2013 - The Most Five (PM)

Woot! Holidays! Well, technically it's more like a lunchbreak for me at the moment, but holidays are just around the corner, so I no complain.
Great Most Five list Mate. 

Let's take a wander back through the year of K and settle on five of the best bits. It was a year of pretty good bits, so it might be hard to narrow it down, but lets's try.

1. Running 10 kms.
I'm not one to make new year's resolutions, or set goals really. Goals are for sitting in between at the MCG, as far as I'm concerned. Heh. Not really. But kind of. Anyway, this year I decided that I was going to run 10kms in the wild, as opposed to on a treadmill. I have never been a runner you see, so for most of my life such a think seemed quite impossible to me. But then I started running more and more so about this time last year it popped in to my head as something I might be able to. At that point, the most I had run in the wild was a lap of Princess Park. So 10kms seemed like a big deal. And I totally did it. That was pretty rad for me.

2. That sandwich I ate that time. 
I don't know whether many most five lists will contain sandwiches but goddamn it mine does. It totally does. God save that sandwich and long may it reign.

3. Iceland
My whole european holiday ruled. I mean, you saw the kinds of sandwiches I was eating. I saw and did some wonderful things. But the best thing, the very very best thing, was Iceland.

That place imprinted on me the way wolves get imprinted on in Twilight, but everyone wears shirts in Iceland. I loved it and think about it often.

That's the kind of thing you see on the side of the road in Iceland.

4. Baby, Niecey and Little Nut's grasp of language.
When J told me about Baby saying "you fucko!" I was at my desk at work. I had to laugh discretely and doing so was harder than running 10 kms in the wild.  The mouths of babes are the funniest places in the world. And now there are so many babies to say funny things it's only going to get funnier from here on in.

5. This
This year was a year where, thanks to knocking around with Appleheart a lot, coming home to this kind of thing became a possibility.

Those are roasted salted almonds. That guy, I tell you what.
Happy this time of year everybody! See you in 2014!

2013 - The Most Five (AM)

Woot! It's here y'all. Holiday time. I am on holidays. And soon, I hope, K will be too. And today is our MSC break up day. YEAH! You know lots of blogs and newspapers and magazines and radio shows and television shows like to round up the year with top five lists. Best moments, worst moments, that kind of jazz. And here at MSC HQ we like to reflect on the year too. But something occurred to me while looking back on the year. First really, how the eff would I do any kind of top list? I mean, what do you base your answer on. And second, so many of my highs were somehow entwined with the lows. So for you I have my five most list. Just a bunch of things that made me most laugh, cry, and fall in love all over again. In no particular order.

1. Blur. Well, I've said it before, but how can I not say it again. Definitely one of the best moments of the year was when the Big Day Out announced Blur were playing. ONE OF THE BEST MOMENTS OF THE YEAR! And without a doubt that moment when my heart was ripped out and fell, like so many bloody lumps on the butcher's floor, barely beating to the floor... well that was one of the worst.

2. Baby is so lingual. And it is awesome. He is also really inquisitive. Which is also great, of course. But gee, having to answer 50,000 "why?" questions a day can be rough. Real rough. But his ever increasing vocabulary is generally a real joy. The other night as he was getting ready for bed he was looking at a book and I said, "Is that the book you want to read tonight." And he replied by saying, "No, I want a different book tonight, you fucko!" I had to leave the room I needed to laugh so much and when I tried to tell LB the story I was in tears and could not get the words out past the laughter. Still, he said it a little aggressively and I certainly don't want him calling people fucko. Most best and most worst. Again.

3. Visiting Mondonna in LA and then the Big Apple! What fun, what laughs. But gee it was tiring. And a bit hard. But I went to the motherflipping desert. And that was really the most. And best. That whole trip was great, but the California desert. WHOA! 

4. Hair and nails! Remember how I got a manicure in New York and then I was all "Hey! I'm gonna get manicures all the time!" And then I got one in Melbourne and it was chipped within 3 days. Remember how I got that haircut I hated (of course you do! I have barely spoken of anything else since.) I feel like I have been on some crazy journeys with these keratin filled biomaterials. And I haven't necessarily liked it. But hey, that is what is great about the year's end! You get to put all the shit from that year in the past and move on. Oh sure, time - it's just some theoretical concept, but what isn't!

5. Babies! I've met some rad babies this year produced by some of the finest people I know. And next year I'll meet some more rad babies. The most!

I hope K has some great mosts.

And I hope everyone is about to have some great holidays and festivities.

See you on the flip side!

Oh! Ewan! James! I'm so glad you could drop by today! Sure, you can bring your friend Chiwetel.

Upstairs Neighbours (PM)

I used to live in a flat on the first floor which meant I both had upstairs neighbours and was an upstairs neighbour. I actually remember nothing about the upstairs neighbors, I guess they were quiet. Plus, those flats had carpet which I guess helped. I definitely remember the downstairs neighbours, among whom lived a liturgical dancer of soft mannerisms and who, a Google search has led me to believe, may now be a woman, though as my neighbour s/he was a man. Those neighbours, rightly, complained when they found cigarette butts on their balcony. Now, I can't imagine anyone in our flat being so jerky they would throw cigarette butts down from the balcony. I guess it was an accident. Or it was the almost unbearable friends of the almost forgotten flat mate. Or it is the kind of shit which you don't think about when you are 20.

Which may explain the behaviour of the birds, Mate. Just young and careless.

Right now my only upstairs neighbours are possums. Like the birds they seem to  make a noise completely disproportionate to their size. As if they are dragging human bodies around the roof cavity. Just to be on the safe side, I do not fuck with those possums.

Upstairs Neighbours (AM)

My flat is on the top floor, which is good because it means I don't have to deal with the sound of upstairs neighbours. I'm told that this is an issue with ground floor flats, the sound travels down from above and it can be quite disruptive. You hear them walking, you hear them talking, you hear them making love to their boyfriends and girlfriends (eww...making love....J is going to hate reading that...sorry).

I've been pretty lucky really with my top floor life so far. And I guess I should have taken the time to stop and smell the roses so to speak because now a family of birds are nesting on my roof and the party is over, it is OVER.

I first noticed the sounds of gently rummaging a few months ago and thought, oh, how cute, some little birdy is on my roof. Then I would hear a little bit of chirping from time to time and again I thought it was cute.

I pictured something like this was going on:

A couple of little scamps having a nice time up there.

Heh,  here's an amusing aside. When I searched 'rainbow lorikeet' to find that photo, google suggested 'rainbow lorikeet diet'. I wonder whether there is some hot new diet where one eats like a rainbow lorikeet and drops the kilos just in time for summer. Or maybe you eat nothing but rainbow lorikeets and drop five kilos just in time for summer.

Anyway, as the days and weeks have passed, what was once gentle rummaging has turned in to what sounds like a birdy frat house. Those little bastards make a hell of a racket. First of all, there seems to be lots more of them. And they chirp a lot. And they run across the roof a lot and though their talons may be small, they are very noisy.  And what's with all the running. They have wings and the power of flight and it's a real slap in the face to know that they are just throwing it all away.
Also, they are active between the hours of 5 and 9am. They're working 5 to 9 and it is no way to make a living, believe you me.

Now I picture them like this:

And I want them to go away!

Nearly there (PM)

Wow, your boss sounds like a stand-up guy, Mate! My office closes between Christmas and New Year too. But the only day of free leave we get is the 27th, though to be fair to my work there are only 2 other days that aren't public holidays in that period and you are allowed to take 'miscellaneous leave' on those days. A leave kind that can also be used for having your dog put down or the other miscellanies of life. So I guess that's something. Plus, if you work in an organisation that has been in the news due to workplace bullying and suspected espionage I guess you gotta take what you can get right?

This, I've decided, this will be my last week before a whole 2 weeks off too, so I am likewise excited. But I wish Oprah had put a goodies bag under my chair.

Still, I guess holidays are as good as an Oprah goodies bag right. I intend to spend mine pretty much looking like this.*

*In my dreams of course. In reality they will more look like this:

Nearly there (AM)

Last week, at the Christmas party, our new boss announced he would be closing the office at midday on Christmas Eve and not be reopening it until the new year. Everyone was to spend that time with their people, he said. If we had applied for annual leave during that period, it would be credited back to us. The crowd erupted into a round of spontaneous applause and if he had told us to look under our seats for some kind of gift pack a-la Oprah, I wouldn't have been surprised. 

But this means that today begins my last week of work for a while and readers, I'm excited. So excited I'm going to play you a song. The worst song on a playlist I listen to when I exercise, by which I mean  my favourite. It's kind of a Eurovision song and by rights I should hate it but I don't, I really don't. 

I'll leave the rest of the explaining to Tarkan. Please give him a chance. 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tu5s1KS9SU&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D2Tu5s1KS9SU

Reflections on hunks (PM)

Consider this

Wow, it feels so right to be thinking and talking about hunks again.

Obviously Hemsworth is the stand out hunk of 2013, if for no other reason than this was the year that he emerged from the "is this a hunk?" chrysalis to become the beautiful hunky butterfly the collective crab-consciousness now knows him to be.   

I think the A- assessment is probably fair, but I also think perhaps he will grow and consolidate his  hunkiness and maybe even one day become a hall-of-famer. The man has a certain something that separates him from the others. It could be the simple fact that he is the only hunk around, but I think it's more thank that. I talked to my Mum on the phone just after she had seen Rush, and she did not ask me a single question about my life, she just wanted to talk about Hemsworth. So who knows where this could go.

The other thing I realised in 2013 is that James McAvoy is continuing his slow hunky burn, and maybe has made an even bigger impression on me than I first realised.
Consider this:
 
The other day I was driving along in my beloved Renault Clio and Appleheart said to me "You know, James McAvoy used to drive a Clio."



As soon as he said it,  the hunk part of my heart went schwing!  and it was quite surprising, and a little bit dangerous because I was driving a car at the time, but mostly surprising. I mean, it's not like a saw a picture of him. I just heard his name.

So I guess I hope a couple of new McAvoy films come out next year so I can learn more.   

Reflections on hunks (AM)

Sometimes I read old Miss Soft Crab posts. Usually because I want to see if we have already written about something, or what we have said on a topic. Sometimes because I see an intriguing tag that I can't remember and wonder what it relates to, sometimes just because I know this blog is really funny. Anyway on one such trip through the MSC archives I saw some pictures of Gael Garcia Bernal. Broadly speaking, they looked like this.

Hot!

And you can imagine what a pleasant surprise it was. Of course he was a Hunk of the Month so I shouldn't have been surprised to see him, but I guess it just really brought home the hunk recession we are living though. I know we have talked about it before but I guess I felt it was time to revisit the sad state of affairs and reflect on some of my thoughts on hunks over the past year. A year in which this blog, a blog with 49 posts bearing the 'hunk' tag only had 7, SEVEN hunk-tagged posts.

So, the year in hunks. What are my thoughts?


1. I guess the first thing to acknowledge is that despite some early questions, I am pretty sure that Chris Hemsworth is a hunk. Not quite A-grade, but certainly not B-grade. Like A- I guess. Shall we double check?

I guess the thing that confirmed it for me was that although I had wondered if I just thought he was hot because he was Thor, the ads for Rush confirmed that he was also quite hot as James Hunt, so you know, I guess the guy really is a hunk. Phew, sure am glad that question got answered!

Hot!

2. The hunks of my youth really came back into focus for me. Maybe it was because The Great Gatsby put Leonardo DiCaprio to the fore, but I really felt like this year I could move on from the 2010 puffy Leonardo to just kind of respect and appreciate him as an actor and some kind of hunk. Not a phwaor kind of hunk, something more subtle than that. A guy who has a special spot in my hunk heart. Even Ben Affleck managed to overcome, to some extent, his mid career follies (Bennifer, Pearl Harbour, that smug smirk he has - an ongoing problem really). I guess it as if, disappointed by their aging and revelations of them as possible douches, I rejected early hunks as if broken hearted, but now I've matured, they've matured, and I think we can finally be friends.

3. Ewan is still really hot.

Well, 2014, feel free to offer up some new hunks. There is still plenty of room.

Summer Whites (PM)

Other great white things of summertime:

Sour cream, that goes so nice in my burritos. Obviously burritos are a year-round food but all Mexican seems better in the summertime, and that's a fact.

Lemon flavoured Calippo. The only Calippo for me. These other flavours they have now, I don't care for them. Though Appleheart and I did have a cola Calippo in Berlin earlier this year and I can't say that was a problem for me. But that's not the point, the point is lemon Calippo is white and tart and sweet and delicious. Just like its icy cousins the lemonade icypole and lemon gelato. White summertime ice treats! 

Sheets that dry in the sun in half an hour. I dislike bed linen that is not white but my natural born grubbiness makes it hard to justify. Not in summer! Napisan plus and the sun makes it all ok. 

I also very much like buffalo mozzarella and these nice white flowers. 

Summer whites (AM)

White clothes in winter can be really nice. Though me, I tend to opt for cream in that cold season. But when summer comes around I want white, white, white. It's so fresh and cooling you know. And if you can pair it with grey, even better. Mmmmmm cold.

It is why, despite a long-running, one-sided feud with Gorman I had to be the bigger man and buy these shoes for summer.

In fact they are super light grey, practically white, basically mixing my two favourite summer colours into one single colour. Well played,  Gorman, you may have won this round...

It is also why I have been wanting a white Swatch for ages.

I finally bought one when we were in America and then lost it shortly after returning home. But this weekend, while crawling under the bed Baby saw something stuck between the mattress and the slats he liked the look of*, and hey presto, I got my watch back just in time to fit into all my fantasy summer outfits. Yeah boyyeeee.

Also, this love of white is, I guess, why I can't stop thinking about buying these.

And, if I'm to be honest, by the end of the week they will probably be mine.

What I really want is to dress in white and light grey all the time when it's hot, but the sweat and chilli oil of summer means sometimes I gotsta dress more practical like, you know. That's why ya gotta accesorise. Aight?! White!

*Swatches tick really, really loudly, I guess I stuffed the watch under the mattress in a sleepy stupor.

Sounds like my Wednesday night (PM)

Mate, your Wednesday night sounds great! And nothing like my Wednesday night.

Not that I can complain. I had Indian takeaway that really hit the motherflipping spot. Then I watched an episode of QI totally uninteruppted. Then I went to bed at 9:30 because I was exhausted after a bad night sleept the night before and attending the Fowles' renovator auction where I had to fight every tradey, man, his pregnant wife and their dog for hot deals on bathroom vanities and laundry sinks. So I guess you could say RIPing kind of sounds like my Wednesday night. But not in the same way that it sounds like James Gandolfini's.

Sounds like my Wednesday night (AM)

While I don't want to break the magical spell that we have cast which has you guys thinking that we write Miss Soft Crab on the mornings and afternoons of the day we post, I feel compelled to tell you what I'm doing right now.

It's Wednesday night and I'm at the nova by myself drinking a beer and eating a choc top and waiting for my film to start.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

Now it really is Thursday morning. I just wanted to add that the film I saw - Enough Said - was really good. I love James Gandolfini. I hope he's R'ing IP right now. 

Acrostic Monday (PM)

Please don't make me work

On hot summer days

Oh, how I long for

Lounging at the pool

Acrostic Monday (AM)

Instantly you arrived 

The very day you were meant to,

Summertime. 

How come spring didn't do that?

Expected us to be so grateful for the scraps it threw our way. 

Respecting us so little along the way. 

Eff Spring. Long live the summertime!