Unhappy Hour!

Melissa J Evans suggested, and rightly so, that I write a post about the price of drinks at "Happy Hour" at this place.

She played there on Saturday night and if you've been reading my past posts you'll notice that I already mentioned that. As we rolled up Melissa rushed out and stamped our hands with some kind of blind eye graphic thing that should herald to the bar staff that we were entitled to "reduced price, Happy hour" drinks. I thought this was fantastic as I'm always one to take advantage of anything as long as it's reduced in price. I don't drink out very often and in fact have probably not actually purchased an alcoholic drink in a bar for several years. I sauntered up to the bar and placed my order, flashed by hand and hoped that significant gesture would mean my three drinks would only cost the price of one. Isn't that what Happy Hour usually is? An encouragement to spend more on booze by getting you rotten drunk for next to nothing in the first place. Everyone knows that after 3 or 4 you just don't care.

I dug my $5.00 note from my wallet and handed it over with a giant smug smile. After all I was there to support the megastar of the evening and I was sporting some eye like stamp on my hand. The female bar attendant took the five dollars and turned it over to check if there was anything else to accompany it. She then looked at me and then back at the five dollars and let out an enormous sigh. "I'm sorry miss but it's actually $25 for the three drinks you just ordered". I coughed slightly and said "but I have this stamp, see" and waved it under her nose. "That stamp only applies to Blue Caracao, Sherry and Blackberry Nip". She said. How stupid am I? Of course it only applies to drinks that no one has dared to consume for over 20 years.

Sheesh. Needless to say those drinks were the first and only I bought all night.

It's here

Summer is here. Well not technically but it sure is hot enough. The tar on the roads is already melting and the pavements are curling trying to hide themselves from the sun. Some people are jealous of our summers but those people are all psychologically deranged. They need help in the form of therapy in an air conditioned office. The end of October and early November are my favourite times of the year. Just before the sweltering sun makes it impossible to spend any time outdoors between the hours of 7AM and 7PM.

What's so unfair about this is that we're expected to ENJOY Christmas Day in 40 degree plus heat. For some stupid reason we still bake hams, turkeys and all manner of hot edible things and sit around a table stuffing our faces while we drip with sweat.

When I was a kid Christmas never seemed to be so hot. Maybe it was but we just didn't notice it. After lunch we'd all hang out under the mango tree stuffing our faces with freshly deposited mangoes and watermelon that Dad broke up by throwing on the ground. We got the hose out and sprayed each other, had rotten mango fights with the neighbouring kids, played with our gift which usually included something for us to share and always came with a timer to deter any fights over who had been on it the longest.

As I get older and the weather gets more intense I begin to dread the whole thing. The sun just burns. Even our eyeballs sweat, we can feel the skin cancers developing and growing as we take the rubbish to the bin. The ground burns under our feet. Sometimes even the beach is just too hot to take advantage of - the sand is too hot to walk on let alone sit on.

One day we'll make it to the US for a white Christmas. One in which we can build snowmen, ride sleds, have snowball fights and then go inside and warm up.

One day.....we might even get smart and actually buy only cold foods instead of just talking about it.

San Francisco - Love Ya Gutz

This is not San Francisco (well der) but it is downtown Caxton Street, Paddington. This is where we just heard Melissa J Evans, sing a little ditty she wrote about San Francisco. She was launching her new CD. She personally signed the one I bought - "You're a legend, Love Ya Gutz!" Ben suggested she just sign it over to ebay so it can more easily be flogged off when she becomes a megastar but I wanted something a little more personal. Love ya Gutz is it.


She just gets better and better. Her songs of love, sorrow, friendship and sometimes even misery are haunting, soulful and funny all at the same time.

I don't like that one

This is Henry's new catchphrase. "I don't like it". "I don't like that music". "I don't like the daycare". "I don't like the muesli bar". Whatever it is we offer him he just says "Don't like that one". The only things he does like are the things he can't have; chocolate, ice cream, lollies, the huge truck at K Mart, his very own excavator, you know, easy things like that.

It's cute for a nanosecond and I don't know if he says it because he can or if he really doesn't like the things he says he doesn't.

Yesterday on the way to daycare I played a CD of songs, calming, soothing, quiet nursery rhymes, things that I thought he would like because when I play the radio he's always telling me he "don't like that song". Since he likes to listen to these nursery rhymes sometimes at home I thought he might appreciate them in the car. I was wrong. Each song was met with "don't like that song". I skipped through each one, he listened intently for about two seconds before announcing "don't like that song". When we got to the final song on the CD he said "have to buy a Wiggles music". So I guess that's what I have to do.


If one could buy truck sounds on a CD that is probably what he'd be most interested in listening to.

Let's clear the air

We had a wild storm rip through town the other day. It lasted all of about fifteen minutes and tore the roof right off this church, an event my husband witnessed. It might be a while before the "perfect church" is able to open its doors to some not so perfect churchgoers.

The days leading up to said storm had been rather tense in our household but the storm seemed to clear the air somewhat and that afternoon saw everyone at home in a relatively good mood. Always being one to take advantage of any situation Maya thought it would be a good idea, as she usually does, to ask for something.

Maya: Everyone's in a good mood today

Me: Yes, maybe the excitement of the storm gave everyone else something to focus on and brought with it some fresh air

Maya: Yeah. Hey maybe we could have take away for dinner

Me: No we can't

Maya: Why not?

Me: Because we don't need to, we have plenty to eat here

Maya: But I don't want to eat it

Me: Too bad

Maya: What about pizza?

Me: No

Maya: ok. How about the Golden Arches?

Me: No

Maya: Oh why not?

Me: Because of above mentioned reason. If you had no choice but a cup of rice to eat each day you'd be happy to eat whatever I happen to cook which won't include rice

Maya: But I do have choices. I don't have to eat rice everyday.

Me: Yes your choice is a home cooked meal or nothing

And so began an hour long argument about how everyone else gets stuff WHENEVER they want it. I always remind her this is not true but she insists on informing me that all her friends do indeed get everything they ask for ALL the time. Yesterday she told me that ALL her friends are allowed to have 20 people sleep over for a slumber party on their birthday EVERY year. Either this is completely untrue or their parents are all stupid.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Bossy Boots

Henry has become very bossy. I suspect this is partly due to the fact that he has had to learn to stand up to his sister and loudly tell her to "stop teasing me Sissy". The bossiness has extended to anyone who does anything he doesn't approve of, like for instance the little girl at the supermarket who was hurting no one by swinging her shopping basket while waiting for her mother. For some reason Henry thought she shouldn't be doing that so he told her very sternly "stop swinging that basket". Later while lined up at the checkout a lady stood behind us holding a cake she was waiting to purchase, Henry tells her "Hey, that's not your cake, put it back". Fortunately she thought it was somewhat cute and didn't slap me around the head with the cake for teaching my child bad manners.

That night while in the shower I heard him telling his cars to go to sleep. I looked around and he had them all turned upside down and was telling them "goodnight, sleep tight". He then ran from the shower to get a towel for their blanket. He covered them and then lay on top of them to hug them.

I like pets....cheap pets like spiders and things

If I had a spider as a pet it's likely it might go away somewhere when it got sick and die a natural death, or be eaten by its partner or a bird or a ghecko or something. That doesn't happen with a cat. When a cat gets sick it costs a whole weeks wages to fix it. It must be taken to a veterinary surgeon who will charge a lot of money just to tell you that it needs antibiotics, IV fluids and an overnight hospital stay because it has a gastro-intenstinal infection. My next pet will be a spider.

Happy Anniversary

Today marks the first anniversary of my first post. Well not by actual date but by Melbourne Cup race day. Yes it was that time of year again today and I'm proud to say that I won a total of $6 if you take out what I had to spend in order to win it. I choose my winners based on who is paying the most money. Of course that doesn't mean they are the favourites but precisely the opposite. Since the Melbourne Cup is the hardest race to pick a winner in I figure it doesn't matter who I bet on and going for the highest odds means that if I do back a winner I'll be further out in front than I otherwise would have been. This morning before swimming lessons and after watching out for the odds on the TV I went and placed my bets. When I did this the horse who ended up winning was paying $108 for a win. By the time it actually won it was down to only $17 and that is what I won as I only placed a $1 bet for a win or place.

Wee - wee

The thing I thought might never happen finally happened: Henry managed to actually wee on the toilet. After months of sitting him there and making those stupid noises that are supposed to sound like water running and having him watch us while we're at it and saying "wee wee" about 300 hundred times per day he finally managed it. Not without mess of course. Half way through he was as shocked as I was and had to pull it out midstream to see what was actually going on down there and in doing so managed to spray half the bathroom. Of course we clapped and cheered and jumped up and down and gave him a sickly sweet jube snake as a reward. For the rest of the afternoon he kept going into the bathroom and saying "you did it, yay! give him a snake!"