Thursday, March 30, 2006

The Girl Will Win Survivor


I hate raw tomatoes. Hate, hate hate 'em. Always have. Make me gag in a way that only a finger in the back of the throat can.
Midget inherited this tendency. I was wondering if it was just conditioning from me, or a real dislike. I do remember watching her when she was quite small, about 18 months old, pick up a cherry tomato thinking it was a grape. I watched the expression on her face change to complete distaste and the cherry tomato made a quick reappearance on the floor.Since that time I have not pressed the tomato issue.
The Midget's step-dad, C is very unusual in that he will eat anything, the more obscure the better. He's been challenging her to try more and more things. She initially put up great protest, and I thought it was the start of dining-room warfare. However, she has gradually realized that some different foods are interesting, and perhaps even tasty!
For dinner tonight, they were preparing exotic sandwiches on english muffins. The ingredients were; pastrami, tasty cheese, avocado, stuffed green olives and capers. The pair of them took great relish in eating the sandwich and making many moans of pleasure in between bites( it was rather over-dramatic in my opinion).
A couple of days ago, C challenged her to eat a cherry tomato. I thought that I would try to do the encouragement thing and said that I would have one if she had one. So I gulped mine down as quickly as I could and then she bites into hers. At first there was a big gag. But then the survivor thing kicked in, and she forced it down. And then she ate another one. And another one. All the way defiant.
She's going to be able to eat the mangrove worms and the warm cow's blood and the crickets and the witchety grubs on "Survivor" hands down. Grim determination will conquer. An obscure talent, but good in times of starvation.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Whodunit

I came home early from work this afternoon as I wasn't feeling well. I think I'm coming down with a cold or the flu. The Midget has a bad cough also, but she tends to spend most of autumn and winter with a cough, every year.
I went straight to bed and proceeded to have a very elaborate dream, that panned out just like an Agatha Christie whodunit novel. A group of women (including myself) were going through the household effects of a murdered man, each of us having memories and associations with different items, each of us having a motive.
I managed to solve the mystery and the guilty one grabbed me and held a knife to my throat. As usual, just when the dream gets interesting, I wake up.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Is Osama a CPA?

I just heard an episode of a very interesting and intelligent mainstream radio show podcast called "To the Point", a show which covers a broad range of US political issues. I just heard something that made me laugh (in an extremely world-weary and sad way) and I had to post.
There has been a recent study done to cost out the war on terror. The people who had formulated the costing were assuming that all US troops were withdrawn by 2010, and costed the war up to that point. A TRILLION dollars. TWO TRILLION dollars if you add in such variables as loss of future potential of people wounded/killed during the war, increasing fuel price instability, impact on homeland security (ie lack of home guards around to help clean up the Katrina mess because they were all in Iraq) and ongoing costs of veterans (estimating that 250,000 people would be involved in the war up to 2010).
Just imagine, improbable as I know it is. Just imagine, that this war sent the US bankrupt. Osama's sides would be splitting. He would be still holed up in some cave in Afghanistan living the quiet accountant's life (But I want to be a lion tamer!*), co-ordinating the quiet accounting war. The US imploding on itself. The US owing so much money to China that they couldn't repay it, and China sending the liquidators in. Oh, the exquisitely gruesome irony.
*obscure reference to a Monty Python sketch

My Life is as Good as an ABBA song

- Direct quote from Muriel's Wedding. I also wrote this in C's recent birthday card, which had a particularly sexy snap of ABBA on the front.
When I was about 8 years old, I absolutely adored ABBA. "Money Money" was the first "grown-up" single I ever had, a much treasured present from my mum. My best friend at the time (and still a dear friend now), Galia and I played long and involved ABBA games. I always let her be Agnetha, the pretty blonde one. I steadfastly stood by Frida, who I insisted had a better voice anyway. We knew all the songs. We madly sang them all into our hairbrushes and worked out complex dance routines.

I had an ABBA t-shirt, that I wore constantly.I once fell off my bike into a huge puddle while I was wearing my Abba t-shirt and cried buckets. I didn't want that shirt to stain!
My poor parents were subjected to days and days of ABBA "Arrival" when we were driving down the east coast of Australia on our Christmas holidays in 1976.
I listen to a particularly daggy radio show every weekday morning, Breakfast with Laurie & Paula. I love it. It helps me start the day. A couple of forty-somethings that have a certain understated comedic chemistry on radio together. Every Monday there is a segment called "Paula's Pick". Paula chooses some derelict sad old song from the 70s, and callers vote as to whether they want to hear it or not. About four weeks ago, it was ABBA's "When I Kissed the Teacher". I hadn't heard the song in probably 18 years. And it has been contained inside my head now for four weeks straight.
Oh! The joy of that song! The absolute perfection of that boppy little tune! The absloute musical genius of the bit that goes;
"One of these days, gunna tell him I dream of him every night", and then lower, "One of these days, gunna show him I care gunna teach him a lesson alright". OOOOH the bliss. I cant explain how good it makes me feel! Am I psychotic? Probably. That song makes me deliriously happy.
Send help now.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

I haven't been here for a very long time

As I just said, I haven't been here for a very long time. Where have I been? Hell and back, hell and back.No not really. Just not in this space.
My partner C insists that blogging is navel-gazing. A comment like that is enough to start me writing in my blog again. Work that out.
I'm going to link and de-link some other blogs that I like to read. I'm going to de-link someone that I like - a sassy girl who lives what seems to be a very exciting life in one of the world's great metropolis. But when she posted a picture of herself on her blog that can only be described as soft-porn, I need to disassociate myself. I dont hate her for it. I just dont want my blog linking to it. Sorry girl - I will continue to read though.
So what's happening with me? I've been using the computer less and less. Got hooked into genealogy, but I'm fairly much over that now. You know, the usual fad has outlived its lifetime. I did find out a lot of interesting stuff about my family. But in reality, what good is it to anyone? It is completely irrelevant to the here and now.
I did find out that there are more convicts in my family line than I would ever have imagined. I did find out that most of my family is more Irish than I could have imagined. I have dispelled that great family myth that we are related to the (late famous) Australian country music star Slim Dusty. I found out that one of my family lines were one of the great pioneering and enterprising families of New South Wales - something I dont think my grandfather was aware of in his lifetime, which is quite a shame.
I'm still in that dull old job. I still find it hard to stay awake during the day, and still over-eat to compensate for my boredom there. My boss is just too good to me, and such a lovely soul. I would hate to leave him in the lurch. Not that I am irreplaceable. We just work well together. I like being his business confidante.
As for a fantastic life experience, we attended a night session of the Commonwealth Games athletics last Monday night. WOW is the only way to describe it. We saw the fastest man in the world Asafa Powell run a very tidy 100m race, along with what they say is one of the best 5km races the world has ever seen. It was such a gutsy run by Craig Mottram, the crowd nearly lifted the stadium into the air. 80,000 people in one place, absolutely awesome. It's something I hope my daughter remembers for the rest of her life. We were lucky to have quite a lot of Australian gold medal presentations, so we got to be all patriotic and belt out the Australian national anthem at the top of our lungs, what seemed like many, many times. We got the winner of the gold medal in the women's hammer throw, Brooke Kruger, to wave at us because she thought we knew her. Such a sad look of disappointment on her face when she realized that we didn't know her!
Well, I think I'll be back soon.
Talk to you then....