Last Chance to...

...Blog. In a few hours my home office will be filled with brand new appliances and the house full of demolition dust. My computer will be inaccessible.

First thing tomorrow we will be getting up and hitting the road to the south coast to be wed -- Hooray! Bumblebee is at school today, thank goodness, because he's getting very excited and bouncy. Last night I went to a wonderful Hen's Night (thank you, girlhens) which may or may not be related on crazybrave's site today if she has enough braincells to share with us. Much chortling and pizza eating and making over of faces and nails. The obligatory edible undies are now in my bag ready for the wedding night (not just edible! Gummy! Should I have a Brazilian first?!).

One side of the house is almost empty, ready to be gutted and remodelled. Will go around and take shocking 'Before' photos to show people what a change has been wrought on our ex-govie. I used to hate this house. Whoever designed these shoeboxes did so with a meanness of spirit which shall return to them tenfold with any luck. I should explain. I am an Army Brat, and therefore have moved around a lot in my lifetime. When I left home I still had the bug, and spent my first ten years in Canberra moving almost as many times. I have lived in some stunning houses, and some shitboxes. This is the shittiest box of all, but it was bought by my parents years ago as an investment property, and they sold it to Best Beloved and I for only half the retail value, so this will be the last time I complain. It may be crappy, but it is all ours. And it is about to be transformed, so I will hopefully be in love with it in ten days. I'm certainly in love with living with Best Beloved, so how can it go wrong?

And only two sleeps to go.

Wish us luck. We are embarking upon an awfully big adventure. Here be dragons!
I will write again on Saturday week...

Bouquets to...

I'm giving this one to Jean Mulvaney again (sorry, no trackback, scroll down). I went to her funeral a couple of days ago, and got my facts straight about her epic bicycle ride. It was in 1946, with three other girls. They started from Melbourne, and no one gave them a big farewell, because they thought they'd give up within the month. One did; another stopped at Adelaide. Up at 80 Mile Beach in north WA, Jean and her friend had to get off their bikes, leave their gear, carry the bikes to the other end of the beach, then walk back and get their gear. The two young women worked their way around, taking on all sorts of jobs. At one point Jean worked for a couple of weeks as a crocodile shooter. Her friend stopped somewhere in the NT or the top of QLD, having met and fallen in love with someone on a station. Jean wasn't daunted by the lack of company. She kept going, working and riding her way down the East coast alone until she made it back to Victoria. The whole trip took well over a year. Her family and friends know good chunks of the story, but she never thought it interesting enough to write down in great detail, and so the whole adventure dies with her. And that's only one small part of an incredibly rich and purposeful 81 years. Can you see why I'm going to miss her?

Take a big deep breath...

Four (4!) sleeps to go until the wedding of my lifetime (always want to write 'weeding', which I guess is rather apt, as I have weeded out a lot of wrongies from my past). Just as one aspect of organising not just a wedding but also a major renovation (sorry, no backtrack; just scroll down aways) comes under control, another rears its ugly head. Stress comes, stress goes. So many waves of stress that I feel like giving up and giving a faint wave as the tide drifts me away into the deeps.

One source of underlying worry, so to speak, has been (mal)lingering for a number of weeks now. It concerns a missing pair of undies. I have been visiting outlaws and own parents over the last couple of months and at one point I've come home undie-less. Yikes! I wouldn't worry if they were just normal undies, even if they were my oldest middle-of-a-period scungies. But these are not just any undies. They are my apple-green boy-leg Bonds undies with the words 'Sweet Cunt' emblazoned on the front in glitter. Extremely comfy, and ever-so nice to wear underneath the straightest of clothes. Not something I'd buy for myself until now, now that I've experienced the fun of secret undie messages. These were given to me as a trade by the fabulous Fairy Shop at the National Folk Festival in return for downloading the emails from their laptop.

Once I realised they were missing, I had to think back as to where I could have left them. With my mother? She could cope, unlike my dad, who would turn purple at the idea of his daughter wearing the 'c' word (but would never, ever admit to seeing them, like the good ex-Catholic boy he is). No, my mum would have returned them with a giggle. With my soon-to-be Inlaws? They are both open-minded people, but also both Ministers of the Uniting Church. Well, it could account for the slightly pursed lips on Mother Outlaw when she came to Canberra a few weeks ago. But would she have returned them?

These sorts of thoughts have been running through my mind at 2am when I wake and can't get back to sleep. Today comes the anti-climax. I pulled down my backpack to start packing for the coast (yay! 3 sleeps to go until we head down the highway!) and when I looked through it (again... believe me, I looked at other times), I saw a hint of green on one of the side compartments. I have never been so relieved to see a sparkle in my life. So what was the pursed lips thingy about?

The best thing is that I can wear them under my wedding outfit. Huzzar!

Bollywood Bliss

I was just cruising through Blogland reading various accounts of the Sydney Grogblog, when I stumbled upon Agent FareEvader's mention of the Bollywood Marsala International Film Festival 2004 which is hitting Melbourne in a couple of days. Canberra has just hosted this festival, and it is such good fun. I'm kicking myself that we only got to catch 2 of the films, but they were absolute beauties.

Best Beloved has spent a fair bit of time in India, travelling and studying, so is always keen to partake of a bit of Bollywood. Our DVD collection is getting pretty colorful as well. His theory is that it's not Bollywood without a Wet Sari Scene, a theory which held up quite well for the two very different films we saw, Chameli and Main Hoon Na.

Chameli is not classical Bollywood, although it has a lot of the elements. The storyline is almost Pretty Woman; prostitute meets rich man and changes his perceptions about the trade and they fall in love. This is a classier version. It takes place over one night, and the set is used very dramatically, almost like a stage production. It is set in monsoon season, so it is constantly raining, which on one hand provides the curtains for the 'stage' atmosphere, and also allows a manditory wet sari scene. I loved this movie. I highly recommend it.

The other movie we saw in the festival was a classic Bollywood production: Main Hoon Na (2004). Set in gorgeous Darjeeling, it had the baddest (and cheesiest) of baddies, the goodest of goodies, the most beautiful of beauties (and a wet sari scene) and the most fabulous costumes. It had a touch of Grease to it, especially at the end. Lots of humour, excitement, special effects, singin and dancing. The script is written and directed by a woman, Farah Khan, who pays homage to traditional Bollywood, and injects it with very a modern sense of fun and politics. There are a number of Matrix-like effects, including a brilliant spoof involving mucus. If you only get to see one film in this festival, I think it should be this one, although I have to warn you that it is over three hours long (not that I even noticed).

When I say 'we' only saw two movies, I should add that Best Beloved went to a third by himself, which was Ab Tak Chappan, a gritty police-based thriller, which he really enjoyed.

If you are in Melbourne, go along to the festival, and tell me if you can understand a word said by the sponsor of the festival in his pre-film blurb (no peeking at the programme)! If you know anyone in Melbourne, tell them about it. And check if the festival is heading your way, because it's too good to miss.

Sunday brunch

Again, I'm having a break from printing my wedding announcements (last pass through the press! 6 sleeps to go! yay!) and thinking about the day so far. Best Beloved and I just had brunch with a bunch of friends at a certain cafe in Belconnen (I know, a long shot, but stick around...) beside the lake. One couple from the bunch walk to this cafe every Sunday for breakfast, but they are moving next weekend so we decided to all go as a farewell gesture. J mentioned that she'd booked an outside table as we all have babies, dogs etc. we rocked up, and were shown to a table inside. No, no, we said. She'd specifically mentioned outside. Hesitation on the cafe's part until J arrived and insisted that we be seated outside. Room was found outside, but in full sun, which was nice for the first 5 minutes, but was quite painful as time went on. Even the waiter who took our order had tears in his eyes from the glare, which may go partly some of the way as to why our order went askew. When some people in the shade moved on we leapt up and spent a good 5 minutes rearranging the tables and seating so that we were much cooler. We had five kids (including 2 babies) and a dog, and it was almost slapstick for a while, including a number of annoyed waitpersons hovering around us trying to deliver the wrong orders. My order was fairly simple -- I wanted the poached eggs with mushrooms, bacon and spinach on thick toast, which was a standard menu item, and I requested a dob of hollandaise sauce with it. This seemed to confuse them utterly. They probably wondered why I didn't just have the Eggs Benedict. But! I didn't want salmon, I didn't want just ham... was it really so hard? It took them 3 goes to bring me the right combination. At least the eggs were firm, as I requested, although I suspect that was more to do with the to-ing and fro-ing than the cooking time. We did have a good time, apart from these and other minor glitches, like the usual coffee fracas (who is having the decaf latte? No, we ordered a three normal latte). But by the end we all heaved a big sigh, as I'm sure did the staff. Almost a good thing it was the last of the regular sundays!
Back to the press.

Blog yer pet Friday

Snout out

No, this is not a muppet. This is Lucky, our extremely inquisitive family mongrel. We know he is part Jack Russell and part fox terrier. We think he is also part whippet, as he has very long legs and a whippety chest, and he's the fastest dog I've ever known. Let's just say he's not anywhere near a pedigree dog.

However, he is a wonderful family dog, great with kids large or small, and has a ball obsession. No joke. This dog can play ball until he drops dead of exhaustion, and even then he'd try for more. He also likes sticking his snout where it's not welcome.

He is meant to belong to Bumblebee, but of course he imprinted on me, so I am Ruler of the Universe, which has made me sway away temporarily from my preference of cats. I've never been so unconditionally adored. It's addictive. I feel like I'm betraying my late beloved cat, but what else can I do when my little furry mate just sits and stares lovingly at me all day? Throw the ball, of course.

C*nty camera

Fuckaduck! 

I am so sick of my digicam dying. I bought the bloody thing duty-free on the way to Korea in June and it did a beautiful job until the second-last day of my trip, which was the first day of free time to look at all the gorgeous palaces and art districts. C*nt! I cried, in between squirts, as this was also the day on which I contracted a lovely case of giardia. I still made it around some beautiful areas, and saw most of the toilets in north Seoul, but I have no photos other than those my colleague took.

Anyway, sent the camera back, and it was returned with the message that they couldn't find anything wrong with it. Annoyingly, it did work when I opened the parcel. For a time. Then it died again. So I sent it back with printouts of the photos it was taking, like the gorgeous self-portrait above. This time it was returned after being 'fixed'. Yeah, well, if my dog was fixed the same way I'd be the proud owner of a daddy dog by now.

This time it lasted less than a month and died again. So this time I have demanded a new camera or my money back. I mean, I have not mistreated the camera! I kept it nicely padded, downloaded the photos scrupulously to the directions, lavished love and attention on it. I also mentioned to the company that I am getting married next week and I am disappointed that I won't have a camera on my honeymoon. You can all vouch that I am not scamming this company. If they don't respond honourably to that I am going to be naming names and going to my local consumer rights people.

So no more nice pics until the issue is resolved. Maybe I'll start plundering my archives. Maybe now is the time to mount some Korean snaps. Hmmm...