Miss Soft Crab is bi-doona-curious (AM)

When I was in Iceland, I stayed in a very cute apartment I found on airbnb. It was someone's actual home, and so operated like a proper Scandinavian home,  by which I mean you have to take your shoes off inside and there are individual doonas on the double beds. This is what a Scandinavian bed looks like.

Personalised doonas. His and hers. Or hers and hers. Or his and his. Miss Soft Crab supports everyone's life choices.

From the first, I was pretty sceptical. Sure, it looks pretty. And I like the idea of never having to wake up shivering because a squeeze has thrown the bed covers off because he is too hot, causing me to be exposed to the elements like so much sleepy collateral damage. I like the idea of that.

But how the heck are you supposed to cuddle under there? That line down the middle looked to me like a giant faultline that would surely break apart every time someone rolled over or went for a bit of a nuzzle or whatever people do in their bedrooms (it's up to you guys and I don't ask questions and I support all lifestyles, providing no one is getting hurt). It looked to me like the this situation would lead to a more draughty bedtime, and that's not cool. That's not cool at all.

I climbed in on the first night expecting to hate it.
But  much like taking your shoes off indoors, it all just seems to work. I don't know how or why exactly. I mean, I'm not a scientist. I don't know how two doonas side by side manage to pretty much stay together when you move around, despite the giant faultline that runs down the middle. But I don't know how most things work and it's a state I'm pretty used to. All I know is that I don't think I experienced a single draught while I was there, and for that, I say tusen takk Scandinavia. Tusen takk.

I was trying to explain it to J last night and I'm not sure I convinced her. Let's see what she has to say in the PM, shall we? 

Just a Monday post (PM)

I have to say, part of the way through watching that ad for the first time,  I felt happy that they used the word vagina. Finally! I thought. An ad that respects me enough to sell menstrual products by focusing on the relevant body part, not the need to feel 'confident' while playing sport. But then I realised that they only mentioned the word vagina to emphasise how dirty it is and to get me to spend my money on something that will make it more acceptable to go out in the world with one of those dirty things.

D-bags. Eff you guys. 

J'accuse, d-bags

Who's with me?! (PM)

J is talking loco and I like it.
There's few things I like more than a cockamamy plan. And few things I think more regularly than "gee, I really should exercise more".
So lets put the two together and see if we can't add a little muscle tone to these Crabby arms.
Perhaps for the duration of these trials we can write a weekly post about our experiences. And perhaps we should take photos of ourselves putting our arms in the air like John and Jane and Mr and Ms Superfirm.

Also, if I can find a way to integrate a leotard in to this without looking like a total moron, I'm doing it.

Who's with me?! (AM)

Recently I was cleaning my bathroom. Really, properly cleaning it; in the way that meant I moved the scales so I could mop under them. Of course a super clean bathroom is one of life's joys, but deciding to weigh oneself after many, many months just because you are holding some scales is, so often, not. Yeah, those scales told me straight out what my jeans had been whispering to me for some time. Now that I am off the world's easiest and bestest all-you-can-eat breastfeeding diet it's like I've got to start putting in some kind of effort. Lucky for me AND all of you, I think I have just the thing. These three books that made there way in or back into my life at the start of last summer.



Sure, late last year when I rediscovered them I had the best of intentions, but what with all the breastfeeding as if I was going to waste my time with watching what I ate and exercises. I'm not a sucker. So now the time has come. The plan is this. For one month each I am going to follow an exercises gleaned from each of these books. At the start of each month I will tell you about the book and the exercise routine and I will follow it for a month and, although I have not so much as uttered a word about this to K before writing these here words, I fully expect K to follow the routine too. Then we will decide which is the bestest! Who's with me?!

I think we should start with Jane. Now don't freak out, friends, this great new exercises routine isn't starting today. No, let's give it a couple of weeks so we can all get psyched! Now, as Jane Fonda is a woman and a feminist I think her routine will be the most beginner friendly. Plus, look at what a great time she is having!

Perhaps after Jane we will move to Travolta. His book "is designed to provide a six-day-a-week workout program"! Shit. Well, let's hope Jane gives us the goods to move onto that.

Then we will finish with Super Firm. That book has a subheading. 'Tough Workouts'! Eeek! This book contains such sections as 'Working harder', 'Advanced shaping and toning' and 'Plyometrics'! Until I looked on Wikipedia last night I didn't even know what that was. In fact, Wikipedia barely made me any wiser but Super Firm tells me that the section is about training to build power, muscle elasticity and recoil, and includes bounding and jumping routines for powerful legs! I didn't even know I needed better muscle recoil!

I CAN'T WAIT TO GET SUPER BUFF!!!! WHO'S WITH ME?!

Haiku Thursday (PM)

Not me*

Winter bulk

I dream of a time

When I can just wear t-shirt

Jumper/jacket-free

History tells me 

that under these big jumpers

There is a body

Next time I see it,

In early spring, it will be 

Fat from lasagne

*Picture from The Sartorialist. She looks pretty nice in her winter bulk, ay?

Found (0(K

When I was going to Golden Plains this year I picked Legsly up from Geelong train station so we could go together. I was down that way and I was the one with the car so she caught the train down to meet me for a ride. She told me a story about the train ride during which, while stopped at a train station, three rowdy youths ran up to the train and drew cocks on the window of the stationary train. Just stationary for the drop off and pick up. All three of the guys. Now that is dedication to drawing cocks. God, how I wish I'd been there!

If you've spent any time around these parts you may remember cock on a tenner and cock in a guac or cock on a 'nana. But since then what?! Good question!

Chickpea wrote to me a little while ago with the message "Are you still collecting them" with this picture attached:

Cute isn't it?! And then I realised that I hadn't found a picture like that worth photographing in a long time. I told Chickers I hadn't found any good ones lately and the very next day she sent me this one. I like it because of its crudity. The simplicity of it. Someone just thought yep, I'm gonna draw a cock and then they knocked one out.

Anyway, I guess I'm not the only one interested in finding cock. Let's see what K has to say about it!

K: Thanks mate, I do have some things to say about found cock. As you say, at its simplest FC is about somewhere someone saying  yep, I'm gonna draw a cock. And that's OK by me. So natural and spontaneous. I mean, who among us can say they have never been swept by that mood?

Of course, this is harder to do if you're a perfectionist, like I assume the person who made the following FC is:

This seems to me to be the creation of someone who doesn't like to draw outside the lines. Great that he/she is having a go but geez guy/girl, have a little fun with it!

J: Yeah, losen up.

Still, I appreciate that there is room for the spontaneous and the more premeditated. Like this cock o' rice that Chikpea and I saw a picture of shortly after I realised it was time to start collecting again.

 

K: Nyuck nyuck nyuck. Cock o' rice. Way to have fun at work, whoever did that!

You know who else is having fun? These little punks, who used found materials to create something quite special:

Strictly speaking, it's more found poon than found cock, but it's totally in the spirit of what we're talking about here today. When I stumbled across these guys at work,  I felt like I had just discovered Basquait. This, from folks so young? Unbelievable. I can not wait to see how their work develops. 

J: Well, while we are off cockic topic and talking about men at work, check out this babycino Baby received when we were in Sydney a while ago!

Naturally Baby could not wait to get stuck into it.

K: HAHAHAHA. People can be so great.

Such as your Mum, mate. As evidenced at passover dinner, when she turned a blind eye while we laughed and laughed because the horseradish on the seder plate looked so much like a cock.

Due to technical difficulties we can not show you the horseradish from our seder plate. Luckily horseradish cock and balls are not rare, thank you Internet for providing this replacement.

We didn't make it so, the earth made it so! We just bore witness.

J: HAHAHA! Yeah, that horseradish cock was such a good one. Cocks of nature! An accidental cock is almost better than one put there by design. I mean they are the true found cock, right?! Take this piece of cock rock that I found at the same place as the cock o' rice. These pink phalluses were on every table! What?

But I think my favourite accidental was this one:

 

The projection of a microphone onto the shirt of a groom giving a speech.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!

K: I don't think we can top that, Mate.

But that won't stop us searching, always searching, for the next FC. And readers, please take up the search yourselves, if you haven't already. Perhaps some of you have some FCs of your own you'd like to share? If so, please post them on the Miss Soft Crab Facebook page - I'm sure I speak for the whole Crab community when I say we would love to see them.

J: It's true. That last one is gold. But I would love to finish up with something a little classic. In fact it is something that Russeth did and I saw it in a Facebook album of G-Force's from a recent fishing trip they went on with some other cats. I really love the simpleness of the drawings, and that the whole thing is so complete. You know?  I just think it is the purest example of cock vandalism.

Happy Mondays (PM)

Way to evolve, Mate!

I'm sorry your hand is hurting so much now, but the thing that strikes me about that post is that even with a bandaid on, you have really nice hands. Elegant, like. 

Mine are not so nice. They just look functional. Like ears or something. Not to say that my hands look like ears, just that they have that we're here to do a job kind of quality, like ears do. 

See?

Unmistakably the hand of a person who is descended from a long line of washerwomen or perhaps potato gleaners.

But back to the topic at hand. ha!

I sometimes cut myself up in the kitchen. And even though these cuts sometimes bleed a lot and hurt a lot, they never seem to leave any scars.

Except, of course, for the scar that was left behind when I was making pavlova for my grandmother's birthday, and when putting the metal beater attachments in the hand held beater, turned it on before I had fully extracted my hand. I was eleven or twelve at the time, and a pretty big spazz, I think its fair to say. The beaters started beating, slicing in to my middle finger and abruptly stopped when it hit the bone. It turned out to be a nice clean cut and so after a few stitches, it healed up good and proper.  All that's left now is a very very faint horizontal scar that you can't really see in the photo below.

Sorry guys.