The Sound of Dust Mites

I have twelve ladies coming for lunch tomorrow and have been cleaning my dusty house so that they don't think I'm a filthy pig. 

I picked up some Gumption at the IGA and it inspired me to write a song (as various things occasionally do). 

You have to sing along in your head to the Youtube song at the bottom of the post... k?

Warning: It's very deep. Very.

The Sound of Dust Mites

Hello Gumption my old friend

I’ve come to scrub with you again

In my vision softly cleaning...

Til my fingers are all bleeding

And the vision that is planted in my brain

Has no stains

Around the kit...chen island.



The counter gleamed, I scrubbed alone

My spouse was on the telephone

And my hand joints ached with raw cramp

I squeezed my sponge into the cold and damp

Then my eyes were stung with the splash of some Ajax White

It blurred my sight

So then I swore... with violence

But in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand dust balls, maybe more

Dust balls gathered on the bench top

Dust balls hiding from the duster mop

Dust balls telling tales... that vacuums never share

They’d never dared

Disturb that mound... of dust mites




Fool was I, you surely know

Dust mites like a cancer grows

"Hear my words that I might teach you

You filthy dust I’m going to reach you"

And my sponge... my silent loofah,  fell

And mopped up… all that mound of dust mites.




And then Pinky bowed and prayed

To the Gumption, God had made

But the label flashed its warning

In the words I saw were forming

And the words said, the stains from the dust are coated on the kitchen walls

And in the halls


They whispered… those mounds of dust mites.

Why School Holidays Rock like Ozzy Osborne

Scozzy Osborne

It was Crazy Hair Day, plus State of Origin Day at school the other day.

The perfect storm for primary students to express their personal identity.

The perfect storm for extravagant silly behaviour, excessive absurdity and disgraceful ambiguousness, and that is just the teachers.

Naturally, I went for it hell for leather.

I wore my maroon Qld supporter’s shirt AND a three foot long, black wig.

The black wig drew a mixed reaction from my class.

One kid regarded me thoughtfully and said, “You should make that your normal, Mrs. Poinker. It looks good on you.”
One kid looked petrified and started firing at me with an imaginary machine gun as if he had come face to face with the queen of the zombie hive of the apocalypse.

To be honest, I only kept the wig on for fifteen minutes and that was only to impress upon the parents who attended morning assembly that I was a bit of a good sport… and also to keep my ears warm in the bitter cold.

When I arrived home from work, Scotto asked me how the wearing of the wig went. After half-heartedly listening to my reply, he then disappeared for a few minutes into the depths of our bedroom.

I gasped in horror when he reappeared around the corner of our bedroom sporting the three foot long black wig looking like Mortcia in drag.

“I’d better not catch you dressed up in that wig and togged up in my undies!” I shrieked in alarm.

He shrugged and grinned.

I worry about Scotto sometimes.

I like the end of term because we do fun things like athletics carnivals.

When I say fun things, I mean fun things for the kids. 

Athletics day feels like the Education Minister has just slammed teachers in the kidneys with a cricket bat. Standing up from 9:00 am until 3:oopm in the hot sun and playing an unending game of Whack a Mole and Herding Cats in an attempt to control multitudes of blue and yellow, zinc sunscreened feral kids… well… that’s a recipe for a grand mal seizure if there ever was one.

But today is the end of term and all is good.

I have three things to look forward to.

Pretty much my entire school teaching mob are coming to my house for lunch on Tuesday for a champagne lunch (note to self: under no circumstance get pissed and reveal true nature and also don't forget to clean dog slobbered back window), I am going to Sydney on a whirlwind trip with my eldest son AND I am returning to my home town to visit my adorable but demanding children for the first time in eighteen months.



I bloody love school holidays!

Bantam of the Opera

Bantam of the Opera

For the last few weeks my cherished rooster, Hodor, has been a bit off.

His appetite is as robust as ever but he keeps stumbling around in an unco-ordinated fashion, like a fluffy, rotund, drunken sailor. He’s still as belligerent as ever, picking fights with the hens and taking feathery chunks out of the magpies’ arses when they try to swoop him, though.

“Do you think he’s been overdoing the ‘making love’ thing with the eight hens?” I asked Scotto (although I didn’t use the actual words ‘making love’ I used a much crasser expression like ‘rooting’). "Eight women would be a lot to maintain."

“What? You think he can’t walk because he has blue balls?” Scotto sniffed in a way that suggested he was slightly envious of the eight women thing.

I shrugged. I don’t even know if roosters have balls.

Luckily for you, I just Googled it and they do have balls which are surprisingly large, look like sausages and taste like Tofu with overtones of chicken liver. If you want to see a picture of rooster balls click here…  Chickens do have balls!


But I can’t locate any balls on Hodor under all the feathery fat.


I suspected he might be too fat so I put him on a diet. He seemed to be tumbling forward as if he was top heavy or something and he definitely looked as if he’d been grazing in the good paddock of late.

A friend of ours who owns chickens recently commented he’d never seen such a fat and oddly shaped rooster.

After a couple of weeks on the diet, there was no improvement so I diagnosed his illness must be a return of the scaly leg mite infection he suffered six months ago when he was paralysed from the waist down and we thought he was about to sadly go the big, meal worm factory in the sky.

Scotto was enlisted as my male nurse and he gently held Hodor as I sprayed his legs with canola oil. 

The rooster’s legs not Scotto’s. 

Then we put him on the grass and doused him with Pesticene. 

Again, the rooster not Scotto.

You should have seen the bloody histrionics. Not only did Hodor play dead but once roused, he bunged on the biggest act I’ve ever seen.

Here’s the video…

You’ll be happy to know he was back strutting around and viciously taking fluffy hunks out of the hen’s necks again this morning.


But I’m going to enrol him in an Academy of Dramatic Arts.

A Short History of Mostly Nothing

Homosapien Frustratusis

Every time I open a new Word document I automatically click on Page Layout, then Margins, then select Narrow Margins, to save paper. Imagine how much time I’d have saved over the last fifteen years if I’d had this set to default. Imagine how much time I will save over the next (hopefully) thirty years, if I set it to default now. An entire year probably.

Speaking of saving time, I’ve discovered how, by this time next year, without using up any drinking time, I can become a veritable genius.

I’ve finally embraced audio books and for the last week I’ve been listening to Bill Bryson’s, "A Short History of Nearly Everything" on my drive to work and back.

I now possess a short bit of knowledge of nearly everything.

I’m trying to find a book called ‘A Not Inconsiderable and Substantial History of Mother Fudging Everything’, which should set me up for life and perhaps proffer me a chance of getting on The Chase and allow me to win a not inconsiderable and substantial amount of money.

My not inconsiderable and substantially lengthy commute to work was starting to give me the not inconsiderable and substantial shits, what with having to listen to jaded radio personalities talking themselves up and Ed Sheeran being played on an endlessly monotonous, whiny loop. 

I was completely over the One Direction/Elton John mix CD Scotto had downloaded for me and it was getting more and more difficult to get out of bed in the freezing cold with nothing to look forward to.

Coldus Thermometus

This is what the temperature was when I ARRIVED at school last week. It was actually 3 degrees a few minutes earlier but by the time my frozen hands managed to get my phone out, the thermometer had gone up a degree.

Don’t feel too sorry for me though because the views I witness at every twist and turn on my journey to work are breathtaking. However, spectacularly striking, verdant, bucolic views can get a bit dreary after a while and I needed some intellectual stimulation.

Enter… audio books.

Ask me about mitochondria… go on…

Or ask me about the discovery of cyanobacteria fossils in the Cambrian period. I can wax lyrical about Cambrian fossils now.

(To be truthful, I tend to tune out on the extremely technical stuff the narrator garbles on with but I had a nightmare last week that I coughed up my lung. This was because I'd heard the narrator talking about a guy who coughed up the mucous lining of his larynx when he was climbing Mt Everest and it was one thing that clearly didn't go in one ear and out the other.)

I can listen to all sorts of stuff and fill my mind with all kinds of clever things over the next six months; the world’s my oyster (or member of genera Saccostrea and Crassostrea, to be precise).

“Would you like to know about how plants and trees evolved out of the primordial swamp?” I asked Scotto as we strolled around the botanical gardens this afternoon.

“No,” he grunted, pressing his thumbs into his temples and grimacing.

You don’t want to know either, do you?

Oh well, here are some nice photographs I took which you can look at instead.

P.S. Sorry I called Ed Sheeran whiny, but I personally feel he is.

P.P.S. This entire post was just a ruse to show off photos of our beautiful mountain so if you want to start saving time in your own life, don’t read my posts, just look at the pictures.

P.P.P.S I don't mean that.

Attractivus Treesus

Peacefulus Pondite

Wankerius Photograperite attempting Creativus Shotite

Anotherus Treeus

Eucalyptus Barkius

Treeus what has lost its Leavius known as Deciduitis

Orangeus Treeus

Kooaburrus Singolarusising in Non-Gum Treeus

Photographaris Tripping Overi and Snappingus Accidental Photogravis

Who the Hell was it?

I’m breathless with excitement.

Literally twenty minutes ago, I was here...

at Mel Gibson’s pub up on the mountain, having lunch with Scotto… and now I’m back home and feeling very distracted. 

I saw an actual celebrity at lunch!

When I say ‘Mel Gibson’s Pub’, I don’t mean it’s actually Mel Gibson’s pub. 

My mother told me that Mel Gibson used to live there with his large family and sold it and whoever bought it turned it into a pub. We’ve since asked the staff there and they say my mother was talking rubbish. 

Apparently Mel Gibson came and looked at the property about twenty years ago but never bought it. I don’t even know if that’s bullshit or not to tell the truth. Anyway, we still call it Mel Gibson’s pub which is a much better name than the Eagle Heights Hotel (which is what it’s called).

So we were just sitting waiting for our bruschetta at Mel Gibson’s pub, when a helicopter started circling the sky above us and began its descent to the helipad at the back of the beer garden.

“It might be a celebrity,” I commented as I sipped my piccolo of champagne. “Maybe it’s Mel Gibson. Wouldn't that be ironic?”

“Maybe it’s Schapelle Corby!” quipped Scotto dryly.

I shrugged. Who cares about that flibbertigibbet?

Our meals arrived and we tucked in.

As I was chewing through my bread, a particularly tall and handsome, bronzed man strutted past us, accompanied by a short man in a uniform, a woman and two children. 

They’d clearly just alighted from the helicopter.

“God, he’s a bit handsome,” I said as I ruminated on a piece of lettuce.. “I think he’s so damn handsome he must be famous.”

“I think he’s the helicopter pilot,” munched Scotto.

“Hell of a handsome helicopter pilot then,” I masticated loudly. 

“I wouldn't mind flying his helicopter,” I added surreptitiously into my glass.

The Nordic God-like creature walked into the bar area and out of sight.

“If you go and ask that handsome man who he is I’ll give you five dollars,” I challenged Scotto whilst chomping on my tomato and fetta. “He was so handsome he has to be a celebrity from America or something.”

“I think you can stop saying handsome so much,” Scotto gnawed on a chip.

“Who can it be?” I shrilled. “He had two kids... and a rather plain wife, don't you think? I wonder who it could be?”
The handsome man suddenly emerged from the bar with the man in uniform, who was the actual (rather unattractive) helicopter pilot.

“It’s bloody Jon Snow!” I blurted out in a not so quiet voice.

I saw the handsome man falter in his step and glance over at our table.

It definitely wasn’t Jon Snow because this guy was tall and light-haired and bloody handsome as.

I just couldn’t think of any other actors at the time. I hope he didn’t hear me because I might have hurt his feelings saying he was Jon Snow.

He sort of looked like a tall, long-haired Christopher Pine/Chris Hemsworth and he looked like he had a bit of money what with the helicopter and all.

God, we arrived in Scotto’s Veloster and I thought THAT was flash.

Who arrives to lunch in a helicopter except really, really famous people?

Does anyone on the Gold Coast have any idea who it could have been? I'm quite desperate to know. 

It's not fair seeing a celebrity when you don't know who it is.

Happy Birthday Scotto Poinker!

It’s Scotto’s birthday tomorrow. We bought his presents together, last weekend.

“Do you want me to wrap your presents?” I asked today, hoping he’d note the distinct lack of enthusiasm in my voice.

“No that’s okay,” he said.

“Do you care if I don’t get you a card? I hate those Hallmark shysters. Besides, cards are bad for the environment.”
“No,” he said quietly. “That’s okay.”

“I’ll send you a Facebook message,” I offered.

“Okay,” he sighed.

Scotto always wraps my presents in pink tissue paper, pink ribbon and an accompanying card with a lovely message inside. Even when I asked for a laminator for my birthday, the wrapping made it look as though he’d bought at Tiffany’s in Paris.

He’s very romantic and I’m not really.

But I love him for that. God, my ex-husband used to give me a Christmas card with “Thanks for all your help during the year” written on it.

Do you know that long before I met Scotto I used to read about him in a magazine?

His Dad was a big fish in the publishing world and wrote a funny article every week in a national magazine. It was all about his family and he used to affectionately make fun of his son, Scotto, who had the pseudonym, “Brick for Brains”.
I used to read the article every week, never knowing I would one day be married to Brick for Brains.

He’s a good sport my Scotto. Now he’s married to a blogger who makes him her straight man/foil in her ravings. 

Ironic huh?

So, happy birthday Scotto, my darling husband.

Thank you for getting me coffee in the morning on weekends, even though I get it for you five times a week so I shouldn’t have to say thanks because I actually do it more times than you.

Thank you for letting me have all my animals and especially thank you for not throttling the rooster which I know annoys you quite a lot with his crowing.

Thank you for being a softy and almost letting me buy that puppy at Cararra Markets even though we already have four ungrateful dogs.

Thank you for not judging me when I sit watching the telly with a hair curler in my fringe and no front tooth.

Thank you for always believing in me and sticking up for me even when my side of the story is a bit dodgy.

Thank you for indulging me in my conspiracy theories and agreeing that thumb print recognition on my iPhone is yet another devious form of government data collection.

Thank you for cleaning up dog vomit because you know I can’t stomach it and let me clean up the poo which you can’t stomach.

And above all, thank you for not making me fork out on a crappy birthday card.

Love you.



xxx

Dodgy Stuff

We walked into a restaurant for lunch today and I insisted (as I always do) on sitting so that I faced the entrance.

“I have to sit facing the door,” I declared to Scotto, “because, if some drug crazed, ice addict maniac comes through the door wielding a fudging knife, I want to be able to escape quickly.”

“You would give me a heads up he was coming though?” Scotto asked, glancing behind him and looking a bit nervous.

“You’d notice me jumping off the balcony,” I replied, sipping my champagne with a sense of airy nonchalance.

It’s not that we frequent restaurants in dodgy areas with rampant ice addicts much.

I said the same thing in the school staff room last week.

My colleagues just nodded in agreement and continued eating their ham salads. They get me.

“You’re an overly superstitious person, Pinky,” Scotto scoffed, and knocked the salt shaker over whilst dramatically gesturing to make his point. 

Salt went everywhere.

“Which shoulder am I supposed to throw this over again?” he queried anxiously.

“Throw it over your left shoulder,” I whispered in a sinister fashion. “The devil is hiding behind your left shoulder.”

“I don’t believe your rubbish,” he said as he tossed the salt, “But there's no harm in playing it safe.”

“What do you believe then?” I challenged.

“Well I do believe that if you’re driving and there’s a crow in the middle of the road and it doesn’t get out of your way, then you have to turn around and go the other way.”

“What if you don’t hit it because you swerve?” I asked.

His brow furrowed, “I think that would be okay.”

Personally, if I ever ran over a crow I’d pull over immediately and call a priest. I’m terrified of bloody crows.

But the point of this post, my friends, is dodgy restaurants. 

We went to lunch at a quite posh winery a few weeks ago.

I should have known it was a bit strange when the butter came out in those little foil packets and the bread rolls were enveloped in cling wrap. That's bloody weird.

As we were leaving, Scotto had to use the toilet so I walked through the foyer and stood out the front, twiddling my thumbs and scrutinising the sizeable bill.

I suddenly had the urge to turn around and who should I spy through a random window but Scotto looking very studious whilst performing his ablutions?

Not sure what he was grinning about.

Interesting concept for a water feature, I thought to myself.

“Hello sailor!” I said to his face, framed adorably in the window.

He looked up and grinned sheepishly…

What a lovely greeting for all those tourists arriving on the bus that pulls up out the front…

some random bloke taking a whizz.

Well that’s my blog for the week.

Hope you’re all well and love you all!

Pinky.

Gratitudes on Mother's Day

As you are aware, today is Mother’s Day and this morning there was a knock on the door and a young delivery man presented me with a bunch of flowers from my four kids who live up north. This was thrilling as last year all I got was dog shampoo.

But when I transferred the flowers into a vase, I spilled water all over the floor.

“Be careful of the water on the kitchen floor,” I warned Scotto after I’d mopped most of it up.

Literally two minutes later, I barrelled back into the kitchen, completely forgetting about the wet floor, and fell down landing on my right elbow with my head ricocheting violently against the kitchen cupboards.

Scotto came out of the bedroom after hearing the crash and my subsequent moaning.

My elbow had split open and there was a lot of blood on the floor which the Chihuahua and Mini Fox Terrier immediately began to lick up with relish.

Please note, this all occurred before midday and I had not been drinking.

I know what you all think about me and drinking.

Naturally, all three doctor surgeries were closed as well as the ambulance station. We caught the chemist ten minutes before closing time.

“You need stitches,” the pharmacist commented on viewing the cut.

“Can you see the bone?” I asked cautiously.

“No…” she said, avoiding eye contact.

I’m pretty sure she saw bone.

It hurts like a mofo.

We put some butterfly sticky things on it and I’ll get it looked at tomorrow. Maybe I will if the Chihuahua hasn’t developed a blood lust and devoured me in the night, anyway.

The mini-foxie won’t be able to eat me because she had six teeth pulled out on Friday. Thank God for small mercies.

We went to lunch with my mother, father and my son, Hagar. It was quite nice but I kept worrying about brain haemorrhages and septicaemia which spoiled my barramundi and chips a bit. Plus the agonising aching of the elbow and vague headache took a modicum of pleasure away.

Hagar gave me a nice cream jacket as a present but I couldn’t try it on what with the blood pouring out of my elbow.

I sent my daughter, Lulu, a photo of the flowers to say thank you and she exploded in rage when she saw them.

My flowers

I tried to explain to her that they just haven’t opened up yet.

I wasn’t complaining... but she was furious. Apparently the photo of what she thought she was buying looked nothing like the flowers I received.

Anyway, I really hope you all had better day and didn’t fall over or get the wrong flowers, like I did.

We must all be grateful for what we have, mustn’t we.

If life gives you lemons take them back to the shop and ask for a refund.

Whatever doesn’t kill you probably will next time.

Good things come to those who wipe down their kitchen floors properly.
There’s no "I" in team, but there’s an "OW" in elbow.
Okay. I’ll stop now.



Happy Mother’s Day you lucky, lucky people.

What Would Your DNA Reveal?

This morning I stood gagging at the bathroom sink, desperately attempting to summon up a quarter of a teaspoon of spit.

You’ve no idea how hard it is to produce spit on demand.

If I’m talking to someone important and I don’t want to spit… well it just comes flying out, doesn’t it? All over their shirt usually, or on their arm where it sits sparkling in the sunshine and we both pretend it’s not there. But if I’m deliberately trying to produce saliva, my mouth goes as dry as the Sahara.

The sight and thought of spit makes me gag.

Even my own spit.

It’s quite a revolting bodily emission.

I was contributing a sample of my DNA, you see.

Not for a criminal investigation silly… but for an analysis of my DNA ancestry.

I’ve forked out a considerable sum of money to AncestryDNA to be precise.

Pre spit donation

This analysis won’t give me any clues as to my health but merely inform me from where from my ancestors originated.

I could have originated from any race really, what with my pointy ears (Vulcan), short legs (Elven) and propensity to lose my temper and scream (Dothraki).

“I reckon it will say you’re 40% Chardonnay, 20% Nicorettes and maybe 40% Anglo-Saxon,” quipped the ever witty Scotto.

He’s very unoriginal. I could easily have made that joke if I’d thought of it first.

In truth, I reckon it will come back saying I’m 90% American Indian.

Mainly because I had an imaginary American Indian friend when I was a child and I have a deep seated belief I am reincarnated from an Indian princess. Plus I have a penchant for wearing plaits.

I’d fancy being anything except Ango-Saxon really, because let’s face it, it’s a bit boring.

All those bad teeth, weak chins and negative outlooks on life; you know... winter is coming, and all that moaning.

I wouldn’t mind it if I was Scandinavian; preferably directly linked to those good-looking Vikings on the television.

Even a direct relationship to the female members of ABBA would be okay. Not the male members though because they were ugly.



If it comes back and says I’m bloody Anglo-Saxon with NOTHING at all exotic in the mix I will be bitterly disappointed.

On the other hand, if it comes back and says I’m part Chinese or Italian or African, I will be redecorating my house, dress style, music playlist and accent, accordingly.

I will fully embrace the culture and drive you all mad.



What would you expect to see from a DNA report?

P.S. Sorry to all my Anglo-Saxon friends. Particularly my husband.

Are You Smarter Than Scotto?

I bought a mini whiteboard and stuck it up beside the pantry a short while ago. It was for urgent family communications.

Scotto and I can be like ships in the night since I started leaving home at 6:30 am and don’t get home until 5:45 pm. Sometimes he’s out on a job when my little yellow car pulls into the driveway and I don’t know if he’s fed the dogs or not.

The dogs are pathological liars and carry on as though they’re starving to death if they think they can dupe us and get fed twice.

Luckily, I’m smarter than a dog.

But I came home to this note on Friday and panicked.

Had Scotto gone mad? Why the hell had he fed the dogs champagne in the fridge?

Dogs don’t drink champagne do they? And it’s bloody cold at the moment up here on the mountain so why did he put the dogs in the fridge? And how did he squeeze the German Shepherd in? I anxiously hoped there wasn’t hair all over the yoghurt and margarine.

I shrugged to myself thinking what a weirdo I’d married and fed the poor, hungry things some proper dog food.



Sometimes I use the mini whiteboard to set tricky challenges or leave words of wisdom. I have a lot of wise sayings if you want to read them. My Wise Sayings

Last week I wrote this up as a little contest for Scotto and Hagar (my 24 year old son).

If you can solve what 

this word represents, 

I will give you $2.

"Ghreati"

I kept finding scraps of paper everywhere with hundreds of random jottings where one or the other genius had attempted to puzzle it out.

Hagar gave up trying out of boredom but Scotto was slowly going mental and kept pestering me for hints.

“One of my Grade 4 students solved it without a hint!” I sniffed. “You can do it. Surely you’re smarter than a ten year old. Even the Chihuahua could solve it if he could read!”

But sadly, he could not puzzle it out so I still have that $2 in my wallet.

If you can solve it I promise I will send you the $2.*



Go on. Give it a go.

*Conditions Apply
It has just occurred to me that it would be just my luck this post will go viral and I will have to send 100 000 people $2 in the mail and I really don't want to be licking all those stamps so only the first person to get it will win any money. K?

What Not to Use Instead of Face Cream

What my face looks like...

Last Saturday night, I ran out of my cheap, very economically-pleasing night cream (the night cream for my face... so get your mind out of the gutter).

My other ‘night cream’ is very special and I would NEVER let it run out. If you are wondering what I’m talking about then ask a 50 plus woman what she regards is ‘night cream’ and she will surprise and delight/disgust you all at the same time.

So anyway, I thought I could survive by using my ‘day cream’ in my never-ending struggle against the relentless skirmish between gravity and my face. I can't really go shopping during the week what with my two and a half hour commute to the bush every day.

My super cheap ‘day cream’ has a sunblock in it which probably contains zinc so naturally after two nights of application, I awoke with two pimples the size of my nose on my dial.

In fact I could hardly tell which of the lumps WAS my nose.

There are no pharmacies that sell my extra cheap night cream within a 70 km radius so I was flummoxed as to what to do.

Then I had the amazing recollection, almost a religious revelation, that I had economically-mindedly scraped a free sample of face cream from an ancient Women’s Weekly my mother had passed over to me, in a second-hand, frugal but recycling-type fashion, a few months ago.

I scoured through my handbag like Harold Steptoe sorting through the trash pile and within ten minutes had unearthed my secret treasure.

I must admit after I had snipped the plastic sachet open and scooped out the contents, I was suspicious that it might be a bit off… perhaps it had even ‘separated’ like rancid milk.

It seemed a bit oily, but I persevered and rubbed it into my face with the gusto only a dried out, desperate, stingy crone is able.

After ten minutes of the cream not being absorbed by my dehydrated pores, I thought it might be a good idea to check what I was actually massaging into my face.

I squinted at the sachet through my glasses and discovered that I’d been smothering my face in Moroccan hair oil.

I shall keep you posted as to whether or not I wake up with a glossy, detangled and fuller bodied face.



Surely it can’t look worse than it was.

What would you have used?

How To Buy One Thousand Turkish Men on a Tight Budget

When the alarm goes off at 5:20 am, I shuffle out of the bedroom closing the door behind me so I don’t disturb the still slumbering Scotto. 

The two small dogs follow me out, I let the big dogs out of their cosy beddings in the laundry and we all perform our morning ablutions in a musical unison. 

Then I make a coffee and sit and watch the sunrise over the Gold Coast. I then immediately make another two cups of coffee, give all the dogs their treats and return to the bedroom to deliver Little Lord Fauntleroy his morning cup of coffee.

This morning, as I re-entered the bedroom I was bowled over with the stench of a thousand Turkish men who had seemingly simultaneously farted in an asphixiating steam bath located in my bedroom.

I plonked Scotto’s coffee down and exclaimed quite loudly for the time of morning, “What the hell? It smells like a thousand Turkish men farted in here!”

(I don’t know why I picked on Turkish men)*

Scotto merely reached blindly for his coffee and ignored my exclamation with a grunt.

I have drawn a few conclusions to solve the enigma of the mother of all methane bombs.

1. All four of us: the two dogs, Scotto and I, spend all night passing wind during the night creating an abominable cloud of sulphur/methane fumes which could be a deadly and injurious fire hazard if one of us smoked cigarettes.

2. The septic toilet in the ensuite is emitting fumes during the night generating an apocalyptic death gas.

3. Scotto farts his head off when I leave the bedroom to have my morning coffee because he thinks I won’t notice.

I thought about it all day at work and queried Scotto again tonight in order to investigate the source of this vile entity.

“Do you just fart your head off when I leave the bedroom in the morning because you think I won't hear you?” I asked gently.

He looked very sheepish but denied any guilt in regards to my subtle accusations.

But I’m highly suspicious. I’m putting Gladwrap over the toilet bowl to cancel out the possibility of the septic tank stinking.

Tomorrow night, I will Gladwrap the dogs’ bums.



After that… who knows.

*Seriously, no offence to Turkish men. I'm sure I'd love them.

Stations of the Cross Lady

Only one more day and Lent is over so I can start irritating people on my personal Facebook page again instead of just reading my notifications and getting twitchy fingers.

Because it really wasn’t much of a sacrifice only half giving up Facebook for Lent, I arose slightly earlier than usual this morning to get ready to suffer penance a bit in church.

When Scotto saw me getting ready, he decided to come too. He probably suspected I was up to something nefarious as me going to church, especially in the morning, is quite abnormal behaviour. The last time was about three years ago actually.

The beauty of this Stations of the Cross service was that it was at 10 o’clock which meant I still got to sleep in and not suffer too much.

When we arrived and sat in the pew, a man handing out response sheets ran out of them just before he got to us. Typical.

The nice, very pious-looking lady sitting a few seats away, moved next to us so we could read from her sheet. She was absolutely teeming with knowledge. “We’ll have to get up and follow the priest around the church as he goes through the Stations,” she coached me.

I didn’t fancy this idea because I prefer to sit… but what the hell... I mean heck. I listened closely to all her instructions and tried to impress her with my saintly and angelic demeanour.

Then the nice lady said she’d seen me around the church before but not for a VERY long time. I explained that I’d been a few times the previous year because I’d worked at the school but now I taught at a different school and went to the church there. She smiled at me sweetly, recognising a fellow companion in religious devoutness.

“There aren’t many people here! It’s a disgrace!” she sniffed in disgust as she perused the congregation.

“Maybe more people will come on Easter Sunday,” I offered meekly.

“This is a more important service,” she scoffed.

I nodded sagely. After all, I was there wasn’t I? Where were all the other heathens?

The priest began the service. “Why aren’t the fools getting up and following the priest,” she hissed in my ear with a sense of what I could only describe as brutal outrage. She went to push me and Scotto forward but then thankfully she noticed NO ONE was moving and the priest didn’t seem the least bit perturbed.

The service was quite long, fourteen stations long, with A LOT of praying in between. 

Scotto had trouble kneeling what with his gammy knee, and not being a Catholic he had to pretend to know the right responses by mouthing random words and making a dull, humming noise.

Finally at the end, I turned to the nice lady to say Happy Easter (even though I felt it might be irreverent to say the word ‘happy’ because of the whole crucifixion thing). Before I could get the words out she leaned past me and poked Scotto in the ribs.

“Excuse me, but you were chewing gum throughout the entire service. You know you shouldn’t chew gum in church!” she looked at him scathingly.

With a bit of tongue dexterity I managed to manoeuvre my own chewing gum to the inside of my cheek so she wouldn’t notice I had a chewy in my gob as well.

“No!” I agreed, nodding, frowning at Scotto and holding the gum clenched tight. “You shouldn’t chew in church, it’s very disrespectful.”


“How can you take Holy Communion while you’re chewing?” she continued to rail.


“Yes Scotto,” I concurred. “You can’t have Jesus AND chewing gum in your mouth at the same time!”

Scotto broke into nervous giggles.

“It’s no laughing matter,” the nice lady chipped.

“No. It’s not.” I gave him a stern look. “Not funny at all.”

Then the nice lady hugged me and told me to have a happy Easter but she didn’t hug Scotto.

I was secretly thrilled because most people ALWAYS prefer Scotto to me.


She probably thought he was beyond the reach of redemption. Lol.

The Ultimate Secret Of True Love

I was sitting on the toilet in our ensuite tonight, staring into the mirror. 

Not my most flattering angle but we’ve all done it when we’re a bit bored. You know... let’s see how much I can look like a creature from the depths of hell while I’m sitting on the dunny?

What? You haven’t ever stared at your face when you’re sitting on the loo and pulled a horrible, devilish face?

Bloody liar.

Anyway, I decided to pull the completely, and most utterly, ugliest expression I could manifest, in the mirror… as most people do from time to time.

What? You haven’t ever done that?

Weirdo.

So it just so happens, at the exact time of my having this impulsive impulse to pull my silliest and most spew inspiring expression in the mirror, my front tooth denture was missing and I looked a bit like an Ork with periodontal disease.

Not only that, but I pulled my chin down so it looked as if I had eight chins and I then I went the extra length and super bulged my eyes, all the while staring into the mirror in gleeful evilness. 

I rejoiced in my hideousness.

Because the universe is so serendipitous, it was at this exact moment my husband happened to casually saunter past the bathroom door and witnessed me pulling my most unappealing possible face, ever.

He paused for a millisecond and I naturally expected he would recoil in disgust and sink into the foetal position in fear. I thought he would form the cross with his fingers and start shrieking a Hail Mary and start spraying garlic everywhere.

But he just burst into laughter and tried to pull an even uglier face.

He failed... nothing could surpass my repugnance, but at least he tried.

That's true love.

That’s true love.

How I Improved My Bikies Pinky Mother In One Easy Lesson

My dear old Dad surrounded by bikies.

It started off as a sedate Saturday lunch with the oldies and my visiting sister, brother-in-law and nephew. 

I was elected to choose the venue and I suggested an authentic and charming pub down the bottom of the mountain. We’d never eaten there before but Scotto and I had been a few times to have a Sunday arvo drink and listen to the band.

As we disembarked from our cars in the parking lot, our eardrums were assaulted with the sound of a zillion motor bikes flooding down the hotel driveway. We were stuck in the middle of the road with big, black sinister bikes milling around us.

It was like a scene from Mad Max. They were huge and scary looking bikies with skull masks, chains, tattoos and black leather. They had mohawks and pierced bits everywhere.

I spun around to check on my elderly mother and was alarmed to see her trotting way ahead of us in a somewhat hurried fashion. Great, I thought. I’ve brought my senior citizen, fragile parents to a bikie pub and have probably scared them into apoplexy.

“Quickly!” Mum shouted at us as we struggled to keep up behind her. “We need to order before all these bloody bikies get to the counter. I’m hungry and I want to get in first.”

She had a point. There were at least two hundred of them. The bar staff must have panicked.

We found out, via my brother-in-law, Pedro, (who went for a cigarette and got chatting with one of them) that they were on a memorial ride for a member who had died the previous year.

“Probably died in a violent motorbike crash,” commented Mum, always one for a bit of drama. I scanned the beer garden and wondered if it was more likely a death via a cholesterol related issue. They were all rather big boys and they were wolfing down the deep fried chips with a vengeance.

“She’s going to regret all those tattoos when she’s an old lady,” my mother remarked in a scathing tone and with far too much volume for my liking as she stared at a bikie chick over my shoulder.

“It’s her choice, Mum!” I hissed under my breath. “Don’t talk so loud.”

“Look at her! She’s got writing and pictures all over her body,” Mum continued, not adjusting her bellowing by even a degree.

I deliberately did NOT look at anyone and just put my head down and stared at my palms which had begun to sweat and shake. Sometimes I think my mother has a death wish.

Fortunately, they turned out to be very nice bikies and after a couple of glasses of Dutch courage I quelled my reservations and asked two of them for a photo.

Pinky: A woman of the people.

They were very well-spoken and polite I must say.

They even said I could put their photos on my blog, Pinky Poinker.

They were super keen actually.

I always ask for permission before putting pictures of people on my blog.

Especially bikies.

You never know who they might be hiding from and I’d hate to be the one to expose them.

That’s a joke. I suspect that many of them were accountants, lawyers and school teachers.

In fact, the grade two teacher at the school I work at is a bikie which is funny when you think about it.

There are two different types of bikies you see. Sweet natured, respectful ones and the ones that....

Never mind. Best not dig myself any further in my grave.

Know any bikies?

The Family

# Yes, I'm still typing my key words into the title generator. I love it.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Snake Bites and Were Afraid To Ask

I’m officially on two weeks school holidays so naturally now the tables have turned and instead of ME getting up at five am, shivering on the couch whilst clutching my first coffee in the lounge room watching the sun rise and then taking his Lordship a fresh coffee at 6:00 am, now Scotto has to bring me my morning coffee.

Ha!

But I’ve noticed a vague resentment when Scotto heavily plonks my coffee down on my bedside table. He would deny it but I can tell he is condemning me with his disparaging manner.

It’s the expression on his face, the forced smile and the weightiness of the aggressive kiss he lumps on my forehead as he delivers my cup down beside my Nicorettes.

When he leaves for work, he critically observes me reclining on the bed in my PJs at ten o’clock in the morning and I can see the disapproving glint in his eyes.

Fudge you, I whisper to myself. Fudge you, judgmental man.

But this morning I felt a bit sorry for him because his car, the Batmobile, which is still under warranty and just had the engine replaced, was towed away a mere 36 hours after he picked it up from the workshop (after FIVE WEEKS in the garage).

When he left in the pathetically incapable courtesy car (his third one) to go on a job, I was sitting on the couch on my laptop reading about how a chicken failed to recognise its owner because of a new haircut (thanks Rae Hilhorst) and I suddenly thought, my husband thinks I’m an Internet layabout.

Naturally, I had to correct this silly opinion he seemed to have formed in his head.

So after I’d finished watching the very captivating chicken video, (and then another hypnotising video about how you can use a piece of string to peel onions)  I went out with my gardening gloves and weeded the front garden which has been allowed to go stupid for at least 6 months. It was so bad even our neighbours had been making jokes about it.

It took a while to weed (about an hour and a half) and when I came in puffing and wheezing, I suddenly noticed two fang marks on my wrist and naturally assumed I’d been bitten by an Eastern Brown snake. 

Sorry about the age spots

I googled how long it takes for symptoms to manifest and what the symptoms are. It can take up to an hour for death to strike.

I hadn’t actually seen a snake but plenty of people get bitten and don’t realise it. I felt my heartbeat escalate and my mouth went dryish. I may have dribbled in fear despite the dry mouth.

I had a coffee and then a wine and waited for an hour and nothing happened so I think I’m okay. I did get a mild headache but it passed.

But if you never hear from me again you know I died from a venomous snake bite, so thanks for reading my blog all this time.

If I’m dead tomorrow you know whose fault it is, K?



Does your other half get jealous when you have holidays and they don’t?