I see a black thumb and I want it painted green (PM)

I can't wait to see your garden, Mate, it looks great from here! And way to go on the parsley. I've killed parsley before, so growing such a thriving plant is by no means an insignificant thing.

I've really missed having a garden since being over here. I've missed the ritual of planting stuff on the weekend and then compulsively going out to inspect it every morning to see if anything has grown, then kind of forgetting about it for a few days, then going back and seeing that some green is poking through the dirt. It's very satisfying. And when you can eat the stuff you grow, it's particularly awesome. Though I am quite partial to flowers too. Anyway, I miss having a garden and I'm looking forward to having one again when I get back.

In three weeks! Woot!

You know, Mate, now that you've got a great place to live and a great garden to grow, perhaps it's time to consider...chickens! You would have fresh eggs and Baby and Newbie would have WONDER in their back yard. 

And in case you've forgotten, you LOVE chickens! You could get a couple of little Bantams. Or those ones with fluffy feet. You'd just need a place for them to brood and then hey pesto (heh), you'd have 

I think you should do it!

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.

Sounds like my Wednesday night (AM)

While I don't want to break the magical spell that we have cast which has you guys thinking that we write Miss Soft Crab on the mornings and afternoons of the day we post, I feel compelled to tell you what I'm doing right now.

It's Wednesday night and I'm at the nova by myself drinking a beer and eating a choc top and waiting for my film to start.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

Now it really is Thursday morning. I just wanted to add that the film I saw - Enough Said - was really good. I love James Gandolfini. I hope he's R'ing IP right now. 

Almost that time of the month (PM)

Well readers, we didn't make it to The Windsor to try on dresses. 
Not because we thought better of our crazy idea, but because I decided I wanted to walk home to work off some of the mountain of food we ate at dinner, and going to The Windsor would have been backtracking, and while I wanted to do some exercise, I guess I didn't want to do that much. Instead, we went in to the first bar we found (we called it The Donkey Bar), marched in to the disabled loo and  swapped dresses.

It felt very natural.

J's dress looked pretty cute, but I felt like I couldn't make a decision about whether I wanted to wear it on Saturday without spending a lot more time in front of the mirror. And a disabled toilet at The Donkey Bar is not the place to spend that time.  We swapped back in to our dresses and retired to the bar for a little digestive.
The wash up from this scenario is I still don't know what to wear on Saturday.

Almost that time of the month (AM)

 

 

So last night K and I went out for a pretty nice dinner. We did it for you guys. For a new segment that will debut next Friday. But just so you know how an electronic pre-dinner conversation between the two of us may go, I have this for you. A little dialogue that took place Wednesday.

K: Hey girl. How's it going? I'm fine thanks. [Blah blah blah. I'm telling you guys, you are missing nothing by me ellipsising through this bit - J]...In other news, and in the grand tradition of me trying on clothes that belong to you thinking they will fit me but they never do, I have a favour to ask of you.

I was wondering whether you would let me try on the floral dress you wore to your 30th birthday with a view to potentially wearing it on Saturday night when I go to Hobart to see Appleheart's play.

No worries if not. But I thought I would ask.

 

J: Hey girl. [Blah, blah, blah, worthy ellipsis]...Of course I'd be happy to lend you that dress. But there is a problem. I'm at at the beach and coming straight up for dins tomozz. I actually have the dress with me because I planned to wear it to dinner. I'd swap it out for something else but I don't really have anything else appropriate to wear.

 

K: HAHAHA. That's a problem alright. But I have an idea. How about after dinner, on the way home, we go to the ladies bathrooms at The Windsor hotel and try on one another's dresses. It could potentially be an hilarious component of our post. We can take photos of one another and shit. I'll bring the other dress I'm thinking about wearing.Then, depending on the outcome of our assessment of what looks best, we could go home in one another's dresses! 

 

J: HAHA! YES! Let's try on each others dresses after dinner or, possibly more hilariously, during dinner finishing dinner in each others dresses. Yeah! 

 

I bet you guys can not wait until next week to see how this panned out!

Haiku Thursday (AM)

Every second Wednesday

Yesterday. I read. 

In bed. Long as I wanted. 

Before I got up. 

Then, I had coffee. 

Took my sweet time with it too. 

Then showered at noon. 

You let me do things

Other days don't let me do. 

You're my special day.