Bacon. Work trip. Periods. The Spill. Also, bacon.

Good day to you Loungers. Welcome. I hope you are all well.  Feel free to rest your politics-weary bones on our comfy couches, and pour yourself a snifter of scotch. You know Julia would.

Today we are freestyling it! Sort of. Link up any post you like! AS LONG AS IT HAS THE MAGICAL KEYWORD OF MAGIC IN IT.

Today's keyword is: BACON.

I will also accept FACON. For the vege-matarians out there.


I have been busily busying it up working mother style recently so it's all been quiet on the blog front. I had a trip out to Dalby for work which was alternately interesting, freezing, boring, exhausting, aggravating, titillating, confusing, and weird.


Anyway I got to wear a hard hat, steel capped boots and a high vis vest so ALL WAS NOT IN VAIN.


Here's some scenery.

Here I am in my glad rags taking selfies in my motel room before dinner.

Here are my steel capped boots.

Here is my vest and helmet. And slightly crazed expression.

I had been quite looking forward to the trip because, well, you know, KIDS and STRESS and NIGHT AWAY. And yeah, I'm not going to lie to you, that was pretty good. I missed the little blighters though, what with P's recent health dramas I felt a bit nervy about it all. Also I am still breastfeeding Baby B. Who, frankly, is fast becoming Toddler B. So I was worried about my boobs.  Also (and look I don't mean to be CRUDE or INDISCREET or whatever but look we're all girls here. Actually no we aren't. I do apologise.) but I also had, um, rather a HEAVY MENSTRUAL FLOW GOING ON.

So what with my exploding boobs and the traipsing around in the bush with limited access to the loo I WAS A BIT ANXIOUS.  If I could devise a hashtag for my experience of the trip it would be #shitmendonothavetoworryabout

Still I managed with a smile on my face and a spring in my steel capped boots. Because I am a PROFESSIONAL.

In an unrelated segway, it would be remiss of me not to mention the ole Spill tonight.  For the international punters, the Australian Labor Party chucked over the PM Julia Gillard for Evil Machiavellian Genius Kevin Rudd tonight. What a palava. High emotion, people.

It's hard to express my feelings in words, but in an attempt to do just that I have chosen the format of an acrostic poem. Using the word bacon. SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

Bon voyage Julia, our first female Prime Minister
Although her time with us is done because of men most sinister
Convoys of cleavage, misogyny speeches, all of these things couldn't rattle her
Often she was criticized by shock jocks like Howard Sattler
Now Rudd is back. Don't eff it up Kev, or Bill Shorten will have you killed.

(OK that doesn't rhyme but you all know it's true).

Over to you, bacon lovers. I can smell the crackling from here.

The Slapdash Report, The (Swim) Brief Edition.

As predicted I am already running out of ways to make my Slapdash "A Current Affair" Report amusing.  Did you watch Shaun Micallef the other night? Another bastard stealing all my ideas.  Trust me, I had an absolutely hilarious Report prepared but he used all my jokes. I am not lying*. Some people are just so damned uncreative. If you want to see all my brilliant ideas, go here. I have sent him a terse email from my lawyer**.

In order to squeeze some mileage out of my tired old concept this week, I've decided to write the Slapdash Report from the perspective of Tony Abbott's budgie smugglers.

My other reports are available here.

[Source] Courier Mail. Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott putting all us ordinary sloths to shame yet again. Doesn't he realise his fellow Australians are all obese junk food addicts who hate athletic over achievers? Who is his media adviser I'd like to know!?

Dear diary,

Woke up early this morning when Tony stuffed me into his exercise bag along with his musty old towel and running shoes. Sometimes I don't feel like this is a relationship of equals.  He treats me roughly and I just have to support him without question, physically and emotionally.  I want to leave, but I just can't. I adore the man. Nobody wears me better.  

 He was in a foul mood, probably because that red headed harlot Julia Gillard had announced she was going to spend a week in Western Sydney sucking up to bogans, when he had totally had the idea first.  He was angry with me for discouraging him when he first canvassed the concept, but it's not my fault I prefer the idea of a dip at Balmoral Beach to endless laps in the local murky Western Suburbs municipal pool.   

His temper was only made worse by those fools he calls colleagues when they squabbled once again about the refugee visa issue. I wish they understood how much they upset Tony when they fight, and then it's me who suffers when he's so distracted that he forgets to rinse me out in the laundry sink and I go mouldy.

Anyway, dear diary, I'd better go, Tony's shouting at me again. Oh God, what is it now? I'm exhausted from our session this morning, I can't handle another workout of angry swim/jogging.  Don't tell me someone's mentioned his "women problem" again. I wish those shrill feminists would just shut UP and leave the poor man alone.  Anyone who loves watching Downton Abbey with his daughters is obviously totally down with all that equal rights stuff.

Ever yours,

B. "Speedo" Smuggler

There you go guys, out of the mouth of babes togs.

Until next time.

Your faithful servant,

Slapdash Mama.


*I am actually lying. I do that sometimes. I know, despicable.
**Lying again. Practically pathological, really!

Destroying the joint - what not to do.

Baby B was somewhat better Saturday so I went ahead with a plan I'd made earlier in the week to take P out for a Mummy/Daughter day of fun.  I don't get much one on one time with the little mouse these days and I think she needs it.  My big idea was to leave M at home with Baby B, and to take her to swimming class and then straight off to see a movie.  I'd noticed they were doing classic Disney childrens movies on Saturday mornings at Robina so thought that sounded good.  This weekend it was Pocahontas, so I thought it would be perfect. G rated movies are a bit thin on the ground these days...

So after swimming we headed off.  When I had mentioned to a friend the day before that we were seeing Pocahontas, they remarked that they thought it was part of a sort of princess film special event, but I hadn't really given it much thought.

When we got there, a million tiny girls all wearing tizzy fairy princess costumes were milling round in the lobby.  I could see P, in her ordinary clothes, eyeing them off.  She said "Mummy why are they all wearing their princess dresses?". I made up some bland response but I don't think she was fooled.

Anyway I was a little bit blargh about that, but we bought our tickets and got given our Disney Princess Passports (ugh).  I was still more or less ok at that point, and the ticket person said afterwards there would be craft and face painting, so P and I thought that sounded pretty ok  and we bought our Malteasers and headed into the theatre.

When we found our seats, we were soon joined by throngs of little girls attending a couple of birthday parties, closely followed by two young women dressed up as fairies.  They went up the front and announced a few lucky door prizes. I was still all good with things at that stage generally speaking.

What happened next still makes me feel yucky.  The fairy ladies asked all the little girls to come up the front of the theatre.  I was a bit suss already about it and said to P "Oh we don't need to go up darling", but she looked so disappointed I changed my mind and went up with her.

Then the fairy ladies got the audience to vote on who was the best dressed by clapping their hands.  I am not joking.  They actually went down the line of little girls and held their arm over each of them, one by one, and the audience clapped and hooted if they liked her, or didn't clap and hoot if they didn't like her.

A mother standing next to us exchanged glances with me as they inched closer to our girls.

"I don't like this at all," she whispered.

"Me either. I didn't sign up for this," I answered.

I felt sick as they came closer to P. I looked at her waiting patiently in line, and I knew nobody would clap for her. The little girls with the parties had cheer squads and she wasn't wearing a princess dress.  When they reached her, I tried to cover up the lacklustre applause by clapping and woohooing loudly myself.

Thank goodness they moved quickly onto the next one, and P is just little enough that the whole thing was pretty much lost on her.  Any older and the shame of standing in front of strangers and being judged unworthy would have been unbearable.

The next event was a twirling competition (ugh!), but I managed to hustle her back to our seats before getting sucked into it.

I was so angry.  HOW DARE THEY force this veritable beauty pageant on these tiny girls.  The whole world has gone absolutely fucking apeshit crazy.  I wanted to yell "Fuck you Disney princess bullshit world and your dominant paradigm, fuck you and the horse you rode in on!!!!".

But I didn't of course.

I felt hot tears prickling my eyes.  I was so bloody strung out and exhausted, and felt so terrible about taking P to something where that would happen.  As the movie started, I remembered how tragic the whole Pocahontas story actually was, and as the first rat scuttled on board the ship bound for the New World the tears rolled down my face.

Oh God the TRAGEDY of it all was too much for me and it all got mixed up in my head as I wept silently in the dark - colonialism, smallpox, lost love, the degradation of Mother Earth, the oppression and princessification of all the tiny girls in the world by Disney, John Smith's bad English accent, the guy in front of us and his bad body odour.  The bloody shitting tragedy of everything.  I know. Just a bit over the top I guess.

I felt deadset sorry for the nice man and his two little girls sitting next to us as I clutched P close and sobbed quietly into her hair through the whole film, while she asked things like "But who is John Smith, Mummy?!" and "Who is Pocahontas?" and "Where is Pocahontas' daddy?" and so forth. I can only imagine how maniacal I looked in the reflected light of the big screen.

Frankly the whole thing left me feeling like I'd been through the wringer.

I trailed out after the movie ended and dutifully lined up with her to wait for the face painting. She must have absorbed my gloom because when it came to her turn, she sat silently and morosely staring at the face painter until it was all over.  The saddest face paintee in all of Christendom.

One of the fairies and P sitting as still as a statue.  

I had to ask the fairy not to press on P's black eye.  We must have looked quite a sight, my tear streaked face and her sad rainbow annointed, black eye sporting one.

I made myself feel better today by writing a letter of complaint and emailing it to the cinema.  I bloody hope they listen. I can take expensive popcorn, overflowing bins in the toilets and rowdy children in the theatre, but a surprise beauty contest for toddlers I will not stand for.
The #destroythejoint peeps would be disgusted.

Linking up with Jess for...

Break in the Weather. Sweating the Small Stuff.

Ma, the rains are here! [Insert obligatory comment about the weather, Crikey she's a harsh country of extremes, she is, and drought and flood and fire and pestilence and so forth].

Readers, I've got a bit of STUFF on my mind.  Yes, yes, of course we all know that I spend most of my time contemplating Art, Literature, Philosophy, the Downfall of Western Civilisation As We Know It, and my navel.   What time I have left over after I've finished that I mostly dedicate to Keeping it Real, Championing Feminist Issues and Making Benevolent Gestures to the Poor and Unfortunate, but look, sometimes even MY superior intellect and over-developed moral backbone strays into the mundane territory of worry and stress about the "small stuff".

Sometimes the small stuff is actually the big stuff, in a way.  So I've been sweating it. The small stuff, that is.

My comfort eating is back with a vengeance and my nails are torn and bitten.

I need to make a big decision.  But I can't manage it. So I just complain and poor-me about the same stuff endlessly and never change the thing that is really wrong.

Apart from that particular small stuff, there are other smaller, small stuffs that I've been wasting time worrying about.

So, in the words of Alan Partridge, let's just throw them all in the air and see where they land, shall we?

- We can't get the baby to sleep and he's screaming in the background as I type. Relaxing. Like fingernails on a blackboard. Who needs whale music when I can listen to that as I GET CREATIVE BLOG-STYLE.  My muse (or my A-Muse as I like to call her) is laughing at me while she lies on the couch and eats bon bons, I just know it.

EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION JUST LIKE THEY DO IN HANSARD: Don't worry loyal Slapdash Army, he's usually a great sleeper, just bad this evening which I thought added an amusing soundtrack to my Whining Blogging. Apt, even.  Carry on.

My A-Muse. She's laughing hysterically and saying "Don't worry about the bay-by Sarah! Here have a bon-bon!" [Source]

-  I don't want a smartphone any more, I think it's making me dumb.

- As mentioned, my comfort eating is back and my exercise habit is broken. How many months into the New Year was that, some kind of record? Gah.

- I'm worried that P is getting too much exposure to tizzy fairy princess ballerina tizziness mctizz shows/books/general stuff.  She is basically a very imaginative creative little thing and she loves to dress up and so forth, and it's not that I don't like princessy fairy ballerina ness in itself, I just feel that's kind of all she's into.  Anyone got some good suggestions for non tizzy stuff I can show her? Books/movies?  I bought her the movie "Brave" which is fantastic but it's a bit too scary really.

P performing an interpretive dance for a small admirer. With requisite tizzy mermaid style getup. Tizzy.  I like that word. 

So peeps, what are you worried about? Do you like bon bons? What are bon bons anyway? What issues do you champion? Do you like to dress as a mermaid? Or Cinderella? Anyone seen my moral backbone? I think I left it at Woolies.

EDITED AGAIN: To link up with Grace for Flog Your Blog Friday. One day I will work out how to put buttons on my blog. Anyone who nows how to do this feel free to explain in the comments. Grace did once but I still can't work it out. Blargh.

Boobs out for Kochie.

I know everyone on the interwebs has already had a thing or two to say re: our old friend and well known wit and raconteur David Koch and the public breastfeeding thing, and I thought about not mentioning it, but I changed my mind so get ready for my two cents even if it isn't very original.

If you don't know what I'm referring to read it here.  Also I feel the need to add the caveat that I don't care if you bottle feed your baby, people have good reasons, but breastfeeding is really important to me and I feel strongly about it and about creating a culture of public acceptance.

I think for me it was actually today, when he tried to sort of apologise in a half arsed way, that was worse than anything.

This article and also this one are written by people more articulate than I could ever be, but I still want to say this.

Kochie telling women that they should make sure they are being "classy" whenever they are breastfeeding their child, is to me another example of the larger general and commonly heald belief that no matter what a woman is doing, she must AT ALL TIMES be aware of her appearance.  She must always ensure that she is pleasing to the eye, whether she is walking around the shops, getting on a bus, reading the paper at a cafe, running a marathon or God forbid, whipping out a boob to feed a hungry/sad/tired/grizzly baby in public view.  Everything she does must be in full consideration of others and what they might think about how she looks. And frankly if she doesn't make an effort to adjust her appearance then what can she expect but public comment/criticism/ridicule, because didn't you know it is your feminine duty to LOOK GOOD/CLASSY/ATTRACTIVE probably even when you are DYING OF CANCER or bloody sitting on the toilet or anywhere.

What a crock.  This is such a big deal people! I am so mad about it I could just about scream. What he is saying is that it is ok to breastfeed, as long as you kind of look like Miranda Kerr, drape yourself in a peach coloured muslin wrap and retreat to another room to do it in a CLASSY way.  So I'm thinking he wouldn't be ok with a really fat woman with, say, a beard, a hunchback and monobrow exposing an enormous breast to feed her hungry child in the food court or wherever because I don't think she would fit in Kochie's gross little worldview.   But you know what?? That woman has every right to get her breast out in public, and who is he to determine what is "classy" and what isn't?

The other day at the shops a young hooligan wandered past me wearing a muscle shirt that exposed not one but both of his man boobs and nipples.   His breast tissue is apparently classy enough to be exposed to the world but mine isn't.

I can tell you now, people, that all this hoo ha makes me want to keep breastfeeding Baby B in public until he is 15, just to see the looks on people's faces.

Get your boobs out ladies! The more we see breasts doing what they should, in public, the less people will even notice! The more boobs the merrier! I have been guilty of skulking around the toilets/front seat of the car to feed my babies. Never again! No wraps or covers for me, I am going the whole boob out.

It's a boob people. Deal with it.

The comfort eating stops here.

We had Baby B christened on Sunday.  It was a wonderful day.  He looked the part in a dinky little sailor's suit I bought online from Gilt.com.  My first and enduring blog love Faux Fuchsia would be pleased.  She is an expert on snappy dressing for small boys.

Thank you internet shopping, you've proved yourself yet again.

What a dapper little chappie.

The proud parents, who, as you can tell from this picture, are positively wasting away and need a jolly good feed or they will be SKIN AND BONES! I don't think.

With the priestly legs of the priest (Hi Father M!) and with P wearing her new dress.  

I was a bit worried that P's dress was borderline Mormon Sister Wife but decided that unless I did her hair like this, it should be right...

[Source]

I realised afterwards that I wore blue on this occasion and wore pink to P's christening in what could be mistaken for deliberate gender specific coordination.  'twas not on purpose I assure you.

Mum and I comparing bosoms.  P only had eyes for mine so I won.

There's nothing more motivating than seeing unflattering photos of yourself. I've been scrutinising the christening photos obsessively.  Oh my.  The comfort eating STOPS HERE PEOPLE!  I am not kidding.  OK maybe not including tomorrow which is Melbourne Cup.  But DEFINITELY AFTER THAT!  I SWEAR!  I'm thinking of taking up a different habit, something that can keep the pounds off, like exercise (I've fallen off the running wagon a bit), or meditation, or maybe crack cocaine.

Whatever works.

I wore some voluminous Bridget Jones-esque knickers underneath the dress (my mother was happy about that naturally) to smooth out the lumps and bumps and obviously to save innocent passers by from witnessing the full horror that is the flesh-rippling effect of my normal undies.  I am simply ALWAYS thinking of others.  Unfortunately this altruism backfired slightly when I came back from the loo and lined up for communion, only to have an elderly man tap me on the shoulder and whisper confidingly "Scuse me love, but you've got your dress caught up at the back".  The humiliation.  I laughed shrilly and yanked it all down.  Damn you huge undies, it would never have happened if I'd worn normal pants and been able to feel my legs.  I can only imagine the vision he copped an eyeful of, poor unsuspecting parishioner.  The stuff of nightmares.

Oh Lordy!

[Source]

Alan Partridge. Lunch. School memories.

Pretty sure I've got a broken toe.  I was negotiating the piles of toys and crap on the floor yesterday and kicked the hell out of it on the coffee table.  I tried to pretend it was ok until I awoke last night in a cold sweat.  Oh the pain, the pain of it all.

Today it has become an angry purpley blue colour and is alternately numb and painful.  I tried to take a photo of it for the blog but was frightened by the similarity between my foot and a close up of the gnarled talons of, say, a hobbit or other such hirsute creature.  My feet do not stand up to close scrutiny at the best of times, let alone when they are exhibiting a hideous purple swollen toe.

We had plans to have my old school friends D and L and their kidlets round for lunch so I soldiered on, even though I was possibly in danger of comporting myself a little like Alan Partridge did after he impaled his foot on a fence immediately prior to giving a keynote speech at the Dantes Fireplace sales conference.




Anyway I pulled myself together and we had a wonderful time.

Baby B and Baby O getting to know each other.  We successfully negotiated a suitable bride price from her parents.  I think several goats and a decent number of shekels should do it.

The children played quietly together, and after lunch we encouraged them to practice their piano scales and arpeggios, before we joined them in a singalong of rollicking showtunes.*

L, D and I reminisced about school (hi guys!).  D remembered how I dobbed on him for throwing water balloons at us, and I gently reminded him of all the good-natured ribbing he and his chum gave me in music class, mainly about my teacher Dad's crazy old blue Volvo, but also for making a teenage feminist statement by letting my armpits go free range.  Oh, the memories.  How is it that we are so old and brittle of bone now?

Anyway it was really a fabulous day, and I exercised my characteristic restraint by scoffing huge quantities of the delicious cheesecake L made.  It was delightful.

If it doesn't rain soon I don't know what's going to happen to the garden.  Rain, damn you, rain!  We've planted a whole lot of new things and if they cark it I will not be impressed.

Hello you Nasty Urchin you.

Lavender, with added rogue weed-type grass infesting it.  Die, you awful weed!

*Not an accurate representation of events.  See previous blog entries for explanation.  The square nanny may have been involved.

Classic FM. Daycare. Misogyny.

Well, I'm in the swing of it now I think.  Bolstered by nice words from my rent-a-readership (ie my friends and relations), here is the next instalment of my scintillating blog.  M read it last night too, and found it to be not without its charms.  I found this gratifying because, as they say in the business, he's a tough audience.

Today was noteworthy for its encounters with grumpy old men who like to moan about women and mechanics who like to patronise them.

P woke up today on the grumpy side of the bed and I was only too happy to palm her off to her kindy teachers. Not even the calming and dulcet tones of our beloved Classic FM breakfast presenter Emma Ayres could soothe her savage breast this morning.

Australia's favourite cello teacher and Classic FM announcer.
Apart from Margaret "Throbbers" Throsby of course.

My uncle reckons that all the ladies in his bridge club hate Emma Ayres!  I find this inconceivable.  Anyone who has tired of Emma has tired of life, in my opinion.  Although, having said that, I do now remember that M is somewhat ambivalent towards her too.  Grounds for divorce, really.

At one point during her program, Emma played the theme from Schindler's List.  Rather inappropriately, it reminded me of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry and his girlfriend are making out in a cinema while Schindler's List is playing.  They get spotted by friends of Jerry's parents and hilarity ensues.  Speaking of Judaism,  did anyone notice the typo in yesterday's post?  Answers on my desk by 5pm.

This isn't from the right episode, but I just liked it.  Morty and Helen at their best.

Dropping P off to kindy set me to a-thinking about my looming return to work, and the dreaded day that I must drop Baby B off too.  3 months away.  B is a mummy's boy for sure and certain, and I have a niggling feeling the whole daycare thing won't go as smoothly for him as it did for P.  My guilt ridden thoughts naturally turned, as they often do when considering the childcare question, to that Leunig cartoon of the baby in the daycare centre.  You probably know which one I mean, but in case you don't, here it is again.  It was, um, a tad controversial.

Depressing.

Leunig's not my favourite. I find him smug and preachy.  Although, in a hilarious twist, I actually have a Leunig calendar hanging on the wall at the moment.    I am obviously a sucker for punishment.  It was free in the paper, what can I say?

Anyway, after kindy dropoff, Baby B and I went to the library.  After we did our library related business and returned to our lovely new car, we discovered it wouldn't start.  I know! I rang M, who rang the RACQ, and so Baby B and I waited outside the library under some shadecloth.  Naturally I was a little...how should I put it...irritated.

As we waited, an elderly gent, wearing trackies and reef sandals sat himself down next to us, a bookbag clutched in his gnarled fingers.

"Said 5 minutes, but of course it'll be 20", he complained to me.
"A taxi?" I asked.
"No, a woman", he clarified, adding in a confiding manner, "You know how unreliable they can be sometimes".

Not wishing to alarm him by alerting him to the fact that I, too, was a woman, I just nodded vaguely.

"Amazing really, if I'm late, ooh better watch out, but if she's late, well that's just fine," he wittered on at me.  "If I'm late, probably having it off with some woman, she says."

A highly unlikely scenario, I thought, but who am I to judge?  Stranger things have happened I suppose.  I blinked at him.

"That's the trouble today, no trust between people, no trust, you see," he concluded this dissertation with.

Yes old mate, I thought, yes, that's the problem. Mmmhmm. Yup.

Luckily, the RACQ truck turned up shortly after.

"Hello there!" I trilled to the two men, "I'm just so glad to see you!"

"Won't start for you, eh?" one of them said.  He was South African.  Imagine Tony Greig's voice.  He seemed like a trainee.  He tried the key and instantly noted it was the battery.

"Look, you've got the ceiling light on!  She's got the ceiling light on!" he gleefully pointed out to his colleague.  "You need to have it on "door", not on all the time.  She's had the ceiling light on, she needs to have it on "door", you know, in the middle!"

The other fellow, the boss,  bobbled his face in front of Baby B, saying, "What's mummy done, hey?  What's she done, what's mummy done?!"

"She's had the ceiling light on", the first man reiterated. "You have to have it on "door", not on all the time."

Naturally I was enraged by this misrepresentation, and wanted to shout, "You, sir, are a buffoon!" to him, or  at the very least haughtily ask "Don't you know who I am!?"  and so forth, but all I managed instead was to weakly protest "I never!".  I was confused, I'd never touched the damn light, and we'd only had the car a few weeks!  Then it occurred to me - a certain naughty 3 year old's favourite activity is roaming around the interior of the car, eluding my clutches while I scream obscenities at her.  The little minx.   "J'accuse!", I thought to myself, inwardly shaking my fist.  Well played, P, well played.

Anyway, long story short, they fixed it, leaving me with a long lecture about how you aren't supposed to have the ceiling light on all the time and to leave it on "door".  The South African trainee certainly got the lowdown today on how to be a true blue dinky die Aussie RACQ man, with a major in Patronising Female Drivers.  It's times like this I wish I was a woman in a powerful position where men wouldn't dare treat me with contempt, like being Prime Minister of Australia or something. Oh, hang on...