Show(tunes) time! (AM)

My mum introduced me to musicals when I was very young. It started when we would listen to her Barbara Streisand tapes in the car on the way to drop my brothers off at school. One of Mum's favourite cassettes included Babs' rendition of Somewhere from West Side Story and Papa, can you hear me? from Yentyl. I would listen to those songs and feel special feelings in my heart, feelings I didn't feel when we would listen to the Men At Work cassingle Elderbro sometimes made us play. Then I saw Annie and I guess it's safe to say that everything changed after that. I realised that the special feelings could last for 90+ minutes when you hear them in situ. And magically, the more you watch them the more you feel special. Unlike the work of M Night Shyamalan which is really only good for one watch. I watched Annie on a weekly basis for much of my childhood and as such it is is stuck in my head in a way that the prayers of the catholic mass are stuck in my head. Every time I walked past/down Fifth Avenue while we were in NYC I would think "We found Fifth Avenue! Number one Fifth Avenue!". And every time I saw the Chrysler Building I would think about what an asshole Miss Hannigan was.*

But Annie was just the start. From then on I gobbled  musicals up in a way that would make Pacman look like a fussy eater. I watched everything I could get my hands on. Everything. All the Disney musicals. All the old timey musicals. Movies with music and singing in them like Bugsy Malone and Labyrinth.  I even watched Yentyl, you guys.

But there was one truly great musical that I didn't get to see until I was about 20, and that's Singing' in the Rain. My Mum hates Gene Kelly, you see, and I thought Fred Astaire was a bit of a twerp so I figured I hated Gene Kelly too and I avoided Singing in the Rain. Then it was on the syllabus for 'Introduction to Hollywood Cinema A' which was the kind  of thing I studied at university. I saw it because I had to and I loved it so much. 

Seeing that movie was instrumental in me cutting the apron strings, as they say because I thought Gene Kelly was great and that maybe my Mum didn't know what she was talking about. Thinking about that just now makes me think I should not let on to KB how I feel about Bradley Cooper, so he can just make up his own mind.

But now I see that Singing in the Rain is coming to Melbourne and I'm kind of excited about taking my Mum to see it, so she can experience it without having to experience her Bradley Cooper.

*i trust you all know what I'm talking about.

This is not a post about how old I am (AM)

I sometimes find myself asking rhetorical questions about the space-time continuum, because you know, space is fixed and time is just an abstract, man-made concept so the combination could be pretty chaotic. But I try not to think about it too much. Individually you'd think that there aren't a lot of questions. Space is space, time is time, let's call the whole thing off!

A few weeks ago I was at the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition at the NGV, it was beautifully presented and full of wonderful things. It was also full of people and lots of school groups.I  I looked at this photo:

And moved on. And then I heard a girl of about 14 say, "It's from Vogue 1993." I didn't really think anything of it for a second, just wondered why she'd make that comment. And then it occurred to me that the photo would have been taken nearly ten years before that girl was born. It was basically the same as me standing in a gallery in 1993 looking at a photo from Vogue 1971.

But 1971 seems like some other place altogether. And I am sure that in 1993 if I'd seen a picture from 1971 Vogue I would have imagined that time as being very different. Glamourous, exciting, long ago. But I guess half of that has to do with Vogue. So I wondered, was that girl imagining 1993 as a significantly different time? A historic time? Back then there was no internet or smart phones. In fact there were only brick mobile phones, and they were only for rich people. River Phoenix was even alive for most of it. But that 14-year-old girl probably doesn't even know who that is. I mean, doesn't that blow your mind?! That 1993 can seem as historic as 1971! Personally I find something kind of disturbing about it all. I know I'm 20 years older than people in their mid-teens but then I think about what that means in the grand scheme of things it's mind blowing.

How about the fact that when you are a kid time drags.  I would put any money on this year feeling to Baby like it goes on forever, but for me I have no doubt it will pass in the blink of an eye. Perspective, I guess they call it. Miguel and I were talking recently about how that is, that a week or month or year for a kid takes for ever and for an adult it just feels like time actually flies by. He suggested it may be that a kid is learning things all the time, every day something happens that is a big deal, so each day is more significant, creating a sense of size for each day, making it longer. It is an idea I like a lot but I think it has more to do with what we want. When you are a kid you want to be old enough to do all the cool shit and it seems so far away. You're just waiting for that time to come when you are the boss, so of course time drags. But as an adult you just want to hang on to youth and health and beauty and all that good shit that you realise is fleeting, the perspective is exactly opposite of a child's, so little wonder the sense of time is. Still weird though. But I guess if anything is going to blow your mind, it is going to be an abstract man-made concept.  

Things that make you go eewwww (AM)

Once, at work, I heard that my boss was eating a frozen sandwich. Why would a person do that? I don’t know, but a woman I work with was telling another woman I work with that our boss was eating a delicious-looking sandwich and that it was frozen. The impression I got was that this sandwich had been made, then frozen, then taken to work for lunch and then eaten before thawing had been achieved. Now I'm the kind of girl that starts thinking about my lunch at about 10:30am, so I understand premature lunch consumption and yet I still can not understand why, how a person would eat a frozen sandwich. It remains a mystery to me. Surely a large part of the deliciousness of the sandwich would have been negated by the frozenness of it? 

It reminded me of something that happened to me has a kid. One day in either the name of science or making me want to spew Russeth and Chickpea froze tomato sauce. It was gross. So gross, like an icy, granita of tomato sauce. I remember when they pulled it out of the freezer I felt so sick. And then...then, they ate it. Watching this made me run to the sink, but as I’m not much of a vomiter,  I think that was mostly for drama. But if I was a vomiter I can assure you I would have been spewing. For sure.

Far from being some minor forgettable moment, it has stayed with me as one of the defining gross events of my life. LB and I had an argument recently that was basically a result of that frozen tomato sauce incident. Sometimes with tacos, LB likes to have some store-bought salsa, and if it comes straight from the supermarket he puts it in the freezer to cool it down and give a little extra freshness to the tacos. I told him I thought it was gross and he felt that was a bit of an extreme reaction. Apparently he thought the word 'gross' was offensive, but I guess he's never seen his brother and sister eat frozen tomato sauce.

I love ice-cream, I like frozen grapes and frozen bananas, but frozen savoury really grosses me the fuck out. But that's normal, right?

On the upside, while searching for an image for this post I came across a bunch of pictures of ice-cream sandwiches, it really helped cleanse my mind palette.

In praise of Sundays (AM)

As a kid I didn't really go in for Sundays. Who wanted to go to school on Monday?  That's all Sunday meant to me.  When I'd hear the song 'Manic Monday' (which I heard a lot as a kid) and the Bangles would sing "I wish it was Sunday, that's my fun day," I just thought it was a bunch of total fucking nonsense.  Whose fun day is Sunday? But that was when I was a kid and I think one of the things that characterises  that time is that you're always thinking about the future. Childhood, although it feels like it goes on forever at the time, seems so temporary. You know you're going to grow up, that things change all the time, I think that's why it's so hard to live in the moment, you're always thinking about what's next. And that's why Sundays used to suck so hard, you knew Monday was so effing close. 

But now  I'm a grown up, with a grown up's desire to avoid thinking about the future too much and the daily aging and edging towards old age. And that, I think, is how I learned to love Sundays. 

In fact I remember the moment my feelings changed. I was having a beer at a pub on a Sunday afternoon, maybe 6 or 8 years ago and I realised how nice it was to be at the pub on a Sunday afternoon. It means that your boring shit for the weekend is done. Or it's not and you've decided not to care. It means that you're really using the weekend to its full advantage, wringing all the fun out of it till the last moment. What a joy! Of course I don't get that joy out of Sundays at the pub now. I mean it's nice, but with kids afternoon drinking just is not the same. I still love Sundays though. 

I love that they feel like a free day. Anything you do on a Sunday feels like a bonus. And usually I have time to cook a nice meal. And usually that meal is fish and roast potatoes and salad but I love that meal so who cares if I eat it most Sundays. I love how if you get some of your business done you feel so on top of things. Last night I went to the supermarket after dinner AND I sent some freelance work back to the client, so now I feel like my my work is all done. The house isn't even that messy. And because it was all on Sunday everything just felt better than on any other day. Oh sure, if I'd had a shitty day yesterday I may not be singing the praises of Sunday. Let's face it if you don't get shit done on Sunday and everything is all out of wack, Sundays suck it. But that's the thing about highs right? They're nothing without lows. 

I might have thought about the future a lot as a kid but I never would have thought that growing up would make me understand The Bangles. 

Safari magic (AM)

When I was little my mum had these two eyeshadows. They were in little clay pots the shape of a Winnie the Poo honey pot and inside were the most shimmery metallic eyeshadows I'd ever seen. One blue and one green. On the one hand I knew they were just my mum's eyeshadow and on the other hand they seemed so magical. Like so magical I felt it in my chest. So even though I knew they were my mum's eyeshadow I kind I felt like they had a secret life as magical fairy dust and playing with them would take me away to a special place. Being a kid is awesome in that respect, you know the difference between reality and fantasy but you can feel that fantasy world, feel that maybe somewhere it does exist. I guess that's what being religious is like.

As you know my mind gets blown all the time but I can't get that magic feeling back and I guess because of that it is hard for me to know what seems magic or mind-blowing to kids. It was Baby's birthday on the weekend and I found this book, a totally mind-blowing book. Now I'm not saying it made me believe in  magic but I loved it so much I couldn't stop swearing in amazement at the shopgirl. In the toy shop. I felt like maybe if I'd seen it as a kid I would have got that special feeling. This is it:*

We also gave Baby a remote control car and little toy skeletons so I guess he was distracted. But...um...did you notice that the book looks like a TELEVISION IN A BOOK! Or like a book from Harry Potter. Ok so Baby is not versed in the world of HP but he is well versed in the real world of books and television and how never the twain shall meet! And yet he just wanted to play with his $2 shop skeletons. Well who am I to judge. I loved to play with magic eyeshadow. 

I guess I jut want it on the record that of I was my own mother I would be a kickass present giver!**

*Sorry about the crappy video. It's been a rough weekend. Also it seems I can't see it on my iPhone so check out someone else's video here on YouTube if you want your mind BENT.

**Not that there is anything wrong with my mother's present-giving skills. She buys me excellent presents once I've told her what to get. 

A business idea (AM)

I've just spent the weekend in the Brecon Beacons and while there, I had a great business idea.
FYI, the Brecon Beacons is a lovely national park in South Wales with lots of nice waterfalls and lots of nice walking to be done. If you find yourself in Wales, you should totally go because it's very nice.

As we were driving there, we passed by some pretty lame tourist attractions, such as the Wales Ape and Monkey Sanctuary* and a bunch of other lame looking parks. It reminded me of  the lame things we used to drive past when we were on family holidays in Victoria in the 1980s,  and how no matter how lame these things seemed, my brothers and I would still beg our parents to let us go to them. This got me thinking, thinking about how lameness isn't something we really cared about when we were growing up, we just wanted to go to all the things and we would whinge and moan until our very tired parents gave way.
That's how we made it to Wobbie's World and I'm sure that's how we would have made it to Gumbaya Park if my parents hadn't gone one up on all of us and built a pool in our back yard which silenced our pleas forever, pretty much.

I started thinking that if that's what we were like as children, then surely that's what the kids of today are like too. And on top of that, the kids of the 1980s, the Wobbie's World generation, are parents themselves now. They are the ones having to endure the relentless pleas of their children, pleas to take them this place and that, pleas that they try to ignore but will have to give in to at some point. Or at least, give in to one in four, or something like that.

Then it hit me like a tonne of those crappy coloured plastic balls that they have at Ikea and stuff. What do those parents and children need to break the deadlock? I'll tell you what they need.

Pop-up Pissweak World, my business idea.

Pop-up Pissweak World will combine shitty attractions for the kids with the fun of nostalgia for the parents (both amusement park nostalgia and The Late Show nostalgia) in a very 21st century format.
It's perfect! Kids will want to go and parents will want to take them there.
All we need is a property about 45 minutes from Melbourne and some crappy stuff for them to play on. We should also make sure there is some good good coffee to drink because Wales does not care about that and it's killing me, readers, it's killing me.

Who's with me?!



*We didn't go to the Wales Ape and Monkey Sanctuary so it could have been great and if so, I'm sorry.

Project Chocolate Cake - Final Reflections (AM)

I've had a few conversations with people about the chocolate cake project over the last few days, and thought it might be a good idea to summarise what we've learnt and make some final reflections before we all move on with our lives. 

It seems that the chocolate cake project has stirred up a feeling or two in a few of Miss Soft Crab's beloved readers. In summary, it seems that people:

- love, and I mean love, talking to me about chocolate cake at the moment.

-are impressed with the matrix and excited by the opportunities it presents 

-remember top shelf chocolate cakes from when they were little, but have no recipe that they make now that they're sold on

It's making me wonder whether maybe, just maybe, chocolate cake is something that is just better in childhood. I mean, we all had different standards back then, didn't we? We all loved cake, we all loved chocolate, and we all loved icing. Childhood chocolate cakes brought all these things together and didn't give a damn about whether the chocolate flavour came from cocoa or melted chocolate (as if real chocolate came anywhere near childhood chocolate cakes...AS IF), they didn't give a damn about how much sugar was involved, they didn't give a damn about whether the cakes came out flat.  They just showed up and that was enough to make our little kid hearts explode. But now we've been around the block a few times, we've tasted good chocolate, we've tasted good cake, we want more. We're like junkies chasing the thrill of our first taste and I'm not entirely sure it's possible. 

Having said that, I may have had a few more slices of the D.Leb cake and my love for it only grew. I stand by my original comments...it doesn't taste mega-chocolatey in and of itself... but gee whiz readers, I've tasted worse things. You bet I have. I still plan on making the Felicity Cloake recipe at some point, but that's something for down the track. Right now I have to start thinking about christmas baking because I think this is the year I am going to try my hand at a gingerbread house. And mince pies. But the gingerbread house...that shit takes planning, because i'm not talking about some bullshit ikea flat pack gingerbread house (even though I kind of love ikea food) I'm talking about the real thing.

Anyway, I just thought I'd say those things about chocolate cake, because if there's one thing this project has taught me, it's that chocolate cake makes people feel a lot of feelings. 

No idea what I'm talking about? Catch up here, here, here and here. 

Friday Favourites: Ugg Boots (AM)

Yesterday I talked about that lamb/sheep/mutton's wool jacket I tried on.  I hinted at how ridiculous it is that a jacket would cost $1000. What I didn't say is that it's possibly the softest and  warmest thing I've ever worn and I think about it all the time. You can bet I thought about it last night when I came home after dinner with Scampy and Neville to discover my house was really quite cold.

But I shouldn't complain because the lamb community has given me a great gift in the past, a gift that has been giving for two decades. These:

These are the ugg boots I've had since childhood. No joke. My Mum's friend had a business importing them from her native Germany, and so when we were little, Mum bought a pair for both of my brothers. She didn't buy any for me because the feet of a girl child do not need to be kept warm. 

Jokies!

I suspect it was because my feet were too small.

From the binding. 

Jokies!

I just think they didn't have my size.

Anyway, the joke's on those guys, because at some point I claimed them for my own and have worn them around the house all through winter since about 1993. 

And look at the condition they're in!

If you're wondering what that thing inside this ugg boot is,  it's just a teatowel I stuffed in there to make them stand upright. I will probably wash the teatowel before I use it again.  

Still so wooly! That's GDR era manufacturing for you. 

Anyway, they are the warmest and best ugg boots a person could want and i'm lucky to have them. 

They are a Friday Favourite.  

When we were kids (PM)

Going to the dentist and shining one's shoes are wholesome and good things to do.
But I'm having one of those days where I am so busy with my adult life work responsibilities that there's no time for important things like that. There's barely time for eating lollies and daydreaming about being an astronaut.

Truth be told, I never daydreamed about being an astronaut when I was little. I thought about space a lot though. About how big it is and how that's where ET lives now, which made me feel a mixture of love and sadness. Which is kind of what childhood, and the film ET are like.

And according to the NASA website, this is what space food is like.

Lollies and shortbread! I should have daydreamed MORE. I could be eating all of this in zero gravity right now.

When we were kids (AM)

It's funny how there are things you do as kids that you just don't seem to do as adults. I don't mean like wanting to eat lollies all the time or riding around your backyard with your brother pretending you are astronauts. I know why you don't do that stuff. Kind of. Actually, I barely know why you don't want to play astronauts as an adult. I mean, I like to imagine things, sit around fantasising about some alternate life. Usually one where I have this great house and have friends over all the time for amazing dinners I make, one where I have this really fulfilling job that is not only super-fulling and lucrative but also requires me to wear wonderful clothes from time to time.* And maybe if I spent a few extra minutes in my head it would eventually lead to a fantasy about being an astronaut. I mean, that would probably be really fulfilling and pretty lucrative and maybe if you were at the top of your game you'd be invited to things where you can wear nice clothes. And I am not forgetting space. SPACE you guys! Being in space would rule.** The best thing! Anyway if having an imaginary life in your brain is good, why don't we play games about being astronauts and shit. Ok, I don't really get it at all.

But that isn't even what I am talking about. I'm talking about boring things that happened in childhood that don't happen now. Like shining shoes. In truth I barely did that as a child/teenager. But I remember Chickpea doing it. She went to a posh private school, while I went to the private school where drug dealers and kids expelled from all the fancy private schools went. I was neither a drug dealer nor expelled, mostly it was a question of geography and a realisation that we didn't belong in the posh private school. Yada yada yada, I rarely had to polish my shoes. But it seems like a thing from my youth. Check it out you guys, this week I polished some shoes. They are my favourite shoes, they are tan and great and really scuffed up and dirty now, so I polished them and they look great! I'm not going to show you a picture, because you don't know what they looked like before so you'll probably think the after photo is a before photo. But trust me guys, shoe polishing is great, just because you don't have a parent telling you to do it, doesn't mean you should forget about it.

How about going to the dentist. I used to do that all the time; when I was a child and my parents were responsible for my oral hygiene. Not now though. Probably hadn't been for about 5 years. Until this week! Now that I ma responsible for someone else's oral hygiene so I took our mouths into my hands and went to the dentist. I wish I could be as excited about this as the shoe polish. On the upside, my teeth were even cleaner than my shoes when I left the dentist. On the downside, dentists charge you hundreds of dollars for looking at your teeth and polishing them and finding holes they want to charge you heaps more money for filling. On the upside I feel better about myself as a citizen and a mother, so on the whole I guess going to the dentist was at least as rewarding as polishing my shoes.

I'm going to find some other activities of my youth that may benefit my life. Yeah!


*Shit, I have given way too much away about my inner life.
**I spent some time imagining my life as an astronaut at this point in the writing on the post, and guess what! It was awesome