Monday, August 29, 2016

Bad dreams (PM)


You know people say it's boring listening to other people's dreams but I don't think that's true. As long as they are told well and are actually interesting dreams it's as interesting as hearing about real life and in many cases more interesting, have you heard some of the boring shit people say? Plus it potentially gives you an insight into a person's psyche, and what is better than that?

I haven't watched In the Thick of It but I wouldn't trust that Dr Who as far as I could throw him!

Meanwhile I've been having crazy dreams lately but nothing I can remember in any kind of comprehensive way that I could repeat here with any substance. For example that dream I mentioned in passing last week that ended (when I was woken by Newbie) with Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio fighting in an apartment stairwell only ended after I'd been having some kind of al fresco Spanish-inspired dinner with a bunch of friends next to a giant paddock where hundreds of couples were taking flamenco classes. Whaaaaa? Yeah, I don't know. Needless to say that I have been having a bunch of dreams with little cohesion and I do not feel like giving you any kind of insight into my psyche.




Bad dreams (AM)

We all know that listening to other people recount their dreams is pretty much the most boring thing ever. But, I've had two doozies in the past week and I feel the need to share. Let's hope reading about dreams is less boring.

In the first dream, I was hanging out with J and having a great time. We were playing with KB and all was well. Then j said "hey, where's Newbie?", only she wasn't talking about the real Newbie, she was talking about the baby I had after KB, also called Newbie. Holy shit! Where the fudge was Newbie? I frantically ran around trying to find him while harbouring a considerable sense of unease. Then I stopped and in the dream thought "hang on a second...I'm pretty sure I only have one baby" and told J the same. She said "oh yeah!" and we both leaghed and laughed. 
THE END

Last nights dream was weirder. The guy from In the thick of it, who is also Dr Who, turned up at my front door. 



He said Appleheart had to go away for work and was going to be gone a while. He was there to be my stand in boyfriend. It seemed very fishy to me and I didn't want to let him in the house. I told him we were about to go for a walk and we should come back later but he was hanging around like a bad smell. He also seemed to be holding something in his hand which was bothering me, as was his unnaturally relaxed and friendly attitude. I mean, you've all seen In the thick of it right? Anyway, I grabbed the thing out of his hand and it was a giant syringe with the label "Fungus" on the side. I told him to make like a tree and get the hell out of here. 

THE END

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Highlight (PM)

That sounds like a pleasant week J. Especially the escargot and the penguin misunderstanding. 

My highlight has been Appleheart's return from his work/Swedish wedding trip. Things are better with the Appleheart back. And things are better with the 20 packs of salty liquorice he brought back for me. I bloody love this stuff. 



Highlights (AM)

Today I'm bringing you a brief round up of highlights from the week. Best thing I saw is probably a toss-up between what I saw in my brain eyeballs yesterday morning in a dream that involved Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio fighting and the Instagram account called Mandy Patinkin's Beard, which is great because it blends pictures of Mandy Patinkin with hilarity. And although you may not have ever realised it  this is a winning combination that makes he world a better place.



Best thing I ate was probably a delicious escargot type thing I got from the Tivoli Street Bakery which had pistachios and custard but although it was delicious I kind of regretted not getting a croissant because I just want to understand all the croissants of Melbourne.

But the best thing I heard was something Baby said to me on the bus yesterday. There was a print ad on the bus for a disposable, water-free toothbrush from Colgate. Below is a Spanish version of the ad.  The one we saw was definitely busier with more images and text but it still had those black fingers holding a toothbrush.


And Baby was asking me all about the ad and then he asked me why a penguin was holding the toothbrush.



Monday, August 22, 2016

Satisfaction (PM)

I'm feeling pretty satisfied right now too. Check out what's happening! 

The baby is in bed, I'm wearing ugg boots, drinking wine and watching Australain survivor. It's a great time in anyone's book (who likes this sort of thing). Also, I have prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella for my dinner because I am reading Elena Ferrante and all I can think about is Italian good. 
And as if that isn't good enough, Appeheart is coming home tomozz after 2.5 weeks overseas. 
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎉🎉🎉🎉

Satisfaction (AM)

*


The beauty of having low expectations is that it is easy to feel like you nailed the shit out of a day without having to have achieved much at all.

Take yesterday for example. Woke up in the morning with no milk or bread or yoghurt in the house. But I did have the ingredients for ricotta pancakes which I made and served with berries and lemon and sugar. Sunday breakfast - nailed the shit out of it! 

After breakfast and putting the dishwasher and washing machine on (!) I took the kids to the park before the rains came, then sent Baby on a play date and did painting with Newbie. Parenting - nailed it!

I maintained a fairly clean house and put the laundry away. Also because there was left over pasta sauce in the fridge I didn't have to spend anytime cooking. Housekeeping - nailed it! 

I washed my hair. Grooming - nailed it!

I sat around and looked at dumb shit on my phone when LB and the kids went to the supermarket. Relaxing - nailed it!

I even had milk and bread in the house by the end of the day. Sunday - fucking nailed it! 

Seriously you guys, if you set your sights low enough you can achieve anything!!!!

*I guess you could say Mick Jagger has nothing to do with this post. And you'd be right, but why not, ay?

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Diversification (PM)

My phone is pretty effed at moment and after already having it fixed once I'm thinking about getting a new one. I said to LB the other day that maybe I should just buy a iPod Touch for music and photos and buy a burner for telecommunication purposes and tiny bills, but then as I sat in a waiting room for 45 minutes waiting for an appointment I wondered what I would do if I couldn't look at Instagram. Read a book I guess. Still it made me doubt my new plan.

Anyhow, I don't have that much to offer in the way of Instagram accounts to follow. I follow a bunch of food-based accounts myself. I used to follow a bunch of clothing label accounts but I had to ditch most of them as they just made me want to go shopping all the time. So although I follow 251 accounts I have no idea what they are. There are a bunch of my friends of course. And a bunch of celebrities that I don't really care about but weirdly ended up following on Instagram (Olivia Wilde!? Chris Pratt!?). The Royal Family via a couple of accounts. An astronaut, NASA and the International space Station (I love spaaaaaae!), a bunch of museums (the Smithsonian, the British Museum). These accounts are actually great for when you are sick in bed because they usually have long and interesting captions to their pictures.

Back to food though, Ottolenghi posted this picture of lime cheesecake the other day which he said was for a new baking cookbook.

Needless to say I have thought of little else except this promised cookbook since.


Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Diversification (AM)

I didn't realise how much food is on my Instagram feed until I got gastro this week.
Remember how  on Monday I told you guys about how great my Mum is for helping me through KB's first bout of gastro? Well it turns out gastro is contagious and does not wait for a lady to get home from work before making her barf. No, this gastro had me leaping off the 86 tram and running into the Northcote Social Club to spew in their toilets at 4:30pm on a Monday afternoon. Then my mum came and got me a drove me home. Then I spent many many hours shivering in the bathroom waiting to spew again or with a bucket by my bed. And it was at these times that I would scroll through Instagram and see picture after picture of food which was the very last thing I wanted to see.
It made me realise I need to motherflipping diversify. Apart from Chris Hemsworth and The Onion, I don't really follow many non-food people.
So what's good on Instagram, people?
Also, then my mum got gastro so I had to look after her. Life! 

Monday, August 15, 2016

In praise of mums (PM)

It's true, K and I have been blessed with (largely) supportive, caring helpful mothers and yet we still need to complain about them sometimes. I am highly aware that in a matter of years our own progeny will be complaining about us in the same way we complain about our mothers and they complained about their mothers, who, no doubt, complained about their mothers. And so it goes. Luckily most of this complaining goes on outside of all the mothers' earshot so we can all pretend everything is fine.

Lucky for K that Mrs K was right on her supportive mothering game this weekend. Projectile vomiting is very disturbing, so lets hear it for Mrs K cleaning it all up!

In praise of Mums (AM)

Last week, J and I may or may not have been complaining about our Mums. How they can and do say things that are very very annoying to us. That somehow they annoy like no one else. That some of the things they do and say...well, it's just all very annoying. We said all of this knowing how lucky we are to have mothers, and to have such great, loving and (substantially) supportive mothers. We know were among the luckiest of the lucky. And yet. Sometimes they can be annoying. Periodically we complain about our mothers on MSC too. 
But we both know it's not cool, so today I'm going to just highlight how excellent my mum is. Yesterday, KB was sick with the kind of projectile vomiting that I wouldn't believe was real had I not been covered in it. What with Appleheart away for work and the super gross smell of vomit in my face, I panicked. I called mum and basically said "I need help!" In a panicked voice. About half an hour later she was pulling into my driveway which is weird, because she lives a 45 minute drive from my house. She then spent the entire day backing me up with everything I suggested, despite me continually snapping at her. She drove us to the doctor and waited the 2.5hours it took to get KB seen to. She bought me coffee. She cleaned up the trail of vomit destruction in the house. She poured me a beer while I was bathing KB. She did it all without complaint and then stayed over last night so I could go to work today and she could look after KB. The woman's kindness knows no bounds. Which is why I have to stop complaining about the annoyance I feel. And why I shouldn't have snapped at her when she commented, while watching an episode of Homeland after KB finally fell asleep, that Islam has more demonstrative prayer rituals than Catholicism. I should have just let her think her thoughts about that and not said a thing. 
And I shouldn't have snapped at her this morning when I whispered something so as not to wake baby KB and she misheard and thought I said it was going to be 17 degrees. I'm sorry about all of it Mum and I am so grateful for all of it and please don't ever die and I love you.

And look what just came through! 

 

Short hair don't care (PM)

I think we can all agree that I dropped the ball on Friday's post. But I've seen J's hair in he flesh and it looks rad! 

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Short hair don't care (AM)

When I was in my late teens I had this pair of secondhand baby blue men's corduroy jeans. I effing loved those pants, I wore them all the time. I wore them so much that they just eventually became too trashed for me to wear anymore and I had to say goodbye to them. I was sad but I didn't dwell on it. It was only a couple of years later when I found the exact same pair of jeans and tried them on that I realised what they had meant to me.  I am not exaggerating when I say that putting them on was like coming home. It really was the first time I felt that feeling people talk about, coming home. In those jeans I felt more like myself than I did in anything else. But I was young and it was the nineties. I guess I eventually trashed those jeans too, but fashionwise I moved on and if I found those jeans now I'd definitely try them on but I probably wouldn't buy them. I'm a different me now.

The next time I had that feeling was years later when I cut my hair short after years of wearing it long. In my late teens and early twenties I wore my hair in a pixie cut and various iterations of a short mullet and I think I only grew it out really because LB liked it better than way and I guess I was ready for a change. Long hair looks great so why wouldn't I want to have it. But after years of longer hair at some point in my mid twenties I cut it all off and it was so liberating and again I had that feeling that I was my truest self again.

Since then I haven't really worn my hair really short, I usually wear it long but have dabbled with the odd bob. But as you know I hate my hair. It's so dry and untameable and despite the odd good hair day or phase of peace with my hair I often wonder why I bother to have it long at all. I guess in part it's a hope that one day it will miraculously be beautiful. It's also because I can't be bothered putting up with the complaints of LB (who does not like change), my mum ('Oh but your long hair is beautiful...what does LB think of your short hair?'), Baby ('I think you shouldn't get it cut above your shoulders') and Newbie ('No Mummy! NO!' when my hair is up). But you know what, screw those guys. Why would I base my hairstyle on what they want. It's not those guys that have to run their fingers through those brittle, dry, knotted ends or look in the mirror every morning and be greeted with, at best, a feeling of mild disappointment or, at worst, blinding despair. They don't have to figure out daily how to make themselves look cute with a cruel joke of a head of hair. 

And so I just did it, I cut it off. Oh I didn't go for the pixie cut or mullet of yesteryear, just a short bob, but it is so liberating, so simpatico to the rest of me. 

The weird bit at the back caught by the plant is not part of the style. Just another cruel joke on the part of the hair gods. Will they never let me have good hair for one minute!?!
Mum and LB and Baby and Newbie, don't they know the joy of running their hands through their hair and not being stalled by knots and grimmness. Don't they know they feeling of having hair in a style that doesn't just boof out straight away. No! They probably don't know that joy because they don't know the opposite, that which is my life with long hair. I feel so happy to have this haircut to remember how great short hair is. Moreover I'm reminded that really the only time I really love a haircut is if it is a drastic change. And well done of course. Why would I deny myself these truths? These joys? It's like Roxette once said, 'listen to your heart!'

Monday, August 8, 2016

Let's talk about Lenny (PM)

Reading this morning's post just confirmed for me how important it is that we have a safe space to explore hunks. Who else is talking about hunk culture?! No one. Just us. Or maybe others are, I don't know, like J says we're lazy and you shouldn't expect much from us. But by god we are exploring hunks, we're exploring them right back to the nineties.  Which is slightly ironic because we would have loved to have been literally exploring hunks in the nineties but were getting no opportunities to do so. But seriously. The notion that Lenny might be a hunk has come to me before, when watching the film Precious. He plays a small but very very excellent role in what is a thoroughly harrowing film. I had no idea he was in it, so when he appeared amindst all the horribleness I immediately thought "DAMN LENNY! Where have you been hiding?".
He's drifted in and out of my thoughts ever since. And that's why I think he's a hunk. Because there's lots of attractive people out there, but it takes a lot more than that to be a hunk. Creepy sexy? Maybe. But a hunk? Definitely. 

Let's talk about Lenny (AM)



A few weeks ago K and I were accused by a longtime reader of racial homogeneity when it came to hunks. I was quick to point out that our hunk exploration has travelled from whitey world to South America and Asia but even I can't deny that we have a pretty anglocentric hunk radar. And although I think the Machine is partly to blame it's important to take responsibility for ones failings. 

But, on the Machine can we just consider Hollywood offerings of racial diversity? As far as black men go we have the likes of Morgan Freeman (too old), Will Smith (too Tom Cruise), Kevin Hart (I don't really know who this guy is). They just will not serve up to young-middle aged hunk that is handsome, smiley yet brooding, heroic and in more than one or two movies before the powers-that-be decide to dump him from the rotation probably because he's getting too popular for a black man. Asian men are always too action hero or too wacky. And basically that brings us to the end of Hollywood's racial diversity.  Still there's more to hunks than Hollywood so I think it's important to acknowledge that K and I could be doing more to create a more diverse hunk pallette. I guess the problem is that we are lazy. Which is pretty sad when you consider our passion for hunks and our disappointment in the hunks on offer in modern times.

And so after the accusation of our racism K and I had a little text conversation back and forth about black hunks in the middle of which k went to bed, leaving me to spend half the night thinking about where to find a more diverse field of hunks. I was left without any ideas until I opened Instagram the next day and literally the first picture of Lenny Kravitz in Lenny Kravitz's Instagram feed and my very first thought was, "Gee Lenny is pretty hot. Maybe he's a hunk. Maybe I should put that to K." But then doubt struck me "Maybe I'm living in the nineties. He does have that weird overt sexual thing I usually find repulsive. And yet..." Still I felt I needed more time to assess my true feelings about Lenny. And I am not lying or exaggerating or taking poetic license when I tell you that just a couple of hours later I received this message from K:


And K doesn't even follow Lenny Kravitz on Instagram. She just came to that conclusion on her own. And like that, it was as if the gods had spoken. Not that there was the answer and Lenny was undoubtedly a hunk, but suddenly our eyes were open.

Now as I mentioned Lenny has that weird overly and overtly sexual thing going on that I would usually be repulsed by, but somehow it kind of works on him, and it kind of got me thinking that maybe he has a bit of he creepy/sexy vibe going on. Like his soul brother Prince. I mean it kind of makes sense. Lenny Kravitz is 52 years old and wears leather pants and open shirts, but somehow here are K and I thinking about him as a bona fide hunk? I read on the internet that Lenny said "a part of him died when he learned of Prince's death." And I know he feels. But what I'm also wondering is whether a part of Prince lives on. In Lenny!*

You know what else I dig about him? He's half African-American and half Russian Jew. Which means that we squeeze two races into one hunk! Just jokes. I love it that any kind of Russian Jew could produce this:



I am not talking about Lenny today to add diversity to the Miss Soft Crab hunk collective, I'm talking about Lenny because there is no thing I love doing more than exploring  hunks and no place I love doing it more than right here, with you guys. Lenny, I'm just saying. 


*Let me make it crystal clear that I don't think that Prince and Lenny are in the same league of creepy/sexy or awesomeness, but I wonder if they have been drinking from the same fountain of creepy sexy, y'know? 



Thursday, August 4, 2016

Edward II (PM)

Wow, sounds like K really liked that play Edward II. I've seen posters for it around. I give the poster 3 stars. I can't rate the play because I never go to the theatre. Unless Appleheart has written the play and I feel obligated. Just jokes. I love going to Appleheart's plays. I'd like to go to the theatre more but I'd like to go to the cinema more too. And go out to dinner. And see my friends more. You know, just do normal things that a person of time and means can do.

Next week my mum and dad are babysitting so I can go have dinner with a bunch of parents' of kids from Baby's class. Probably the last time they babysat was for the same reason. My priorities are warped. On some subconscious level, because I know what my conscious priorities are, and yet somehow they are not what gets played out in my life.

So enjoy Edward II someone other than me!

Edward II (AM)


I went to see this great play last night. Edward II. At the Malthouse. Gee whiz it was good. I see plays all the time these days. Well, sometimes. I see them sometimes. Which feels like all the time. Mostly I have a pretty nice time but at some point engage in a great struggle to stay awake and  that really takes my focus away from what's happening on the stage. Not last night. Last night I only got distracted once, during Edward II's coronation. It was a scene I found so moving I couldn't help thinking about QEII and what it wil be like when she dies and someone else takes over. 
But I only thought about that for a moment. That's how good this play was! 
Five crabby stars from me. 

Monday, August 1, 2016

It's true (PM)

Newbie has basically had a constant stream of snot for the last three months. When the last 2 weeks were snot free I felt a concurrent freedom. One of not having to carry tissues all the time or feel that people were repulsed by my son the same way I feel repulsed by the snot streams of other children. Snot is back though and with it the pockets full of tissues, constant hand sanitising and shame.

Baby didn't get sick when he started childcare but he was 3.5 and I guess had enough exposure to life to immunise him. Or maybe it was the other kids at childcare, they all developed their immunity young and weren't spreading disgusting germs. Who knows? What I do know is that even though I feel perfectly fine, I'd love to be sitting in an armchair under a blanket with warm feet just like Garfield. That looks the bomb.

It's true! (AM)

Everyone warned me that when KB started going to Childcare he would get sick all the time and then the whole family would get sick all the time. I nodded politely but figured they were just pussies with rubbish immune systems, and that it wouldn't happen to us.
HahahahahhahahjahaHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH what a fool I was.