Mail call.

The other day I received a box full of goodies from Cleveland- the source of all things cool and interesting.

I almost tripped over it as I left the house in a hurry, and opened it using my very girlie lime green flowery Swiss army knife as I sat in the car waiting for Hell Boy.

It's contents were as follows:

• Barack Obama quilting fabric LOL - 2 kinds - my mind is now fully taken over with thoughts of WTF can I make out of that!? I do have a few ideas, but they're a bit further out there than usual, so I think I should just go ahead and do it.
• cupcake thongs/flip flops - exactly my size too
• wine cooler with a Rabbitoh on it!
  
• Oscar Wilde card *sigh*
• groovy gift box

This is the kind of mail I like to get. Out of the blue, fun and thoughtful.
So thanks Gretchen. xoxx

Naturally I have returned serve and we shall have to wait until next week to see how that goes. ;O)

Not welcome.

I am not welcome in the ocean.

I've known it since I was quite young, maybe 4 or 5 years old.

Actually, now that I think of it, I'm not really welcome in most bodies of water, be they salt or otherwise.
There's almost always a drama, and the few normal saturated experiences I've had were due to me being under Hell Boy's protection for a brief period. Like having an maritime bouncer or like in Pac Man when you eat the ghost and are briefly invincible. Heady stuff.

Hell Boy is descended from many many generations of seafarers, and I know this to be true because his mother once gave me instructions as to how to beat an octopus to death on the rocks.

Having grown up on Maroubra beach, and having spent time as a surf lifesaver, he feels very connected to the ocean and very comfortable in it.
He says he can feel it doing him good and washing away the negative residues of life. When he's in the ocean's embrace, he is completely happy and his soul is at peace.

I'm not like that.

When I'm in the ocean, I'm looking around, frantic, trying to determine from which direction the next onslaught will come.
As soon as I make contact with that salty water, it does all it can to eject me.

And if you don't believe me, I once got dumped in ankle deep water.
OK so it was at Maroubra, which is not the indigenous word for calm water, but still, 3 year old kiddies were pointing and laughing at me.

So, for one reason or another, I simply do not equate the beach with relaxation.
Except for the times I've been with immersed with Hell Boy, I have felt harrassed out there.

Harrassed by bubbles, even the fluffiest of which have the ability to knock me over if I lose my concentration.
Harrassed by every piece of seaweed in the vicinity.
Harrassed by small curious fish who scare the shit out of me with their goggly eyes and scaly slimes.
Harrassed by phantom shark sightings.
Unnaturally terrified of electric eels, pirhanas, moray eels and quicksand, all of which are looking out for me even as we speak.
Harrassed by blue bottles, for whom I appear to have a magnetic attraction. My guess is they're seeking the refuge of camouflage on my skin.
Harrassed by the agonising sensations of cold water that only someone with a light frame can ever understand.
Harrassed by the excrutiating pain of old middle ear infection scars due to wicked coastal winds.

And then there's the rips, the freak waves, that pointy scratchy sand, the cement...

Yep, the cement.

I was with Hell Boy at Avalon beach, hoping that the elements might be kind and give me a break so that I could share his joy in the beach experience...

And because he'd noted that the surf was too rough for me (it was barely moving), we went to swim in the tidal pool at the south end just to be sure.

I hate deep pool water, it makes me panic. But I decided to grin and bear it for at least 5 minutes.
I was cold too, so I hopped out and was sitting on a nearby ledge trying to warm up in the sun, thinking that it might take another 20 minutes or so before my poor skin began to change from frost bitten blue to sunburnt red.
Joy.

And then, even though I was nowhere near the water itself at the time, I got dumped.

Dumped.

How the hell is that even possible?

Well, the scar running down my left elbow and both my thighs confirm that you can in fact be dumped whilst not actually being in the ocean.
But only if you're me, so don't worry.
I slid a good 10 metres across a cement landing before coming to an abrupt halt up against some rocks, nails ground down to tatty splinters, dignity non-existent, a bleeding, pulpy mess.

Not welcome.

Poor Hell Boy.
At least I try to enjoy his passion though. TWSS

After this happened and the general amazement died down, it occurred to me that the situation felt somewhat familiar.

My mother lived for the sun (clearly not a genetically dominant trait) and as small children, Yoga Boy and I spent many an afternoon either at Mona Vale beach or at Parramatta Pool doing the whole 1970's bronzed Aussie thang.

Except me.

I was doing the "that dead blue bottle just stung me" or the "almost drown while both your parents are holding your hand" thang.

My parents had taken me for a little splash into the babies pool (ewwwwwwwwwww) which was perhaps 1-2 inches deep in the shallow end. I was maybe 18 months old.
They were having a little chat, each holding one of my hands and eventually looked down to discover that I was way ahead of any schedule and was already floating and on the way to becoming blue.

At the time I'm sure they felt a little negligent and very confused by it all.
My father being an engineer, never quite saw how it was even physically possible.
And lets' face it, it isn't.

Years later, after realising my God given gift for defying the aquatic odds, they just scratched their heads and hoped that I'd have the good sense to steer clear of the water.

And so I did until 20 years ago when *enter Hell Boy stage left*

Reading me to sleep.

Almost every night, I ask/hassle/manipulate Hell Boy into reading to me as I fall asleep.

And I'm wicked enough to expect him to read to me from books of my choosing rather than his.
Not that I don't like his material, but my final thought at night is better off not being Charles Bukowski practising to be a bum.
That's a day time thought.

I suspect that I fall asleep during the 2nd or 3rd paragraph, but he tells me that he reads 2 pages, no matter what.
I have woken up and roused on him before for not reading to me, just as he's turning his light out after completing the task. TWSS

In just the last few months, poor ole Hell Boy has read to me from the following texts:

• 20,000Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne ( he liked that)
  
• Mary Poppins - P.L. Travers (he hated it)
  
• Secret Lives of Great Authors - Robert Schnakenberg
  
• Around the World in Eighty days - Jules Verne
  
• Howl's Moving Castle -Dianna Wynne Jones ( he liked that)
  
• The Lucy Family Alphabet - Judith Lucy (he liked that but won't admit it - he read more than 2 pages and I suspect he finished the chapter silently)
  
• In His Own Write - John Lennon (he liked that)
  
• The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Wise Woman - Phillippa Gregory
• What Katy Did - Susan Coolidge ( he hated it)
  
• Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
• A Life - Woody Guthrie - Jow Klein
• Slaughter-House Five - Kurt Vonnegut ( one of his faves - no problem there)
  
• Rosemary's Baby - Ira Levin ( he liked that)
  
• Romulus My Father - Raimond Gaiter
• When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - Judith Kerr
  
• any number of John Marsden books (hated them)
  
• and most recently, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie - May Gibbs (he's really hating it)
  

Additionally, we listened to 6 CD's of Jane Austen novels whilst driving down and then up the south coast on our holiday recently.
His idea.
Sense and Sensibilty and then Persuasion.

Poor, poor man.

For someone who hates anything without the gritty immediacy of Bukowski or the quirkiness of Vonnegut, I have really been punishing him.

This is made far worse when you consider that he reads aloud to classes during the day - usually having to project his voice to kids who haven't read anything since Little Golden books and who never have any intention of doing so.
Having spent the last 13 years of my own work constantly speaking, I know that there are some days you just don't want to utter another syllable.

The other night as I plonked my book on his chest, he groaned and told me that he didn't think he could because that Year 10 class had taken it out of him - he'd read aloud to them for 2 sessions.
Naturally I suggested that he go back and tell this Year 10 that they were to have 2 pages less per session so that he would be OK to deal with me in the evenings. TWSS

I will be doing a nice afternoon tea for them at the end of the term if they comply with my wishes....

I'm thinking orange poppy seed cake, maybe lemon and sour cream cake and perhaps fairy cakes, just so I can see how many of these tough guys will eat them. That's what...ahh you know.

Of fish and strudel.

Just over a week ago, we had no fish in the house - except Frubert the unusually calm Siamese Fighting Fish.

Now we have my two boys from work as well as two baby koi, named Virgil and (O)baki.

My work boys, currently on their fourth set of names in five years, are known as Wartie and The Big One.
I had to fetch them home from the dispensary at work because we're moving and there is no-one there atm who knows about fish care.
Also, moving fish is a tricky business, and if it was attempted without me and it went wrong, I would be devastated.

So, for something different this year, they've spent the last few days watching me do the Xmas baking and such.
They're used to watching me, we've lived in pretty close quarters these past five years.
What these two don't know about natural health and the problems of the good people of Merrylands is nobody's guess.

It's OK though, they they're not blabbers.

Right next door to their South Sydney tank is the hatchery.

This was certainly an unplanned pregnancy.

I sent Hell Boy down to the corner store for cream, and he returned with koi.

Bill, the crazy Chinese guy who owns the store is a fellow koi enthusiast, and often pops in to visit our fish as well Hell Boy himself.

In fact, when the boys recently upgraded their pond, it meant that they suddenly had two 1500L ponds to spare.

Bill decided he would like to buy one from us, but within a matter of days, his tiny little wife came up and determined that he was not allowed.

Maybe two weeks later, Hell Boy came in laughing and told me he'd just struck the deal of the century with Bill.

"Get this," he said, "Bill's going to buy both ponds for $600. But, he's telling his wife he's only paying $250.Then, every few days, he's going to sneak up here and slip me $200 cash. I love that guy."

Being that each pond was worth that much, it didn't seem like such a hot deal to me, but we decided it was worth a few hundred just for the anecdote.

True to his word, Bill snuck up every few days when wifey wasn't looking, and slipped Jeff the blood money in an incredibly conspicous manner.

As Bill's shop is also a small garden centre, so he's using the ponds to grow and store water plants as well as baby koi.

He actually came to the last koi auction with us and bought around twenty white and blue baby koi.

Since Hell Boy's last trip to pick up cream, Bill now has only eighteen blue and white baby koi.

The other two are parked next to Wartie and The Big One.
Obaki is the Japanese word for ghost. He's the white fish.
But we quickly noticed that he has a habit of facing you and barking at you, so within a couple of days, his name was shortened to Baki.
Yoga Boy prefers to call him Baba-bow-bow-bow.

Virgil was my choice because it's just a super cool name, although I did consider Bela and Nosferatu, due to the fact that he has a rather pronounced widow's peak and his koi moustache looks like fangs.

So, our kitchen is standing room only.
Well, that's not true, there's plenty of space for them and they're welcome for as long as they'd like to stay.
Once the little boys are big enough not to be harrassed by the others, they'll be tossed into the pond anyway, and my fruit bowl can return to it's original position.

OK, to the strudel.

Fucking Apple Strudel, I hate it.

I decided to use Filo pastry this time instead of puff and I chose to include rum soaked raisins in the Viennese tradition.

During the course of the morning, I found I cannot tell you how many jobs required my urgent attention, just in a bid to dodge the inevitable.

I had the filling ready to go, the pastry defrosted and unrolled, the oven on, and I found myself outside, hanging over the balcony, chatting to Hell Boy as he sorted out the pond's filtration system.

He knew immediately what I was up to. Or not up to.
He surprised the absolute crap out of me by saying,

"I'll come up and help you."

This was his first encounter with Filo pastry.

You must peel two layers off, spray it with oil or butter and repeat until your pastry is as thick as you'd like.
He quickly diagnosed Filo pastry as having a "design fault".

Yep.

Anyway, we got the layers sorted, with my agitation nearing 9/10, thus leaving me still functional.

Then came the dreaded stage of rolling the fucking thing up so that the filling doesn't spill out the sides, the pastry doesn't rip and the liquid from the apples doesn't seep out and wreck the pastry.

After three attempts, I was honestly crying tears of rage and I need not tell you that there was swearing.
A nasty mash of English, Yugo and Lebanese. This is what happens when I'm really frustrated - my language centre overloads and I speak in tongues.

At this very moment, Hell Boy says t me,

"Should I be filming this for your blog?"

I returned with, "Don't pick me! Not over strudel!"

Only really a handful of things that shit me as much as strudel.

The Roosters.
Repetitive unpleasant noise/breakfast radio.
Injustice.
The vacuum cleaner becoming unplugged while I'm using it.

Anyhow, four fish got to see the whole thing, and they still love me.

And you know the worst thing of all?

That fucking evil strudel turned out perfectly as if to annoy me further still.

Evil prick of a dessert.

The Local Third World Butcher.

We've been searching for a good middle eastern butcher who does nice kafta in our area.
Shouldn't be too hard.

We dropped in to Harris Park a few times recently for Lebanese sweets and coffee...mmmmmmm shortbread and Date Mammoul.

sigh

Do you know how much I enjoy it when they look at Jeff to place the order and instead I ask for things in Arabic?

Well, I like it a lot.

My Arabic has been learned chiefly from Jeff's family, although I have always had Lebanese friends,so by the time I met Jeff, I could already say,

Kes Emek sharmoutah ... meaning your mother has the cunt of a prostitute. And wasn't he impressed the first time I let that fly!

Pretty good start.

Well, since then, I can also say:

• moon
• grape
• chicken
• saucepan
• underpants
• bong
• wheel
• sun
  
• coffee pot
• water
• yoghurt
• broad beans
• green beans
  
• hello
• fourteen
• five
• handbag
• meat cigar (not explaining)
  
• poofter
• lesbian
  
• my dick in your eye, referee (picked this up at a Bulldogs game)
  
• arse
• fart
• ladies
• pine nut
• thinga-me-jig
• fetch me
  
• flea
• pooh
  
• breakfast
• I want to vomit
  
• lemonade/fizzy drink
• donkey
• cock
• kiss my arse
• fuck your mother
  
• beans
• piss/priest - they sound so similar that when I asked Jeff what was the difference, he simply said, "..hhhhhucccccccccchhhhhhhhhh."
  
• follow the breeze
  
• fish
• drink
• all night (I bust this out at the footy as soon as the opposition attract their first penalty)
• eggs/balls
• thirteen
• you're very strong
  
• cat
• bread
  
• old man in the drawer (not explaining that either)
  

Another day, another blog, I may make it my business to construct a dialogue out of my Arabic vocabulary.
Last year, for Round One vs the Roosters, I deliberately learned how to yell out,

"The Roosters are 13 homosexual chickens in ugly old ladies underpants!"

This statement was highly critically acclaimed.


Notable absences in my vocabulary are :

• goodbye
• how are you
• my name is
• thank you
• please
• yes
• no
• still hate the Roosters

Of course these are the basics in life and Jeff doesn't often bother with them enough to teach them to me.

While he can understand Arabic if it's informal, he always answers in English.
He does teach me random words that he thinks are important.

Additionally my friend, Maheb teaches me my requests. I find I learn better this way.

I noticed a couple of years ago that when people speak Arabic in front of me, I no longer notice that I don't understand.
At work and even with my in-laws, it takes me a few sentences before I realise that I didn't catch what they've said.

If it's broken Arabic/English and they're the kind of person I can wave my hands around with, I can sort almost anything out.

Every now and again, I can suddenly pick out a single word from a conversation, so I now stop the orator and demand to know what the word is.
Last time it happened, the word I latched onto was snoo-bor - pine nuts. LOL

I heard, blah blah, chicken, blah blah saucepan, blah blah snoo-bor.

Regardless of all this, my 20 year cultural familiarity did precious little to prepare me for the Kurdish butcher.

First up is the smell.
Made my eyes water and my stomach turn.

I accept that lamb and goat have a more pungent quality than chicken and beef, but I'm also quite certain that you can make the least of that issue through cleanliness if you choose to.

This butcher shop totally rejects the approach of western butchers, in so far as presentation and arrangement of their goods.

A typical Aussie/western butcher will be as clean as possible, or will at least go to the trouble of seeming as clean as possible.

They keep the really scary stuff out the back and the fatty offcuts in Go-Lo plastic tubs under the counter.
The Kurds pretty much reversed all of this.

My friends who are Aussie butchers, kindly showed me one day the buckets that were destined to become either sausages or lipstick.
I couldn't really tell the different at a glance.

The Kurds are unconcerned with such nonsense as presentation and display.

As I stood with my hand over my nose (I figured this was less impolite than vomitting), I noticed that their front window trays, usually reserved for the best sellers or specials, were as follows:

Back left:

Tongues.
Big dappled meaty, ripped outta their heads, tongues.
And lots of them
No attention whatsoever paid to restricting them to their alloted space.

Front left:

Testicles.
Yep, testicles.
Delicate blue veiny, oval treasures.
And lots of them.

Back right:

Tripe.
Not terribly well cleaned either.
I'm not so silly as to suppose that the green stuff was seasoning.

Front right:

Par-boiled penises.
Sheep's I think.
That is, I'm not too cluey in this area, but if they were beef, they were surely not from prize stock, and if they were from a chicken, then I suspect the hormonal component of their feed must be in excess of 85%.

Now, all this was enough to dazzle even the most carnivorous among us, and when I tell you that there were tongues lolling around all over the testicles and penises, you will guess that I was glad I was covering my mouth so that my revolted grin was camouflaged.

It was all very XXXX in there.
Is there Z grade XXXX?
It reminded me of Flesh For Frankenstein a bit too.

You may imagine that I was not looking forward to making any sort of purchase there by the time I noticed the testicle blood pooling around the kafta tray.

And nor did I have to.

They selectively and deliberatley served the darkest people first, even those who came in some 10 minutes after us.

Having experienced this before, I didn't really care too much, so I was taken aback when Hell Boy really got his back up about this.
We left.

On our second attempt a week later to buy said kafta, I waited outside due to the smell and my fear of what may be lurking in those trays this week, but Hell Boy persisted.
After almost 10 minutes again, 2 more people had entered the store and been served ahead of him, he sparked into action.
He told them he was there first, that they were rude, ran a bad business and as they were saying, "Come back, come back", he told them rather clearly to get fucked.

I couldn't agree more.

Particularly seeing as they had all their overdue bills and debt collection notices untidily bulldog clipped right up against the window, clearly for the purpose of my entertainment.

Nasty little business that one.

So, looks like I'll have to bust out the mincer and make my own kafta.

God knows I'll have to do better than them.

Yazzie's dance concert.

My niece is ten.

Last night was her first ever dance recital.
And ours.

I made well sure not to sit next to Hell Boy.

As the first of perhaps forty dances began, I heard him turn to his brother, Duke, the child's father, and say,

"This is no place for the cynical."

Moments before that, I had been alarmed to see Duke glaring at the programme with furrowed brow, as his wife pointed out to him which of the dances Yasmin would be appearing in.
That's not a good sign.

I enjoyed it.

OK, listening to that music was like rubbing a cat the wrong way and false eyelashes and red lipstick on small girls give me the creeps, but I enjoyed watching Yazzie dance so enthusiastically (and well) and looking so deliriously happy as she did it.

Such a little woman now.
A tween.

But Disney music is always sure to bring on an attack of the bile for me, and the attack lasted for 3 hours, plus intermission.
This attack was possibly not helped any by the fact that we were so pushed for time, that I had to eat service station packaged cheese and crackers, a protein ball, chips and a large Freddo frog for dinner.

Anyway, I digress. The music was worse than your average mainstream wedding.

A whole new worrrrld...

Ahhh fuck, just kill me.

In fact, I would have to say that the music selection was, for the most part, more commonplace, predictable and boring than mainstream radio ever could ever strive to be.

Themed mainstream, of course, being a particularly virulent form of mental torture, still promoted and rewarded worldwide.

And if I was doing it tough, God knows how Hell Boy came through.

Commercial music is above all things, abhorrent to him.
He twitches, grows pale, starts muttering, and then comes out swinging.

I've never troubled myself to discourage this, as I know it stems from something wonderful and righteous.
Let's call it good taste.

I can't help but believe that commercial music enjoys it's success due to the fact that most people are so lazy minded as to confuse familiarity with appreciation.

This theory also explains the success of the concept of celebrity, free to air television, and organised religion.

Thank God for Yazzie, I say. She saved the day.

I must make mention of the Dad's Dance, because Jeff leant across his mother to tell me it should make it into my blog.

Half a dozen men in tutus and footy socks doing ballet.

Aussie men, mate, they simply cannot resist a chance to don women's clothing or to expose their arses to one another at the slightest provocation.

Why, just this afternoon, on our way out to pick up Dad's quilt, there was a guy in a G-string running around outside a pub to impress all his beer sodden mates in a bachelor party mini van.

Jeff believes this behaviour is a throw back to convict/colonial days when they'd all started looking mighty good to one another, and that their DNA somehow warped to accommodate this.

With this in mind, I wonder what Charles Darwin would have made of The Footy Show.
My guess is that it would have thrown a greater spanner into his survival of the fittest theory than the humble peacock ever did.

Of course, I much prefer peacocks to drunken men.

But then, who doesn't?

It was nineteen years ago today...

...that Sgt Pepper taught the band to play.

And what a year that was.

19-fucking-89 hey?

Watching my mother's body fail and die, learning to cross stitch and meeting my life partner - and all within the space of just a few weeks.
How did I do it?

Add to that, the sudden accumulation of a large Lebanese family, seeing the Ramones live twice in one week and a return to geriatric nursing, and you will be able to appreciate what a big year that was for Simone.

Just a few ups and downs.
Often at the same time too, which was nice. (TWSS)

I don't believe I've ever been called upon to change gears mentally and emotionally as often and as violently as I was in 1989.

Oh that reminds me. I think I also learnt to drive that year.

I vividly remember visiting Mum in the hospital on a Sunday morning just days before she fell unconscious for the last time and telling her with the utmost certainty that I'd seen him the night before.
Him.

She smiled, patted my hand and told me, "You know what you're doing."

It's a wonderful feeling to know that an esteemed parent can have such faith in your judgement, even at that age.
It's an even better one to have it proven right day after day, week after week, year after year.


Knowing full well that she only had days left to her, and having a fair idea of the gut wrenching, irrevocable grief that we were all about to experience as a result, I'm pretty sure I asked her,

"But now?!"

She answered me in a way that quietly confirmed to me the wisdom of the Universe's timing and the good sense of trusting in that.
She really was switched on.

I still miss Mum in a way I cannot understand.
I contort my mind sometimes and try to assess how much I've missed out on all these years, but it's like trying to look at the back of your own head in the mirror - you get a glimpse of a glimpse but no more.
But you always look again, don't you?

Anyway, not too long after that, our family lost it's axis.
So much change.

But I don't look back at it all now without choosing to focus on the wonderful things that happened that year as well.
Otherwise, what's the point?

Apart from Jeff, I was provided with a new family.

One I even liked! And still like!

How often does that happen?

Another of those 1989 moments that are frozen in time for me was when I met Jeff's mother, Yvonne for the first time, maybe only 6-8 weeks after losing my own mum.

As I stepped inside the house, all I could see was her silhouette.

We met half way between the front and back doors, and for some reason, we were alone there.

Applying logic, I guess Jeff had ducked into the bathroom with incredibly poor timing, which is his want, even today.

So here I was, perhaps trespassing in a hostile Lebanese house, staring down the barrel of either my potential mother-in-law or my worst nightmare.

Disaster or success?
Really, I don't even know what it all hinged on.

The silhouette was dead still and with no facial expression cues to work with, I just had to rely on my intuition, hope and expectation.

Surely the kind of woman who would bring up this person to be so friendly and relaxed must be cut from the same cloth.

We both paused for what seemed like eternity and then simultaneously threw our arms open and shrieked,

"Yeeaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy!"

It's been that way ever since.

Never had a cross word from that woman.
Actually, I've never heard a cross word form her full stop.

I have seen her play practical jokes on people and take the piss though.
Hey, I've even heard her call her husband a hairy grey donkey's arse.
Sure it loses a little something in translation, but it will ever be one of my faves.

She's a lot like Jeffrey. In looks as well as in nature.

When Jeff and I met - not straight away, as our first date was more or less a double date with both our brothers.
No, no, that came out all wrong (TWSS). I'll explain that presently, don't panic.

What I meant to say was that when Jeff and I eventually enjoyed time alone without our brothers hanging around, I peppered him with a few questions, carefully designed to expose any major foible.
What a crafty 20 year old.
Maybe all that Trixie Belden paid off.

Firstly, I asked him about his mother.
My theory being that men who have a poor opinion of their mothers, will extend that to their partner by and by.
His response was,

"You'll have to meet her, she's unreal!"

And she is too.

Then I asked if he could cook, while pretending that I could not.
He told me about some incredible chicken dish he'd made recently and that it was OK if I didn't know how to cook- he could do all that.

Then I sussed out addictions.

Nothing.

Uh-oh....


But yes, to clarify...our first date...

We were accompanied by both our brothers.
That's probably tradition on some planets, but we must have looked somewhat odd that night.

They hit it off in such grandiose fashion that the real reason for the outing kinda got washed away.
At one stage, I vaguely remember jogging along behind them, waving and saying,

"Hellooooooooooo, remember me?"

All these years later it still stuns me at how much these three adore each other.

That very night, after Adrian solved the riddle inscribed onto the rim of their latest single (they were in a band, no I'm not going to discus that now), they made him an honourary member.

Anyway, that was nineteen years ago today.

Nineteen fucking eighty nine.

That's what she said.

That's what she said jokes are a big thing around here.

And they've been big for a while and they're not leaving anytime soon.

In fact, HellBoy works with them so often and with such commendable mental dexterity that he's developed a gesture capable of replacing the statement itself in order to save time and conserve energy.

He once told a friend that he should just write it on his forearm and simply raise it when it suits him. (TWSS)

Not being in the least bit commitment-phobic - he's been with me these 19 years, he recently announced his intention of taking it that step further and having That's what she said! tattooed down his forearm in Chinese characters.

After snorting my chamomile tea through my ears and scratching my head at his comic timing - we were watching the weather I believe, I asked him why not choose Arabic writing?

He tells me he would like to be able to travel without being rubber gloved each trip, which is fair enough, but such encounters would surely give rise to many juicy opportunities for TWSS, making it almost worthwhile.

Or auf Deutsch in lovely old Teutonic script?
Yoga Boy kindly translated TWSS to Das hat sie gesagt!
Made even funnier of course by the complete absence of appreciation that most Germans would have for such lame double entendres.

So, he's off to school to ask the straightest Chinese science teacher he can find to write the characters for him.
He even tells me that he hopes this guy deliberately or accidentally writes something else.
That's HellBoy's true sense of humour, and I salute him for it.

Left holding the baby.

Hell Boy possesses an extreme talent for dealing with difficult teenagers; mostly because he was one himself.
But also because he likes them.
You can't fake that.

Whenever there is trouble at school, they head straight for him to come and sort it out.
And this he usually does with just a look or a gesture.

After all these years of teaching, he remains baffled as to why other teachers cannot just as easily accomplish the same.
But then he doesn't know why teachers would choose to eat their lunch in the staff room instead of outside with the kids.

I doubt very much whether any teacher (ever) has been as beloved as Hell Boy.
Grand statement I know, but then maybe you haven't been with him when we've been out shopping.
He gets mobbed. Regularly.

I would have added kilometres to my journey to avoid a teacher socially when I was that age.

One group of boys used to tease each other with fake Affas sightings.

We've long since run out of places to shop locally without being offered extras by students and ex-students alike.

It warms my heart just to think about others loving him, but more importantly, to think about them liking this guy as much as I do.

As the years tick by, layer after layer of good karma is built up, or repaid as he sees it. He's almost done, he thinks.

So, with this kind of raw ability for taming and moulding headstrong and disadvantaged children, what do you think he might have done when asked to mind sick 14 month old Lina while her mother, Tone and I ducked into a German supermarket for dinner supplies?

I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to guess what they were doing.

This clip makes me cry for all sorts of reasons.
I recently played it to Viv, she was wiping tears away by the end too. But she was laughing.

Typical of Jeff, he doesn't see what all the fuss is about.

Who knew that the highway to hell was actually in the car park of Tengelmann's Supermarkt in Solingen all along?
Certainly not the locals.

Anyway, teach them well.

:O) :O) :O)

South Sydney - Part One.

Before writing this, I've had to centre myself, align my chakras with the almighty red and green energy in the sky (not Santa), regulate my breathing and chant quietly to myself for 21 minutes.

21!

A few of you will understand it's significance.

A few of you will sit there, smugly believing that it's simply half of 42 and that that's what I meant.

You're both kinda right.
You're both nerds too, but that's OK.

If neither number excites you at all, you've clearly stumbled into my blog by accident and will be leaving again just as soon as you finish scratching your head.

Good. They're gone. And we're alone with my stupidity once again.
How nice.

So, I promised faithfully that one day I would try to explain my love of sport to you.
Initially my plan was to explain it to myself first, but who can be bothered waiting?

Better to stick to my overall approach to life - just make a start and figure it out as I go, making sure to keep the glass half full, my mind open, my heart full and my hands busy.

Can do.
Wow!Look at me go.

Right.

I must start by saying that I always detested sport.
I grew up in a half Slovenian household, meaning that weekends = soccer.
Except that in the 1970's, in lovely culturally tolerant Australia, it was better known as wogball.

So, I grew up in a wogball family.

My father played.
My father coached.
My father refereed.
My brother played.
My mother watched.
I complained, ate lollies, climbed monkey bars with other traumatised little girls and read a book, all the time secretly wishing shocking injuries on anyone with shin guards on.

I never watched a single second of that vilest of vile sports.

And when my father offered (insisted) to let me play netball, I told him outright that I would not be disposed of in that way, that only bitches played netball and that such a thing would occur over my dead body.

Very soon after that, I was allowed to stay home alone and do as I pleased.
He never mentioned netball again.

Two World Cups ago, Jeff timed me to see how long I could make it watching a wogball game without making a sarcastic remark.

15 seconds.

And I was trying! I really was.

So, with all these emotional land mines in my background, imagine my joy when I met and partnered my very favourite man in the world, only to discover that he would like to watch every single game of rugby league, every single week for 30 plus weeks a year for the rest of our lives.

Every one.

Hilarity ensued...

On our second date, he said to me,

"You're the one. All you have to say are two words and I'll know for sure...South Sydney!"

Naturally I refused.

C'mon! Sport!? What would you have done?
FFS

And rugby league at that!
Wogball's stupid, toasted cheese on damper plain Australian cousin.

"This isn't going to work", I thought.

And it wouldn't have either, had somebody not budged.

It was pretty much the only thing that we ever really argued about. It was awful.
I wanted him to enjoy the sport, but for me, having already lost every Saturday of my childhood to wogball, the prospect of losing chunks of my weekends as an adult to rugby league was devastating.

Even more devastating was the confusion and embarrassment of secretly purchasing a rugby league rule book soon after.

And then the frustration and humiliation of Friday night football.
Each Friday night, I would sit, alone, balancing a cat or two on the end of the lounge, desperately flicking through the rule book, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

And then the joy of disguising my increasing knowledge and familiarity with the game from Hell Boy until I was ready to unveil the new and improved me.

From memory I lasted like 3 games before standing bolt upright and screaming,

"Forward! That was a fucking mile forward!"

You see, I corrected my ignorance and I've never looked back.

But having learned football from Friday night matches in the early nineties, I became quite fond of the Canberra Raiders as a team. They were lime green and amazing to watch.

Hell Boy (my new blog name for Young Jeffrey -I mean, have you seen him?...LOL - he's a big red smart arse who loves cats) was constantly at me to support Souths (I'd liked them since childhood anyway) but I was in my early 20's and not inclined to do anything just because a man wanted me to.
I thought that learning rugby league was enough.

But in 1998, when Souths were unfairly kicked out of the competition, I saw the impact it had on him. I started looking into the reasons it had happened, as well as watching and appreciating the phenomenal fight that was put up to keep the club going during legal proceedings which might better be described as rape.

Uh-oh... nothing like injustice to capture my attention...

So, I started getting involved in ways that I understood - buying merchandise for a team who no longer existed, making 3 course red and green meals (kiwi fruit and strawberry shortcake is awesome), learning the club song...

Then they held a rally.
I offered to take Jeff and his brother. At the time they told me they didn't see the point. No-one would beat Rupert Murdoch and they would just get upset if they went.

I was most put out by this.
I still don't understand it all these years later.
You may not think you're going to win, but you must never let that stop you from being heard.

I could complain bound and gagged underwater, so having the opportunity to do it in the streets of Sydney with thousands of other people really appealed to me.

So, as the day of the second march drew near, I informed the boys that I was going if they'd like to come with, and was thrilled to finally be doing something positive for something they loved.

Incidentally, as we marched arm in arm amidst a sea of red and green, we were snapped and the boys (not me -FFS) made it into Who magazine as South Sydney zealots. ;O(

I was a little cranky about that. Still am.

At that rally, I joined the club, despite not being a Souths supporter. I made the boys join. I bought T-shirts, stickers and God knows what else.

I stood and listened to those speeches and songs, teary eyed, not quite understanding why I was so moved.
I'm slow, OK? I still hadn't figured out that I was a fan.

I also remember looking around at the immense crowd behind us and mentioning to Hell Boy that we were the only ones present with front teeth, but that I wasn't frightened.

I bought the Souths protest music CD and started playing it at home.
Jeff didn't like it, so I used to listen to it when I was home alone.
Still didn't know I was a fan though.

The day the final decision was handed down, I was collating the most evil stock take at home.
At 11 o'clock, I was sitting on the coffee table because my legs were shaking almost as much as the phone in my hands.

When the decision was positive for Souths, I sat and cried out loud all by myself.
As they cut to scenes of toothless, jubilant fans at the club, I vividly remember wiping away my snot and tears and saying out loud,

"Oh fuck, I'm one of them!"

Oh fuck indeed...



To be continued...

(Shut up, Happy Days did it...)