Universe, what are you trying to tell me? (PM)

I don't see how a project called Fluro Chickens could be anything other than really great. So I am pretty sure the universe just wanted you to go to Collingwood Children's Farm that day, but because it is the Universe and doesn't like to shove it down your throat, it delivered that message via a sad old guy looking for change.

I went to the Collingwood Children's Farm last week with Midbro, Niecey and Little Nut and  it was chocker block with adorable chickens. Like this one, which it looks like I papped while it was on its way in to its little chicken shed:

Add caption 

Fluffy and adorable. But you know what's wrong with this guy and the other chickens I saw? Not fluro enough.

Universe, what are you trying to tell me? (AM)

You know sometimes the universe sends you a message and sometimes it is very clear and sometimes it seems really obscure. Like maybe you are trying to decide whether to go to the zoo or whether to go to the aquarium and you look out the window and it is pouring rain and that is a clear sign from the universe that you should go to the aquarium. But sometimes things aren’t so clear.

Yesterday I was walking down the street thinking about my new personal project, Fluoro Chickens, I am really excited about it and just want to work on it all the time and I was thinking about how I may go to the Collingwood Children’s Farm today to capture some more chickens. With my camera. And suddenly this reverie was interrupted when some regular looking old guy walked up to a parking metre and checked the change slot to see if there was any change in there. As I walked past I thought how sad that was and then… then I heard the old guy make… chicken noises. CHICKEN NOISES PEOPLE! Just when I was thinking about FLUORO CHICKENS! Coincidence? I think not!

What does this mean, universe? Does it means Fluoro Chickens is the best project ever? Or does the fact I was thinking this old guy was sad mean it’s the saddest project ever? OR…or…or something else?

Also this morning my jumper caught fire when I was lighting the stove to make coffee. That seems like a bad sign. But I'm not giving up coffe, universe.

Poetry comes to Monday (PM)

Well what are you gonna do? When poetry comes to Monday you can't fight that.

Monday is hated
On Mondays child you hate too
Need to get more sleep on the weekend?
Do you think if you were a more well-rounded person,
Acceptance of Monday and Monday's child would be easier?
You love Baby right? The fairest of them all.

Poetry comes to Monday (AM)

I know we usually save the poetry for Thursdays, but when inspiration hits this early in the week, only a madman or a fool would ignore it. 

This is me. 

Monday's child is meant to be fair of face.

Oooh lala, Monday's child. Aren't we lucky?

Not everyone can be so lucky. 

Don't you think we all wish we could be fair of face, Monday's child? 

Absolutely we do.

You know what though? Most of us hate Monday, so stick that in your fair face and smoke it.

Fitness Friday - the Jane Fonda way (PM)

Russeth has this record. 

Thanks for the summary, J. I think some aspects of this new project will be a piece of cake. 

For example, don't be bulimic? Don't need to ask me twice, Jane Fonda. I didn't even spew when I went to India and ate that cheese dosa that I thought would be stuffed with paneer but was in fact stuffed with what tasted like cheese that a pigeon had used as a mattress for a few weeks,  then melted and put on my dosa.  Not even when I ate (all of) that did I spew. So don't worry about the whole bulimic thing, I'm totally on it. 

Regarding Jane Fonda's recommendation that I set realistic goals, I guess I feel like I don't want to take that advice. I am inherently lazy and frightened of physical discomfort, Jane Fonda. A realistic goal for me would be to support J as she progresses through the Jane Fonda New Workout and Weight-Loss program. But that's not what Miss Soft Crab's Fitness Friday is about. 
No.

So like J, I am going to go for a run three times a week and stretch three times a week. I will also try not to eat sugar. It's not realistic, but shit Jane Fonda,  if you want to make an omelette, you have to crack a few eggs. Though I don't have a small child that prevents me from working out for an hour a day, I have a small inner child that just wants to lie around and eat twisties so shit you guys, give a lady a break. 

See you next Friday for a progress update! Yeah!

Fitness Friday - the Jane Fonda way

Are you familiar with the expression 'seemed like a good idea at the time'? What it means is that sometimes a person has an idea that seems good but then really, it's not a very good one. I think that maybe that's what this Friday Fitness program may have been. You see the one fatal flaw in this plan is that Jane Fonda, John Travolta and the Super Firm guys wrote entire books about their fitness program and I thought I could just write one little post about each and we'd all get fit? Who do I think I am?!

But I made a promise guys, I told you I'd give you Jane and I'm gonna. But don't expect me to be thorough or entertaining.

So Jane encourages us to take a sensible approach to our fitness regime. Sure, there is a little confusion. Like, she is all, "this isn't about losing weight, it's about feeling better, getting strong and healthy". But then she is all, "If you follow this you'll lose weight, but don't rush it". She does have good tips like, don't be bulimic and set realistic goals. Both important.



But there are some things I like about this book. Well mainly one thing, it's Jane's eat carbs, ditch meat approach to eating. Now that is a diet I approve of. Me, I actually only do care about getting buff so I am not following Jane's diet. Also because this is what she says we can eat in one day:


2 choices of dark green vegetables (1/4 cup broccoli and 1 cup spinach, for example)
1 choice another vegetable (a carrot, or a LARGE MUSHROOM! for example)
1-2 choices of fruit (an apple and an apricot, for example)
2 choices cereal/grain (1 piece of bread and 1/2 cup oats, for example)
1 choice protein (1 egg or maybe 1/2 cup cooked lentils, for example)
2 choices dairy (1 cup low fat milk, 1 cup low fat yoghurt, for example)
1 choice fat (1 tablespoon oil, for example)

Jesus Christ, Jane Fonda are you trying to kill me? One large mushroom! Are you effing kidding me. This seemed like a tiny amount but I tried it for a day. By about 1PM I had exhausted my 1 non-dark green vegetable (1/4 avocado), fruit (a few strawberries and an apple), grain (1 piece of bread, one bowl porridge) allocations. Also, I'd had a couple of spoonfuls of custard that I'd been making for ice-cream. So that was probably half my dairy and all my fat intake. Which meant for the rest of the day I could eat 2 green vegetable serves, 1 protein and one dairy serve. Get real Jane, I'm a human. Incredulous that this was all I could eat for the rest of the day I did a calorie count and saw that I had eaten less than half the calories Jane suggested for the day. A mushroom has 3 calories and I can only have one of them? Of course I went off the diet. BUT, I am going to try and loosely follow it. That is I'm going to try and eat a little less food and a little more carefully and cut down on fats and cut out sugar. I feel like Jane would approve.

Okay, now comes the regime. Obviously I can't type it out word for word. Also there about 40 things she wants you to do broken down into warm-up (TWELVE WARM-UP EXERCISES! Fair suck of the sav, Jane!), upper body, aerobics, aerobics cool down, abs, legs and hips, buttocks, cool down. Sheesh Jane, way to make your New Workout plagiarism-proof from the lazy blogger. Boy did she have foresight.

I can't tell you everything that Jane suggests so here is a selection of things I may do (and let's all remember I have no extra knowledge about health or fitness other than what I picked up living as a human for the last 30something years and skim reading this book. I promise nothing, I know nothing):

Warm-up 

Head presses (moving head for side to side, stretching neck each side for a count of 4. Twice each side.)
Shoulder rolls (you know, lift up shoulders roll them backwards in a circle. Do 8 times.)
Elbow circles (put hands on shoulders then circle them forward up and down. Do it 16 times.)
Waist lifts (stretching arms up and leaning to each side stretching the waist)
Hamstring stretch, toe raises, tendon stretch, knee bends (basically all variations of forward bends)
Push-ups (girl style, as many as you can, yesterday I did 10)
 

Upper body

Bicep curls
Pectoral presses
Tricep extensions
Deltoid presses
Side arm lifts
Do eight of each. Jane suggests no weights, but as I am not a pussy I am going to use small weights. Except for the deltoid weights because in truth I am a little bit of a pussy. Finish with a shoulder stretch

Aerobics

Your goal, according to Jane, is to reach 20-30 mins of aerobic exercises here. Go for a brisk walk or jog, dance around the room run on the spot. You know, get aerobic. Do a stretchy cool-down.

Abs

Sit-ups (from lying with knees bent, do 20)
Crunches (legs up in the air, curl head and shoulder up to knees, do 24)
Crossovers (as above but you direct your elbows towards the opposite knee, do 16)
Hip stretch (lie on back bring knees up to your chest)

Legs and hips and ass

A variety of leg lifts (google them, shit you guys I'm totally bored of the sound of my internal voice)
Pelvic curls (do a bunch)

Cool down

Hip and hamstring stretch
Groin stretch
Side stretch

Shit, Jane Fonda, where do you find the time?! Seriously. Yesterday was my first go. Because I wanted to run but was home alone with Baby I skipped the aerobics portion just did the stretching and resistance stuff and went for a run later. I've decided that I will do the stretching and resistance stuff 3 days a week and go for a run three days a week. Because shit, I have a small child, I can't be doing hour long work outs all the time. Not at home anyway. So really this isn't Jane's workout at all. It's more J does Jane. Whoopsee.

Haiku Thursday (PM)

Haiku Thursday 
I

H-A-I-K-U

T-H-U-R-S-D-A-Y

GOOOOO HAIKU THURSDAY!!!!!!!!

II

WHEN I SAY HAIKU

YOU SAY THURSDAY SO

HAIKU THURSDAY! YEAH!

Haiku Thursday (AM)

Sun, like yesterday. 

I
You shone so pretty

I almost forgot to fear

Your ultra-violets. 

II

Like Joni says. I

Could drink a case of you, and

Still be on my feet.

III

I hope there's something

That can make you as happy 

As you make me, Sun. 

Get out of my head tweeps (PM)

#ohshit

Just when I think I am an independent woman with my own brain, I read Miss Soft Crab and realise that in fact somehow, my brain and J's brain are the same brain. Not just that we think the same thoughts, but that our brain is the same.  

This morning, as I lay in bed dozing, I had a really vivid dream where J and I were walking through an airport with wheelie suitcases and spotted Mindy Kaling in a duty free shop. I said to J "This is our chance to tell Mindy Kaling that we think she's great and to tell her to follow Miss Soft Crab". 

We approached her, and she smiled and looked very encouraging because she seems like a top bird. 

Then it all went to shit!

I tripped and fell over right in front of Mindy Kaling, but went ahead and told her that she should read Miss Soft Crab. Then J got annoyed that I had stuffed up our one chance with Mindy Kaling, and we had a fight. Then I stormed off to look at a duty free shop and J stormed off to look a different duty free shop and we basically stood around sulking while we waited for LB to bring the car around.

Then I woke up!

I swear on the lives of those that I love - all of this is a true fact. I don't know what to make of it, other than maybe I should start following Fassbender on Twitter so that perhaps I will meet him as Carl Jung in a dream and we can workshop it.

Get out of my head tweeps (AM)

It took me a long time to get on Twitter and that is basically because I knew what would happen. I'd become hooked on it and get lost in that weird little world. That's not exactly what happened. Or at least not in an extreme way. I know that I don't really know Alec Baldwin (thank God. I mean, I love Jack Donaghy, but talk about self-righteous) or Ewan McGregor but when you spend a lot of time on Twitter things get weird.

On Monday while innocently listening to a podcast of a radio show from the US I heard an unannounced spoiler for Breaking Bad. I felt furious. Really furious. Blood boilingly. I don't know why exactly, but I did. And for some reason I wanted to tweet about it. I felt like it was the only way I could get over my fury. By telling David Bianculli of TV Worth Watching to go fuck himself and by telling Aaron Paul what had happened. I didn't. I kept it to myself. If you call telling K about it keeping it to myself. Which I do.

And something else is happening. People I follow keep appearing in my dreams. Yeah, I know. My mum recently was laughing at the fact that when I was little I used to dream about famous people all the time. I may have grown out of this if it weren't for this crazy world we live in. The other day Joseph Gordon-Levitt was up in that brain and then on Monday night Mindy Kaling and Aziz Ansari were in my dream.

Crazy thing was I only started following Aziz that very day! Why were Mindy and Aziz in my dream. Did my brain put them together because they are Indian? Nah, probs just because they are both funny. Right? Right brain? That's why you put them there? When I woke up from that dream I thought, "Boy, J, you really got to stop looking at Twitter before bed." At which point I fell back asleep and promptly had a dream about Breaking Bad starring Jesse Pinkman. You know, Aaron Paul, who I follow on Twitter.

What the eff is BB cream? (PM)

Seriously what the eff is BB cream?

I read this article by Zoe Foster a few months ago about BB cream and after reading it I still had no idea what eff they were. In fact before I saw that article I'd never even heard of it, so after the article I felt even more ignorant than before. Sure, I get that it is are a belbish balm. But what the eff? Why is BB cream so special? If ZoFo sings the praises of a product I usally own that product within about 45 minutes. But I guess she is not that into BB cream so I didn't pay that much attention. But a cream that makes you look better in one go is a cream for me. Even though I don't wear foundation and would actually probably hate BB cream.Man, belbish balm cream is confusing!

I guess I would like to try BB cream for free. And so if K could just remember which magazine that free sample was in well, that would be great?

What the eff is BB cream? (AM)

On Saturday morning, I took myself off to get a pedicure. I was terribly hungover and needed to feel better - fast. Readers, if I am ever out drinking with you and I suggest we end the night with a whisky, know this: I am already drunk and absolutely do not need that whisky. That's not to say I won't enjoy it, but I definitely will not need it. Though, to be fair, what is 'needing' whiskey? I'm not sure I want that either. 

Anyway, there I was on Saturday morning: my feet in a warm bath, my person in a warm massage chair, my face in a magazine,  and friends, it was totally working. But then I turned the page and saw this:

Loreal Nude Magique.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA I thought to myself. Nude Magique! What a stupid name!  I sat there chuckling away.  

But the I read the ad properly.  "BB Magic. The 1st self-adjusting  BB Cream" it said.  

Um, what the eff is BB cream?  

Since when did it become a thing? Do people wear it? What is it all about?

I turned to the internet for answers. According to Wikipedia "BB Cream stands for blemish balm, blemish base, or beblesh balm (apparently because of a copyright in Korea on the word "blemish")". 
HAHAHA. Beblesh Balm. 
Wikipedia goes on to say "BB cream is promoted as an all-in-one facial cosmetic product to replace serum, moisturizer, primer, foundation, and sunblock."
Well well well. Doesn't that sounds like a lazy girl's wet cream?
Sounds a little too good to be true if you ask me. What is it, a Thermomix?

I thought about nicking the sample from the magazine at the pedicure place so I could see for myself, but I felt guilty just thinking about it so I didn't. Instead I bought my own copy of that magazine last night so I could try this Nude Magique. Turns out I bought the wrong magazine and instead of a sample of Nude Magique, it just had this picture of Megan Gale trying to sell me a different BB cream from the Loreal stable.

Megan is quoted as saying "We all talk about it....skin that looks perfect today and younger tomorrow."
Clearly, we move in different circles, Megan.

Anyway, I guess my suspicion and my laziness means I still don't really know what the eff BB cream is.

The circle of life OR, as Des'ree would say, Life, oh life (PM)

I read old Miss Soft Crab posts all the time. I love it. Though it always makes me wish I edited them more carefully. Knowing I probably won't change though, please accept my apologies for all the times I screw up from now on. Especially the times I use the same word in two consecutive sentences, like an idiot.

I guess I know that my mind, like J's,  has about five tracks.  The same five tracks that it's been riding since it was teenaged. Sometimes I worry about it and think I should lay down some new tracks for this baby (points at brain zone of head) to ride. Of course, these thoughts are built in to the system under track 5. But then I get distracted by 1 to 4 and, well, you read Miss Soft Crab so you know what happens. I must say I feel  better about the whole thing now I have J's soothing graphic representation to work with. Did anyone else find those diagrams soothing and reassuring?





I've always thought that it looked more like this inside this (points at brain zone of head):
While not unpleasant, it's far from soothing, I think you'll agree.





Anyway: food, hunks, warmth, looking cute, appearing less shallow. This is how it is and this is how it always will be. Tim and Elton say it's the circle of life. It may also be the hippocampus. At any rate, I'm kind of reassured by the predictability of it all.

Just quickly before I go, I think the email subject "Karen sure knew what she was talking about" was in fact a reference to Karen Carpenter and her famous statement "rainy days and Mondays always get me down". I assume that email was written on a Monday. Does that ring a bell, Mate? Also, guess what outfit I'm wearing today, totally coincidentally. Yep, nondescript office girl. But without the scarf. Though it is a tad cold in my office, so I kind of wish I had the scarf.


NB: K brain drawing reproduced with kind permission of the artists, Chickpea and Baby, who I didn't actually ask but am pretty sure they'll be cool with it.

The circle of life (AM)

Sometimes in the pursuit of ideas, happiness, laughter, time-wastage/procrastination I reread old Miss Soft Crab posts. Yeah I love myself, what's it to ya? It's actually pretty interesting writing this blog, it makes me attuned to my patterns of thought in a way I never was before. I guess now that I write shit down and share it with more people than just K (that's you, our dear five readers) I pay more attention to my brain and also don't want to bore the shit out of you guys by banging on about the same old stuff all the time. Problem is though I pretty much have a five-track mind.

It turns out that I have no idea what this one-track metaphor relates to. Records? Roads? Or as someone on wiki.answers.com suggested train tracks? I guess that does make the most sense in a way, even though it didn't cross my mind. Anyway, hopefully this generic visual interpretation of my brain tracks gets the point across. If you chose an email that K and I wrote to each other on any normal day from the last 12 or so years that we've been emailing you would see that it pretty much jumps all those tracks. Probably it starts out with some pleasantries. Then It would move to what someone had for dinner or was thinking of having for lunch or dinner. Then it would move to what someone is wearing or some new piece of clothing one of us wants. Then, inevitably, hunks. We are nothing if not predictable. But you probably know that by now.

An email from last December, for example, with the subject line "Karen sure knew what she was talking about" for reasons I can not remember (Mate, can you help a sister out?) gives us the following excerpt:

J: Hi Mate. How are you today? I am fine thanks. I like my pants, but I hate that Gorman jumper i am wearing. I took it off in fact. Now I am wearing a t-shirt.

K: Hi Mate, I'm fine thanks too. How was your dinner last night? I had the round food for dinner again...I'm wearing a kit that can really only be described as nondescript office girl. It consists of black tights, a black dress, a black wrap around cardigan type deal and a beige scarf. #boringbutacceptable

J: Round food! Oh mate. My dinner was good, but pretty full on. There were three problems: [outline problems of cooking and eating fritto misto with aoili]. 

It's true that no hunks appear in this email, but this isn't a science.

Another thing I have noticed about my brain is that it is totally cyclical. In the major seasonal changes, that is winter to spring and summer to autumn I become obsessed with my look. On the weekend I bought Vogue. Basically I only buy fashion magazines at this seasonal change and its because of said obsession. I guess that after a season of being to totally dominated by the elements and all clothing choices being driven by practicality, the shoulder seasons of autumn and spring bring a very exciting liberation.The prospect of dressing for cuteness not just need.

The transition seasons also bring a lot of hope. And with that hope, broken dreams. In spring the delight of sunshine, dashed by rain and hail. In autumn thoughts of tweed jackets and red wine, dashed by the need for more bulk than tweed and more sleep than lots of red wine allows. I guess this is what Elton John and Tim Rice called the circle of life.