Boo

Halloween is not exactly a done thing in these parts.
Oh sure, the odd shop has a few random pumpkins littering their window display.   And the corner store suddenly puts a massive markup on bags of fun sized candy bars for the few people (like me) who think "Holy crap, must have chocolate on hand for the evil army of the undead/children up past their bedtime and hyped up on sugar that shall descend upon me!"
 

But round here, that evil army generally gets sent to bed at an appropriate time to foster their emotional and physical development, after eating their politically correct dinner of ethically farmed chicken nuggets and organic hydroponic mung beans.  And so the bumper sized pack of Mini!! Fun Sized!!  SnickerMarsWay Bars!!!  mysteriously vanishes over the next week or two, and months later wrappers are found stuffed behind the couch cushions, or inside the abridged Oxford English Dictionary.   Ahem.  Dang cats.
But now I have a Pugsley.  And as the Pugsley's own personal Mamarazzi,  it appears to be my duty to "Create Memories".  So while she may be too young for the chocolate, the terrorising of the neighbours, or the hacking of the pumpkins  - oh my, can she be dressed up.
And I have the perfect outfit for all three of us.

It allows her to be comfortable, cute, and for me to not have to do any sewing.

It allows me to be comfortable, (fairly) cute, and not to have to do any sewing.

 

It requires the Tall Guy to wear tights, a wig, makeup, and a codpiece.

I am so making this happen.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

The Tall Guy just got some bad news. He got the diabeetus.
It's come as a bit of a surprise, because in addition to being The Tall Guy, he is also The Thin Guy, The Fit And Active Guy, and The Hates Sweet Things Guy. As you can imagine, he is a mite irked.


"I can't eat condensed milk", he said mournfully, as we leafed through the multitude of "So, Your Pancreas Don't Work Too Good" literature provided by his kindly healthcare provider.
"And I can't have beer. Or Coke. Or Tim Tams. I never even tried those Rum and Raisin Tim Tams!"
"Uhhh.....Tall Guy? You never had that stuff anyway! You don't even like beer!"
"But now I'm not allowed it You try not being allowed to eat things!!!"
Yesss.....that would be called "Pregnancy", dear. 


In some ways it would almost be easier if he was overweight, and we did eat a twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun kind of diet. It would mean that there would be some easy changes he could make to do what everyone agrees is the golden shining miracle for type 2 diabetes - lose weight.
As it is, I'm not sure there would be much left of him if he did lose weight. So we're going to concentrate on building up muscle, a low GI/GL diet, and on him not catching me when I sneak a Jet Plane from the hidden secret stash.

Home truths

So it seems the Tall Guy has another new baby. And, well, so do I. Princess Pugsley Snufflepig is now nearly 6 months old, and is (as all parents are wont to declare), truly wonderful.
But.
Sleep has become a legend, whispered of in hushed voices around the coffee table at the weekly mother's group meeting.
Breastfeeding made me want to go back to the nice hospital where all the lovely people kept offering me drugs in labour, and tell them I'd changed my mind about this whole "natural" thing, and after all doesn't morphine come from poppies, and they're pretty natural aren't they? And what's a little drug diversion between friends?
But we persevered, and everything healed and its a lovely bonding experience and hopefully Pugsley's first words won't be the fuckfuckfuckouchfuckfuck she heard chanted through the first nights of her life.
My beautiful, colourful, and structured pre-baby clothes lie abandoned in an attic, and I schlump around draped in various items which can only be described as "black" and "stretchy". Black may be flattering for the figure (and lord knows my figure could do with a little flattering), but it does not hide the byproduct of one of Pugsley's more productive pastimes - reflux. You know those ads? For, I don't know, coffee or microwaves or the Ford Yaris or something? The ones where the new dad goes into the office all yawny and wearing the Daddy Badge - the teensy tiny splodge of baby puke on the shoulder? Yes? My question - did his wife give birth to a baby bird?? If those ads showed the Tall Guy, there would be white splodges down his back to his shoes, and a squelchy noise as he walked. This probably would not sell coffee, or microwaves, or even the Ford Yaris. It might sell Durex condoms instead


But, then again -
This baby is rolling and reaching and stretching and grabbing and yodelling and tasting and splashing and seeing the world with intense concentration and I am having to stop and say - wow, lemons really are pretty damn amazing, whether its your first taste or your five hundredth. A trip to the zoo made me look at ostriches and giraffes as the wonders of long stretchy necks that they really are. Wind and trees and even rain is really really cool stuff.
So this cynic had a baby. I think the baby broke the cynic.

You got to know when to Holden.

The Tall Guy has a new baby.
Well, an old baby.
An old baby with bench seats, lots of shiny shiny chrome, and a V8 engine that sounds like the hounds of hell have been unleashed, and would very much like their Meaty Bites now please. Oh, and fluffy dice. Can't forget the fluffy dice.
Its older than I am, and when people ask him what it is, he rattles off an incomprehensible babble of Holden blah blah Kingswood blah blah refurbished Colby blah blah VX78 blah air filtration blah blah. (When people ask me what it is, I say its red. And it turns like an oil tanker. But mainly red.)
I've noticed that when he drives it, he get approving head nods and wink and guns from manly looking blokey blokes driving other noisy oil tankers. We've even had the odd 'Nice ride, mate' when we pull up at lights. (I think, I'm still learning lip reading).
I'm bewildered why I don't get this reaction in my Rav? I've taken to giving people driving Corollas the wink and the gun, and they've shot away as fast as their 1.8 litre engines will let them. And I got slapped when I said 'Nice ride Mate' to a woman getting into her Starlet at the shopping centre....
Moral - Holden drivers more friendly than Toyota drivers.

The Magic Fruit

I decided my mission for the week was to learn to cook beans. (As in dried pulses and legumes, rather than green, string, or broad variety, cos a) how hard is boiling water and creating steam really and b) the Tall Guy don't like em).
Why the sudden need to cook beans? It strikes me as one of those pioneery women things to do. I'm all about the budget conscious, living like my Nana, hippy chic lifestyle, dontcha know. Plus, I'm trying to avoid doing any work on my thesis.
Buzzing with that odd combination of virtue and guilt I get when I try to avoid doing something Really Important by doing something Really Healthy, I took myself to the library to research. This is of course after I Googled 'How to Cook Beans', and saw a dozen odd entries all reporting that I should soak them, then cook them. Or cook them, then soak them. Soak overnight. Soak in hot water. Soak in cold water. Add some random seaweed. Discard the water. Save the water for geraniums. Use the water in porridge. Wash my hair in the water, then soak the beans. I was confuzzled. Plus, I like books. So library ho.



Apparently either no-one has ever written the book "The Real Facts on Cooking Beans for Confuzzled People", or there are a stack load of Pioneery Budgeteering Nana Hippy Chic confuzzled maidens out there who had become bean curious before me, for I found no such book.


What I did find was the Star Trek Cookbook. And the Desperate Housewives Cookbook. And the Friends Cookbook. (Actually, that one I'm kinda intrigued by, I want to know if it features the Shepherd's Pie Trifle that Rachel made, cos I have some people I'd like to serve that one up to. )
I'm not sure why it strikes me as so random that people would want to eat things they have seen others eating on TV, because really, that's the advertising world in a nutshell.


Other things at the library that possibly only I would find amusing? The fact that the sexual health section lies right next to the public health section, so that in the 'Oversized Books' shelf, 'The Joy of Gay Sex' lies right next to 'Not Just One Little Prick' (a tome on mass immunisation). Tee hee.

Minty Fresh

Grow mint, they said. It's the easiest pot plant in the world, they said. You can put it in tea and yoghurt and vietnamese rice paper rolls and juleps, they said. NO-ONE can kill mint, they said.

They lied.

We are not even going to discuss the basil.

Annoying thing of the week....

'Built-in bra'.
What I hear -
"Hey! Look! I'm a cute little strappy top, but don't worry! I come with underwiring and hooks and eyelets and space age stretchy stuff, and I'm going to lift and separate, without extra straps showing at your shoulders!"
The reality -
"Hahaa! I fooled you! I'm actually a weird ass flap of fabric with a band of thick elastic wrapping around your rib cage. I'm going to sit so low and tight that I end up transecting your liver, while you enjoy how attractive a mono-boob can be! I'll create random indentations along your torso! You're going to spend all day adjusting me as I slip up and down, and everyone will see the straps of the real bra you're going to have to wear, so you gotta coordinate too! And, just for kicks, I'm going to get stuck when you try to take me off, so you have to hop around with your shirt pulled over your head in the gym changing room!"


Or is that just me?