Jackpot (AM)

I got  an Apple Watch for my birthday. It's extremely exciting, as I've coveted one ever since they were born. I'm not an early adopter by any means. I only just replaced my iphone3, even though the headphone jack had been broken for about 2 years and it didn't really make or receive calls very well. But the Apple Watch just spoke to me from day 1. The way you can dictate text messages like Dick Tracey. The way you can track your daily activity and learn about the moon phases. The way it tells the time. I loved it and I wanted it and now it is mine and I feel really indulgent but also really great. 

Obviously I thought that getting an Apple Watch would be the crown jewell of my birthday booty. Of course it would be. It's a very special thing. But no, readers, it wasn't. That titles goes to the Official Harry Potter Remote Control Wand I received. Not a wand that is remote controlled. No. It is a wand you can use as a remote control for your TV/DVD. 

I struggle to find the words to describe how much I love it. I can, however, confidently say that I am the luckiest girl in the world. 

Cold comfort (PM)

Travelling + babies + baggage = a total effing drag. That is for sure. When I am travelling I try to only pack in carry-on size bags but even then, if I have the option of check-in, I will check in my carry-on just so I can be as far from my bags as possible for as long as possible. It may mean I have to wait at the other end but I don't even care.

Also, I put off unpacking for as long as possible. I hate it. I love the bit where you pull out the new stuff you bought but I hate the bit where you have to do heaps of washing or stuff your clean clothes into already overstuffed cupboards. I hate that bit. So in many ways I'm all over what K was talking about this morning. But on the other hand I am totally at odds with it.

For one, why did K have to lug all the stuff and baby across town to meet Appleheart at the car hire place? Why couldn't he get the car and pick her up? That would never happen in my household. Not because I would refuse to do such a thing (though I would voice my objections) but as much because when your boyfriend comes from the driviest family in Australia he will just make it so he can pick you up. (Don't get me wrong, he would just pick me up from anywhere. Oh no, there needs to be a good reason but bags and babies and cleaning would be reason enough.) I know K and Appleheart would have had their reasons and I hope to god those reasons never force me to cross town in the freezing cold with all that stuff.

Second, pilling. I hate it. And I hate cleaning pill balls. Maybe it would be ok if I had a lint shaver, but manually, I just find it so thankless. I feel that no matter how many balls I pick off there are still a million more to go. Just thinking about 6 hours of pill-picking is making my fingers feel irritated. Ugh.

Wow, I guess it's our differences that make the world go round, right?

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 (PM)

Friends! Happy new year from me too! This week, I return home after ten weeks away, and so it feels like the year and real life is about to start again. Hooray! I've missed normal life a lot. Adventuring is great, of course. It's challenging and thrilling and new and requires different currency and there are different shows on the tv and regular items have different names.

 But adventuring is also hard. Sometime I'll tell you about it (probably on Thursday). But right now it's time to look ahead and get excited about 2016. 

First, let me look sideways and say how proud I am of J and baby.  Baby has started school and I for one am feeling very proud and excited. J has started her own business and I for one and feeling very proud and excited. To both J and baby I say 'Toi Toi Toi!' which is what the Germans say when they mean good luck or break a leg or something. I'm looking forward to much success for those guys.

Other things that I'm excited about for 2016 are meeting some new babies that came along late last year, experiencing summer weather and eating Vietnamese food. Come wintertime, I'm looking forward to wearing the puffer jacket that has kept me very warm over here, in the snow and the wind and the rain. Melbourne winter can cop that! 

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!

Technical difficulties

Due to technical difficulties Miss Soft Crab will return on Monday, February 8. 

Snootchie bootchies. 

Summer hiatus

Festive cheer to you, dear readers!

See you in 2016.

2015 ends (PM)

Ok, let's get down to it.

The highlight of my 2015 is, of course, KB. The much anticipated arrival. The first few terrifying weeks. The nights we spent hanging out in the wee small hours. And now, the little adventures we are going on each day, including a lot of Cornish pastie and mince pie testing. Having KB is a thrill. A thrill that kicked off about 5 months ago and doesn't look like letting up any time soon. 2015 gave me a whooper of a treat in KB and it is, hands down, the highlight of my 2015.

I also really liked it when we  moved into our house and got Netflix.

And when J made Golden Gaytime birthday cake for Newbie's birthday.
And now, ending this most awesome year in the UK is pretty outta sight. 

***time lapse***

So this is all that remains of a very long end of year post I tapped out on my phone at 4am.

It's now 5:15 am and when I went to look for pictures of Ewan and Damon to finish with, it all disappeared. I'm too defeated to rewrite it. 

In summary: KB is hands down the best and most memorable thing about 2015.* I'm looking forward to more KB in 2016, and coming home to see all of your cute heads.

And in response to J's bonus questions...

Do you think a cold Christmas will be better than a hot Christmas?
Totally.

If you could see any hunk in London (and there are a few that hang out there) who would you want it to be?

 Do you really need to ask?

 <<insert pic of Damon here>>

 <<insert pic of Ewan here>>


* but I wish I got to see blur...and I think about that fact most days
x

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!

Big scream (PM)

On Wednesday I finished up work for the year and I guess I pretty much just went into holiday zone in a pretty major way because I spent all of Thursday as if I was on holidays. Went out for breakfast, wagged Baby's swimming lesson, cleaned the house, visited my neighbour, went out for dinner. So extreme was my holiday mode that it took until Friday AM to remember it had just been Thursday and I should have written a blog post. It's not that I forgot MSC, it's just that I have no idea what day it is. All Wednesday I kept thinking I had to write a blog post which I think is the main reason I forgot on Thursday. Anyway, I guess I'm trying to say sorry I'm so tardy. 

I love the movies too but being cash and time poor I hardly ever go. I mean it's really rare. I've never been to a crybaby session, mainly because they're always on at 11am or something and that's a little keen for me and a baby. I took Baby to some regular daytime screenings when I knew the audience would be meagre and that was pretty fucking great. 

And while it's not often true that you can say "only a hunk could improve this" it's pretty often that you could say "a hunk could improve this". What a difference a word makes! 

Big scream (AM)

It has been 20 weeks since KB was born and though I have tried many times during those 20 weeks, yesterday I was  finally successful in taking him to the movies.

I goddamn love the goddamn movies. I probably like movies as much as the next person,  but I love The Movies, as in going to the movies, so goddamn much. I've really missed it, and wish I had done a shit load more of it before KB came along. But no regrets. I also like lying around,  and I'm pretty sure that whenever I thought about going to the movies and didn't go, it was because I wanted to lie around. So do not weep for me, readers. 

I've been really jonesing for the movies though, so I did a bunch of research and figured out when and where I could go with KB. It seems like over here, your big multiplexes aren't so good with the babes in arms screenings. But the local cinema around the corner from where we're staying has what they call Big  Scream sessions,  allowing me to combine my love of going to the movies with my love of puns. Woot! 

We went to see Grandma, which stars Lily Tomlin as an ageing lesbian academic helping her granddaughter get an abortion. Perfect for baby's first trip to the cinema. Really, I didn't  give a shit what was on. I was so happy to be there. I was grinning like an idiot the whole time.  I'm pretty sure I giggled a few times, such was my excitement. The cinema was peppered with ladies just like me, and one fella. Some babies were super new and flat out cried the while time but we didn't care! We were at the movies!

The film was quite enjoyable, but next time I am going to make sure there's a hunk in whatever it is I'm seeing. Only a hunk could make the experience better.

And how many experiences can you say that about??!! 

Something stinks (PM)

Oh wow. Perfume ads really stink, don't they?! There's one on TV at the moment where Gisele Bundchen drives around crying and laughing or some shit. I don't know. I know that I kind of enjoy it 'cause Baz Lurhmann directed it but I also know it feels like a poor man's Gatsby.

Why are perfume ads always trying to tell a story about some rebel woman? The day I believe Julia Roberts is an inspiration is the day I cut off my hands. Which is to say that will never happen because I am very attached to my hands. They're so useful. And the day I believe I need to free myself from the diamond shackles of my life is the day I cut off my dick.

For me the pick of this morning's viewings was the Invictus ad. Hahaha. That made me laugh and laugh. The way that guy walks around and then turns the rugby players to stone and blows them up by the flick of the hands. Hahahs. What a fucking idiot. But if that wasn't enough he walks into a change room full of nearly nude beautiful women who lose there sheet fabric covering once he walks in. Hahahaa. Seriously, WTF Paco Rabanne. 

Sadly for me I misread the last paragraph as "Hemsworth is in this ad" rather than "a Hemsowth" and just spent the whole last ad thinking "THIS IS THE WRONG HEMSWORTH!"  Not even the wolf could salvage it for me. But I could tell through my disappointment that it was another stupid fucking ad. And what about the shape of that stupid Diesel male perfume bottle. Get a real bottle Diesel.

Needless to say, I don't wear perfume and thanks to these idiot advertisers I probably never will.

I will look at this picture of Christmas Thor though to help me get over the disappointment of this morning.