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!

Cold comforts (AM)

I unpacked my case yesterday, something I had been putting off because I couldn't face spending any more time with it. The mountain of shit one has to lug around when traveling for 2.5 months with a four month old baby is eye watering. It makes days spent in transit deeply unpleasant. 

Every time we moved cities I had to repack that fucker and doing so was a reminder that travel was imminent, and therefore deep unpleasantness was imminent. The time, after Appleheart had been in Munich for three days, I had to pack my bag, Appleheart's bag, KB's bag and portacot, clean an entire apartment while keeping KB entertained then travel across London with all bags and KB in order to meet Appleheart at a car hire place so we could drive for six hours down to Cornwall stands out as particularly effed. Though I was in no hurry to go near my case again, I'm glad I've done it and now it's finished I feel quite a bit lighter.

Unpacking meant putting away my favorite cardigan.

It's a woolly number that I got from Alpha 60 a few years ago. It's super warm and served me very well during those cool northern days and nights. 

But it also served another purpose. Because it's pure wool, it pills like a motherfucker. I hate pilling. But I love getting rid of those tiny little wool balls. I find it soothing, relaxing and comforting. And it's perfect activity for occasions like the time we drove to Cornwall in the rain over six hours and I had to sit in the back seat to ensure l was able to put KB's dummy back in his mouth whenever it came out and avoid extreme hysteria. 

Look at all those grubby little balls! It kept me going for hours. And almost as soon as you wear it after de-pilling it, it gets covered in pilly bits again. It's a gift that keeps on giving. I guess i'll have to find a more seasonally appropriate source of comfort now. 

2016 reflections (PM)

Well, this is embarrassing. First of all, I'm here on the wrong day. Sorry about that. Basically, my circadian rhythms are to blame, and even though I knew yesterday was called 'Thursday', I didn't realize it was in actual fact, Thursday. Then, this morning, while trying to find the source of the weevil infestation in my pantry, I remembered it was Thursday yesterday and I had some MSC to write. 

I jumped on my iPad and wrote about how even though January 2016 was an intense month for me too (5 countries, -12 degrees on some days, a baby strapped to my chest constantly whenever i went shopping though really, I wanted to be trying on clothes, Bowie and Rickman) it was actually a wonderful, wonderful time. I mentioned that I ate some great rye bread and a spit roasted pork knuckle sandwich. I mentioned that I saw the opera that Appleheart and his pal wrote and while I expected to not really like it much because I know nothing about contemporary opera, it totally blew my mind. I also mentioned how I took KB for his very first swim at a pool in Munich and the woman behind the counter asked me in a very thick accent whether I needed any "Aqua shorts for babies". Hahaha. 

But then I had some technical difficulties while trying to search for a photo of the Aqua shorts I bought and it all disappeared! Boo. So basically I guess I'm saying that January was intense but wonderful, and February is a bit of a shambles, but gee it's nice to be home. 

2016: reflections (AM)

I know that February seems  too early for reflections but January was pretty intense and  I feel it really deserves some reflection before we move on to enjoy the awesome year that 2016 is bound to be.

2015 ended fine, Christmas went for days but was pleasant and largely lazy and warm and all the good stuff. And 2016 began normally enough, I was in the countryside ringing in the new year with Blizzie and my babies and their babies and some friends of theirs and it was all lovely. Days passed, I went back to work, I quit my job and then hours after that happy moment, on the train home from work I got a message from a friend. 

I was so shocked. I guess it was not knowing he was sick. And he was so, so great. 

David Bowie has always been a great favourite of Miss Soft Crab and I feel like we need to take a moment to remember his excellence. The British legend, who died at 69 after a battle with cancer. 

I actually could not believe my ears when I heard on the radio three days later about Alan Rickman. The British legend, who died at 69 after a battle with cancer. Alan Rickman was so great. When I was little I used to watch this film my mum liked called Truly, Madly, Deeply. It was a romance in which Alan Rickman played a ghost. It was great. But why pretend that the most important part he played for me is anything other than Snape? Shit gets pretty real at the end of Harry Potter and Snape's role and their relationship, well it's pretty...moving (excuse me, I have something in my eye).

I couldn't stop thinking about it when Rickman died. He was a really great actor. I like him a lot. 

They say celebrity deaths happen in threes. But in this case it's just three deaths of old, great, codgers, because a couple of weeks after Alan Rickman, it was time for my parents' cat, Aphrodite. 

She would have been almost 19, we got her when I was around 17 or 18, she used to sleep on my bed and was so sweet. But then I moved out and she became a bitch (possibly unrelated). You had about 12 good seconds of patting her before she'd lash out with her claws but she was still sweet. Doing all that cat stuff like rubbing against your legs (when she wanted something), sleeping in the sun, deserting you. I loved her, but she died sleeping in some bushes as all cats should. 

January, you were not without your delights, but you, unlike others, we're not gone too soon. 2016 onwards and upwards. 

2016: projections (AM)

Friends! Happy New Year! Apologies for the extended hiatus but us crabs really gotta refuel, ya know!? I hope everyone had a great summer (or winter if you spent it north side. I mean waaaaaay north side). I had a nice summer pretty relaxo, but I gotta tell ya, I'm pretty excited to get this year happening in full effect! 

I love a new year, especially the kind where you don't really what's going to happen. The best thing about starting this year was knowing I was going to quit the job that made me so unhappy. I did that my first week back after the Christmas break. I can not recommend this highly enough if you are miserable in your job. What a great way to start the year! Now I'm freelancing, which is, on the one hand terrifying, but on the other hand totally exciting because part of my plan is to try to find some satisfying and challenging work. And if I fail at that at least I'll be doing boring work at home without travelling miles and feeling resentful. Woot 2016!

Also 2016 is the year Baby starts school. Yet more terrifying and super exciting business. He stared last week and so far it seems a super tiring emotional roller coaster. And that's just for me. Badoom cha! But seriously folks remember school. How it was so much fun and also so horrible. Ugh, I actually can't think about it too much or I might have to take him out for home schooling. It seems equally terrifying and exciting as my new career. But possibly a 5.5-year-old mind interprets it differently. But hey I'm here to talk about me, right?!

Because of my new lifestyle of working from home and having a child at shook five days a week I've also decided to start just doing stuff again, you know, like how Nike tells you to. In 2014 I took up ballet on a whim and because I thought I should just do stuff. But then I ran out of time and money. But now I'm in denial about not having those things so I've totally taken up ballet again. I'm probably at a class right now as you read this! Just do it! I'm just gonna do it all.  Yeah,

2016! Here's to ya!

2015 ends (AM)

It is Christmas week! God, can you believe it?! Where does the time go, am I right?! Well, who the fuck knows. What I do know is that it's Christmas on Friday and today is the last day of Miss Soft Crab for the year. Sisters need a rest, yo! So to mark the passing of another year K and I asked each other a few questions. I answer some now and K will be back this afternoon to answer more. Merry everything friends!

What was the highlight of your year? 
Geez, what a question. On the whole I've had a pretty good time in 2015. Not all years are gooduns but this one was. I just did a super quick scroll through all my photos from the year and can confirm this. We had a great trip to the snow, another great one up the coast and generally some good times. But the true highlights really come down to this:

• The ever changing and continuing awesomeness of my children! A 5-year-old is great. Mine says wonderful things and learns new stuff all the time and shares them with me and is a goddamn joy. The other day I asked him what was the best thing that happened at kinder and he said "Smiling with Felix."!!! And a 21-month-old is probably at one of the cutest ages a kid can be at. Mine has a new found love for summer fruits, all of which he identifies as apricots, though he can not say such a complicated word and is only able to call them "cock" and he demands them all through the day.

• Meeting KB! It's rad when your friends have babies and another baby in the Soft Crab family! It's the best. Plus that kid is so goddamn cute.

• Blur. But I'll get to that.

What was the best/most memorable thing you ate or saw or thought about?
Look, K had a baby a week before Blur played in Melbourne. She has a baby now and that is the best. But she also had to miss Blur, so I feel a little bad going on about it, but seeing Blur is the best, most memorable thing I saw and thought about in 2015. And one of the best and most memorable things I've done in my lifetime. For the last two years the MSC end of year roundup was marked by a Most Five and Blur made it into both of mine. Natch they are here now when I finally got to see them. They were so great live, seeing them like that really was awesome. So hot. And their music, I mean shit you guys, their songs are so fucking good.  After seeing Prince I didn't think any live music experience could touch me so deeply but Blur were really, really special.

But I ate a really memorable thing too, it was the plum and green tea soft serve at Supernormal pictured above. It looked festive and that plum ice-cream was effing delicious. I had it when K and I celebrated Mate's Christmas before she went overseas. We got to spend whole hours together eating and drinking and shopping before rushing home to our progeny. It was a lovely day. But that plum ice cream...

What are you looking forward to in 2016?
More Blur. Just jokes. The only Blur I'll be getting will be on my  iPod. Ha! Do people still have iPods? I'm actually quite excited about 2016, basically because I'm planning on working entirely freelance. It's kind of exciting. I have some work lined up but need to pursue some too. Who knows exactly what I'll be doing but I feel like I'll be doing some new stuff. This is the best kind of year I'm my mind, the kind where you don't know what it holds because you know you are going to change something big. I can't wait.

I'm also looking pretty forward to wearing the white jeans I bought recently. Who knows if I can pull them off? But I look forward to the challenge and to looking fucking crisp this summer!

If you won $1000 on a scratchie, what would you spend it on?
Easy. Some art. Probably a photo. Very possibly this one by Tom Blachford.

I love photos and large ones and I have so many white walls and I think about buying art all the time. In particular I like this photo because it kind of looks like a hot night but the pool looks cooling and I guess after the weather of the weekend I want some kind of cooling image in my house. A thousand dollars, you may as well just spend it straight away, right?


Would you rather...the other Hemsworth or the other Affleck (Ben, of course)?

Ben Affleck in a Hemsworth sandwich. Let's just say it's lucky the Would You Rather didn't include sandwiches.

In 2008 I went on a European road trip with my mum and dad and Chickpea and Russeth. Because we spent a fair amount of time in  the car we played quite a lot of Would You Rather. And because we were driving through Germany and Poland and Tom Cruise had just made the film Valkyrie a lot of the scenarios were centred around Hitler and concentration camps in competition with Tom Cruise. Like, "Would you rather have sex with Hitler or live with Tom Cruise for a year?" These were pretty complex questions, but the upshot of the experience is that I really learned to know myself when it comes to Would You Rather. So I can tell you with absolute certainty I would definitely rather Ben Affleck. I do not find the other Hemsworth attractive at all, I have nothing for him and no emotional attachment. Ben Affleck, on the other hand, may go through some pretty repulsive phases, like that entire relationship with J.Lo, but I guess he has a certain something. Especially when he has a beard. Plus I guess I liked him in my youth, so Affleck, all the way.

Oh! Damon what are you doing here? 

PS. After posting this I started thinking of other great things. I just want to add that Tony Abbott being deposed was pretty great and if I'd been more prepared I would have included a video for the Blur song Ong Ong. Feel good track of the year and one of many highlights of the show. Go listen to it!