It’s working

I think that even if your plan isn’t working, the overall scheme is.

I say that as someone who isn’t home-schooling kiddos, so it’s possible that I have no idea what I’m talking about. But I think that rolling with the heretofore inconceivable concept of working and home schooling AT THE SAME TIME (noting that you’re on leave this week Mate, but still) sounds like a noteworthy achievement. I mean, that is a totally bonkers concept that no one would have dreamed into existence just a few months ago.  Kids have got to be learning a shit load about problem solving and adaptability through this exercise. Or something. Will just fucking rolling with it be the fourth R for this generation of school kids? Perhaps. 

I had a plan about what I was going to write today too, but alas. I spent the entire day with a teething baby and a four and a half year old who sure does like to ask a lot of questions. It’s not a very inspirational scenario, and  It’s only at the end of the day that I’m getting to put finger to keyboard. 

All I feel like saying now is how much I like this corner of my bedroom. I don’t know where to put that Kusama poster, but in the meantime I like looking  at it here. 

I had a plan

I had in my head the post that I wanted to write today but as I think we all know, planning some writing in your head is not the same as writing that thing. What I should have done was write it last night, once the kids were in bed and my brain was still halfway working. But like a fool I didn't do that, expecting - for some reason - that I'd be able to write it today. You see, I took a few days off work this week, and not working has meant that I haven't felt quite as bled dry as I had been previously. But today 'school' started. Needless to say, at only 11:30am I feel completely bled dry. But it's recess now so I'm writing this different post. As this is as far as I can remove my brain from the day, (ie. not at all).

I sort of had high hopes for school starting. That it would add structure to the day and tasks for the kids to complete. But with Newbie in grade 1 he needs a fair bit of help and with Baby generally being a child that lacks motivation, is easily distracted and doesn't want to do stuff, he needs basically constant monitoring. So my hopes have sunk somewhat. But it is only day one and I guess the only way is up. Although I guess down is also a possibility if I'm honest.

I started

I started the wardrobe audit yesterday. Thanks to J for that great terminology. I took everything out of my cupboards and laid it out on my bed. I made separate piles for dresses, jackets, knits, pants, skirts, etc. etc. etc. 

I didn't photograph it because I was kind of ashamed by the volume of stuff and the fact that I feel ambivalent about most of it. I started a pile of things to go to the op shop and I put lots and lots of things on it. That felt good.

Then I realsied that maybe I was dismissing some things that are still good, but just wrong for the season. Or maybe just need a wash. I started to doubt everything. And I got sentimental. What to do with my first pair of dejour jeans, that are still good but a bit too faded? Those jeans showed me how great jeans can be.  I'll want to wear super faded jeans again, one day, right? Ditto my green coat, the coat that so perfectly met my needs at the time I bought it, but I would never wear now. 

I guess I lost the thread of the exercise. I was tempted to move everything to the spare room and resume again today but in a real triumph of maturity, I decided that would be a mistake that would leave me feeling no sense of achievement as well as general anxious. 

I put away the things I knew I wanted to keep and  created a draw of question mark items. If I don't wear them in the next six months, they're out. 

And I have two bags to go to the op shop. 

I feel kind of ok about it all, but not the relief and excitement I thought I would feel. I guess that's because it's only clothes and who really cares when there are intergalactic ballistic missiles and such. 

But heck, if I don't feel good about it then no one will, so let's just look at the bags of stuff for the oppie and feel soothed. 

Get your effing hand off it (or I feel so irrationally angry) (PM)

Oh. Oh my. That's a terrible terrible innovation. What a pack of knobshining idiots.

I was pretty irrationally upset last week when a cafe which is a 20 minute walk from my house closed 30 minutes earlier than the advertised time. 

I'd already had a coffee that day but I really felt like an afternooner. I'm still upset when I think about it. 

Ugh (AM)

I'm doing laps of Northland to keep KB asleep. After a few laps, every shop has potential. Let's hope J's holiday is a little more exciting. 

Why I oughtta...(PM)

I feel bad that J spent so long on GOOP, and therefore had to feel all the annoyance she so plainly, and rightly, felt. I feel like I am partly to blame for this. GOOP is mostly to blame, but I am partly to blame. I'm sorry Mate.

To pick up on GOOP's point though, I know what it's like to have the 'once in a lifetime pleasure that should be both commemorated and maximised...blah blah blah' because in 2011, I went to NYC with my Mum! I haven't read GOOP's idea of what mothers and daughters should do in NYC but I assume it's this. And she is right. What a magical time that was. We spent the days sightseeing and getting on each others nerves before having an afternooner at 5pm each day. So in so far as GOOP's itinerary involves those things, then she's spot on.


But speaking of annoying celebrity sites, how about we talk about PRESERVE,  Serena Van Der Woodsen's site in which she brings us "Expensive stuff. Inexpensive stuff. And everything in between. But their value, is up to you. We may romanticise it, calling it treasure. What we're really saying is we see worth on every level."
Spew.

The slogan says PRESERVE is about "the stories and creations of artisans". Talk about completely fucking baffling. If those Gossip Girls had spent a little less time on the steps of the Met and a little more time in the classroom, they would know that the term artisan probably doesn't apply to the output of whatever factory produced this amazingly unique stripey top, yours for a mere $135 on PRESERVE. 

Better out than in (PM)

Oh geez. Readers if you were put off by this morning's inanity then you really should not have come back. If you've spent more than five minutes with this blog you would know that: a) being disappointed with my hair and wanting good hair is my natural state; b) last year I got a terrible hair cut that is still growing out and I am stuck in a similar boat to K, ie. wanting to get this stupid mop styled but wanting to grow it out. Ipso facto hair sucks.

You know mate, sometimes you just have to wash your hair and things feel heaps better. Especially your hair.

Sometimes I wonder if I should try and get hair like this:

But then, that would be prolonging getting to fantasy hair like this:

Not that I will ever have hair like either of those pictures. Me, I guess I'm just gonna be like this forever.

Except without the fact I am Bob Dylan to serve as a distraction.

Hightailing it (PM)

K is leaving in 2 days. She is really lucky. I bet it was almost impossible to focus on writing that post. In truth it is essentially impossible for me to focus on writing this post because I have been bedridden for 2 days after a night of spewing and if I didn't have a small child to look after I would still be in bed now. In fact I barely know what I am writing.

I miss things too. Mostly the feeling of normal and not having the desire to spew all the time. But you know what is good about missing stuff, having a beautiful reunion when you are reunited.

Have a great trip mate. I'll miss you.

Haiku Thursday meets Spring Racing Carnival (AM)

*Shudder*

Saw Cup Day pictures

Everything looked so damn

Uncomfortable

WTF?

Whoa, seriously

Delta Goodrem what the fuck?!

I can't go for that.

Four more years

Four more years? Ha!

The skank of Spring Racing has

Forty more at least

Get your hand off it! (PM)

Ugh! Get your hand off it so much, Kiehl's.

Firstly, I think that Kiehl's and I have a pretty different understanding of the term 'success'. I, for example, would consider a successful website one that had both high traffic and the ability to deal with all that traffic. Kiehl's on the other hand seem to think a successful website is one that crashes when it has lots of traffic. Weird. Maybe that's cause they speak American English.

But that's just semantics right? The real point here is that, ugh, Kiehl's, your website is in Australia now. We are a people that do not give standing ovations at the drop of a hat. We are a people that believe that success is something you could largely keep to yourself. And until recently we were a people that were not overly gushy. I can't help but think that the advent of excessive gushiness may have come from USA. USA, I love you, but qualities that are charming in you are not charming over here. Like how baby farts are cute but adult ones aren't you, know.

So Kiehl's, instead of telling us your website is useless cause you are so great maybe just say something make like 'Sorry we suck.' And we'll get along just fine.

Get your hand off it! (AM)

"Get your hand off it!" is something MSC says a lot.

Not so much on Miss Soft Crab, but in real life, we say it all the time. The world is full of wank you see, and when we witness it, we find it hard to stand by and ignore it. They say that for evil to flourish, all that's necessary is for good people to stand by and do nothing. Well that goes for wanking too. We all need to point the finger at wankerlyness because if we don't, where will it end? Miss Soft Crab likes to lead by example in this respect. We even have a little pantomime that goes with it. If you're ever hanging out with us in real life, you should ask us to do it. It's funny. (For us). 

With all of this in mind, I just want to bring everyone's attention to something I saw yesterday on the Kiehl's website. I should have known that I was entering a wank danger-zone when I logged on, but I guess I was preoccupied with all the stuff I want. 

Anyway, as I was searching for things, this error page came up:

Having trouble reading that? Let's zoom in, shall we?

You've got to be effing kidding me, Kiehl's. Due to its success? The hell it is! You've just got a shitty website Kiehl's, something that could probably be fixed quite easily if you could get your hand off it for five seconds! Stop being tools and fix your website so I can buy the things.

Knobshiners. 

Pity the fool (PM)

Oh, brother. Fool sounds like the worst of the worst. My eyes are sore from my rolling them so much while I was looking at that website.

Get your hand off it, Fool!

Your tagline of Food, Insanity, Brilliance & Love sounds to me like shit, crap, excrement and poo.

And while I am eating something as I write this, it's not because you have inspired me, Fool. It's because I like food, and I like to put it in my mouth where it belongs instead of all gussied up on the pages of your goddamned magazine.

So...wanna know what I'm eating?

This delicious mini-bagel from Aviv. I was just going to get one regular bagel but I got two mini ones so I could spread the joy out a little.
Hooray!

Pity the Fool (AM)

You know, I love food and cooking and talking about those things as much as the next person. Have you even read this blog? Lord knows you could ask any of my friends and all will tell you how I have bored them time and again with "stories" of things I made for dinner last night. (I'm sorry friends, I try to stop myself but I just can't!) But this sensation sweeping the nation, you know of food and cooking worship and wankery, it has got to stop!

The other day I was at a cafe and one of the items on the menu was "twice-shelled broad bean something". Do you know how many times you have to shell a broad bean to make it edible? Two times. And for those of you not mathematically minded that is the same as twice. I guess the kitchen decided that they should advertise this twice-shelled fact to appeal to a certain type of person. They should have called it 'adequately-shelled broad bean whatever'. That, at least would have bean been funny.

In case this wasn't indicative enough that things had gone too far there was no doubt left in my mind when I walked past Books for Cooks recently and had the displeasure of seeing a huge window display for a food magazine called Fool. Oh, not familiar with it? It looks like this:

"Food, insanity, brilliance & love" What? Seriously, what?!?

Enough said, right?

Please! It's enough to put me off my food. Of course I was so repulsed I had Google it immediately. It was then I discovered it was Swedish, which almost made me forgive it the ridiculous cover, stupid name and overall awfulness. I thought I would have to use all my will power to continue hating on it, but then I got to the website. 

Fool, the website tells us, is, "A cutting edge magazine on modern gastronomy and food culture. Fool is different from other 'food magazines' taking inspiration from fashion, design and culture. Visual. Thrilling. Made in Scandinavia."

I don't care if English is their second language, come on dudes, get a little subtlety.

One review, I read which claimed Fool "blew [their] socks off" wrote a whole paragraph about the magazine without actually saying anything about it at all.

Look, this isn't a science, I can't tell you what upset me so much about that magazine. Yes, it's the ridiculous name. The font. Ugh. And definitely, definitely the guy on the cover (Magnus Nilsson - a Swedish chef. He's so hot right now!) All I know is I hate it and it's making me hate food.*










*Not really I could never hate food, I just wanted to end with some drama.

Way to go, Brad (PM)

I love it when people comment on Miss Soft Crab, so maybe the Sartorialist gets a kick out of all his commenters too. But it just seems, how should I say? Effing ridiculous that people feel the need to write shit like, 'I love that outfit!', 'What a beautiful photo!', and 'She looks incredible!' on a blog full of great photos of beautiful, well-dressed people.  You dig?

Oh! Or the comments people leave on food blogs. 'Yum!' 'That looks delicious!' 'I can't  wait to make that!' Yeah, no shit people.

So word up to Brad and his haiku. And you guys. I've loved every comment y'all have ever left so keep that good stuff coming!

Way to go, Brad (AM)

You know how I like to watch bad TV shows and bad movies so I can roll my eyes at how shit they are?

Well I also like to read the comments that people make on The Sartorialist for the same reason.  People say the darndest (by which I mean the lamest) things on The Sartorialist. One never sees so much stuff that absolutely does not need to be written as that which one sees when reading the comments on The Sartorialist. And I've read 50 Shades of Grey,  so believe you me readers, I know a little bit about the topic of things that do not need to be written. 

Par example, about this photo:

People said, amongst other things:

"I love this dress"

"I love that white dress on her! So simple and chique (sic)!"

"She looks gorgeous. And I love the shoes"

and much much more. Oh brother. 

If only the readers/commenters on The Sartorialist could be more like you guys, readers, who only ever make super great comments here on Miss Soft Crab. Instead, they just say more and more stuff that really does not need to be said, and leave me feeling that there is no hope for them.

That is, until now!

Check out what commenter 'Brad' said the other day, in relation to this: 

"double t-shirt man
basking in the cold noon sun
belted cardigan!"

Haiku comment! HAHAHAHAH. 

Way to go, Brad!

Return to GOOP (PM)

Mate, thank god you wrote this post! Because after having The Royal Tenenbaums play silently in the background of band practice last weekend, I almost started liking the GOOP! Thank god things are back to normal now. (I still want to dress in tennis dresses but what else is new?) I like the bit about the tray that says this: Alexandra von Furstenberg has made this special laser etched acrylic tray especially for goop.

HAHAHAHA. Oh, oh god GOOP. Get a real name!

For those of you with any doubt about how gross the GOOP is, here she is in her jeans:

And here are the actual jeans:

Eeeew. Gross me the fuck out.

It's almost like she wants her disciples to look fugly so that she can be the fairest of them all. What the hell is wrong with you GOOP. Being pretty and rich and famous and popular isn't enough for you?

But K is right, we don't want to end the week on a sour note. So I give you Flo Rider! As horrible and stupid as GOOP but heaps more funny!

Return to GOOP (AM)

While Miss Soft Crab usually likes to end the week on a positive note, I'm not sure that's going to be possible today. You see, in addition to getting around with a bunch of orchids in her hair, Gwyneth Paltrow has just relaunched her GOOP website.  It is no longer merely a weekly e-newsletter full of expensive and useless shit that she likes, but is now a "lifestyle company curated by Gwyneth Paltrow". Are you thinking what I'm thinking, readers?
If you are thinking something along the lines of :
Fuck off
Get your hand off it Paltrow
No seriously, fuck off
then yes, you are indeed thinking what I'm thinking. But due to Miss Soft Crab's long-term interest in bagging GOOP, I think it might be time to check in and see what's new for us to roll our crabby eyes at. It's time to return to GOOP!

Readers, you will be delighted to learn that GOOP still holds fast to its "buy this $100 candle" and "go on this detox" bullshit roots . But now there's more! GOOP 2.0 also contains a bunch of:

"exclusive limited edition GOOP collaborations for the wardrobe and the home  - foundation pieces for you to build upon with your own personal style".

Quite.

Lets have a look at one of these exclusive limited edition collaborations, shall we?

Presenting, "the GOOP tee". Not t-shirt, mind you. Just "tee".

Um, gee GOOP, that looks an awful lot like a white t-shirt to me. A white t-shirt you are selling on your website for $90. I'm struggling to find what's so GOOPy about this. And why I should spend a pineapple and two lobsters on it.









There's also this, the GOOP bikini, which looks a lot like the kind of thing you see wrapped around a ham come christmas time. All yours for a tidy $150.

There's also a pair of GOOP jeans and, my personal favourite, the GOOP tray, which I  am not posting here because it really must be seen in situ to be believed. Be sure to scroll down so you can see GOOP in her 'office' doing some 'work'. 

Apparently the tray can go to the office for "an elegant display" or be the centrepiece of a living room. 

Really GOOP? You want a tray to be the centrepiece of your living room? What a shit living room that would be! And for $270, if you don't mind, thank you very much!

I think GOOP's gone mental. 

Thanks for nothing C.Thomas Howell (PM)

Wow, I forget how many people were the film version of The Outsiders. It's a who's who of stars of the 1980s and people who had moderate success in the 1990s and 2000s. And Tom Cruise.

I tried to think of some child stars who are maybe working in offices now but you're right Mate,  child stars seem much better at fading in to obscurity than staying in my mind. The only one I could think of was the asian kid from The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, who's name is apparently Jonathan Ke Quan.

Here he is next to Samwise Gamgee, Josh Brolin, one of the Coreys and the heavy-set kid from The Goonies. Wikipedia tells me that the last thing he was in was a Hong Kong movie in 2002. That's 10 years ago, you guys! He must have had to get at least a temp job in an office between now and then.


And just quickly while we are on the topic, I hope these guys fade in to obscurity and get jobs in offices like the rest of us. 

You'd better be waving goodbye, LeBeouf

Ewwww.

I note that they are not children, but they are certainly annoying like child stars can be. Fingers crossed!

Thanks for nothing C. Thomas Howell (AM)

E.T. was on TV on Saturday night. Turns out I remember very little about that movie. And I didn't watch much of it so I'm really no wiser. But I did learn that C. Thomas Howell was in it. Who cares? Look, not me really, but it did get me thinking.

As a very young teenager I kind of had a crush on C.Thomas Howell. Dude played Ponyboy Curtis, of course I had a crush on him. It was just lucky for him I guess that he got to play a guy that was so adorable in text to 13-year-old girls. But in truth by the time I became aware of him his star was already on the wane and I had other hunks to think about. So basically he is just some guy. But it got me thinking about what happens to child stars. I know this is something people talk about on occasion, but it made me think, are there ever successful actors that act for a while and then totally leave the business? Didn't they used to say that the not-George Michael from Wham became a mechanic? Well according to Wikipedia he writes music under a pseudonym and lives with his ex-Bananarama girlfriend. Mechanic my eye! Or maybe I'm confusing has-beens.

Anyway, does this happen to anyone, they just move on and work in an office or something? I wondered if such a person existed. And on Saturday night I started to wonder if maybe C. Thomas Howell was that guy.

Nup. Turns out he has had a continuing acting career that I just happen to be unaware of. The guy is in the new Spiderman movie! I could not have been more wrong.

So I decided  I wanted to try and find someone who just moved on from the industry. But the problem was I can't really remember anyone who disappeared into obscurity, 'cause of, you know, the obscurity. And it seems that with the advent of reality TV there is a place for every star of yesterday.

Jennifer Grey on DWTS. Probably thinking about how she'll never have it as good as when she danced with Swayze.

 Jennifer Grey was on Dancing with the Stars. That seems pretty unreasonable. She was only the star of a little movie called DIRTY DANCING! Where she pretty much spends the whole movie DANCING. How POed would you be if you were a contestant on the show that year!

Ralph trying to explain the Crane move to his partner - unsuccessfully

 Ralph Macchio was on Dancing with the Stars too, which seems to me moderately unfair given his karate experience.

Of course there are shows like The Two Coreys. Cut tragically short by Corey Haim's death. I guess Feldman will be on Dancing with the Stars soon enough.

****************************************************Time lapse*********************************************************

Strike that. Turns out Corey Feldman was was already on a British TV show called Dancing on Ice.

Corey Feldman on ice

Even the guy that played Doogie Howser's best friend Vinnie is still working. Yep, IMDb says that he is working on the new Woody Allen movie. Shit man, he probably never had it so good!

I guess if I've learnt anything it's that actors can have longevity. I guess I feel kind of heartened.

Haiku Thursday (AM)

Bruny Island

You are so beauty

full to me can't you see-ee

ee-ee-ee-ee-ee

May

Hectic May, you just 

Won't quit. Hope your buddy June

Won't follow your lead

Eeek

Difficult times lead

To miscommunication.
How embarrassing.