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!

Mundanity, yo.

Hello all. How are youse guys going? Me, I'm tired, bra-less and wearing stained clothes, thanks for asking.

I'd like to extend a personal welcome to all my new followers! You have just taken your first big step towards happiness and personal fulfilment. Trust me! I am like the Anthony Robbins of the blogging world. No shit. I am unleashing some serious "power from within" right now. I kid you not.

But enough with the fart jokes, let's move onto more serious matters, like my previous post on the impromptu beauty pageant P was in at the cinema.

The cinema emailed me back and seemed very worried and concerned and thanked me for letting them know.  I'm thinking the manager had no idea what the fairy ladies had planned.  Hopefully they will pay more attention when organising this sort of thing in the future. Maybe I should go this Saturday as a sort of mystery shopper just to check up on them. Hmm.

Anyhoo, today was mundane, which was fine with me.  The weather is positively apocalyptic in SEQ at the mo.  Rain, rain and more rain.  Thinking of everyone in places like Gympie who are going under for like the fourth time this year. Bad juju.

As a result we were pottering round inside. Here's a rundown of the day in dot points, my favourite inclusion in a blog post. Apart from irony. I love that bitch sick.  Don't ever leave me.

• Made wholemeal Vegemite and cheese scrolls, baked the shit out of them until they were as tough as old boots and essentially inedible, and then ate like a thousand of them anyway cos that's just how I roll. Or should I say, that's how I "Vegemite scroll".  Ahahahaha.

P declared them too "crunchy". She was right. Check out the one on the far left. Dry as a dead dingo's donger, as they say.

• During lunch P got really tired and excused herself from the table, changed into her jarmies, snuggled down in her bed AND WENT TO SLEEP FOR LIKE 2 HOURS! I know. WTF. Another sign the apocalypse is nigh.  I got really freaking excited that maybe I would have both kids sleeping during the day for the first time in MONTHS AND MONTHS but naturally B, having had a good sleep in the morning, wouldn't oblige me, the little devil.  I rang Michael to tell him and he said "Maybe it's something you did in a past life that means you can't get the kids to sleep at the same time." I think he could sense my eyes narrowing through the telephone line.

• Went next door for coffee in the afternoon and workshopped with my neighbour all the ways we could do more exercise and eat better, then came home and ate a whole lot of ice cream out of the tub while the kids were looking the other way.  Ugh.

In conclusion, I leave you with some Before and After photos of our recent backyard blitz.  Prepare to be amazed. Amazed I tell you.

Before...

 After...

I know what you are thinking but don't worry we mulched the herb garden after this photo.

Somebody call Gardening Australia, I think I can feel a visit from Costa coming on!

Any news, dudes? Spill it.

xx

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...