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

There's a cafe at the end of my street that does totally ok coffee and is very conveniently located, but I almost never get my coffee there. Here's why:

• The wait is always inordinately long. Even if there is only one person in front of you it often takes more than 5 minutes to get a take away coffee. Once I waited so long I had to cancel it. 
• The decor is wack, like it's trying for something but doesn't know what. Like perhaps the decorators/owners went onto eBay when they were decorating and bought products with headings like "Industrial/vintage/retro/cool..." I don't trust a place that has tried that hard and failed so good.
• There are several places with better coffee and decor and time management skills just minutes away where I would much rather be.

So, I almost never go there. But every now and again space and time and a need for coffee dictate that I have to go there. Which is what happened yesterday. So it was I found myself ordering coffee and hot chocolates for me and LB and Baby and Newbie. When I ordered hot chocolate I was asked if I wanted the kids' version so I said yes. Because usually this means its smaller, cooler, less chocolatey than a normal version. But they cost $5 each and took two or three times longer than a coffee to make and of course I was regretting my presence there exacerbated by time pressure and a general dislike for the place. 

The 'kids' hot chocolate' was served thusly: in a jar, atop it sits a marshmallow skewered on a toothpick and charred by mini blowtorch, beside it sits a glass full of pink and blue fairy floss and all this presented on a wooden platter. The hot chocolate, the waitress told us, can be poured directly into the glass with the fairy floss, if you so desire. 

GGGGGAAAAAHHHHHHHH! For who's benefit is this?!? Does any parent ordering hot chocolate for their child want said child to have a triple hit of sugar? NO! They just want to drink their coffee in peace. Does any child want an artfully presented hot chocolate with a pour over coffee experience? No, they just want some sugary shit. I mean for god's sake! Has there world gone mad! Needless to say, neither time nor pressure will ever, EVER make me go to that ridiculous place again. NEVER!

This is not a post about how old I am (AM)

I sometimes find myself asking rhetorical questions about the space-time continuum, because you know, space is fixed and time is just an abstract, man-made concept so the combination could be pretty chaotic. But I try not to think about it too much. Individually you'd think that there aren't a lot of questions. Space is space, time is time, let's call the whole thing off!

A few weeks ago I was at the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition at the NGV, it was beautifully presented and full of wonderful things. It was also full of people and lots of school groups.I  I looked at this photo:

And moved on. And then I heard a girl of about 14 say, "It's from Vogue 1993." I didn't really think anything of it for a second, just wondered why she'd make that comment. And then it occurred to me that the photo would have been taken nearly ten years before that girl was born. It was basically the same as me standing in a gallery in 1993 looking at a photo from Vogue 1971.

But 1971 seems like some other place altogether. And I am sure that in 1993 if I'd seen a picture from 1971 Vogue I would have imagined that time as being very different. Glamourous, exciting, long ago. But I guess half of that has to do with Vogue. So I wondered, was that girl imagining 1993 as a significantly different time? A historic time? Back then there was no internet or smart phones. In fact there were only brick mobile phones, and they were only for rich people. River Phoenix was even alive for most of it. But that 14-year-old girl probably doesn't even know who that is. I mean, doesn't that blow your mind?! That 1993 can seem as historic as 1971! Personally I find something kind of disturbing about it all. I know I'm 20 years older than people in their mid-teens but then I think about what that means in the grand scheme of things it's mind blowing.

How about the fact that when you are a kid time drags.  I would put any money on this year feeling to Baby like it goes on forever, but for me I have no doubt it will pass in the blink of an eye. Perspective, I guess they call it. Miguel and I were talking recently about how that is, that a week or month or year for a kid takes for ever and for an adult it just feels like time actually flies by. He suggested it may be that a kid is learning things all the time, every day something happens that is a big deal, so each day is more significant, creating a sense of size for each day, making it longer. It is an idea I like a lot but I think it has more to do with what we want. When you are a kid you want to be old enough to do all the cool shit and it seems so far away. You're just waiting for that time to come when you are the boss, so of course time drags. But as an adult you just want to hang on to youth and health and beauty and all that good shit that you realise is fleeting, the perspective is exactly opposite of a child's, so little wonder the sense of time is. Still weird though. But I guess if anything is going to blow your mind, it is going to be an abstract man-made concept.  

Haiku Thursday (PM)

Crab division

I

Just got to NY

As good as I remember

But I'll be home soon

II

In ten days or twelve

The space-time continuum

Is confusing me

When we were kids (PM)

Going to the dentist and shining one's shoes are wholesome and good things to do.
But I'm having one of those days where I am so busy with my adult life work responsibilities that there's no time for important things like that. There's barely time for eating lollies and daydreaming about being an astronaut.

Truth be told, I never daydreamed about being an astronaut when I was little. I thought about space a lot though. About how big it is and how that's where ET lives now, which made me feel a mixture of love and sadness. Which is kind of what childhood, and the film ET are like.

And according to the NASA website, this is what space food is like.

Lollies and shortbread! I should have daydreamed MORE. I could be eating all of this in zero gravity right now.

When we were kids (AM)

It's funny how there are things you do as kids that you just don't seem to do as adults. I don't mean like wanting to eat lollies all the time or riding around your backyard with your brother pretending you are astronauts. I know why you don't do that stuff. Kind of. Actually, I barely know why you don't want to play astronauts as an adult. I mean, I like to imagine things, sit around fantasising about some alternate life. Usually one where I have this great house and have friends over all the time for amazing dinners I make, one where I have this really fulfilling job that is not only super-fulling and lucrative but also requires me to wear wonderful clothes from time to time.* And maybe if I spent a few extra minutes in my head it would eventually lead to a fantasy about being an astronaut. I mean, that would probably be really fulfilling and pretty lucrative and maybe if you were at the top of your game you'd be invited to things where you can wear nice clothes. And I am not forgetting space. SPACE you guys! Being in space would rule.** The best thing! Anyway if having an imaginary life in your brain is good, why don't we play games about being astronauts and shit. Ok, I don't really get it at all.

But that isn't even what I am talking about. I'm talking about boring things that happened in childhood that don't happen now. Like shining shoes. In truth I barely did that as a child/teenager. But I remember Chickpea doing it. She went to a posh private school, while I went to the private school where drug dealers and kids expelled from all the fancy private schools went. I was neither a drug dealer nor expelled, mostly it was a question of geography and a realisation that we didn't belong in the posh private school. Yada yada yada, I rarely had to polish my shoes. But it seems like a thing from my youth. Check it out you guys, this week I polished some shoes. They are my favourite shoes, they are tan and great and really scuffed up and dirty now, so I polished them and they look great! I'm not going to show you a picture, because you don't know what they looked like before so you'll probably think the after photo is a before photo. But trust me guys, shoe polishing is great, just because you don't have a parent telling you to do it, doesn't mean you should forget about it.

How about going to the dentist. I used to do that all the time; when I was a child and my parents were responsible for my oral hygiene. Not now though. Probably hadn't been for about 5 years. Until this week! Now that I ma responsible for someone else's oral hygiene so I took our mouths into my hands and went to the dentist. I wish I could be as excited about this as the shoe polish. On the upside, my teeth were even cleaner than my shoes when I left the dentist. On the downside, dentists charge you hundreds of dollars for looking at your teeth and polishing them and finding holes they want to charge you heaps more money for filling. On the upside I feel better about myself as a citizen and a mother, so on the whole I guess going to the dentist was at least as rewarding as polishing my shoes.

I'm going to find some other activities of my youth that may benefit my life. Yeah!


*Shit, I have given way too much away about my inner life.
**I spent some time imagining my life as an astronaut at this point in the writing on the post, and guess what! It was awesome

Haiku Thursday (PM)

Haiku Thursday

Remember the days

When Pluto was a planet? 

I quite liked those days. 

Who benefits from

Downgrading Pluto? Who needs

Micro-planets? Who?

It's so very small

And so very far away.

Just let it stay, guys. 

Hump day (AM)

Sometimes, when I tell people that I co-author a five day a week blog, they say to me "Wow, do you guys ever run out of things to say?" to which I always reply  "of course we do, we constantly run out of things to say, it's actually kind of a miracle we ever have anything to say."

People never want to hear that though. 

They prefer to  think that blog writing is effortlesss and fun, and where there is always something to blog about because life is so full of amazing people doing inspiring things, and laneways. I know I don't need to tell you, loyal readers of MIss Soft Crab, that ours is not the kind of blog that rides on the back of amazing people doing inspiring things and laneways. No. Ours is the kind of blog where we cough up whatever comes to mind that day, and somedays (i.e. the middle of the week), 'whatever comes to mind' aint much. But shit you guys, we make the rules, and one of our (unofficial) rules is that you will never read words like 'bespoke' and 'colourways' on Miss Soft Crab unless we have written a post about words that make us want to puke. 

But today, readers, no one is going to puke. No one is going to puke because the other day, I decided to clean out my inbox, leading me to find a bunch of hilarious emails J and I exchanged in the days before Miss Soft Crab was born, the days before Baby was born and the days before J and I had the number 3 at the front of our ages. Come with me now, on a journey through space and time and discover an email J sent me shortly after she dropped down to working 4 days a week. Returning back to work after a day off,  J had the following to say in an email with the subject of simply 'Thursday":

Mate, I don’t wanna rub it in or anything but not working hump day really takes the hump out of that day. It's so good never having to wait too long for a day off. Yesterday I met David’s puppy, Ivy. She is very beautiful and incredibly sweet and I think I love her. Also it was nice to eat lunch in the sun with David (bagel with cream cheese, avo and lemon mmmmmmm). 
Then LB and I went to see David O’Doherty. It was very funny. Then we ate dumpys. Mmmmmmmm. Then when we got home there was some Russell Brand Show on teev so I just had a wonderful laugh-filled night. Laughter rules.

Anyway, how are you?

So back to me. I am heading towards the decision of dinner at the folks for my b’day. People are generally enthusiastic about it when I tell them and my Mum loved the idea. I thought she may, but she was all “Yeah, that’s a great excuse to make Dad do something fun with me!” And “Yeah, I’ll clean up! I’ll put clean sheets on our bed so you can stay! Maybe you should open up my office into the next room and dine in there!”

I hope if I have kids that I don’t start calling LB Dad all the time.

Please note I am not in the office on Wednesdays

Note: That last bit came from J's automatic signature at the time. It was the first line, before her name even. I thought i'd leave it in to show her state of mind.