call them in at night.

Willy the Silky Terrier goes straight out into the yard and sunbathes for hours in the morning.

I’m sleeping with undesirably pilled, matted with dirt encrusted soles, bed socks on.

What I wonder is how anyone procreates in this sort of weather. I know people joke about having a nooky to keep themselves warm but how does one have a nooky without taking one’s snugly tracksuit bottom off?

Even when Scotto gets up to go to the loo in the middle of the night, I swear viciously at him under my breath for allowing freezing air to get under the covers. How people could think about rubbing their shrivelled, frigid feet together (let alone other bodily parts) is beyond me.

How did Iceland ever become populated?

I suppose if there was a fire and a bearskin rug and maybe some Vicks Vaporub involved…

Mum and Dad have a fire place. We turn up on Sunday afternoons like a pair of Dickensian urchins rubbing our fingerless mittens together and staring in at the window at the hot scones and jam and cream Dad bakes.

Sometimes they let us in for a crumb or two. Sometimes they just pretend to be bumbling, old, deaf folk and ignore the doorbell. Bastards.

I always thought cold weather would entice me to dress up in romantic flowing scarves and knee-length, sensual leather jackets but instead it’s turned me into a dirty old bat who’s too shivery to wash her greasy hair and get out of her three day old tracky dacks.

If I shaved the hair on my legs I could collect the remnants and create a convincing toupee for Donald Trump they’re so long. He’d be a brunette but that might be an improvement anyway. You can’t trust blonde politicians.

Anyway, back to the bonking thing. Does anyone have any tips about cold weather and sexual relations? Are there special under garments with strategically placed holes and flaps us Northern Queenslanders don’t know about? 

Can you purchase onesies with poop holes while we’re at it? 

If so where do I buy them? Breast and Less? David Mones? Blowes? KTart?
Otherwise, I’m sorry to say the Poinker family tree stops here. It’s a no nooky zone until winter is gone.

Teacher's Magical Last Day of Term

I was miraculously asked to work a relief day on the last day of term yesterday. Teachers are rarely away on the last day of term.

The schools down here, all do a thing called Munch and Crunch.

Munch and Crunch is a mid-morning, ten minute break where the kids are allowed to bring a piece of fruit into the classroom and eat it in order to refresh their lagging brain cells. 

Whist the concept has some merit; I find the fermenting stench of mandarin peel and apple cores festering in the bin for the remainder of the day to be appalling. The fruit-ingestion after effects involving heavy, silent farts don’t help improve the general classroom atmosphere much either.

I watched a little girl eating her banana as if she was eating corn on the cob. She took little nibbles around the circumference until there was just a long, greasy, brown banana core left. I can’t tell you if she eventually ate it or not because I had to turn away and gag in the corner.

We ran a show and tell session while they were munching and crunching.

Someone had brought their magician kit in.

I’ve always hated magicians ever since I was a kid and discovered they weren’t really magic AT ALL.

At the age of ten I was gifted a magician’s kit for Christmas, read the ‘magician’s manual’ and quickly realised that there was no authentic magic involved and it was all trickery. My faith and adoration of the world of magic was sullied in a most grubby and corrupt manner.

Since then, whenever a fraud in the guise of a magical person such as David Copperfield, appears on the screen, I spew out abuse at the telly, much to the annoyance of everyone else in the lounge room. I rant incessantly at the duplicitous and deceptive tricksters and how disappointing the entire magic bullshit thing is until someone finally changes the channel.

So when a seven year old wanted to deliver a magic show with his brand new magic kit yesterday, I was understandably contemptuous and cynical.

“I hope he pulls a rabbit out of a hat!” enthused one of the audience of seven year olds in the classroom.

“I hope he doesn’t,” I snarled. “There’s an $80000 fine for having a rabbit in Queensland.”
Harry Potter flaunted his magician’s hat around the class for inspection. There was much oohing and ahing.

There was nothing in the hat, I swear, but the next minute, after a wave of his plastic wand… out comes a bloody rabbit.

Don’t worry it was a stuffed rabbit. Nothing the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries would get their knickers in a twist about I can assure you.

It was a bit impressive for a seven year old though I must admit even though I knew it was indeed, chicanery.

Or was it?

Then little Harry put on his cape and did something deceptive behind his back for a few (uncomfortable) minutes and transformed a red and yellow scarf into a blue and orange scarf. WOWSER!

“Say, abracadabra,” he instructed a bug-eyed seven year old in the audience.

“Abracadabra zoo-la-moolooty-tooty-frooty-schmooty!” screamed the over-excited class member who was perhaps attempting to steal the limelight.

And guess what? The trick still worked. Even though the incantation was altered, the scarf STILL CHANGED COLOURS!

I was beginning to doubt my sceptical view. Perhaps this child really did possess some true magical powers.

But just as I began to succumb to the mysticism of the supernatural, Harry Potter began showing everyone in the class the false bottom in his magician’s hat and the spot where the squished, stuffed rabbit resided. This so called magician was flagrantly revealing to all and sundry how the scarves turned inside out and basically giving away all his bloody secrets.

Just as I thought.

Another faker. A very honest faker, but still a faker.

I still detest magicians.


And circuses. I hate circuses. Filthy things they are. They smell of cabbage.

What's the Worst Job You Can Imagine?

When I was a kid the worst job I could imagine doing was working as a garbage man. Back then the garbage men were up before dawn, had to run from the truck and pick up the stinky, overflowing bins from the gutter before manually tipping the rubbish into the truck. I completely understood why Dad left them a six pack of beer at Christmas.

These days the garbos work pretty much normal hours and sit in the cab of an air-conditioned, fully mechanical garbage truck which does all the work for them.

Now I’m older, I think the worst job in the world would be a portable toilet cleaner, a roadkill collector or one of those traffic controllers who holds up stop signs in front of you when you’ve spent too much time faffing your hair in the morning and you’re already running late for work.

Traffic Controllers: the people we swear at under our breath for making us wait impatiently on the side of the road whilst a tractor does a pointless reverse pirouette in the dust.

Firstly, I couldn’t bear all the standing, especially standing in the sweltering sun or the freezing cold wind for hours on end. Secondly, I couldn’t bear the tedious boredom of it all.

Over the last six weeks I’ve had to drive to work passing through some roadworks and bizarrely, the traffic controller guy and I struck up an unanticipated rapport.

For some reason Mr Traffic Controller thought my canary yellow Suzuki with the PINKY P number plates was hysterically amusing. Every time my car, Golden Boy, rolled past him at forty kilometres an hour, he’d start performing a royal flourish as he ushered me past, waving flamboyantly and doing a little jig.

Whenever he spotted Golden Boy waiting in the queue of cars his face would invariably break into a huge grin of recognition and a few times he even yelled something out to me as I crawled past. I’d just laugh in an over exaggerated manner, wave back flirtatiously and give him the thumbs up in a cheeky Pinky P style.

I began to really look forward to seeing Mr Traffic Controller; he was part of my morning routine for six weeks.

On Friday, Scotto and I both had the day off so we drove through the roadworks in his Bat Car on the way to do some errands. As we drove past Mr Traffic Controller, I rolled down the window and Scotto stopped the car.

“Hello!” I beamed. “I’m Pinky P!”

“PINKY! One of me regulars!” he shouted with gusto. “I wondered where you were today!”

We had a little chat and he told us his name was Paul. He told us he recognised Scotto’s car too.

Paul is the kind of person I’d like to be, someone who embraces life and finds the positives in a every situation, a human who makes an effort to connect with other humans.


I suppose it’s not the job that matters… it’s what you do with it.

Golden Boy

The Dab

My four week contract teaching year six finished at the school last Friday but I was called back for two days this week for some relief teaching. That meant me scooting from grade to grade in my highly inappropriate high heels and dragging my Mary Poppins-like bag everywhere.

On Tuesday, the words, “You have to teach grade twos sport in the afternoon session” struck fear into my inner soul and I felt my loins shudder (not sure what loins are but something deep inside me shuddered anyway).

Teaching sport is not my forte. Especially teaching sport to people who are less than three feet in height.

As it turned out, I serendipitously (made word up) happened to be in possession of a pool noodle at that exact moment (what sort of teacher doesn’t travel with a fudging pool noodle) so I was able to adapt my drama game of ‘Fruit Salad’ into a game where everyone ran around hysterically whilst being chased by a ‘pineapple’ with a pool noodle… thus getting exercise.

Exercise= sport.

The grade twos bloody loved it too. There were accolades all round from the minions.

“We LOVE you Mrs Polinkish!” they screamed.

The parents picking up the preps probably weren't all that impressed with all the screaming and violent activity but you can't please everyone.

I turned up today expecting to be in charge of a year five class but was told that my morning was to be spent in year one.

OR MOR GORD. I bloody love grade ones. There was this one little flitterby gibbet with no teeth and freckles and I just wanted to hoik him on my shoulders and take him home. So cute!

I don’t know how grade one teachers ever get cranky with them they’re so adorable those little fudgers.

Lol.

I have a fan base at the school now. When I’m on duty all these small critters come sidling up to me and whisper in secretive tones, “Hello. Are you Mrs. Poinker? I’ve heard you dab. Can you do it for us?”

Apparently I’m a hero because I ‘dabbed’ in class one day for the grade sixes.

It’s a rumour that’s been circulating throughout the school, perpetuated through older siblings and cousins and now I’ve been labelled as ‘the teacher who dabbed’. I’m a veritable legend.

Either they think I’m cool or an idiot. I still haven’t figured it out. I won't do it for them of course. Got to keep the mystery alive.


But that’s the end of my booked work at present. I’m in limbo which is a weird feeling. I wonder if I’ll ever work again?

Pinky and Mr Stiffy

You know how I had a month’s contract at a school and part of that contract involved taking sixteen, eleven year old, rabid boys to an interschool football match every Friday, right?

Remember how I was justifiably freaking out about it?

Well I thought I’d use my nous and employ one of the dads who I’d seen coming along to support the team. This particular dad was helping the teacher with drills and stuff so, being the opportunistic lush that I am, I used my radar skills and honed straight in on the unsuspecting victim's son.

“So, will your lovely dad be coming to every match?” I needled Horatio, the son of the man in question the next week.

“Yep,” Horatio piped back, his head cocked winsomely to one side.

“What’s your Dad’s name?” I wheedled. “I’m thinking of getting him a thank you present, you know, like some beers, for all the work he’s been doing.”

“Mr Stiffy,” Horatio replied. “That’s his name.”

I gulped. “Mr Stiiffy? Did you say Mr St-i-ff-y?”

“Yep, and he likes Lowennbrau.” Little Horatio responded without missing a beat.

Anyway, despite the name, I still hoped Mr Stiffy would turn up to each of the four football games this fool of a woman was left in charge of and the six pack of Lowenbrau would be totally worth the financial outlay.

The first week, Mr Stiffy turned up and coached the team and was bloody awesome… but the second week he was a no show... which was monumentally disappointing and I failed as a footy coach and we lost the damn game.

The third week, the match was cancelled due to inclement weather and by the fourth and final week I began to doubt the value of my promised investment.

“Dad’s coming tomorrow! Don’t forget the Lowenbrau!” shouted Horatio on the Thursday of week four.

So I bought the bloody Lownbrau and made the boys make a card of gratitude (from themselves).

God forbid Mr Stiffy would think I was trying to crack on to him or something. I mean to say, he’d only actually helped me with one fudging game when you think about it. Why was I even giving him a fudging present?

And then I had to check his name was really what it was

“How do you spell Stiffy?” I asked the team captain as I did the bubble writing on the card.

“S-T-Y-F-F-E-Y,” the captain pronounced carefully.

I suppose that’s a bit of an improvement on STIFFY, I thought despondently.

Whatever.

Anyway after the presentation of the Lowenbrau (when I sort of coughed as I said his name), Mr Styffey was super keen to put extra effort into his coaching in that last game and our team won the match and now they're in the finals.

My work is done.

Again.



I’m a fudging footy legend.

What's the worst name you've had to deal with?

The Power of Valuing People

Scotto and I have been down here on the Gold Coast for three (and a bit) months and although I was worried about securing a job, I’ve actually managed to work for almost the entire of second term. 

The first school, where I spent a month teaching drama, was lovely (albeit stressful), but the second school where I’ve been teaching a grade 6 class for the last month has been positively amazing.

Despite having to hide the fact I was suffering the agony of shingles in the neck and head (of which I think I’m finally at the end of that dark tunnel of hell by the way), the entire experience has been absolutely wonderful.

The school had me sitting in professional development training workshops for twelve hours (during school time) while a relief teacher relieved the relief teacher (me).

How amazing is that? They were paying me to learn.

The teachers are friendly, the students are intelligent, capable and caring and the tuckshop food is indisputably the best I’ve encountered.

There’s a coffee shop in the carpark that sells real cappuccinos. I could get a take-away if I wanted for my drive back up the mountain. 

I have a multi-million dollar view from my classroom. 

Instead of a dusty old car park which I would previously have stared wistfully at, seeking out my car, wishing I was in it driving home at high speed, I now look out at a lake with swans and pelicans and other water loving birdies gliding over its pristine surface. I feel like I’m in a fairy tale princess palace set on a verdant and majestic hillock (whatever a hillock is).

There’s something VERY different about this school.

Not only do they seem to have a strong sense of value and respect for their students’ mental, physical and academic welfare, they also seem to deeply care about their teachers, even the scabby old relief teacher who’s staggered in from North Queensland with her piece of paper from Yokel's 'R Us University* and a handful of dodgy references**.

It was because I felt so appreciated right from the very first day at this school that I suffered through the torture of errant, shooting nerve pain and turned up every day with a twisted, agonised smile on my face. 

It was because I felt respected as a professional that I didn’t just call in sick and be done with it. It was because of the faith my employer had put in me that I didn’t let them down.

I believe this school follows the philosophy that if you value people, they will live up to your expectations.

It makes me wonder what else I can do for my students to show them how much they’re respected and what results it might produce.

Thoughts?

*Actually a normal university I was just being silly.

** References are not at all dodgy except for maybe one.

Mingling with Shingles

Whenever I’d thought about shingles (the illness, not the chalet-style roof tiles), I’d picture Albert Steptoe and his raggedy, grubby, fingerless gloves. I thought it was an older person’s disease; the type of older person who was a rag and bone man and lived in festering filth and had various, named rats as pets.

The nurse from the medical practice just rang and said that according to the results of the swab, that excruciating pain in my neck, head and ear and the itchy rash across the right side my chest, neck and back is most definitely the result of the shingles virus.

Enter… filthy, old, festering woman.

I cried when the nurse told me on the phone because my head was hurting so badly at the time. I cried when I walked in the door yesterday after work because I’d been barely surviving a living hell, all day. I’d take some painkillers and they’d dull the unbearably vicious stabbing for an hour, but then I have to wait for three more hours before I could take any more.

I cried again last night because even three glasses of red wine and two Mersyndols couldn’t completely settle the rogue ganglion of nerves on my right upper torso.

I’m actually conversing with the pain… abusing it in fact. “Fudge off!” I yell at it every time I get a particularly brutal spasm. “Fudge off, ashmole! Nobody asked you to chime in!”

Scotto just came home with some ointment.

I’m spreading ointment on my shingles. How attractive does that sound, Harold?

The ointment contains capsaicin which works by burning the nerve endings and somehow tricking them into not hurting. The trouble is I can’t put it on my scalp because of that stuff on my scalp called hair. Oh bugger it. I’m rubbing it in anyway. But the label says it will take four weeks to work anyway. I’ll be in the nut house by then for sure.

It could be worse, I know. I could have a tummy bug. There’s nothing worse than feeling nauseous. Or I could have the flu. I hate having a fever and that feeling of not being able to breathe. Or I could have something terminal.

What’s a bit of vice-like agony between friends, eh?

You can get a needle to prevent shingles.

If I’d only known about it.

Anyone who’s had chicken pox can develop shingles and it’s especially likely if you’re over 50 years of age. My advice is to go and have the vaccine because it’s a bloody horrible thing.

Plus, I just found a new red lump on my chin. Soon it will creep insidiously onto my face and people will think I have leprosy or just plain old school sores.

Things ain’t cooking in my kitchen, a strange affliction has come over me (told you I was going nuts).

Feel free to send flowers.



Have you ever had shingles or do you know someone who had them and survived?

In the Neck of Timing.

The neck.

Since Friday morning until now, I’ve been in excruciating pain.

It’s felt as if I have a knife, gleefully twisting in my jugular region, every ten seconds, just for the spite of it.

Via Google I self-diagnosed shingles after a bubbly, red rash appeared on my collar bone… but then I realised that the rash was where I’d burned myself after over-exuberance with the heating pad I’d had permanently attached to me all weekend.

By Tuesday (this morning), the pain had crept up to the back of my head and behind my ear. It was unrelenting. Every ten seconds I’d get a savage stab of pain that would cause me to twitch in an unattractive fashion akin to a convulsing, box jelly fish victim.

“Are you alright, Mrs Poinker?” my grade six students kept asking when I repeatedly jerked and winked at them like an unco-ordinated drunken pirate.

It’s been a nightmare. Even driving to school with a painful pulsating throb in my neck was a trial. I was yelling at myself in the rear vision mirror I was so cranky.

So today I went to a proper physiotherapist and now the acute, intense and piercing sensations are only occurring every half hour and easing. It’s such a relief. I bloody love physios.

One thing I was really looking forward to when I arrived home today at 6 o'clock, was a hot shower and the sensation of scalding water beating down hard on the compacted muscular constriction that is the isthmus between my shivering torso and my pin-sized head.

Imagine my horror when Scotto (who’d had a day working from home), informed me that he’d lovingly replaced my shower faucet in order to bring me into the twenty-first century. 

He’d installed a fudging fancy one.

It takes me at least three weeks to acclimatise to a new shower faucet. 

It takes me at least three weeks to work out how to stand in exactly the correct position to maximise the benefit of the stream, how to adjust the taps to achieve the ultimate temperature and at least three weeks to get to know how the balance of temperature control and pressure works in order to be able to have a shower that makes me feel like a fudging Mother of Dragons, not a cold, bedraggled rat chasing around the intermittent drips endeavouring to get a bit wet.

If I have a bung neck, the last thing I want is a new shower faucet that looks like a model of an alien spaceship from the movie set of Independence Day.

But, I had to be nice because it’s the thought that counts.

It was sweet of him to think of me but… TIMING!!!

Hot showers and baths are a religious experience when you’re in pain.

How about you? Do you get to know your shower faucet intimately?

No rude comments, thank you very much.

What the Fortune Teller Said...

As it was Scotto’s birthday, we’ve spent the entire weekend celebrating. Yesterday Mum and Dad took us to the Fox and Hound, a pub which was transported (like the convicts) all the way from England to Australia because some fella missed his local pub in England. 

I’m not even fibbing. Read about it here.

Outside the Fox and Hound

Half the pub is done up in the English tradition and the other half is Irish. There was a wedding happening in the Irish half so we dined with the Queen. I had beer-battered cod and chips served on newspaper.

The fox must have suffered a bit on the journey over I think because it barely moved the entire time.

Poor little sick fox.

Today, Scotto and I went to a winery on the mountain for lunch which was lovely, and then we went meandering down the street to seek out an adventure.

Tamborine Mountain Winery

 

Because I’ve had a vicious spasm in my neck for the last three days, I suggested we stop at a massage place I’d spotted on the way. Normally I buck up about strange people touching me, but my neck has been soooo painful, I was desperate.

We entered the establishment but there was no-one about, except that we could hear someone giving a Tarot card reading in a curtained off room just past the door. 

We waited patiently, scanning the books about angel visitations, chakras and admiring the dream catchers whilst eavesdropping on the boring love prospects of the person having the reading behind the curtain.

I noticed a trashy detective novel, a pack of ciggies and a lighter on the counter and hoped they belonged to the massage person who might have slipped off to the loo or something. My neck was killing me.

Finally the curtain drew back and a frightened looking person scuttled out, paid their bill and suddenly we were left facing the fortune teller.

“Any chance of a massage?” I asked hopefully.

“No. The massage guy didn’t turn up today. Would you like a Tarot card reading instead?” the lady rasped.

I looked at Scotto who just shrugged non-committedly. He always leaves the big decisions to me.

“Okay,” I sighed. “But feel free to have a ciggie first.” 

I’m nice like that.

She looked at me with a knowing smile and a wink.

After her ciggie break, we sat opposite her in the small room and she asked me to shuffle the cards.

Naturally I dropped them all over the floor.

“Did you get them all?” Scotto asked in an urgent tone, worried I could initiate an entirely bogus reading by accidentally missing a card under our feet which could possibly reveal a potential billion dollar windfall from Lotto.

The Tarot card reader laid the cards out in neat piles.

“Is there anything you don’t want me to tell you?” she asked, cocking her milky, glass eye at me in a diabolical fashion. (That’s made up.)

“Yes,” I said. “Please don’t tell me when I’m going to die.”

She picked up THE FIRST TWO CARDS, looked at them closely. “Okay,” she said and then hurriedly threw the cards aside.

What the actual fudge? It seemed this whole reading was a farce. If I’m about to die so soon then why was I spending twenty-five bucks to have my bloody fortune read?

Then she said that either Scotto or I have a psychic ability. She said that one of us is the type who answers all the questions on quiz shows and doesn’t know where they get the answers from.

Well that would be Scotto, but that’s only because when we watch The Chase, he shouts out the answers before I have a chance, he’s often wrong, and the answers he does get correct are from pop culture knowledge he’s acquired from watching the bloody Simpsons.

I reckon she really meant that I was the psychic one because I suggested she go have a smoke and how did I know that she smoked? (I could smell it on her as well actually).

Anyway, then she started telling me some very strange things.

1. One of my son’s girlfriends is about to have a white-haired baby. (Not entirely impossible.)

2. A middle-aged freeloading man is going to come and live with us soon. (Who? Please don't, whoever you are. I don't like freeloaders or random middle-aged men.)

3. I’m soon to be awarded with glory and recognition for all my hard work over the last thirty years. (About bloody time.)

4. And then she told us something else is going to happen that is really terrible and it made me cry and Scotto had to hold my hand and pass me the tissues.

She made us tape the whole session and gave us her phone number and said if all the stuff doesn’t come true we’re to ring her and get a full refund.


I don’t like fortune tellers anymore. And my neck still hurts.

Do you believe in fortune tellers?

Ice Ice Baby

Sometimes, before I make my way up the mountain after work, I call in to the local Coles. It’s a colourful locale, full of a diverse cross section of the general society.

That’s code for, I think it’s full of people on ice.

I’m not a snob, you know that. I’m as rough as guts. I wear Ugg boots for God's sake.

But some of the people who frequent the shopping centre frighten even me. I don’t know if it’s the seventy year old ladies with full body tattoos, the men dressed in weeny shorts and nothing else except a pink, fluorescent beanie or maybe it’s the nine months pregnant teenagers walking around with no shoes on and a ciggie hanging out their mouths, swearing obscenities as they push the eight month old toddler in its stroller… but something unnerves me about the place.

Today, as I was buying my four dogs their three thousand dollars’ worth of weekly dog food, I saw a lady swaggering around the dog food aisle wearing a t-shirt with “ALL PEDOFILES SHOULD BE TORTURED” printed on it, right across her alarmingly swinging, massive boozookas.

I stood behind her later at the checkout, quietly pondering on whether I should politely inform her that ‘pedophiles’ was spelt incorrectly, but I thought better of it. She could have felled me with one vicious thrust of her upper torso.

Besides, maybe she actually meant ‘pedofiles’, as in, people who keep files on feet, or something.

Why she would want them to be tortured is a puzzle though.

Last week, after I’d just packed my groceries in the back of my car and had slithered into my seat, relieved I’d survived another shopping expedition in downtown Scaryville and was starting to back out of the park, I noticed there was a car which had pulled up behind me and parked, rudely blocking my exit.

“Here we go,” I thought in disappointment, “This is my first experience with road rage. This person is getting out of the car and will punch me through the window and I’ll be a vegetable for the rest of my life. I hope it’s quick and painless. I hope they’re not actually on ice and try to eat my face because that would definitely hurt.”

But the lady getting out of the car and coming towards me looked normal. Very normal actually, and she was smiling.

“Hello!” she grinned. “I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Linda!”

It took me about five seconds of idiotic blinking with my mouth open before I realised who it was.

Linda!

I’ve been in contact via blogging and social media with Linda for about three years but we’d never met in real life. She’d spotted my car, Golden Boy!

Wow. How miraculous!

She’s gorgeous. Just like I thought she’d be.

I knew we’d meet one day.

This is why I love blogging. I have friends all over the world and that world is getting smaller every day.

But tell me, are you frightened by the ice epidemic? I see weird, unpredictable people around a lot more. Or am I just being an old lady?

The Footy Files

I took the grade six boys to the school boy’s footy fixtures, last Friday.

I’m sure my colleagues at my previous school would be rocked off their socks to hear this little fact, me being such a precious pernickety poof about standing in the sun for extended periods and all.

As a drama teacher (not a fudging footy coach) it was paramount I wear the correct costume on the day, so naturally I wore my one and only Cowboy’s supporter’s shirt in order to underline the fact that I am, in fact, a solid footy chick. It was the same shirt I purchased six months ago to bullshit to my former colleagues that I follow the footy. I’ve worn it twice now.

Me and the lads got on fine on the bus. I adopted the footy macho vernacular very well I thought.

I promised them if they won their game, I’d perform a ‘dab’.

I didn’t know what the fudge they were talking about but they promised me that a ‘dab’ wasn’t rude or humiliating, so I reluctantly agreed.

Before we left on the bus trip, I showed them a photo of me with the NRL grand final trophy the North Queensland Cowboys won last year and took on a progressive tour of local schools. 

Me and the NRL trophy.

One young man peered at the photograph and cautiously commented, “Noice one, Mrs Poinker. Is that a dancing trophy or something?”

“Look again, buddy boy,” I drawled. “That ain’t no fancy dancin’ schmancin’ trophy. What do ya think I am? A pansy or something?”

“Coooor!” he exclaimed when he finally realised. “It’s the NRL trophy!”

Why he thought I’d be showing him a dancing trophy is anyone’s guess.

When we arrived at the footy field I was relieved to see one of the Dads had turned up to do the warm ups because I would have had to demonstrate yoga or interpretive dance as a warm up and I don’t think it would have gelled with the young guns.

I was also extremely pleased to see that the other team we were playing were half the size of our boys. “Get on there and slaughter ‘em,” I hissed. “Throttle the little sooks.”

Anyway, our team won 46 to 10.

Their team was comprised of about 40 tiny ingénues whereas we only had 13 kids (albeit huge), so it wasn’t entirely unfair.

I did the ‘dab’ (in front of all the parents as well) since they’d won the game but I still don’t know what it bloody means. The boys all laughed their heads off so I’m a bit worried.


Any enlightenment? Will I be struck off the teacher’s registration board?

How to Save Time in the Morning

I’m typing this out in my flannelette, sparrow-inspired pjs, snuggled under the downy quilt with the Chihuahua nestled at my feet because it’s 15 degrees on the mountain and I’m a tad chilly.

I’m very annoyed actually, because I just washed my hair and I used the shampoo twice instead of using the conditioner because I can’t read small print without my glasses. I wish they’d make ‘conditioner’ a much longer word like ‘conditionifieriser’ so I could discern the difference in my myopic state.

There you go, that’s a bloody brilliant marketing tactic for you Pantene! Someone should do it. Or maybe the shampoo companies could just use a larger fudging font. Now my hair will be even more witch-like than usual tomorrow.

It’s a bit like in the morning when I take my iron tablet. Is this my iron tablet or the dog worming tablet? I wonder as I squint at the packet, too lazy to walk three steps into the bedroom to retrieve my glasses.

I know I shouldn’t wash my hair at 9 o’clock in the evening and go to bed with wet hair anyway, because;

1. It can cause one to catch the Bubonic plague.

2. It makes your hair stand up on its roots like a cocky’s comb the next day.

3. A wet lock of hair flicked in Scotto’s eye/face in the middle of the night usually inspires the wrath of Khan.



It does cut down time in the morning though. There’s no blow drying rubbish, no combing out vicious knots created from the menopausal tossing and turning of the sweaty, discouraged head and no panicked situations with my long hair inescapably tangled in a blow drying brush and me hysterically screaming out to Scotto to come into the bathroom with a sharp pair of scissors at 6:30 in the morning.

No, instead it’s just me staring into the mirror thinking, “Oh well. I look like Donald Trump. It’s not that bad. I’ll just put a bit more eyeliner on.”

I have other time-saving, morning short cut routines which allow me a bit more shut eye.

I neatly lay out the Glad Wrap for my sandwich the night before which saves at least 3 seconds, I gargle my mouthwash at the same time I perform my morning ablutions, plus I have a list of things I need to remember to take to work on a piece of bright, orange paper which I check before I walk out the door so I’m not flustered and swearing, running back inside the front door fifty thousand times after I’ve already locked it and kissed the dogs goodbye.

The list says: Nicorettes, phone, lunch, keys, laptop, reading glasses, sunglasses, snack, extra snack, water bottle, diary, blue thing.

Scotto noticed it one day in his bleary eyed state and asked, “What’s the blue thing on your list, Pinky?”
I didn’t tell him because I like to keep our marriage in a romantic state of ‘mysterious adventure’. You know, keeping it alive and sexy after ten years of imprisonment.

Go on. What do you reckon the blue thing is?

Now that I've milked this silly riddle for as long as I can I will tell you it's one of those frozen bricks you use to keep your lunch from giving you food poisoning. I don't even know if they have names.

Help Me, Wayne Bennett!

Hey guys!

I started my new contract teaching Grade Six last week and I think I’ll bloody love it. These kids are so smart they could even recognise Bill Shorten on BTN as he swept by on the telly screen. I can hardly recognise him to tell the truth. I keep thinking he’s Stanley Laurel.

Come on! There’s a definite resemblance. He lacks the distinctive eyebrows necessary to be a proper Prime Minister but he has that comedic look about him don’t you think?

Not only are the kids at this school (most probably) a bit cleverer than I, they’re also very nice and placid. I dearly hope I don’t ruin the calm ambience their awesome teacher has created in the classroom. I’m going to try my hardest not to anyway.

One disturbing thing I have to do over the next four weeks is to chaperone a dozen boys to football every week. 

I attempted a trial run last Friday.

What do I know about footy? I know that when you chuck a fake ball at someone it’s called a dummy pass. That was my only legitimate comment at the end of the game.

“Hey buddy! Great dummy pass!” I limply enthused at the biggest boy in the sweaty enclave of eleven year old behemoths after the game.

All of the little ingrates pointedly ignored me.

I patted a few of the boys on the back and mumbled stupid things like, “You were awesome, buddy!” But they just shrugged me off.

I stood on the sideline with the coach for the entire game asking mummy questions, like,

“What happens if someone gets hurt?”, “Is it safe to tackle around the throat like that?”, “What exactly does ‘offside’ mean?” and “When do they do the Haka?”

My entire footy knowledge comes from having a boyfriend when I was 19 years of age who played rugby league and from owning a North Queensland Cowboys supporter’s t-shirt and complimentary bread and butter plate with the Cowboys emblem on it.

That’s it.

Not exactly Wayne Bennett, am I?

At least I know who Wayne Bennett is, I suppose. That’s got to be worth something.

Anyway, I sent off a frantic message to my old buddy teacher, JB, who used to do all the footy stuff at my old school and he’s sent me some great stuff for training the team. 

Lol.

I just need to harden the fudge up, hey matey buddy.

And in the words of the great Wayne Bennett, “I’ve always been able to live with failure but I’ve never been able to live with not doing the best that I could.”



Fudge. HELP ME RHONDA!!!!!!!!!!

Would you be up for the challenge? Any tips?

Happy Mother's Day to All Neglected Mothers

My darling Mum at about 5 years of age.

I love mother’s day now that my five kids are all in their early twenties.

Back when they were little, they’d fight about whose embroidered face towel/secondhand Beatrix Potter statue/Engelbert Humperdink CD/ avocado soap/ toxic, fluorescent bath salts, was the best present… but now there’s no fighting at all.

Mainly because there are no presents to speak of.

But that’s okay.

I know. It’s my own fault because I left my all kids back in Townsville. I abandoned them for a new life on the mountain, so why should they bother with me anymore?

There is one son working in Brisvegas at the moment, so Scotto and I made the onerous trip up on a train to that hideous place yesterday so I could shout my son lunch for Mother’s Day.

God I hate Brisbane. I don’t think there’s a worse place on Earth (aside from Bowen). The only good thing about Brisbane is the bus drivers. I know this because the train line was under repair so all the cranky commuters from the Gold Coast had to disembark the train halfway through the journey and catch a succession of fudging buses to get to Southbank.

It was very confusing but the bus drivers took pity on us and one driver even let us on for free. It may have been due to my limping what with the blisters from all the walking and everything.

But despite the irritating bother of travelling that inconvenient distance, it was okay because I was so looking forward to seeing my bonny baby son.

My last born babe promised to let us buy him lunch to celebrate my special day at 1:00 pm, you see, and I was quite excited. But as Scotto and I sat patiently drinking our wine at 2:15 with rumbling tummies and he still hadn’t turned up, I sent him a text enquiring as to his whereabouts.

“No sorry,” he texted back very politely. "No buses until 3:10pm, mother. Can’t make it.”

But that’s okay because it meant I didn’t have to pay for his lunch and saved myself some money. It’s all good. Please don’t feel sorry for me.

I thought it was odd that the buses from his location in Brisbane were so infrequent, but never mind. I’m sure he tried his hardest. It was a mother’s day celebration after all and I knew he’d attempted everything in his power to get there.

It probably had nothing to do with hangovers or apathy or anything. I shouldn’t let my imagination get the better of me.

So I decided, after my bittersweet disappointment, that instead of worrying about myself this mother’s day, I would enjoy spoiling my own dear mother. We have to grow up and realise it’s not always about us some time, I suppose.

Scotto took portraits of Mum’s beloved spaniels and we had canvas prints made of them to give to her. Plus, for the first time in years I can have her around for lunch since she just lives down the road now.

I think it’s time I allowed my chicks to flutter from the nest and time for me to spend more time with my own parents. It’s the circle of life really. I just hope my kids are there for me when I get older. 

Like when I’m on my deathbed... I’d really like them to show up.

As long as there are no buses involved it should be okay.

Happy Mother’s Day.



P.S. Thank you to Thaddeus for the surprise parcel and the salt and pepper shakers in the shape of terriers and the dog shampoo. They are very lovely. You are still in the will. xxx

Strange Things Said in My Drama Classroom

John Cena
 Image Credit

Teacher: Right. Does everyone remember which fruit they’re supposed to be?

Students: Yeeeeeesssss, Mrs Poinker!

Teacher: Good, let’s start the game.

Teacher: Wait! Stop! You’re supposed to be a mango, young man. Why are you being a nectarine?

Boy Student: John Cena!

Teacher: What did you just say?

Boy Student: John Cena! John Cena!

Teacher: Why do you keep shouting, John Cena?

Boy Student: Because he’s a WWE champion.

Teacher: So what? Don’t yell out silly things in class. Now be sensible and act like a mango like I told you to.

Boy Student: I WANNA BE JOHN CENA!

Teacher: Well you have to do well in school, be respectful and get good marks to be a WWE champion, so for now you have to be a mango.

Boy Student: (wrestling another student to the floor) Can I be an orange instead?

Teacher: No. Get off the floor. I’m writing your name on the board. You can stay with me at lunch time.

Boy Student: That’s not my name.

Teacher: (confused as not quite au fait with all 700 children’s names yet and pauses with whiteboard marker in mid-air)

Well, what is your name?

Boy Student: John Cena!

Other students: His name is Rasputin, Mrs Poinker.

Teacher: (finishes writing ‘Rasputin’ on board then turns back to the class)

Why do you have a tissue sticking out of both of your ears, Lillith?

Lillith: (shrugs).

Teacher: Take them out and put them in the bin.

Lillith: (coming back from the bin and wailing loudly) Rasputin just called me an idiot.

Rasputin: No, I didn’t. She called me a loser first!

Lillith: You took my chair!

Teacher: Go back to your seat and I’ll talk to him at lunch time. Are you supposed to be a banana or a watermelon, Lillith?

Lillith: (Picks leftover tissue from ear) I fink I’m an apricot.


Teacher: We didn’t have any apricots. Does anyone remember which fruit Lillith is supposed to be?

Students: Nooooooo, Mrs Poinker.

Teacher: Does anyone remember what fruit they are?

Silence.

Teacher: Okay. Forget the fruit. We’ll start again and be vegetables, and this time, try to concentrate. If I tell you you’re a cabbage then try to remember that you’re a cabbage.

Rasputin: This game’s boring. Can we play WWE Championships instead?

Teacher: It’s only BORING because you keep interrupting and we can’t get started, Rasputin. Go and sit in the corner. I've had enough.

Rasputin retires to the corner of the room and wrestles happily with himself until the end of the lesson.

The rest of us play the game of Fruit Salad in the guise of vegetables.

Literally.

Could someone please send me a large sum of money so I can give this game away? If not, why?

Pinky and the Penii

Sorry about the photo.

It was too hard to resist. We went for a walk from Kirra to Greenmount yesterday and the path was resplendent with glorious penis trees. One can’t merely walk past a penis tree without capturing the beauty. They’re circumcised and everything. Penises galore! Or is it ‘penii’?

I’m not sure, but Scotto became so sick of me gushing over the penises, he threw me over the railings and if it wasn’t for my superior upper body strength I’d have fallen to my death on the rocks below.

Sometimes on Mondays, I ask the kids at school what they did on the weekend.


“Aw… went to Dreamworld… Seaworld, Wet and Wild, Movieworld,” they reply in a blasé manner, as if going to a magical theme park is becoming a boring activity for them.

The kids on the Gold Coast are spoiled for choice but so are the big kids.

Scotto and I have embarked on a weekly luncheon date, touring the surf lifesaving clubs down here. So far we’ve been to Burleigh, Kurrawa, Coolangatta and Kirra. That’s four out of about seventeen. The meals are cheap, tasty and generously proportioned and the views are undeniably spectacular as the surf clubs are built on prime real estate. 

I love watching the surfers and wind kiters burning off the calories I’m eating, the delicious surf club chips which are crispy on the outside and mushy and salty inside.



Scotto likes the thin, crunchy ones but I prefer to get my mouth around the big, meatier type with a decent circumference. (Chips that is. Not talking about penises anymore, guys.)


Once we’ve eaten our way through the surf clubs we’ll start on the fifty million restaurants down here.

Back in Townsville, we mainly went to the same places. Actually, we mainly went to the one same place, the Yacht Club. The staff would watch us swanning in and roll their eyes, exchanging furtive glances and stuffing a few extra bottles of Chardonnay in the fridge.

Nobody knows us here which is an excellent state of affairs.

Two travel blogger friends, hello Kathy and Jan, suggested I do review type blogs of all the surf clubs on the Gold Coast and it sounds like a good idea what with me being an ex-Surf Girl and everything. I think I owe it to the life saving association, really.

Grilled Haloumi and salad.

So far Burleigh is my favourite because the fried Haloumi melted in my mouth but Coolangatta was nice because of the great shops close by. 

Coolangatta SLSC view

We picked up this beauty at an antique shop in Coolangatta. Ideal for the guest bedroom!

I really enjoyed my calamari and chips with aioli at Kurrawa, but Kirra gained extra stars due to the random penises around the place.

View from Kurrawa SLSC

Kirra SLSC (Yep, we drove the tractor down from the mountain)

Stay tuned for more in the series of Pinky and the Penii  Surf Club Reviews, next week.

What's your favourite pub style meal and what's your ideal chip?

W, X, Y and Z

I’m pretty sure that kid is drunk.

That’s what I sound like when I’m drunk, anyway, like a baby who can’t talk proper.

So guys, in typical Pinky Poinker fashion, I have failed to complete the April A-Z challenge of writing a post every day and have condensed W, X, Y and Z into one post because… well, what’s going to happen? It’s not like I’ll be arrested or sued or anything. *

Besides, it means instead of annoying you for four days in a row it’s only once.

So…

W stands for Weird.

I think it’s very weird that “The letter ‘I’ comes before ‘E’ except after C”, except in the fudging word ‘weird’. What the hell? It’s very cruel for immigrants and new English speakers that they can’t even know how to spell ‘weird’ properly because of the stupid rules they’ve learned.

X is for why don’t more words start with X? It’s bloody racism that’s what it is. It’s Xenephobia, actually.

Y is for Yuk.

I felt yuk today when I watched my German Shepherd spew in the garden then return to his recently regurgitated chunks of Meaty Bites minutes later and gobble them down. What the actual yuk? Who eats their own vomit? Sometimes I hate my dogs.

Z is for Zealots

I hate zealots. Those annoying people who tell you how to live your life.

I was teaching a drama lesson today and the kids had to mime out a scene in a particular nominated room in a house.

I told one group of ten year olds to act out a scene in a dining room.

“What’s a dining room?” asked one rough-haired individual.

“It’s where you eat dinner,” I replied.

“You mean the lounge room?” he asked, eyeing me in confusion.

I felt no Judgy McJudgement outrage when he said it, more relief really. My kids spent most of their family dinners hunched around a coffee table, slurping up their dinner watching Seinfeld, so I’m in no position to sit on my high horse.

Personally, I think family dinner table time is hugely overrated. My memories include being in trouble for slouching like a leper, being chastised for feeding the poodle my brussel sprouts and gagging on the cold choko when everyone else had left the table and I was being forced to finish my dinner.

There was never any “catching up on our day in a civilised and jovial fashion” happening.

It’s all bullshit. Family dinners at the table are a formidable experience.

What do you think?


· If I am to be sued this was written by Pinky Smith.

Vapid Learning

V is for Vapid Learning

April A-Z Challenge

So... I was teaching the preps (4 to 5 year olds) a new game today during their drama lesson.

It’s a challenge teaching preps anything, let alone drama, because they haven’t quite realised they’re alive yet. They just seem to float around the place in an external bubble of weird, amniotic fluid, seemingly oblivious to their true surroundings.

In the game, one student has to be the detective and suss out which child in the circle is hiding a ball on their person (in their knickers or under their shirt, preferably the latter).

“You all need to trick the detective by looking really guilty,” I laboriously explained. “Make the detective think it’s YOU that’s hiding the ball.”

“What’s a guilty?” asked one little blonde thing with fatty cheeks begging to be squeezed.

I groaned inwardly.

“Who here knows what guilty means?” I asked the class.

Not one of them knew, so I explained via an allegory about a dog that chewed up a shoe and was ashamed of what he’d done. I even acted like the dog with a mopey, guilty expression on my face and received a round of laughter from the room. 

They’re a tough crowd so I was chuffed.

“Or you could try to look innocent,” I added in a rash moment of over-confidence.

“What’s innocent?” Blondey lisped, cocking his head to the side in a fetching manner.

So then I enacted an entire scene where a dog is guilty of chewing up shoes and a cat (who was actually the culprit) acts all innocent and has an innocuous, but smug expression on its face, because it's secretly glad the dog is in trouble. 

There was more hysterical laughter from the peanut gallery.

I love preps but it’s almost as if they deliberately try to be dull-witted imbeciles just to annoy teachers. How can you NOT KNOW what innocent means? 

 Are they freakin, four years old or something?

I’ll teach the class of preps for a whole fricking hour and they see me, literally five minutes after the lesson, and come up to me when I’m on playground duty and say, “Do I know you?”

“Yep,” I sigh. “I saw you five minutes ago.”

Goldfish. That’s what they are.

I made the mistake of asking them today at the end of the lesson, “So, what have you learned in the last three weeks I’ve been teaching you drama?”

Five hands shot up.

“I learned how to swim to the side of the pool all by myself,” stammered the first respondent.

“No. I mean, what have you learned about in DRAMA?” I emphasised. “You know! All the stuff we’ve been doing here in this room!”

“I yearned dat dogs chew up shoes and they're very norty and cats are good,” whispered another one.



Yep. My work here is done.