L’s Neighborhood

I've been having a shocker with the 365 day photo thingo. I take them but then forget to post them.

But when I get back from Thailand I'll be able to bore you for weeks with photos. I was thinking today that its very inconvenient, how when you're trying to get ready to go overseas, normal life keeps going on and taking up time.

So, some photos.

Here is my friend Jem. We were out celebrating her birthday.

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And here she is with her hubby.

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Here is my foxxxxy daughter Kimba, the devil, and her good friend, Cleopatra getting ready for Cleopatra's birthday party.

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And here I am with Big Ears.

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And this is Betty chewing on the hindquarter of a small elephant. Or something.

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Oh yes, and these are Lloyds shoes. Because he thought it might be a good idea to buy a pair or white dunlop volleys to wear to all the summer music festivals he goes to. This was after Parklife.

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And these were my new nail polishes that you've seen before. And I don't really like either of them. But its ok because I have a newer smokin' rimmel red.

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It's hard, isn't it, wanting to be alone but not feel lonely? I have days like that though I do have to say that my repressive abilities are scarily, reallt scarily good of recent.

Do I like cooking more than writing about cooking? I don't know. I think it's more that I don't have enough time to keep up with my thoughts and obligations. But I do have/make time to cook, regardless. Because you have to, really.

God, past-midnight stream of consciousness. I wish I had MTV to mindlessly numb me to sleep.

Well, after attending my nephews wedding I have only one thing to say.

Arabic people sure know how to party.

And how to make an entrance.

But, I bet a lot of the older generation have terrible hearing, because they like everything SO LOUD!!!!!!!!!

Lots of trilling voices, tinkling glasses, drums, smoke machines, shooting confetti and indoor fireworks. I mean, thats what I call a wedding.

Of course my inner freak was wondering how the smoke detectors could possible be turned on with all that smoke floating around, and how would we get mum down that one steep set of steps if there was a fire, and did it really matter that someone had been shot dead in the same street the night before in a gang war.

But the way I see it, if it could get Daz on the dance floor, then it was a good night.

And, it was the first wedding I've been to that had a bottle of Chivas Regal on the childrens table. On every table.

It really was an amazing night. Australian weddings are so boring really. This all started with fireworks and drums and all the bridal party and their parents being introduced. Then it was straight into the dancing. No hanging around the bar, then a long dinner and hours of speeches. Just music and dancing and drums and the bride and groom being carried around on peoples shoulders. I'm sure the bride didn't get to sit down all night. She did a lot of dancing.

And the food. Unbelievable. When we arrived our tables were just full of little plates of hommus and oils, meats and salami and fetta, potatoes, nuts, fresh vegetables and fruit, olives, crabmeat, leb bread, kumara chips and dolmades. And every time a plate looked like being empty a new one took its place. Then there were bottles of red wine and white wine, a bottle of chivas regal, coronas, carlton colds, cascade and a light beer all in ice buckets. Topped up all night. Endless. Plus bottles of water, and jugs coke and orange juice.

But then there was a meal. I know I couldn't eat mine. That was followed by fruit platters and then wedding cake.

Then there was dancing and dancing and more dancing.

Oh, and the bridesmaids dresses were absolutely beautiful. Too often the bride seems to pick something hideous for her girls to wear, maybe so they don't look better than her. But these were perfect. Not quite the blue in the photos.

And I don't know the significance of the bride being carried in the chair sorry.

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I'm sure if Daz had of tried just a little bit harder he could have bought a more difficult wedding present for me to wrap.

Not much harder mind you.

There was a gift registry, he was going to the big smoke, so I said - go and spend about $100.00. And he came home with this weird mish mash of items. He was super impressed with himself because there had been 30% off everything and he was able to get a lot of totally random unrelated items.

I said - couldn't you have just bought one item?

He said - well I could've got the ironing board.

Easier to wrap no doubt, but not as easy to fit in the car.

So I've ignored it for two weeks but the wedding is tomorrow so I had to face up to it today. A lot of sticky tape was used. And I'm not sure a piece of curly silver ribbon is going to make it look better either.

But at least its crap they want.

So this is Emjays son who is getting married. My nephew. It is going to be a huge, long and hot day, that will start with a three hour drive for us to even get there. I'm planning on taking my swimmers to have a splash around in the motel pool between the service and the reception. That will hopefully be followed by a nap. And we have to fit lunch in sometime before the service and all stay clean. Lol, we have to get dressed at 7.30 in the morning, drive three hours in Lloyds old smashed up Magna, eat lunch, go to the service, fill in a few hours, then turn up at the reception still looking clean and fresh.

Don't know what that chances of that are. But it should be a good day and night. Big.

Emjay tells me I should wish for my children to elope.

Here's something interesting that happened the other day.

You may have seen this tile I made using one of Papas photos. It was taken in Paris in 1957.

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Anyway, last week someone bought it, then sent me an email asking if I did any custom work. Turns out this lady had been to paris last year with her husband and said she had a photo of him in the same spot and could I make a similar tile using it. So I told her to email it to me and I'd have a look.

Well, she wasn't joking, and in fact if her husband wasn't actually in the photo it would just about be spot on. So I managed to make it pretty similar and these are going to be his christmas present.

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I had a sleep this afternoon and when I woke up I glanced at the clock, read it as saying 5pm and thought, ah, cocktail hour. So I came out, turned on the laptop and went and got a glass of wine. Sat down, checked my emails then looked at the clock and realised it was only 3pm. It was a little concerning how Daz, who was sitting on the lounge watching tv, didn't even ask me why I was drinking wine at 3pm.

I had great success with the swimmer buying trip. These are the ones I bought. I saw them a couple of months ago in a magazine and thought that they were the ones I wanted. So I kept the photo on the bench then rang around last week and found a store that had one pair in my size and they held them for me. I went in, tried them on, loved them and looked awesome in them.

If only it could always be that easy. Mine are black though not blue.

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I also bought a pair of Sea Folly's. Because you definitely need two pairs of swimmers on holidays. Nothing worse than trying to put a wet pair of swimmers on. Well there is one thing. Trying to put a pair of compression stockings on your mother when she has damp legs. Thats hard work.

So the other pair are a tankini with a boyleg. I always like to get a boyleg because there's less box maintenance involved then.

I also got some shorts and t's, two bras on sale and a really cool hat. 

So now I have an outfit I love to wear to the wedding and swimmers I'm happy to parade around in on holidays.

Way to go. All this working out is paying off.

Yep, this morning was my last chance training session. Because tomorrow is the day I go shopping for a pair of swimmers.

See, I've been trialling this new way of living where I take one day at a time. Just live that day. Don't worry about the future and forget about the past. The one flaw with this plan is that one day you happen to glance at your calender and realise you'll be leaving for Thailand in three weeks and don't have a thing organised.

So I'm off to the big(ish) smoke tomorrow on the dreaded swimming costume search. I will have an egg on toast and a glass of juice before I go so I feel fortified and strong. You don't want to risk any mid afternoon blood sugar level drops because that could lead to depression and feelings of self loathing.

One thing you must remember when trying on swimmers is that there will be none of those awful change room down lights that show up every dimple of cellulite, on the beach. Another thing to remember is that 99% of people are perfectly average just like you. So unless there happens to be some sort of super model convention happening where we are I should be fine. And if there is...... well best not to even contemplate that.

But I am shopping for swimmers at a great time. I've just lost 7 kilos so I'm feeling pretty damn fine and this morning I managed to fit into a pair of size 10 Cue pants which didn't hurt the self confidence either. Plus it means I have something to wear to my nephews wedding next weekend.

But the main thing going in my favour are the people I'm travelling with. There will be my daughter Kimba and her friend Nat, both 21, almost 6 feet tall and gorgeous, and there will be Lizzie, 17, beautiful, all dark and mysterious. So no ones even going to be looking at me.

Of course Jem will be there as well. She's 5 years younger than me at 40. She's at that difficult age where you still feel like you have to show you've still got it. Whereas once you hit (almost) 46, you're not as hard on yourself. I mean there comes a time where you just have to say, this is it. This is me. I eat healthily, (well, except for the wine, but its not going anywhere) and I exercise like a demon, and this is as good as it's going to get. And its not that bad.

However, having said all that, I still find shopping for swimmers to be the most horrendous job out there. Hopefully it all goes to plan.

Sometimes, when its late at night, and I'm lying in bed trying to sleep, I feel like walking up to Lizzie's room and saying to her

what the fuck are you actually doing?

Because it sounds to me like she's moving a large herd of cattle through a small obstacle course.

Or sometimes its like hospital noises. You know, random things crashing about, television blasting, phones ringing, laughing. At any moment I expect her to crank up the vacuum cleaner.

And I'm beginning to think she's retarded in some way. Because no matter how many times I ask her to try and be quiet after 10.30pm, she persists in being exactly the opposite.

It seems that she lives in the filth and squalor that only a teenager can live in for months, then suddenly decides she must clean her room at 11.30pm.

This also requires a loud thumping up the hallway past my bedroom to the bathroom, where she deposits an extremely large pile of dirty washing which she is always surprised to find hasn't been washed ready for her by the next morning. It also means a large pile of towels to be washed, some of which feel suspiciously like they have never been used, just left on the floor for a while.

Now here it is, 11am and she's still in bed. Meanwhile I had to be up at 5.30am to fit a 30km bike ride in before my day even began and she'll be up soon wondering why I need an afternoon nap.

I wonder if you can have morning tea naps.

Thank god its only 24 degrees today. Thats 20 degrees cooler than yesterday. We've had four days over 40 (thats over 100). Tells of a hot summer coming up. Already bush fires all over the state.

And yesterday this poor old King Parrot dropped by looking for water. Its the second time I've seen him and he's about the most exotic thing I've ever seen in our backyard. Besides myself of course.

No idea what he's doing around these parts. They usually hang in rainforest type areas and that I can assure you we are not.

Wonder if he's someones pet. Hmmm.

Anyway of course yesterday was the day a leak appeared in the bird bath and there was harldy any water in it. So of course then I went in and gave Daz a serve for being a slack arse and not fixing it immediately and that now the poor bird would probably die from heat stroke and it would be all his fault.

But I've dragged an old bird bath out and filled it so hopefully he'll come back.

Hopefully Betty won't try to eat it. Because she hates magpies, (don't we all). Doves are ok. Magpies are scum.

So here are some fairly crap shots of the beautiful boy. I didn't want to get too close and scare him off. He sounded exhausted. Those little strips of bluey green down his side are almost fluoro. (fluorescent for you non australians)

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2 comments

I was walking home the other night and I saw this baby living in a window.

She looked extremely alarmed.

I can see why now.

She has to live in that glass box with the freaky half face there on the right.

It's like she's saying - get me the fuck outta here

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