2016 reflections. Again.

Well, here we are! The end of 2016. I can barely believe it! In the grand tradition of Miss Soft Crab round-ups K and I got together to have a little chat about things. There were things I wish I'd mentioned, like how a highlight of the year was our new once-a-day, daily post format which, I don't know about you but I am sure enjoying. And the new iOS update which has finally included a croissant and a pile of pancakes in the emojis. Anyway, here's what K and I thought of the last 51 weeks.

 ‪J: Yeah 2016! How was it for you?

 ‪K: You know, it was pretty great.

 ‪J: GREAT! What did you like about it? 
‪K: Well, personally, I liked settling in to being KB's mum. And I liked hanging out with KB and watch him become cuter and cuter. ‪I liked going back to work and therefore being able to read books again.

  ‪J: Yeah I was thinking about how at the start of this year you had a six-month-old baby and by the end of the year you have a nearly 18-month-old toddler and how different those two things are.

 ‪K: Fully different. ‪And you went from being a mother of sons to being a mother of sons AND WHOOPSIE!

 ‪I also liked how it was a year of serious things. All the deaths. Brexit. Trump. It's a year  to remember.

 ‪J: Oh yeah. Seriously what a year! I had a baby. And all that totally crazy shit happened. Basically if you had asked me what this year would hold ‪I could not have predicted any of that shit. From a new baby to the Trump presidency I'm basically still having difficulty believing any of it. 


‪K: Yeah. The shit has been pretty unbelievable. I know we still have a week or so to go, but I'm just glad QEII is still here.

 ‪J: I've been really worried about her, what with 2016 being so full of unbelievable shit. Mate, as much as I've loved QEII and her monochrome for a long time now, I feel so much closer to her after watching The Crown. Let's just hope we can escape this year without any more celebrityy deaths. 

 ‪When Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature LB and I were saying if you came into the news report half way through you would have thought he was dead too. God forbid.

  K: ‪Totally. It was really a strange year. Kind of doomy. ‪And the weather has been a bit shit. ‪But personally it's been nice, so what are you gonna do?

 J: ‪Yeah. It was a totally strange year. I was basically pregnant from the beginning until Whoopsie was born in October and I was highly emotional for that entire time. Which really added to the weirdness for me. Like I was so emotional when Leonardo FINALLY won his Oscar. But I was so emotional for that entire awards ceremony. I basically cried at every standing ovation.

K: ‪Oh man, that victory was one for the ages. Leonardo Di Goddamned Caprio. What a proper movie star he is.

J: ‪You said it!  

K: Speaking of movies, one of the things I enjoyed about this year was discovering a film review podcast called Kermode and Mayo. It's a couple of blokes mucking around telling jokes and talking about movies. I think Fassbender is going to be on it next week.


 ‪J: Oh I see. 

Well that sounds cool. I may listen to it. I've enjoyed listening to Lena Dunham's podcast this year and working through my complicated feelings about her. Recently I listened to a few podcasts about Buffy, just people talking about Buffy episodes and stuff. It was pretty enjoyable.
 ‪
K: I've been enjoying the Lena Dunham podcast too. Did you listen to that one with her dad? I really liked that one.
J: I did listen to that one and I also enjoyed it a lot. I liked her dad. Readers, go listen to that show.

 ‪K: Please do readers.


‪J: And how about TV? Obviously I loved The Crown. Also of course Stranger Things. I mean just the stuff everyone talked about already. 

 In truth this year was so intense I feel like I have nothing new to say about any of it.

 

K: ‪Yep, I liked that stuff. And I liked Hard Quiz because I love a quiz and this was a delightful spazz one. 

J: ‪I like that too. But you know who really loves that show? Baby! He loves it. HARD!  

K: Ha! ‪That's adorbs. 

J: ‪Sometimes we play it at the dinner table. And when I told him I saw Tom Gleeson at Ikea the other day he was so impressed! 


K: ‪That's super adorbs. ‪
I saw one of the couples from Gogglebox at the market the other day and that was very exciting. ‪
J: HAHAHA. Gogglebox!
‪
K: ...now we are chatting about the year and i'm thinking about how intense it was I guess I'm realising that it's set a lot in motion. But I don't want to be a downer.



J: ‪Look, if we wanted to talk seriously this year we'd be here for ever. I mean fucking TRUMP?!

Aaaaaaahhhh, that's better 

K: You said it. 2016 involved a lot of emotions, a lot of humongous events and some rubbish weather. Any hopes and dreams for 2017?

 
J: ‪Geez, what a great question. What do you base your answer on?! Well I guess I want to enjoy it. Personally I'd like to organise my time so I can write and exercise instead of just thinking about doing those things. I'm super excited to see who Whoopsie starts becoming. Obviously I love seeing Baby and Newbie grow but Whoopsie is a brand new slate, you know. And I think by the end of next year I'd like to have some professional developments. So yeah, I guess I have a bunch of hopes and dreams. How about you?
‪K: You've given me some great hope and dream ideas for 2017 just now!

 ‪I'd like to write and exercise more too. And I'd like to go overseas again before we have to start paying for a seat for KB. ‪I'd like to read more. And I would like to have a conversation with you, mate, about us starting a sing club which some people might call a choir but I'd prefer to call sing club 

J:  ‪Yeah sing club! Let's do it! And let's have more conversations! ‪
K: Yeah!


Have a great summer everyone. We'll be back in about a month. Woot!

Still life

This morning I noticed that there was a nappy in my fruit bowl. No idea how long it's been there for. 

 

Thought of the day

If I were taller would I feel more like a grown up? More of a question than a classic 'thought of the day' but that's what I'm thinking about. 

Further to the pyjama question

A few comments in response to yesterday's post..

• I'm still trying to figure out how to dress post-baby and KB is 17 months old

• Those pyjama pants sound a little like these:

 

And no one thinks twice about the way those guys dress. 

• Reading about wearing pjs on the street reminds me of this really stupid thing I read in the good weekend on, well, the weekend. A woman who works as a stylist in Sydney had put together a one page 'edit' of her favourite things for summer. It included a white bathrobe. She said she included it because "nothing is more indulgent than eating mango and drinking champagne on the deck in a crisp white cotton bathrobe. 
• FFS. 

The pyjama question

Me wearing pyjamas in the streets (of my DREAMS!)

If you read fashion blogs you’d be aware that a couple of years ago people started wearing pyjamas out on the street. Or at least on the streets in front of fashion shows. Although some highly glamorous women seemed to be pulling this look off to an extent, it seemed far too stupid for me and a movement I essentially ignored. Until last week when I bought a new pair of pyjama pants for summer. They are wide legged and white cotton with navy stripes and I felt so delighted when I put them on I felt like I never wanted to take them off and the crisp whiteness made me wonder if maybe I didn’t have to.

I’d have thought of myself as a person that would never again wear a wide leg pant but pyjamas are so special. Plus I’m still trying to figure out how to dress in this post-pregnancy body. You’d think I’d have some better ideas by this third baby but I don’t. I should probably go back and read some old blog posts to see if there are any clues in there. At the moment I am blessed with an actual baby that actually sleeps through the night. I have to say I always thought this was a bullshit thing that people with grown up children who couldn’t remember what babies were like would say but Whoopsee legit sleeps through the night and it’s great. I love her for it, but not having constant demand for my breast milk means that I may actually have to do something  about losing this pregnancy weight like stop eating ice cream or start exercising more rather than trusting my baby to literally suck the fat out of me in a beautiful symbiotic relationship between their weight gain and my loss. 

Or maybe I don’t have to stop eating ice cream at all! Maybe I can just start wearing pyjama pants. I mean, I don’t want this to turn into a slippery slope to obesity (though if I'm being honest I’m also very drawn to mumus) but I just don’t know how to dress right now. Naturally there would be a few barriers I’d have to overcome if I were to start wearing pyjamas in public. Like self respect (luckily there isn’t that much there for me to over come). LB’s inevitiable inability to cope with it (I once wore tracksuit pants out to coffee - styled pretty well I may add and it was all I could do to get him to walk beside me to the cafe). And the fact that the pyjama pants in question look exactly like pyjama pants.

It's weird how one can apparently wear any crazy shit if you're going to a fashion show where everybody there will check out your kit and probably judge you but walking down the streets of Collingwood I feel like I'll be far more judged wearing crazy shit. But maybe no one cares. Lord knows I don't. Let them wear cake I always say. Still there's a big difference between sitting in a room fantasising about wearing pyjamas on the street and actually doing it. Mind you, by the end of last summer I was wearing a t-shirt with my brother's face screen printed supersize across the front and I sure as hell hadn't seen that coming so let's check back on the pyjama situation in a couple of months.

Cheeses me off

It's another one of those beautiful weather days that make it hard to feel anything other than really really great. 

And it's also KJ's birthday, a beloved faraway sister of Miss Soft Crab, so it's a day to get extra excited about. Happy birthday KJ. 🍻🎉🍰🍦

But rather than dwell on the positive, I thought I'd balance things out with a list of things that cheese me off.  It's a very petty list but you should all know that I am not perfect, I am quite petty sometimes! Let's celebrate our pettiness on this beautiful Friday, shall we? So here we go, a list of minor things that cheese me off in no particular order.

1. When people arrive at the tram stop after me, but get better seats on the tram than I do. 

2. When strangers say uncool things and then look to you for agreement. For example, a stranger at the gym the other morning was complaining to kid at reception about how he kept letting people from the northcote high swim squad ahead of the other people in the queue so they could go ahead to their swim squad practice. The stranger said "the rest of us get out of bed at the right time, so they should too". I was behind him in the queue and he looked around at me and nodded like he was representing my views. But I was just wishing he would stop bullying the kid at reception. 

3. The phrase Friyay. Oh god this cheeses me off.

4. Off cheese. Ha! As if cheese would ever last long enough at my house to go off.

I guess that's about it. I was going to add when Appleheart sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to KB, but gets the tune wrong, but when I think about it, it's actually quite lovely. While I'm not listening to it. 

Haiku Thursday

Dreams

Dream of a cleaner

And of Roomba, oh robot

Clean my frustrations

Christmas shopping

Money's no object

To Santa, thus Baby's list:

Unrealistic

Good yesterday

After reading J's post yesterday, I immediately texted her to advise I was at work (I don't normally work on Tuesdays) and that we should probably rendezvous. 

We met at the new fancy Alpha 60 store and tried on clothes while Whoopsie happily lay on the floor and wriggled around. Then we had a cafe latte.

 

J bought lots of Christmas presents and I felt good about myself for not spending money on a dress.

It was basically a great little interlude in an otherwise run of the mill day. 

But hooray for that! 

A better yesterday

K was so right yesterday,  a sunny day really makes life seem great. I love the way thinking about Margaret and David made her feel happy rather than miserable that they we're no longer with us. You know on TV. The way thinking about all the great Hong Kong cinema made her happy rather than sad that we never watch it any more. Or eat as much Cantonese food as we did that year we studied HK cinema. Good weather is really the world's best upper. Not, as some people may suggest, cocaine.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Fitzroy pool and then our neighbours joined us and Housemaid had the most excellent idea to bring a bottle of wine and have UberEats deliver us some pizza and after dinner we basically had the whole (kids) pool to ourselves and there I was back in that idyllic Australia. 

And although today is warm the overcast sky and wind is really bringing it down. But not as much as the fact that I have to start my Christmas shopping today. As soon as I've written this post I'm going to head to the city to buy some KK presents and some kids presents or at least that's the plan. I kind of love Christmas shopping when I know what I'm buying but today I don't and I'm pretty sure that the day will result in me wandering around the city from shop to shop thinking I have a plan and direction only to find at the end of the day that I haven't bought any presents but somehow managed to spend $200 on beauty products for myself. You'd think that given I can predict the disastrous outcome of today I should have come up with a plan to prevent this, like maybe had some ideas for presents and developing the self discipline not to buy beauty products, but sheesh, I'm only human!

A better tomorrow

I was going to write a post about the great weather that's forecast for the next couple of days, and how on days like today and tomorrow, life feels easier and it feels better and I feel happier. Then the title A Better Tomorrow popped into my head and I thought ooh, that's what I'll call it, in homage to the film of the same name that came out in the 90s and J and I watched as part of our exploration of cinema from Hong Kong. Then I started thinking about Hong Kong cinema and how great it was in the 90s and 2000s, and I wondered if it was still great. Thinking about this made me happy. Then I wondered where I would turn to find out about what's coming out of Hong Kong, somewhere I could trust, not just 'the internet'. I thought about Margaret and David and how much I relied on them to educate me on cinema and thinking about that made me happy too. What a great show that was. What a great community service. Sure, they never talked about Hong Kong cinema but they had producers they needed to keep happy. Then I thought about Terry Gross, and the great interviews she does with the filmmakers and actors involved in films she loves, and that her radio show has certainly helped fill the hole left by Margaret and David. I'm sure you can see where this is going, but I have to say people, it made me happy. Happy happy joy joy. That's where all trains of thought are chugging me to, and it's all because the goddamned weather is so goddamned nice! 

Friday Favourites: Dirty Dancing

One of the joys of Friday Favourites of yesteryear when K and I both used to blog daily was our mutual appreciation of the Friday favourite. Sometimes we be gushing over a shared favourite thing, like Prince songs or Damon Albarn. Other times we'd just be enjoying each other's love of a favourite thing. Like K and Babs or me and NPH. So it's a shame we don't get to hear from K today. 

When we were kids there was a girl that lived up the street from us, let's call her Choo Choo. She had the Dirty Dancing soundtrack on vinyl and we didn't have it on anything so we sometimes used to contrive reasons to borrow it from her without also having to invite her over. Eventually she moved out of the street, along with the Dirty Dancing record and although at the time the best thing about that seemed that we didn't have to hang out with her anymore in retrospect the best thing was that we didn't have to be such little bitches anymore. 

At the time I don't think I even liked the movie that much but I sure knew a great soundtrack when I heard one. And I definitely under appreciated Patrick Swayze but I'm glad to say one of the gifts of age is a broad appreciation of great things and that includes this movie and Patrick Swayze. First, I love choreographed dance. Any kind of dance really but I especially love group dancing as at the end of this film. Now I own this movie on DVD and I watch it every time it's on television. Most recently on Wednesday night. It's such a delight to find it on TV and I basically smiled the entire time I watched. 

Here are some of the great things  about this movie: dancing; Patrick Swayze; the upstairs-downstairs story; the way that Baby and Johnny know how to have a great time; music; all the great lines. 

Dirty Dancing you are a bona fide Friday Favourite!

Life goals Thursday

J is right but I'm still following two clothes shops on Instagram because I like looking at the ads. 

You know what else I like? Rebecca Judd. Or at least, her Instagram feed. And not in a hateful way. I don't like her feed because I like hating on her. I like it because she seems kind of charming. It happened very gradually. One day Instagram suggested a post from her. As if, Instagram I thought. But then I looked at it and it was about one of her kids, and seemed kind of funny. Then I started looking at her posts, like, seeking them out. And sure enough, the are sometimes charming and funny. Once, on Chris Jude's birthday, she posted a photo and said happy birthday chris judd, I would be up shit creek without you. I thought it was kind of nice.

I don't follow her yet. I'm not prepared to do that. But I am prepared to admit that on Instagram, I kind of like her. 

Life Goals Wednesday

I recently stopped following a bunch of brands on instagram that I felt were inspiring my inner consumer too much. Again. A while ago I did the same thing, basically stopped following a bunch of clothing brands and retailers who sell nice things. Because they just made me want to buy clothes all the time. But then slowly, I started following them all again.  Isn't it weird that one follows brands in Instagram? It means that you are willingly just scrolling through a heap of ads. Ads! Willingly! The thing that most of us think we want to avoid all the time. And yet with the current state of things we willingly subject ourselves to them. On Instagram, on mailing lists. Those evil geniuses have sucked us in with nicely styled images and promises of loyalty discounts and now we are seeking out ads! Those things that we used to complain about when they came on during TV shows but now mistakenly think we are avoiding by watching everything on catch up TV and Netflix and illegal downloads. But we must have secretly loved them because we find other ways to access advertising. Willingly! (I guess I'm having trouble coming to terms with this). 

Well today I take a stance. I don't want to be advertised to! I have some dignity! (Jokes. I have no dignity.) I'm unsubscribing from lists and I'm unfollowing on Instagram  and I'm going to become a better, less consumerist person. Or I hope so. Let's see how I'm feeling in a week. 

A festive season list

If I wasn't excited about Christmas already, J's Memento/Fifty First Dates/The Santa Clause dream certainly did the trick. I keep chuckling at the thought of all the drama and tension and confusion over why the wrong brother showed up. I guess it's been a pretty big year for everyone and J's subconscious is the first to say it's time for a break.

I'm pretty excited about Christmas, I have to say. KB was to little to care about Christmas last year, though we did try to get him in the festive mood.
This year he is more into stuff. Right now, he is having a great time putting the TV remote control in his nappy bag and then taking it out again. So I feel like we can have more fun with him this christmas.

And I'm excited about Christmas because I am hoping to acquire some of the cookbooks I've been eyeing off all year. Here's my wish list.

First, Classic German Baking by a lady who writes a nice blog called The Wednesday Chef.

It's baking and it's classic and I like it.

Next, Small Victories.

It seems like one of those good books full of practical tasty stuff to make for dinner during the week. Like, a repertoire expander rather than a mind blower.

This one might be a mind blower. Or just have its hand on it.

It's the cookbook of the kitchen of the studio of Olafur Eliasson, the artist, in case you hadn't caught on. It looks annoying and tasty.

There are several others but KB is getting bored with the remote control caper, so I'd better save them for another post.

The festive season begins

It's no secret that the Misses Soft Crab love Christmas. Mostly. And given that it is now December 5 it's time to admit that the festive season has begun. Decorations are everywhere, the weather is heating up, on Friday when I had to cross Alexander Parade at 9am there was a noticeable lack of traffic on the road. It's practically holidays already. And I'm not the only one who's ready to admit it, my unconscious is too.

Last week I woke up from a vivid dream that was basically a sci-fi/thriller in which Ben Affleck was breaking through barriers of space and time in an attempt to find Santa Claus to prevent some kind of evil. Every year Affleck starts this mission but each day always ends with memory loss so he's frantically trying to discover whether he's found Santa while also looking for Santa until he realises... HE IS SANTA. It was basically Memento meets Fifty First Dates meets The Santa Clause. Though I want to make it clear it was not cute or a kids movie. It was more of a dark, gun toting, thriller Santa chase.  Merry fucken' Christmas.

Though in some ways I would like to spend some time figuring out what this dream all means and what I could learn about myself I'm too disappointed in my subconscious to give it the respect of my time. It is just so terribly disappointing that my brain has been doing all this hard work thinking about Casey Affleck a lot recently and my unconscious goes and dreams about Ben. It harks back to that time I dreamt about Donny Wahlberg instead of Marky Mark. I guess if I wanted I could look into why it keeps sending me the hunks' brothers, but I'm just assuming that in its sleeping state my brain is too lazy to conjure up the right guy. Right? Right! Nothing more to interpret here folks. Welcome to December.

A final word on Friday

I am watching The Crown too! I've only watched two episodes but I kind of love it. QEII is so young and adorable and Prince Phillip is so Prince Phillipy.

I wonder when the monarchrome experimentation  begins.  I really do want the queen to live for a long time. 

It's so boring

It is so exciting that the E class team is hitting the #86 route. I far prefer the tram to the train but that D class makes pram-tram travel so unpleasant I've basically given up on the tram. But I'm looking forward to reuniting with, it E-class style! 

Now, I know I promised on Tuesday that I'd get out of the house so that I had something to write about, but in fact for today's post I've only managed to get out of my head, which is in fact what I was really talking about on Tuesday, just in metaphor, so mission accomplished I guess. 

This week I've watched a couple of episodes of The Crown. When I first heard about this series and how Netflix spent really big bucks on it I felt kind of surprised. I mean I love QEII but her life just seemed like a kind of boring premise for a TV series. 

Of course one pleasure of watching it is that QEII, Prince Phillip, everyone is turned into people. Elizabeth is more than just a monochrome dream. I watch documentaries about the Queen and the  running of the palace at every opportunity and although I've seen QEII driving herself around in her Land Rover and Phil tending to his farm I have never really gotten a sense of them as people and so I guess that's why Netflix put so much filthy lucre into this show, we all just want to see that human queenie. But you've got to view biopics as fiction, I always think. Sure the events may be fact but everything else is just someone's interpretation, at best based on someones' memory, but mostly probably on a wish or an idea. So watching The Crown we're all just fooling ourselves. But I'm cool with that. 

But really, I was right. It is kind of boring. And yet I'm thoroughly enjoying watching it. All those long shots of grand rooms, all the outfits which are yet to become monochrome. All the silent meaningful looks from the staid British characters. The show is kind of like QEII - a comforting presence I enjoy despite myself. Long live the Queen.

E is for about time

I catch the #86 tram to work which is always an interesting experience. It's a bit of a slow coach, especially compared to the glorious #96, the queen of trams, which I used to catch when I lived in the 3056. The #86 lurches and stumbles while the #96 glides with elegance and grace. This is partly because of the swish E class trams that they use on the #96 which can only glide with elegance and grace, while the #86 has those D class trams that have stairs and narrow doorways and are very unfriendly to people with prams or mobility aids.  The #86 has a gazillion stops and lots of twists and turns while the #96 shoots down Nicholson street like and arrow and gets you where you're going in no time. I loved the #96 for its efficiency but I have to say, I have come to love the #86 for its rough and ready quality. It's an unpretentious piece of transport, mostly very frequent and very reliable and always full of people which shows it is a much needed transport route. It's the bastard John Snow while the #96 is one of those right born Starks who are good and all, but just not as interesting. 

And guess what you guys. As of this week, they are introducing E class trams to the #86! That's like giving Jon Snow a valerian steel sword! I'm writing this from the #86, and thought it's just an old D class this morning I know that next time, maybe next time it could be a E class. Hooray! Winter is coming!

Get out

I have got to get out more. Last night I got a pocket call from Dad's phone clearly made by my mum but the phone obviously was not in her pocket because she left a voicemail in which I could extremely clearly hear both sides of a conversation between her and K's mum that they must have been having on Mum's phone.

I only listened for a few seconds of course. Obviously it was a mistake and although the conversation was only about them trying to arrange a meeting it did feel a little weird and pervy listening. There was something a little David Lynch about the experience. Like how could Mum accidentally call me when she must have been just sitting around at home and the offending phone clearly wasn't in a pocket? How do you even do a pocket dial from an iPhone that requires a passcode? And why could I clearly hear both sides of the conversation when I know my  mum wouldn't use speaker phone, I believe her hearing makes it unfavourable. Then whole thing is so mysterious I started writing a blog post about it this morning until I realised that it was also so boring. It may seem Lynchian to me but in truth i know it was just an accident. No dwarf conspiring to creep me out here. But life is pretty small when you have a tiny baby and I can't keep on writing about the US election. And I really didn't want to bore you with complaints of a back so sore it even hurts to sneeze.

And so I make this pledge to you, readers, I'm going to get out! See the world! Have something interesting to say! And I'm going to do it by Thursday! And then regularly! As long as my back gets better!

Bring it back

I wish it was still fun, fantastic Friday. That day was great. And I went to two funerals last week, so kind of urgently needed. Saturday and Sunday were pretty super too.

But it's Monday now. Monday. Often a tough day. But today it's going to be particularly tough for me. Mucho maudlin Monday, perhaps I'll call it. I seem to have come down with yet another Childcare transmitted bug and this one is a doozie. 💩🤒

Fun fantastic Friday

Although it is clearly taking K and me some time to get into the swing of our new single, daily post regime I'm feeling pretty positive about it. Excited even. There are a bunch of reasons why. For example, a change is as good as a holiday and I love holidays! The new format demands something slightly different and I think this new approach may be good for my brain. And  something I hadn't really identified until today, it is bringing back into our lives all the days, opening doors for new post concepts, probably based on alliteration and also allows the return of classic MSC favourites such as WTF Wednesday, Terrific Tuesday and Friday Favourites!

But let's talk about today. According to Baby, Fridays at school are referred to as fun, fantastic Friday. It's probably just one hour in the afternoon where they get to draw or something, but whatever this phrase means exactly, he's always excited about it. But why does he get to have all the fun. I love alliteration too! And Fridays! I'm totally going to have a fun fantastic Friday! Here's how:

I'm going to send Baby to school and Newbie to childcare which means I'll just be home with Whoopsee which means that I have a whole six hours in which I mainly get to do whatever I want. And considering that all I really want to do is lie around and cuddle my sleeping baby and play with her when she wakes up I think I'm totally going to tick every box on my to-do list tomorrow!

But it doesn't stop there! It wouldn't be a MSC day supreme if it didn't involve coffee so naturally I'm going to drink a bunch of that. I may even have a home brew with some porridge, raspberries and vanilla yoghurt in the morning and one in a cafe later. Go hard or go home I always say.

And just to nail the day I may even go check out a jumpsuit that K brought to my attention the other day and if it looks as cute as was hinted at when I drove past the shop window yesterday it really might put the fantastic into this Friday.

Let me tell you guys, if you are the mother of three children including a 7-week-old baby it really doesn't take much to turn a regular day into a fun fantastic one. It's kind of like being a one-pot screamer. Sure people may laugh at you because you are such an easy drunk but you'll have the last laugh cause you only have to spend five bucks at the pub. I'm just the activity equivalent of that. Sure you may think I'm a loser for doing nothing with my life, but who has the last laugh? I do! Because I all I have to do is have an extra coffee and lie around and I get to feel like I'm really nailing life. Yeah!

Might as well jump

So I thought I would directly engage with the topic of jumpsuits canvassed yesterday.

Even though I only have one, I dig the jumpsuit.


I think their appeal is their simplicity. One garment, totally meeting your covering nakedness and style needs, serve it up, let's go. Some people like wearing layers but to be honest, I don't even like wearing separates. 

Figuring out how to pair all those tops and all those bottoms? It's a bit of a headache. That's why I like wearing dresses so much. One garment, everything you need, serve it up, let's go. But the jumpsuit is more fun than the dress.


Until it's time to go to the toilet, then it's more annoying than the dress.


But hell, we're here for a long time, not a good time as our friend Bibby used to say. The idea of eliminating all annoyance in clothing is an impossible dream.


So yeah, jumpsuits!

A vision for the (immediate) future

After my reveal on Monday that I had determined my look for summer K texted me to ask what my summer look would be. I had one word for her: jumpsuits!

I should probably have given her a few more words because if you think about it, jumpsuits isn't really a look for a whole season. Especially for a girl that only owns four jumpsuits and can only breastfeed in two of them. I'm committed to the look and currently have an expensive boob-accessible jumpsuit on layby but it's not really feasible to keep buying expensive jumpsuits. Or own them in summer if I keep laybying them. And yet I can't shake the feeling that this summer is meant to be all about the jumpsuit.  It's possibly a reaction to my recent pregnancy rendering me unable to wear jumpsuits for many months or to the fact that I don't fit into most of my jeans. Whatever the reason, I'm embracing jumpys. 

The thing about jumpsuits is that you have to embrace them, otherwise it's too easy to think they're too full on for day-to-day wear but forget that! There's nothing too full on for daily wear and certainly when you keep dropping hunjies on jumpeys you don't want them to go to waste in your wardrobe. But this leaves me in a position where I have to figure out how to supplement my jumpsuits on nonjumpsuit days. 

Oh sure I could just wear any old thing: shorts and a t-shirt; skirts and singlet; a dress. And we all know that in reality that's probably what will happen but that doesn't help me when I'm trying to construct a theory of my summer look. 

Reading over past blog posts about summer looks I feel like I had some solid summer directions: colour palletes, adjectives. I'm beginning to wonder if "jumpsuits!" isn't quite enough to define my key look for summer so I guess I should be grateful for this miserable weather buying me time to elaborate on my sartorial direction. You haven't heard the last of this friends!

March to the end of the year

Yesterdays shit hot weather made me think about last summer.
This time last year, Appleheart,  KB and I were on a plane on the way to London, where we remained (more or less) until February 2016. KB was four months old and we were all pretty raw from the experience of either having looked after a baby for four months or having been a baby for four months.
We were excited and daunted AF (as the kids like to say these days). I love London, and was pretty delighted to be going there. But being away from home with a new baby was going to be tough. And it was going to be cold. Cold AF (as the kids like to say). We were going to miss most of summer and though I was happy to be going away I was not happy to be missing summer. With the benefit of hindsight I can say boy was I right, missing summer is a bunch of bullshit. We made the most of the cold and had some truly excellent cold weather days. Several times taking long walks through London and then stopping off at cosy pubs to drink mulled wine and/or Guinness spring to mind. London is so good at cosy pubs. Walking along the coast in Lands End, in Cornwall, in very wild weather which looked a lot like the pace Dumbledore went to find a horcrux and shit got real for him. There were also the walks through snow in the Swedish countryside and the time it snowed overnight in Copenhagen then the sun came out and we went for a jog around the cemetery. I remember that because it was the only jog I did in three months and I nearly puked all over the fresh white snow.
Look, it was pretty fantastic, really.
And now I'm in a tight spot because the point of this post was to highlight that the lead up to the end of the year is always so mental, and last year I missed that, and so ended 2015 in a state of relative calm, which was the silver lining to missing out on summer.
But maybe I've just discovered that missing summer doesn't even need a silver lining. I missed something great but I had something great. It was just great.
Wow.

Sunshine revisited

You didn't have to be in NSW last week to enjoy some sunshine. Although today's forecast of 38 is beyond what I like in a summer day, last Thursday's 32 was just about perfect. I'm not saying I like day after day of 32s but a few now and again suits me just fine.

Last Thursday evening on that hot day I took the kids to the pool. As we were walking out the front door my next door neighbour was walking out her from door with her 2.5-year-old on their way to the pool too, she met her partner there and half an hour later LB showed up with another neighbour's 3-year-old son and as the sun lowered in the sky hitting everything with that yellow summer's evening light I felt like I was in a god damn Tim Winton novel. In the best possible way. I mean, is this Australia or what!? The neighbours all at the pool, sharing responsibility of watching the children as they frolic in the water cooling themselves in the golden light of summer. It was so idyllic, I could barely believe it. My neighbours later had Jimmy Grants delivered by Uber Eats to the pool, and although I can't imagine that happening in a Tim Winton novel it really did add to the feeling that life can be pretty sweet.

I know I complained a lot last week, about my pregnancy weight and politics but the truth is I'm mainly a glass-half-full kinda gal. I may whinge about a lot of things. I may draw conclusions about people I don't know, I may complain about people I do know. I may lament not having a good wardrobe or money or a satisfying job. And I'm sorry, because all in all life is pretty good most of the time. I know that the light of the lowering sun is pretty special and can not be replicated any old time and I know that not everyone gets to live in an awesome street with neighbours who become friends and have similarly aged children, but hell guys, a sweet evening at Fitzroy pool really makes you see the good in life. As long as these 38 degree days don't keep up I've got some pretty good feelings about this summer.

I've even planned my summer look, despite Pickle being too distracted to even ask about where my summer look is headed. But more about that some other time.

Sunshine

I'm in a place called Corlette. It's an hour north of Newcastle. My word New South Wales knows how to make a nice beach.
Last night KB, Appleheart and I we were playing with a ball down by the water and three pelicans came along. It was very exciting and they were incredibly cute with their waddly way of walking and spiky feathers. I was loving watching them until one of them got a little bit too close to KB for my liking and I started thinking that if any of them tried to hurt KB they were going to get cut.
It was a slightly confronting moment among all the beauty and serenity. Of course it didn't come to that because I didn't have a knife. Jokes! They didn't try to get KB because they are pelicans and have no interest in a small baby.
It's going to be 32 up here today. Like a proper summer day.
Everything seems better when it's sunshiny. 

The grey lining

I was watching this show the other night that kept showing footage of Trump  "mocking disabled reporter". Now that was some totally fucked up shit. One of the many, many, many things you just can not believe happened. But the thing that made me feel good when I watched it was that I would bet my life that if that had happened in Australia, if some political candidate did such a thing here they would have been gone petty much instantly. Their party backing gone, instant dismissal. Gone. I mean there may be a strong undercurrent of misogyny in this country and some fairly overt racism but at least there is a sense that you've got to at least treat individuals with respect and generally not make fun of people. Unless you're a cartoonist. Then you can make fun of anyone. And get paid. But you definitely can't do that if you're a politician. If you're going to say fucked up shit about people as a politician you have to couch it in moderate language. Or at least not act like an 8-year-old kid teasing someone. Sure politicians here can create policies that are racist and mean (no entry ever to people settled elsewhere if they've attempted to arrive here by boat anyone?) but at least you can't mock the disabled. I'm pretty sure. Yay Australia. I guess.  

More reality check

Hey, did you all see Miss Dizzy's delightful comment on J's Monday post? People say that internet commenters are nasty trolls but not our readers, no sirree.

Hey, did you all see the Super Moon last night? I did. It looked like a big moon. That's all. Just a big moon in the sky.

Hey, did you all notice that I didn't post yesterday? I'm still sorting out the teething problems related to my baby teething Ha! Not really. It's the teething problems related to not being able to use any of my devices to blog, thats what I'm sorting out. I've had to borrow Appleheart's computer, and then in turn have had to deal with the inevitable questions like "Why are there all these pictures of Chris Pine open on my computer" when I forget to cover my tracks.  I'll get it sorted out though. Promise.

Hey, has anyone seen the weather forecast for the next few days. It's going to be super nice!
Let's focus on the positives, shall we?

Reality check

I feel like such an idiot. Remember months ago I told you how much I was looking forward to October and November because I wouldn't be pregnant anymore and it'd be spring and I'd finally be able to dress normally? Was I in denial overload or what?! I mean spring in Melbourne, warm? What was I thinking? Not to mention my body. Oh sure I'm skinnier now than I was 6 weeks ago but also I have the body of a woman that was pregnant until 6 weeks ago. Of course I love having a substantial part of my wardrobe back in action but I'd love it more if I looked better in it. 

Don't get me wrong the grass is definitely greener here than back then. I can wear pants. I way prefer my babies ex utero than in utero and the rainy days are interspersed with sunny days. And in fact last night I felt practically gleeful when the rain started. Sitting inside of an evening while it rains makes me nearly as happy as brushing my teeth an hour before I go to bed. But when am I actually going to look good in clothes? My theory is that 8 months postpartum is optimum bod time, but if I'm honest with myself, and you,I'm pretty nervous about how things may pan out now that I'm in my late thirties. I mean Leonardo Dicaprio turned 42 last week. Do you know how old that makes me? An age where I'm probably really going to have to make an effort to lose weight after having a baby. Sigh. 

So I'm just going to eat the McDonald's style apple pies Russeth made that are in my freezer and the ice cream to get them out of my house and stop slathering butter on the Coles brand flatbread I'm weirdly addicted to (mainly because I eat it slathered in butter I suppose). Probably I'll have to stop snacking constantly out of fear that if I don't I'll get so hungry I pass out or eat a horse. Once I have achieved these things then maybe I'll look forward to a time when I may look good in clothes again. If only I didn't have to give up comfort eating to see me through this difficult time. Sigh. 

What's happening?

I would never rarely give someone a hard time for thinking someone was a hunk. Especially a pretty boy. I LOVE them pretty. I mean I thought Paul Walker was a hunk after seeing Skulls. RIP PW. 

Sure I have a couple of issues with K's crush. Like, I don't really think he's that pretty. His eyes are too small for his big lips and all his features are squashed into the centre of his big face. Or maybe it's something about the nose. But having said that I've never seen him in anything and we all know a hunk animated is completely different to a 2D image of some guy. I mean I've barely even seen this guys face in any other guise than his Star Trek character and who the fuck knows why or when I've even seen that. Secondly I don't know if I'm imagining it but I feel like there is some kind of visual similarity between him and his Australian politician namesake. I know there isn't really but maybe something about the eyes. Or maybe it's my imagination. 

Either way that guy is not for me. So says I now. It would probably be a completely different story if I'd seen Hell or High Water. 

But who can think about hunks when what happened in America yesterday happened. You know that thing about how people say Americans are idiots and then you say well come on you can't make generalisations like that about entire nations and look at all the great things that came out of America. I mean, there really are heaps of great things. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Shake Shack.

And yet...

K and I had a pretty insightful discussion about the Trump issue via text message yesterday. So instead of me rehashing it here I'll just let you read our text conversation. 

 

Confession time

Something happened to me recently that I haven't yet told J about.
I've been meaning to tell her, but I haven't found the right time.
I'm pretty sure she's going to be shocked and appalled. I'm shocked and appalled.
It's shocking and appalling.
The thing I haven't told her is this: I went to see the movie Hell or High Water (which I really really loved) and I walked out of it with a giant boner for this guy:

Eeewwww. What's wrong with me? He's a classic pretty boy of the style I usually feel completely unmoved by. He has the same name as a particularly odious member of the Abbott/Turnbull government. He's so movie star looking.Eeeewwww! But he is just so great in this movie, I couldn't help myself. I'm hoping that it's just that I loved the movie, and if I see him something again I won't give a hoot.  But until then he is a total dreamboat. I don't dare use the H word in relation to him, but he made me feel real feelings in my heart spot, just like real hunks do.  It's hard to ignore.
But I'm pretty sure J is going to give me hell for it. 

What's happening

So I'm pretty excited about daily Miss Soft Crab, but I'll admit that remembering to blog every second day after the last couple years of biweekly blogging may be tough. But here I am! So far so good. 

I'm going to follow K's lead from yesterday and embrace this happenings thing bloggers do. But I sure as hell am not going to use that list of headings K used. You think I have all day!?

I have three children for Christ's sake! I barely have all minute. 

Doing: the same old shit but interspersed with breastfeeding and extra nappy changes. Also just delighting in how fucking adorable my baby is. Plus feeling bad that I can't just dedicate some solid time to any one of my children. 

Hearing: the competing demands of my children. And then the tv when I can not take their demands anymore and need to distract them. 

Drinking: I wish. 

Eating and cooking: both constantly. 

Enjoying: my baby. She's a delight. The other kids are ok too. 

Loving: that I totally ditched a bunch of the headings K went through yesterday and the fact I'm going to end this right now!!

New Crab City (PM)

Hi guys!

Bye guys!

I'm not here to tell you about what's up with me. I'm going to do that tomorrow.

Whaaaaa? I know.  You might not have asked for it, but we're giving it to you anyway. Miss Soft Crab is moving back to a daily blog. I know! We're abandoning the AM/PM format, but don't worry you'll still get to enjoy the hilarious conversation between K and me as we alternate days to give you a little injection of joy each morning before you embark on the drudgery of daily life.

See you on the flip side

New Crab City (AM)

We're back you guys!
As you all know, the Misses Soft Crab have had a sweet hiatus so J,  LB, Baby and Newbie could spend some QT getting to know the new baby. But we also got up to other things.  Especially me. Well, not really. I mean, I don't want to create the impression that I've been doing lots of fun stuff, it's just that I have had more free time than J because I don't have a new baby.
But now that I've managed your expectations re: the awesome stuff I've been doing, let me fill you in on what has been going down lately in the K-niverse. And let me do so in the style of so many bloggers: with a list of happenings. You know the ones. Lots of boring shit details about bloggers lives under too many headings. I'm taking my inspiration from this blog  which I started reading when KB was born because it's written by someone who had a baby at pretty much the same time. She has a much more positive outlook than I do and eats extremely good look food all the time and far fewer Doritos than I do, so seems equal parts admirable and annoying.
Here goes!

Doing: Well geez, that's a bit of a plot spoiler, is it not? But alright then. I've been wiping snot from KB's nose a lot and wondering whether the presence of snot means I can't go visit J who has a new baby that she's trying to keep germ free.

Hearing:  Gosh. What am I hearing? The fridge's mechanical whir? The sound of the toy drum that KB plays all the time, especially when his parents need to get shit done? Yes, readers, all of those things. I've also been enjoying the My Dad Wrote a Porno podcast, because it's as if Alan Partridge has written erotic fiction. Which is to say, hilarious and gross.

Drinking: Yes please.

Eating and cooking: Doritos and things that include Doritos, like Nachos. I also cooked the Lamb Shwarma from Jerusalem the other day and some wholemeal scones that had been in the freezer for god knows how long because we had some cream in the house and I felt like I should eat it with something other than a spoon that goes into my mouth all the time.

Wanting:  Eh, what do I need? Apart from a better functioning pelvic floor, amirite ladies?

Playing: A really swell game called Who's a Naked Baby? which basically involves stripping a baby (mine) before bathtime and then singing "who's a naked baby?" over and over again. Brings the house down. In those moments, I am Madonna circa Blonde Ambition tour.

Deciding: How to live a moral life in an amoral world, like everyone. Sheesh.

Enjoying: The idea that this list will end soon.

Looking: Ahead to see how many more headings there are. Nine! For chrissake!

Loving: Brevity.

Buying: Time.

Planning: To make this end as soon as possible.

Watching: The clock. Also, I'm excited to start watching the QEII series on Netflix. I'll be writing a letter if they don't effectively capture the majesty of Monarchrome.

Savouring: Things that know how not to be too long.

Wearing: The same old shit.

Reading: Words.

Craving: GOD, SHUT UP!

Feeling: Immense relief.







 

I really hope this works (PM)

Sure as heck sounds like I'm not the only one that needs a little break. Let's hope that Apple and Google can sort something out in the next few weeks. Or alternatively that K can. 

See you in a few weeks!

I really hope this works (AM)

So some of you might be wondering why J was the only crab to post anything last week. J, who on Monday last week, gave birth. Then on Wednesday last week had just made it home from hospital with a two day old baby. First, let me say I'm very sorry. And let me tell you the reason, which is actually two reasons. The first reason is that the new IOS does not seem to like the blogger site and whenever you try to write a blog post the whole thing crashes, which is very annoying when you're 99% of the way through a blog post, and iphone is an essential piece of equipment for your blogging life. Seriously Apple, seriously Google, I expect the two of you to get together and sort out your differences. The other part is that as I've regularly told you all, J is the sensible one in this outfit. If you've ever wondered whether there is one crab to rule them all then the answer is yes, those giant crabs that live on the ocean floor and you see on David Attenborough documentaries, but after that it's J. And don't you think she deserves a break to get to know her new baby who is off the charts cute? Yes, I think so too. So, Miss Soft Crab is going to have a new-life hiatus for a few weeks. We'll be back in November, the day before the public holiday for that big horse race. See you then, crab fans!

Thursday's post (AM)

On Monday I had my baby and who forgot to do their blog post!? Not me, K! To be fair she did hit send on my post so I guess I can't say she did nothing to fulfill her MSC obligations but sheesh. My baby is a little girl and I love her. Having a baby is truly a best thing and going through labour is truly a worst thing. All I kept thinking was how the fuck do we get through this. I mean sure we all do it differently with varying degrees of intervention and tolerance and I'd chose labour over Caesar. But what a fucking a-hole it is. Having a tiny baby in he house is totally adorable though, if challenging and accompanied by an onslaught of hormones and attendant mood swings. So excuse me while I go burst into tears or stare at my baby adoringly or sit under a shower for a perverse amount of time.

Dog Days (AM)

Did you watch the grand final on Saturday!? What a match! I don't know about you guys but I really expected Sydney to dominate early and convincingly beat the Bulldogs. Don't get me wrong, I was going for the Dogs and I have paid very little attention to the footy this season so I really was basing my assumptions on pretty much nothing except for a history of watching a bunch of boring grand finals in the past. But it was great! Neck and neck for almost the whole game, anyone's match the whole way through. It was really great. And I had pretty much the perfect GF day. Watched it at home with just the fam and then went into the street to socialise with friends and neighbours. Thereby getting to enjoy the footy and socialising without the pressure of actually doing a thing. Geez, if only all GF days could be like that. I feel just like Hemsworth did when the Doggies won the preliminary final!