anyresemblance

You understand our revolution so well

Younger daughter just called me.  Her dad is picking her up from camp to take her home for the weekend to spend with him and her older brother who has just had surgery for a shoulder injury sustained in a car accident.  I miss her so much and she misses me.  But sometimes you have to harden your heart and accept that it's her father's time and much as we'd like to be snuggled up together, I have to give her father the time with her.

I have some cool new people who have linked to me.  I'll get to the reciprocation soon but I am still amazed at the connectedness of everything.

I bought a great dress in Cue (the picture shows beige, but I bought in black) yesterday.  It is very 40ish and I spent the day imagining I should be running a bar in France during the occupation but secretly  running a resistance campaign in the back room.  Who says fashion isn't political?

Anzac Biscuits

I did not make them but I like to mix it up a bit for people on google searches.  This has been the boringest public holiday ever.  Rainy, grey and feeling like nothing.  Still I have made apple crumble, chicken, leek and mushroom pie and am looking forward to a cosy evening in. 

I listened to some whingeing man on the ABC this morning banging on about the orange protest against I'm not sure what.  I have to say the point at which he started to whine about post-traumatic stress disorder in East Timor had me switched off entirely.  When you see the toll of young American and British servicemen and women in Iraq I find it hard to summon up much sympathy for the idea that a peacekeeping effort in our own backyard resulted in post-traumatic stress disorder.  I can't say i saw a speck of orange in the televised coverage of the Anzac parade down George St this morning.

Alas, everything was shut till 1pm as a consequence and I joined other people aimlessly wandering around Bondi Junction waiting for Coles to open.  My new supermarket down the road disappoints me.  They sell no loose leaf tea nor the right brand of cat litter.

A change in temperature

You'd hardly believe how clean my house is.  Two Brazilian girls cleaning, me on a mission to throw stuff out and 4 hours later the house is sparkling.  I am retaining them on a fortnightly basis and we'll see how we go because there is no doubt that I can be a trifle Martha-like in my pursuit of order and it sets my mind at rest to have domestic harmony around me.

I am taking the day off today as tomorrow is the Anzac day holiday and I can't be revving myself up for one day at work.  Mind you, I have already had one work phone call but it is my own fault for answering it.

This weekend was pretty idle.  We went to see Kokoda on Saturday afternoon as a sop to boys' taste and because Margaret and David had been kind about it.  Boring.  As.

Yesterday, I made the man go to Bondi Junction with me and despite his whining I was a focused shopper (underwear and socks for girls).  I was able to point out that the trips to the music store, book shop, video shop and computer game shop were all discretionary items on his agenda and wiped out any obligation that I may incurred from initiating the trip.

Today is cold, bearing out the theory that heating goes on at Anzac Day.  I am wearing a sweater and thinking if I should wear my coat out.  I'm thinking lamb shanks and mashed potatoes. 

Nothing that hot water won't cure

The visitors leave this evening and I am planning a major house blitz as soon as I get back from the airport.  I have engaged two Brazilian cleaners to come tomorrow to lavish my house with cleaning products and restore order but in advance of that I plan to throw out mounds of rubbish from my daughter's bedrooms and do heaps of laundry.

The Brazilian cleaners were sourced through an ad in the Wentworth Courier. Strict but fair. 

We had dinner last night at the Bondi Trattoria.  It was crap.  Over-priced, flakey service and they overcharged for an extra main course.  New niece was sulky, family atmosphere was tense but we retrieved some joy by going to the Double Bay ice-creamery (now confusingly relocated to Chinatown).

While in Hawaii and having consumed a couple of cocktails, I must have told a colleague I have a blog.  He asked me today if I could talk to one of our clients about blogging and collaboration.  I agreed and explained that I have two blogs - this one and a more circumspect work one.  He asked me what I write about in this one and I could see his eyes glaze over as I spoke.  Either you get it or you don't.

A charming new family member

Just to prove that I am not perenially grumpy with my family, I babysat my 11 year old soon-to-be-step-niece last night.  She talks constantly in a broad west of scotland accent that charms me, uses words and phrases I have not heard in years ("scunnered" and the like) and has an opinion on everything.  And she likes to play scrabble.  Heavens, what a model child.  While her mum and my brother went to dinner, we went to visit a friend's snooty burmese and furry norwegian forest cat who were duly admired.  Then she and I went to a great Thai restaurant on Bondi road (no link because we don't need the hoardes there).  She had never eaten Thai food before but she was up for everything.  I saw my favourite barista in there with the girl I thought he'd broken up with but my friend asserts the ex-girlfriend was blonde and this one was brunette.  But I'm sure I'd seen him intimate with this girl before.  You see, when you get more interested in the love machinations of the guy who makes your coffee than sorting out your own romance?  But I digress, new niece and I then bought chocolate and went to drive home only to discover some hoon had double-parked next to us and blocked us in.  We forebore from pushing the car down the hill, or hammering on the door of the crack dealing apartment next to where we'd parked and tooted our own horn a bit to no avail.  So then we got out the car, went round the corner to the pizza shop and enquired if it was one of their customers. Shamed faced spotty pizza chef slunk out to the loud exclamations of my niece "what kind of eeijit would park like that?  see, if you were in Scotland, you'd be gettin' a visit fer the polis now, ye wud".

Inhospitable

My brother is staying and I have realised that I don't like visitors much.  Sigh.  I sound so ungracious and I am delighted to meet his new fiance and her charming 11 year old daughter, and I will be happy to make the journey to Scotland to celebrate their wedding in September and I am glad that my lonely and rather grumy brother has found someone full of life to make his heart sing, and that he loves her daughter too.  But I can't stand having them to stay with me as they are so MESSY and drink my wine and replace it with cheap stuff (not because they are cheap but because they don't know the difference) and they don't tidy up their clutter and they do not offer to run the vacuum cleaner around.  And it is driving me crazy.  Only two days to go.

I am also completely paranoid since my sister's visit late last year was also an unmitigated disaster.  Ah well, at least this person was a perfect visitor.

In spite of this I had a lovely laid back weekend.  I made her banana bread (easy peasy and tastes yummy), went to see How much do you love me? (Monica Belluci's breasts have a starring role and they are amazing), made a killer lamb curry and talked to my dear girls bonding with horses) on the phone.

Home again, home again...

If you were expecting something scintillating after this long hiatus, hold that thought.  For a long time.  Here is all that has happened. I have spent 20 hours there and back in economy class to Hawaii.  Hawaiian is what I would call "low budget".  In other words, you have to pay for the drinks. Now this might be standard practice for those poor North Americans who criss cross the country on United, American, Delta and the like but for those of us nurtured on Qantas Clubs and the late departed Ansett, the right to free alcohol of a high quality is a god given right of all corporate travellers.  Ah well, I wasn't paying so why whine?

Hawaii was beautiful and it stopped raining after 42 days when I got there.  I had a great room (shared with my favourite work colleague), a view down Waikiki beach towards Diamond Head and a shower that worked.  We had a few corporate like activities but mostly time just to hang out and, in my case, shop for my girls.  There were many late nights for many people but I did enough not to be a party pooper but not so much that I either had a sore head or any embarassing moments to remember.  Unlike a colleague who in admiring my shoes during the gala dinner on the last night exclaimed "anyresemblance, those shoes are just fucking awesome" in front of the general manager of our business in Japan.

So now I am home with my lovely girls.  They did well while I was gone.  Youngest daughter missed me so much her tummy hurt and she had to come home from school one day.  I talked to her teacher today who told me that she thought my daughter had a outstanding talent for expressing herself in language and that her writing was amazing.  I was bursting with pride.  She said so many lovely things about her I was able to remind myself that beneath those temper tantrums and unwillingness to listen to feedback was a remarkable little girl.

Oh, and that person who keeps hitting this blog looking for "new ikea in Canberra", in your dreams, baby, in your dreams.