A year of the new guy (PM)

Happy birthday Little Nut!

Gee, they grow up so fast! Just jokes! But not really. I mean, first they pop out and they are just this tiny little thing that sleeps a lot and somehow you love them more than anything or anyone before even though you barely know them and they barely exist. And only one year later they are a full little dude that maybe walks and maybe kinda talks. Crazy. I mean what else happens like that in a year. Nothing! Except I guess you could maybe meet a person, not know them and a year later be totally in love with them. Or someone could die and you could go from being completely unable to imagine a time that is without the pain to being in a place where the pain is dulled, less constant. You could lose 20 kilos or gain 20 kilos. A person could go from completely non-existent, COMPLETELY, to 3 months old within a year. Shit. I guess a lot is possible in a year. No wonder kids go from tiny little sleeping bundles to a toddler in that time.

A year of the new guy (AM)

Children. Some people believe they are our future. I'm an agnostic myself, but if there's one thing I can say for sure, it's that there are a LOT of them around these days. So that indicates to me that the future is probably full of them too. And that's OK by me. Have you seen how cute some of them are? Off the charts. 

 

A year ago yesterday I wrote this, because my nephew was born. Little Nut. The son of my Midbro. The brother of my Niecey. Yesterday was his birthday and to celebrate, we had a picnic on the sidelines of Midbro's Minkey football game. 

If I was a different kind of person, I might say something like "I can't believe it's been a year since Little Nut was born" or "They grow up so fast" or "Time goes by so quickly....if you don't stop to look around once in a while, you might miss it."

But readers, I'm not and I won't. Because the thing I can't believe is not they grow up so fast, but that this person for whom I feel so much love has only 365 days under his tiny tiny belt. I mean, I love him a LOT, and it feels like I've been cultivating that love for longer than a year. 

HB Little Nut. 

Haiku Thursday (AM)

Springtime

Pretending I could 

Love other seasons ends with

The first breath of you

Magnolia

You're the herald of

Springtime. And also one of my

Favourite movies. 

Irritation

You turn up some days

And you refuse to fuck off

For love nor money.

In praise of siblings (AM)

Hello Monday!
Normally I wouldn't be so happy to see you, but given that there are only two work days to get through until this week throws us another day off, I feel fine that you're here. Plus, I had a super nice weekend, so I can't complain.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Midbro's house. We ate pies and sausage rolls and watched the footy on foxtel while Niecey played with a jar of buttons. Niecey's ability to entertain herself while we are watching the footy is really astounding. She's such a top kid. As is Little Nut, her super adorable baby brother. 

Can you believe Little Nut is two months old already? Unbelievable. 

Such a cutehead. 

Midbro and Mrs Midbro live next door my my parents, which comes in handy when they run out of things. Like tomato sauce, essential when one is eating pies and sausage rolls. When we discovered that the Midbro household had indeed run out of T-sauce, I went next door to get some. Mum and Dad are in Qld at the moment, visiting Elderbro, so I took my time, mainly looking in the fridge and pantry to see if they had anything good.  I quickly discovered they had a bunch of easter eggs - Top deck easter eggs - sitting in a bowl in the pantry for anyone to stumble upon.  I figured that if they really wanted them, they would have eaten them by now, or at least taken them along to Qld to enjoy them gradually day by day. I also figured they wouldn't miss a few teeny weeny little eggs, so I swiped some (four). I also ate one while I was standing at the pantry figuring out whether it would be OK to swipe some. I felt a little bad about it, but I figured that it was a victimless crime. 

Once I finished my egg and hid the wrapper, I grabbed the sauce and returned to the Midbro residence.  

The reason I am telling you all of this, dear readers, will become apparent in a moment, but first we must briefly return to Niecey and Little Nut for a moment. As I've said before, I can't wait to see what happens as the two of them grow up. I effing love my brothers and I'm so happy that Niecey has one now. Having someone to hang out with all through childhood, someone who probably has the same sense of humour as you and certainly has to cop the same parental weirdness as you? Forget about it -  it is basically the best thing ever. Siblings rule! Right now, Niecey loves Little Nut fully sick, so I think she would agree that siblings rule. Of course this won't last. Soon, they will get on each others nerves and then by the time they are both at school, this mild irritation will progress to full-blown hating one another's guts, which will probably last until they are adults. So it goes. It will all come good in the end though. 

As it has with my brothers and I, which was evidenced by Midbro's reaction to my stealing easter eggs from our parents. As we were having coffee later, I offered everyone one of the stolen eggs, and because I was raised catholic, I also had to confess that they were indeed stolen from Mum and Dad. Midbro gratefully accepted, one and said "yeah, these are great, I stole some earlier today. They've got Tim Tams too, you know."

Siblings rule OK!

Yes, the show does rule, it's true

Oh man, I love the heck out of the show.  
We were never allowed to go when I was little, but I went a few years ago with AB and Coco and we had the best time ever. We went to the pig races and they chose me to lead the cheerleading for Swifty, one of the pigs who was racing. They chose me out of all the people! They gave me a flag and when I waved it, everyone had to cheer. It would be fair to say that Swifty got a lot of support that day.


This is not Swifty, it is a picture of a pig that is on the internet.

Lets hope that's what a pig looks like when it's having a really good time.

Anyway, I had a top day, and it looks like your day ruled just as much.
Just quickly though, those Irish setters are the cutest (after Doggy, who is one of the cutest and best dog ever, as articulated here and here ). Also, that chicken with the black and white feathers looks like it is wearing that Alexander McQueen dress I saw that time. Cute.

Royal Melbourne Show, you're ok by me!

The Show gets a really bad rap. Does it? Or is that just me? I just think of it as heaps of crappy food and way too many people. Nothing but show bags and people trying to sell you really shit shit. Ugh. But you know what? I went last week and I kind of loved it.

I think there were two keys to success. Firstly, I was with LB and Baby. Baby is only 16 months old, he doesn't know what he is missing out on when I don't buy him fairy floss or show bags or giant inflatable plastic glittery things and when I don't put him on rides. He just likes looking at all the stuff.

The second thing was that it was a really miserable day. Cold, a little bit wet. Sounds bad right? But you know it made it kind of great because there were not too many people there and also you just want to get from place to place, no dawdling, just head down and move through the wind and cold. It means it is so easy to ignore all the ugly stuff that makes you not want to go to the show.

I will admit that the main reason we went was to see the Irish Setters. Doggy's brothers from another mother.

Here are some now.



We missed the showing bit (which is pretty weird anyway) and just walked down the aisles checking out these hot bitches. And dogs. Win.

After that we checked out the poultry and alpaca pavilion. OMG! Poultry friggen rules! Do you know how beautiful chickens are?! Really. Their feathers are actually so beautiful!



Do you know how many weird variations there are?




Did you know there are ducks with 18th century style bouffant?



And do you know, I mean really know, what a turkey looks like?


The poultry pavilion rules! OK!

Of course the animal nursery was also awesome. Cute little piggies and calves and donkeys. An adorable baby duck. And I saw a lamby that was born at 6am that DAY! Just walking around like an adorable little lamby.



Finally, of course, we went to the Country Women's Association pavilion. I love the CWA pavilion. I love how they put all the winning foodstuffs in glass cabinets to look at.


Like you can see a sponge and make some kind of assessment. "Mmm, you can tell by the height and crumb of this one that Marge really deserved to win."




Oh, and they have a fancy food pavilion these days too where people give you free samples.

You know the show really taught me to overcome some prejudices. You should check it out! Except it ends today. Whoopsee.

Public holidays in NYC

It is both Fleet Week and the memorial day public holiday in NYC. The city is chocker block with sailor types, people trying to flirt with sailor types and regular folks just wandering around. Due to our shyness/laziness, KJ and I fall in to the latter category. While wandering today, we saw:
This Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, who I like to call Silky:

This Beagle, who I like to call JP:

Famous Australian novelist Peter Carey, who I like to call Peter Carey:

And these cuties on the 4 train to Brooklyn:

We saw lots of other things too, but these ones are my favorites.
I wish I didn't have to come home on Friday.