Thursday, November 27, 2014

Kids say the darnedest things (PM)

Bill Cosby, what an effing douchebag. Don't stuck your dick uninvited into people's cake hole!

Happy birthday Mrs K!

It's true though, kids really do say the darnedest things. Like how Baby calls Sultana Bran 'Sultana Brown', which I guess it is. And calls macadamia nuts 'Damien nuts'. And how he calls a bench a 'vench' and I couldn't bring myself to tell him it's called bench and then one day he heard me call it a bench and he was all 'Hey you said bench, it's called a vench!' And I was all, 'Yeah, about that...'

Baby, who is 4, also told my mum he is 'a little bit of a teeneager' and told me that when he is a man he will 'buy 40 watermelons and tape them all up together and eat them.' And afterwards he will 'need to do a giant poo'. So yeah kids do say the darnedest things but I don't need Bill Cosby to tell me that.  

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Kids say the darndest things (AM)


So who knew Bill Cosby was such a rotten apple? Crikey. 
A little side note: I had a dream the other night that my boss called me in to his office to tell me that the big boss, the man in charge, had requested that I brief him on the Bill Cosby situation as a matter of urgency. I said "Of course!" but then thought shit, I need to get up to speed on Cosby because all I know is something vague about rape and qualudes. True story. 
Anyway, th allegations don't change the fact that the dude was right about one thing: kids really do say the darndest things. 

Last night, I was at Mum and Dad's house celebrating Mum's 70th birthday. Happy birthday Mum! Niecey and Little Nut were there, and in fine form because they are small children and therefore love birthdays. They also have strong views about birthday cake. Love it fully sick. They were talking about it all night including the whole time we were eating our roast chicken and vegetables, only they weren't eating their dinners, they were just talking about cake. Midbro made the point that if they didn't start putting proper food in their cake holes, then their cakes holes would not deserve to be called cake holes. Little nut got a bit teary over this but Niecey reassured him by saying "don't worry Little Nut, it's dinner time now so your cake hole is actually your Broccolini hole, but it will become your cake hole again after dinner ."
Ha. 

 

Monday, November 24, 2014

It's important to have goals (PM)

I have to admit I was a little nervous about this morning's post because I've been thinking that I really need to set some goals, but life goals. But despite all this thinking about it I haven't set any! So I really thought the pressure would be on. Thank god we are only talking about low level goals. Right now my goal is to have fun at the world's lamest waterslide park and hope that Baby doesn't realise how lame it is. 


It's important to have goals (AM)



I've never been a big goal setter. I'm more of a 'move in a general direction and take thugs as they come' kind of girl. I've always felt like it's good to be open to different kinds if scenarios and it's worked well for me so far. 
But when you move in a general direction rather than pursue a defined goal, there's less clarity about when you've reached your destination, and therefore less satisfaction when you get there. I was thinking about this the other day and it occurred to me that maybe I'm missing out by not setting goals. In trying to stay open to things, maybe I'm actually missing out. Achieving a goal is rad! I want a piece of that, I decided.

So I've set myself a goal and it's a real rip snorter. I'm going to get all my Christmas shopping done before the end of November. Great idea, right? It will have the twin benefits of getting an important task that I always leave to the last minute out of the way, and because I have identifies it as a goal, I will feel great for achieving it. 
It's a win win. Now you guys try! 


Thursday, November 20, 2014

Three cheers for beers! (PM)

Well shit guys. J has managed to write something for these pages while single parenting and preparing for a holiday, and I couldn't even post something anywhere near deadline! I read J's post this morning and thought hell yeah, then got totally wrapped up with my day and it didn't occur to me again until 5:30. Bad form. And then, not because of bad form but because I am a bad person, it's not until now (11:07 PM) that I am writing anything. 
But now I'm here let me echo those cheers for Beers of this morning. Feeling like a beer and then drinking a beer is such a great thing. I hope that's what J is doing right now. 
This is where I am, but I hope J is drinking a beer. 

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Three cheers for beers (AM)

I've been single-mumming it for the last week. "How's it going?" Friends asked after one day. "Fine!" I said and it was, but four days later, on Monday, I was pretty impressed with myself that I managed to get out more than a sentence here. Today, friends, I'm just impressed that I even turned up here at all. Today we're hitting the road via the air to meet LB and last night I had to get ready. Pack, clean house, also feed and look after children. My folks came to assist in the latter and still when Baby and Newbie got to asleep all I wanted was alcohol and to cry. Luckily the first negated the need for the latter but still it didn't give me much inspiration. So let's just hear it for beer. Oh I've heard there are healthier ways to deal with stress but to be honest I can't really think about anything other beer. You know, in moderation. And seeing my sweetheart this afternoon. That will rule!


Monday, November 17, 2014

Fairy tale bullshit (PM)

I haven't read any fairytales lately and there's no way I'm going to now. Like we need more greed and douchyness in our lives! 

I do, however, need to see Frozen as a matter of priority. Niecey loves it with all her heart and as I think I've said before, if I want to relate to her I need to know more about Elsa and Anna and now this Christophe chap that J mentioned. The other day I was hanging out with Niecey and Little Nut and things were pretty chaotic as usual. At some point I referred to the fact that Appleheart used to live in Norway and suddenly everything stopped and from across the room Neicey said "DOES HE KNOW ELSA??!!" and because I hadn't seen the movie I felt It wasn't a lie to say "I don't know". BUt I knew it was a lie. I just wanted to seem cool.
And here is a photo I took in Iceland which looks frozen lots of the time and probably has better fairy tales than we do. 


Sunday, November 16, 2014

Fairy tale bullshit (AM)



Have you read a fairy tale lately?! They are fucked up. I'm not even talking about the princess-being-saved-by-a-prince genre (yeah Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel you are doing nothing for your sisters but it's not your fault really) surely this has been done to death and we all know how effed these stories are in their reinforcement of the patriarchy. No I'm talking about the boy hero ones. 

Let's take Jack and the Beanstalk, the story of a poor boy who finds himself in a rich man'a
S (giant's) house and  decides to steal a bag of gold. Ok, he's hungry, he's just lost his cow, his mum is totally pissed at him, you can almost forgive this poor boy. But then the little fucker returns to the giant's place to steal more. Not satisfied with the gold he wants the harp, the goose, everything. Apparently a popular version of the story from the early 1800s suggests that the giant had originally stolen all that booty from Jack's dad but I've never heard that version and frankly, I'm not buying it.

What about Puss in Boots? I didn't really know this story well until Baby got a book. In this story a young man, a miller's son, inherits a cat that tricks the king into thinking the young man is a generous marquis. The cat gets all these people to tell the king the faux marquis owns a bunch of land and then the young man gets to marry the princess. What? Apparently this story is meant to demonstrate the importance of hard work and savoir fair, but I can't help feel that it demonstrates how to be a money-grubbing, manipulative douche or a willing pawn. And what the hell happens after the man marries the princess, how's he going to explain that he doesn't own all that land and that all his clothes other than those the king gave hit are more befitting a miller's son. I mean that cat isn't even smart, he isn't forward thinking at all if you ask me. In fact the more I think about this story, the worse it gets.

Thank god we've moved past these kinds of stories. I know that people go on about what a great movie Frozen is because the sisters are doing it for themselves, and word up to that, but I don't think we should overlook the industry of Christophe, a man with a passion for ice who works hard to get to where he is in life. Sure there's a little nepotism at the end, but that just reflects reality and he's still a hard-working ice man. 

I also worry about the perpetuation of the idea of a stepmother as evil. I mean in this day and age that's got to be dangerous, stepmothers are no longer relegated to the realm of marrying widow kings and gentlemen, anyone can have a stepmother these days. Watch out also if your child asks you what a stepmother is, and definitely don't explain it by saying something like "well if daddy and I decided not to be boyfriend and girlfriend anymore..." Because while personalising things may be helpful in assisting understanding, unnecessarily introducing the idea that parents can split up to a small child is, well, unnecessary. 

Wow, who knew it was possible to hate on fairy tales so hard!?

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Recent purchases (PM)

Congratulations on buying a house, Mate. So adult! Also that Aesop moisturiser really is the bomb, I'm all out and really need to get me some of that. And I love those bathers! I've been coveting them too, but given I just bought bathers for literally a tenth of the cost (OK, literally a ninth of the cost) I have been forcing myself to turn a blind a eye to their awesomeness. But kudos for acquiring that awesomeness, Mate.

Anyway, I'm glad you brought this up, Mate, because I myself made a life-affirming purchase this week. Two in fact. I replaced my two pairs of ripped-knee Dejour jeans with two new pairs of unripped Dejour jeans. 


Of course most readers know Dejour. On Tuesday after I'd been there I went to visit my friend L-Bomb, she's recently returned home from six years in London with her English husband. When I asked her how he liked living in Melbourne she told me he'd recently initiated an outing saying, "There is a place called Brunswick and there is a jeans shop there. I'd like to go there to buy jeans." Dejour! The jeans are made in-store all cost around 50 bucks, are super flattering and are altered to fit perfectly. It is always crowded as all git out and pretty small so is kind of annoying but I knew I wanted a black pair and a blue pair so I went at 9:30, straight after dropping Baby at kinder and right when they opened, I marched in tried on jeans got them marked up paid my $100 left to do a quick supermarket shop and returned 30 mins later to pick up my perfectly fitting jeans. Oh my God you guys, you know how I've been all "I don't know what to do about my clothes!"? It was just a jeans situation, I wore those blue jeans on Tuesday and felt like myself again. It's like everything old was new! VIVE LE JEANS!!!

Recent purchases (AM)

It's been the longest time since the misses soft crab have talked about buying stuff (days can feel long after all), so I thought I would share some of my recent purchases with you. What fun. 


Aesop geranium leaf body balm is the best moisturiser ever and I dont know why I try any others. I've been eeking out every last skerrick of my last tube, rolling it up and squeezing like crazy like with toothpaste. But now I've got a fresh one and everything is good again. 

Nice bathers from Kuwaii. Since I joined Instagram I've been following some clothes shops and labels and coveting more things more often. They post a picture of some nice new thing coming in store and sure enough, it makes you want it. Kuwaii posted pictures of these bathers for weeks before they were available in store and as you can imagine it whipped me into a bit if a frenzy of desire. I went in and tried them on, kidding myself that I just wanted to see of they fit. Idiot. But I love my new bathers. 


A house! 
Things moved pretty quickly after Monday's post and now Appleheart and I have a house with a garden. Contracts have been signed and tears of excitement have been shed. It also has a shed! 

Monday, November 10, 2014

Adult Themes (PM)

Casey Affleck identifies an adult

A couple of years ago I was driving down Punt Road worrying about whatever was worrying me at the time, probably some combination of something due at work, some bill I couldn't afford, and a need to make some appointments, when I thought "Gee it will be good when these things are resolved and I'm stress-free." And then I realised that it didn't really matter that these things would be resolved because being an adult basically meant there was almost always some minor stress and any reprieve would be fleeting. That's not to say that being an adult sucks, there are definite advantages, like being of a legal drinking age and being able to decide what take-away to have for dinner, it just also means there is always shit to do and not all of it is fun. And some of it is shit.

That said buying a house with your sweetheart, there's a problem worth having, am I right?

Buying a house does seem hard though, I mean there are all these different houses in all these different places with a bunch of different things to recommend them AND (usually) all only available to purchase in about a 20-minute window on a given day and not necessarily in order of your preference. So you have to decide how much you want to pay for each one, what price you will be happy with if it means you don't get your favourite place, and what value do you place on amenities, space, all that jazz. Ugh.

Personally I think in this day and age people place way to much importance on space. But I live in a house with reasonable sized rooms and a back yard, so who am I to talk. Having spent 3 years living across town from my friends, work and preferred hang-out places I can say that now being near all those things is way, way better. But you can get used to anything so I'm sure however a person decides to chose their house will be fine. We're here for a long time, not a good time, after all.



Adult Themes (AM)

No reason
I like being an adult because most of the time it feels like being teenager, but with fewer hangups, and a better understanding of things like how to stay warm and how to work with what you've got vis a vis your own hair. That's what it's like most of the time, but obviously not all of the time. It can't be denied that there are some distinctly adult responsibilities that come with being an adult, and when those pop up I often feel like I'm ill-equipped to deal with them. Not unable to deal with them, mind. Just ill-equipped. It's like sometimes my adult life throws me an experience that makes me feel like it's one of those days when its's nice and warm in the sun, but quite chilly in the shade and I've left the house without a jacket or a jumper. You know, ill-equipped.

Right now, Appleheart and I are looking for a place of our own to buy. It's a very exciting thing to be doing, natch. Not that long ago I spent a good part of each day thinking things like "gosh, I hope Appleheart likes me". Now I am thinking things like "gosh, would my copy of the Cooks Companion look good alongside Appleheart's copy of the Cooks Companion in this place?". It doesn't get much more exciting than that, really. But it's very adult. The kind of very adult thing that make me feel like I'm caught outside without a jumper in Melbourne in SPRING. It's not parental guidance recommended. It's not MA15+. It's dead set AO.

There are lots of adult dimensions to this thing, but the thing that I'm struggling with the most is thinking long term. You know, like whether one should get a place that one can "grow into" even though to be affordable, such a place would be miles away from everyone and everything. Would I feel isolated and cut off in such a place and long to be closer to things? Right now it takes me 3 minutes to walk to the gym, 2 minutes to walk to the station and 5 minutes to walk to Barkly Square. And 25 minutes to get to work, door to pod. That is some pretty tidy amenity. But is it essential? Or is it just good to have? Because to buy something even a quarter as good as that would mean a teeny tiny place. Probably on a busy street. And probably with a funny smell to it. And that's not cool. So maybe I should prioritise space over amenity but then there's the isolation and stuff and well there I am back at square one again. You see what I mean? Such an adult scenario.

I'm not looking for answers. In fact, I know this is something Appleheart and I have to sort out for ourselves, which is another of it's super adulty dimensions. I guess I'm just feeling a lot like an ill-equipped adult at the moment and I thought I'd tell you guys about it. Believe me, I would rather be talking about hunks or something, but with this infernal hunk drought I can't even do that.




Thursday, November 6, 2014

When food gets boring (PM)

This blog is not only about food! It's just as much about clothes and not knowing what to wear and if Stephen Jameson didn't wear casual but stylish t-shirts and jeans all the time, he might learn a thing or two. 
But then again, maybe he is on to something.
If well spiced but repetitive food is the answer to our prayers (for relief of food boredom), maybe wearing the same great looking thing all the time is the answer to our clothes prayers. A small repertoire of kits that while necessarily recycled every few days, look good on all of those days. None of this wanting to wear something new and different and exciting business. Just choose some great looking things and keep  wearing them and looking great! Like all the gentlemen who came to our picnic do anyway!
Problem solved. 
But, we kind of already do that anyway. At least, I wear the same thing all the time, only I don't feel like it's that great, and the repetition kind of kills me. 
And I don't have a S&TC line to end on either. 
But here is a picture of Colin, the dog I am dog sitting at the moment. Say hello, Colin! 
He really loves it here, as you can see. 

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

When food gets boring (AM)



Well it's spring racing time here in Melbourne. A time of frocks, fashion, fascinators and horse death. You can just smell it, can't you? All this means for many of us though is laughing at the scantily clad women in heels you see tottering through some spring storm and of course the much welcome return of public holidays after a 5-month dry spell. 

To celebrate the return of the public holiday, K and I hosted a picnic. By which I mean we agreed to meet in a park at a designated time and told some other people to join us. It was a roaring success. By which I mean people showed up and food and drink were consumed. I filled baguettes, K baked things, including a delicious pumpkin tart about which Stephen Jameson asked "will this make it onto your food blog, Soft Shell Crab?" To which I replied "It's not a food blog." To which he responded "Every time I look it's about food." Well we just really like food, ok. 

So here we are again. The thing that amazes me, as a person that really likes food, is that sometimes figuring out what to eat is the worst. I've said it before, but really I mean day after day that's three meals you've got to figure out. Ugh. 

Breakfast is fine because I love porridge. Most nights I feel so happy to be going to bed because it means my morning porridge is so near. But lunch and dinner... Sure I love those meals but figuring out what I'm going to eat for them really is soooooo boring. I wonder if a way to conquer this problem may be to just have a weekly menu so there is no question. This seems boring too but it would make things easy. Most Sundays I pan fry some flathead, roast potatoes and make a salad for dinner and every week it fucking rules. Every morning my porridge totally rules. I love those things I eat all the time. Maybe I should just be doing more of that.  I feel like I've worked through this issue right here and solved my problem. Thanks guys. Maybe it's because I've been watching a lot of Sex and the City lately and now I feel my posts need to end with some neat wise sentence: Perhaps variety is not the spice of life but well spiced, yet repetitive meals are.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Worst Thing (PM)

I didn't know about Naked Dating before today and I very much wish I still didn't know. But that's life I guess. There's some rank stuff and sometimes you're ignorant to it and other times you just sit down for a nice bit of tv and there it is.  Let's all look forward to the week starting again on Wednesday, but in the meantime, here is a guy dressed as the Cookie Monster playing the bagpipes. 
Hooray! 

Worst things (AM)



Are you aware that there is a tv show called 'Dating Naked'? A guy goes on a couple of dates with a couple of ladies. And then a different lady goes on dates with a couple of dudes. And by dates I mean they meet in a rain forest somewhere and they are naked. It's so they can truly get to know each other. Or something. Then the man and the lady choose the person they preferred and they go off together into the forest, naked.

I can barely believe it is real but I've watched it and it is. I can barely believe I watched it. But I did. Only 10 minutes but that was enough to make me hate myself and the world. 

Lucky it's a public holiday tomorrow or this would be a terrible way to start the week. Let's make Wednesday a great start the week instead, 'k?