Poem: Delivering Newspapers

Starts out skipping, delighted with the role

Discovers bright numbers and a furry caterpillar; notes flowers and passers-by

Look at him. He’s flash.

Complements each letterbox in turn and checks for a backdoor

Paper tucked under one arm, head high and smiling

This one is slithy. You know what I mean when I say slithy. It’s feels smooth. It goes in smoothly.

Warm little hand like a kitten in mine. Like a kitten curled up in the sun.

Runs ahead

Haha I’m cheating!

Dancing away, within reach. Dancing in the breach, and back.

Suddenly slowly, the delivery girl dragging, the papers run out just in time.

Paralysed by dithering

Here's the thing: I totally have things to blog about. Oh yeah. But I *caaan't* (whiny voice) because: Two of my four readers either (a) know who I'm talking about or (b) are who I'm talking about. So I'm left talking about people who I don't even know (and therefore have very little to say about) or don't matter to me (ditto). Actually, the people I talk about don't actually read this blog, but THEY MIGHT oneday, and this thought horrifies me.

What do all the really worldly, older, more experienced bloggers do about this dilemma, I wonder?

Do they throw caution to the wind, and discuss the intimate details of their closest relationships and bugger the consequences?

Or do they instead keep abreast of all the latest global and local political happenings and blog knowledgably on those?

I suspect it's a bit of both.

However, being both a coward and an ignoramus, I am a little stuck.

Dear Old Bill

Life's good. Bill is fishing somewhere down south, and we lasses get to take up space. This is no small thing. When Bill walks out the front door, it's like a whole tribe goes with him. Bill really is larger than life. He's the sort of bloke that walks into a room before you actually see him. His personal space is acres-big. This would be a bad thing if he still drank a bottle of rum a day and lacked discernment as to whom should be beaten up for insults flung from three people away and so generally just made things easier for himself by collaring any available chap within arm's reach.

However, he was always nice to women, children and dogs. And thankfully, even in his most inebriated state, never confused the three. A menace on the dance floor, however.

Sigh. I do miss him.

Just another manic Sunday...

I love Thursdays. This is because Fridays don't matter - the week is so done by the time it gets to Friday that it really counts as part of the weekend. There's no point in starting anything new on Friday.

So Thursdays are really the last day of the week, filled with the glorious plan that everything that one has been postponing for the last three weeks will, indeed, be performed on the weekend.

Ah The Weekend, that mystical realm where every day has 36 hours, where sleeping in until 10 o'clock still leaves time for a day full of family outings, household renovations and focussed, effective study and genius-level completion of university assignments.

The only problem with The Weekend is that it has a Sunday. Sunday is a terrible day. All of my good plans are cheekily jay-walking across the boulevard when Sunday comes gunning its modified engines like a demon. Like a possessed demon. (Sunday is so evil, it requires several metaphors, in combination.) It bears down on the startled Plans until they are caught in its headlights. The Plans' ears twitch this way and that, their little round eyes fill with terror. The fiendish Sunday roars with laughter "HARHAR! You can run, little Plans, you can hide! But You Will Not Escape!" The Plans squeal helplessly, but it's too late. Sunday runs them down, smashing them mercilessly into the bitumen, reversing, then running over them again and again until nothing is left except for a pile of scribbled papers and an empty chocolate wrapper.

I hate Sundays.

The drive to Bunbury

The sky sobs and shrieks
and tormented trees toss their soaking heads.
Car after car rolls silently over the bridge.
Everyone is going to a funeral today.

I hope the sins of the fathers are just visiting upon the children...

Noisie: "All my stuff I make looks stupid to me."
Quirkie: "Really?"
Noisie: "Yep. Really bad."

On poetry, or the lack thereof

So I basically haven't been blogging anything because of this general sense of malaise for which I mostly blame Sweedums. Sweedums asked me to write an ode. Within the same week, the Dalai Maharishi, coincidentally, suggested that I write a happy poem, helpfully suggesting that happy poems are really difficult to write without being sentimental.

Coming from the Dalai Maharishi, I naturally believe this.

And to prove him absolutely wrong, I thought I would write an Ode to Happiness.

My plan was to look for moments in my life when I feel really happy, and then distill those moments into poetry.

Khhhhh...

Poem: After the Hens Night

The little nursemaids are covering me with their love

I am lying on the couch, in their middle

The littlest is rearranging my eyebrows, smoothing, crooning
My eyes shut-in a wandering headache; wavelets of quease wash around
Warm little fingers are poking apple muffin crumbs into my mouth

“I peeled the apples and I cutted the apples. Dad helped me peeled the apples and Dad helped me cutted the apples. He’s very nice. I mean really. He’s really nice.”

The oldest is posing in her flower-girl dress,
breaking away with Kelly Clarkson,
delighted with herself

The middlest is missing

Charlie Rich rolls in with the flow, dismissed

The littlest is off-duty, sitting on my hip, eating muffins in my ear

The oldest weaves in and through all morning, filling the room with Sunday and the sweet sound of twelve

The middlest waits with a crazy face, nose to nose
She presents a get well card, vigilantly carelessly made, pleased with my dopey surprise

Everywhere is warmth, music, movement and headache
and I cannot stop smiling

The best part about being a twit

... is that I gets heaps of new stuff whenever I lose stuff. Whose stuff? Sue's stuff. Sue's new blue stuff. (Er, Suess moment.)

So, casting aside all memory of that ungrateful assortment of personal effects, archived only in the previous blog, I pick myself up, dust of my sandals, and head for the nearest Strandbags store. Next week, that is, when the family payment cheque goes in.

I shall have:
1. a new handbag, bigger and better,
2. a new mobile phone, smaller and better,
3. a new wad of cash (allow me this fantasy),
4. a new diary, even more sensational than the last,
5. a new set of car keys, with extra jingle
6. a new frontal lobotomy (that should take care of any future creative placement of personal items)

(Of course, we shan't be eating next week.)

But, kids, what's food compared with a happy mummy? Think about it.

Through A Glass Darkly, or Where the Hell is it This Time?

Drat the whole universe I've lost my purse again. The one with my keys attached to it and which also contains my drivers license, bankbooks (yes, the old fashioned ones that don't involve plastic, number-of-the-beast-inscribed cards or the convenience of 24-hour withdrawal facilities), DIARY, oh my God its got my DIARY in it, and every other thing that makes my life BARELY FUNCTIONAL.

I've been tossing up between:
1. re-re-re-re-tracing my steps of Saturday for the forty seventh time, or
2. warmly and humbly embracing my absent-mindedness as the gift of a thorn-in-my-side to me from God, and celebrating that His power is made perfect in my weakness, or
3. forcefully and repeatedly plunging a fork into my eye.

Haiku

Heart warbles at friend’s
email. A wattlebird mocks
inadvertently.

Deja vu

Do you know that feeling when you meet someone and you both click? It's mutual and tangible, and you can almost hear the sound clungk! when your eyes meet. It's like you've known each other forever, but one of you has been out of town and a single cup of coffee doesn't make enough time to catch up on everything you've been missing from each other's lives.

I just had one such cup of coffee with two mums from my kids' school. I kept looking at them, thinking Where do I know you from? Except one is just visiting for the first time from Britain, and the other I'm sure I haven't met either (although Perth is such a small place really that you often do see the same people repeatedly without ever meeting them).

I feel so lucky.

Glitch

The receptionist at Centrelink has intriguingly large hands. As he types in my details, finding me an appointment space, he curls his thumb under (only one) so, at first, I think it has been amputated. This momentarily explains to me why a strapping young basket-baller in any other clothes would seek employment behind a welfare office desk. A sticky-deep voice, and friendly. If he had Down’s syndrome, he could hardly be as friendly. But his confidence fills more than his desk; it extends all through the reception area and into the carrels behind (though not out the door). He is little-world confident, and smooth. He enjoys his job. I resign myself, unnerved, to his care.

Notes on the achievement of personal perfection

Oh man, what a week! I thought I'd be completely into my timetable by now. You know, the taut, well oiled, evenly bronzed timetable that is to be written RIGHT AFTER THIS POST. The kids were supposed to be skipping off happily to school, and I was supposed to have written my carefully balanced weekly schedule of exercise, reading, studying, writing, housework and personal cosmetic enhancement.

Things have not gone according to schedule. But not too far off the mark, I guess, if by exercising I can count maternal mental gymnastics, if reading includes analysing overdue booklists for shortcuts to actually having to buy everything new, if studying means sending nasty emails to uni about my lack of enrolment advice, if writing means this blog, if housework means getting Bill to dispose of the SECOND bird the blasted cat caught this morning and tormented in front of an already distressed Mayday, and if personal cosmetic enhancement means managing to almost, but not quite, meet the generally accepted standards for healthy personal hygiene three days out of five this week, then yeah.

And as for kids skipping happily off to school:

Mayday has been, naturally, on red alert since Monday. Her first day at school, on Tuesday, went limpingly. "You're doing SO much better than last year", I kept reassuring her. "You haven't thrown up at all, and last year you vomitted every day for a fortnight. This is a terrific improvement!"

Polly has, to all appearances, been on another plane since her first day on Monday. Going from a very small primary school (less than 80 kids) to a normal sized highschool has been a culture shock, to say the least. The timetable she was given is a nightmare to read (I've been decifering it each night for her, using a map, a calendar and a list of subject codes for which there is no decoder). It's some ridiculous new system under which no student will ever have the same subjects in the same order on any day for the whole year. Perhaps they thought it would be more interesting that way. Perhaps they've stacked the curriculum. Perhaps they are complete doodleheads who don't give a flying toss for the sensitivities of a twelve year old who just wants to get everything right. Furthermore, a twelve year old who is a decent kid who actually wants the teachers to like and respect her and will bend over backwards to see that that happens, and who doesn't need to be read the riot act at every turn by teachers who have all obviously been given the drum by the new Principal that the key to a good education is DISCIPLINE, DISCIPLINE, DISCIPLINE! Grrrrr. FASCIST NAZI PRAT.

Deep breath... Calm... In with the love... Out with the jive...

Fortunately, Noisie has managed to secure the lucky bag hook every day this week.

OK. I'd just like to say that I'm glad its Friday. Tomorrow, we shall eat pancakes. Today I shall write a timetable. Perfection is still attainable, surely? I can still be the world's greatest mother, student and wife, (ooops, note the order), and write a mindblowingly intuitive, insightful and financially succesful novel before the year is out. Oh God, am I forgetting anything?

Disconcerting Fact #2

You're supposed to drink two litres of water every day, not one.

Recollectability

Last night Bill and I went anniversarying (for the thirteenth time) and just as we were paying the bill, and nibbling on a little (what I was later to learn is called) sonf, my old school buddy More Toast came up and tapped me on the shoulder. Having not seen nor heard of her since the mid-eighties, it took me all of 3 nanoseconds to go "Oh! More Toast!" and have flashbacks of sitting with her in the park behind my house in the middle of the night wearing only pyjamas and a Mum's-Cognac-infested giggle, reciting Eddie Carrot punch lines. Or is that Jasper Carrot? Oh hang on. Was it actually Kenny Everet? Bugger. See, that's the problem with memories. You think you've got them, then when you focus too closely, they get all vapourish. Anyway, there was definitely cognac (or was it cointreau?). I'm certain of one thing though, Lady M and Ferret were NOT impressed. They were looking after me and Bones while Miffy was in Europe. "How difficult teenagers have become", I'm sure they were thinking. They demanded to know who we'd been with. As in, "Where are the boys?". Sheesh, now that was embarrasing. There were no boys. Like boys would be interested in a couple of tipsy, fluffy-pyjama-clad, park-grovelling squares like us? Actually, now I think about it, the only thing that would stand in the way of THOSE kind of boys would probably be the pyjamas. But never mind. Long time ago. Oh, here's the really spinny thing: More Toast distinctly remembered walking (pissed and pyjama-clad) to school and rampaging (or stumbling) around the grounds like a couple of gits. Well. I certainly have no recollection of that event. Still, who'm I to argue with a dodgy thing like recollectability?

Disconcerting Fact #1

My bathers are the exact same colour as the toilet block.

After twenty years in the (match)making...

Well whaddayaknow! Miffy's getting married. She and Par Two came around for lunch to celebrate her birthday and there on the appropriate digit was flashing her latest jewelric acquisition... the engagement ring. The three offspring were bafflingly (to my mind) unmoved by the news. Presumably, in their world, maternal grandmothers are always dropping by to announce their engagement to someone or other, and such an event calls for no further comment than "Oh? Oh... Mum can I play The Sims now?"

Now if MY maternal grandmother had swanned in and declared, "Oh look what I got for my birthday. It's an engagement ring", I would have been a little more excited. For one thing, it would be completely out of character. Not to mention contrary to her stated opinion on the prospect of future matrimonial involvement, specifically, "What? Spend the rest of my life washing and darning some old man's underwear? Couldn't think of anything worse." Oh, she's had a few offers, don't you worry. I have it on good authority that that retirement home is a seething mass of desperate but dateless old geezers trying to find some foolhardy woman to stich up their undies til death do'em part, but Lady M wants no part of it. And I don't blame her.

Miffy, on the other hand, has no skill whatsoever in the haberdashery department, so she can be reasonably sure that Par Two's motives are genuine.

And I'm absolutely delighted. Furthermore, even though, by comparison with her previous marriage and his previous two, I've been married the longest (though, admittedly, to only one person) I will not interfere in the slightest with the wedding plans, nor will I offer any unsolicited (though perfectly useful) marriage advice.

Just so long as I get to be flower girl.

Another thing about children

Mayday has been farmed out to Miffy's for the weekend, and Bill has gone south for the opening of the marron season. This leaves only me and Polly at home to entertain the littlest offspring, Noisie. Having done everything I could be bothered doing around the house, I gave in to Noisie's repeated supplications to join her on the trampoline. It's not so bad, once you're up there (provided your pelvic floor exercises are up to date). You can see right over the neighbours' fences, even when jumping while holding the hands of a four year old. (I noticed that all my neighbours have much tidier yards than mine, and the morning sun was so lovely, I didn't even feel bad about it.) Collapsing onto the mat, (making a mental note to do more pelvic floor exercises) I caught Noisie on the way down, who fell on top of me, rubbing her warm face all over mine and nuzzling into my neck. It's funny how, when you used to share your body with someone else, you are never quite separate again. Holding, gazing, kissing and smiling are like coming home.

The others being away also meant that Polly, Noisie and me are the only ones on hand to chat with the passing Jehovah's Witnesses. Noisie contributed very little to this morning's interaction, except to lounge around on my hip while I tried to keep the door politely ajar with my foot. This is OK for short discussions, but if the visiting evangelists haven't thrown their hands up in despair before we get as far as debating the internal logic, or lack thereof, of the Trinity, then I get a cramp in my foot. This morning's was a foot-cramper. I got stuck at the bit about how if I'm in Christ, if I'm a part of his body, then how could it be that we spend eternity living on the New Earth when he's in the New Heaven?

Anyway, I hope they had a nice walk. It's a beautiful morning for it.

On the Training of Children: Part One

There's absolutely no point in not making a new year's resolution. I tried it last year, and all year I felt that something was missing. I mean, you've got to have a standard to not meet, don't you. You've got to have something to fail at, miserably, ridiculously, totally.

The year before last I was going to Get Fit. This was pointless. Meaningless. A chasing after the wind, if you will. I made a point of not even exercising once, just to show how patently unachievable this goal was. And it was a point well made, I feel. Nevertheless, I tripled my chocolate consumption, just to hammer it home.

Last year, as already noted, I failed to make any meaningful contribution to the concept of New Year's Resolutions (hereafter NYRs, which may also abbreviate Nasty Yeasts Regurgitated, and Not Your Roger, but is not to be confused with NEARS, which stands for Nearly Every Annual Ritual Sucks).

But this year, taking the advice of my very wise and understanding friend, Crusty, I have pledged that I will drink 1 litre of water every day. This has nothing to do with Crusty's name. That is a mere coincidence.

Also, as I do every year, I have sprung cleaned the back room (it was the dining room last year, but this was doomed to fail from the beginning), in which I have set up little craft stations (according to the age and disposition of each offspring) and timetabled and programmed said offspring to keep their station tidy, as well as to sit pleasantly each day after school to attend to their homework. I plan to have them so well trained that I will not have to do any cleaning up after them AT ALL this year (not that I did last year either, but neither did they, so it got very squishy all round).

I have been patrolling Zone 1 (aka the back room) by night and by day, armed only with a vacuum cleaner and a terse expression. Back and forth, I have patrolled, forth and back. No-one yet dares place their little pink toe across the threshold into Zone 1. I hope to have trained them into such form that, by the time school goes back, the children will be able to detect the sound of a pencil shaving falling anywhere within a three-mile radius of The Zone. On hearing that mutinous sound, my little soldiers will bound through the air, stretch their little arms out and clasp that nasty little shaving to their breast, crying "Mummy! Mummy! I've got it!" "Noooo!" the others will cry. "How can we now ever join in the glory of this battle?" Despair will etch their dear little faces. "Never fear, my little ones," I will comfort them, "Be diligent, my darlings. Keep watch! One day, many weeks from now, another pencil shaving may fall toward this immaculate expanse of flooring, and you may catch it!" "Do you think so, Mummy?" they will cry. "Is there any hope?" "Yes, my precious ones," I will say. "Yes, there is."