minks’ Neighborhood

Well, Lizzie's school report came home today.

And before I start I just have to point out that she did lose her mojo this year. I dunno what happened. Friends, boyfriend, parties, turning 17. Shit happens.

But it came back, so she told me we have to ignore this report.

So the first subject I came to was Maths.

And I really didn't get past that because it was the funniest Teacher Comment I think I've ever read on a report.

 it said.

Lizzie is a student with the ability required to do the work but finds it very difficult to fully concentrate on a task and is always talking with peers and occasionally eating.

I said to her - what are you occasionally eating?

But he is a bit of a nutter. One day there was a girl in the class using one of those vicks inhalers. You know the white sticks you put up your nose and inhale to clear your nose when you have a cold?

Anyway he rang up the girls mother and told her that she was sticking tampons up her nose during class.

Now I must admit that Lizzie did tell him that it was a tampon. But she was joking. And you'd think he would check before he rang and told the girls mother.

Children-are-a-blessing

2 comments

I am sitting at the dining table trying to organise Christmas Amazon orders to various family factions.

I am facing the open french windows and looking down to the bottom of the garden where, under a startling pink bower of Bourgainvillia, Sprog has set up a small table and chair.  She has very carefully carried her bowl of porridge and her cup of milk down to her table.  She is sitting in state, putting me in mind of a Victorian jungle explorer taking tea.

Wilf has gone down to bug her and she is distracting him by singing her very own version of jingle bells.  Rattling a jingly baby toy she is lustily singing "Jingle bells!  Jingle bells Jingle all the WAY!! (Hey!)  Ohmah fahhh eddesterahhh!  Amana OPEN SLEIGH (hey!)"

Wilf is clutching his nadgers and dancing from one foot to the other, laughing like a drain.

They are both starkers.

Life is good.

What was your favorite class in high school? (And no, lunch doesn't count.) 

Lunch class?  Pah.

How about smoking behind the newsagents across the road class?

Or bunking off and going to Drummonds class?

Or maybe those free periods either side of lunch when my friend would drive us to the Dome on the Kings Road and I'd drink gin and tonics before returning to my A Level English Literature class?

Lunch class, schmunch class.

Hello internets. Just thought I'd pop by to let you know that:

(a) the PGCE is going great guns (though I haven't actually been allowed near a child yet, so this may well be the calm before the storm)

and

(b) well, I think this one deserves a picture:

Engaged!

Bridesmaid gig on the weekend again, my fourth trip down the aisle. I love, love, love being a bridesmaid – being primped, pampered, photographed and drinking champagne until in comes out my ears, then having a big ol’ sook because the bride is beeeyoootiful and I love you soooo much and you desherve to be ha-ha-happy...uh oh, where the hell is my uvver shoe?  Hic.    

But most of all I loved this:

Chocolate fountain

This is the reason I didn’t wake up on Sunday with a sizzling hangover. I alternated my tequila shots with surreptitious gulps from the chocolate fountain, which is clearly the sensible thing to do on a night out. In fact by the end of the night I found myself sober* enough to be babysitting the other two bridesmaids, the best man, and one random Phillippino guy who introduced himself as Arnie. I shoved everyone into a taxi, directed it to the closest 7-11, fed everyone microwave chicken rolls and convinced Best Man to keep his hands off one of the bridesmaids because dude, she’s REALLY not interested. Plus you’re married and have a child, you jerk. Then bridesmaid vomited out the side of the taxi and Best Man suddenly lost interest. Ah, young love.

I don’t think I’m too keen on being a bride. They’re unfailingly tense, weepy and strung out. Cheer up girls, it’s a husband, not breast cancer. Husbands are a lot easier to dispatch.

*According to the Rye Pub breathalyser, I had a healthy blood alcohol level of 0.07. Another bridesmaid blew 0.18 then cried because she’d wasted $2 on a breathalyser.

Calorie-calculator

Courtesy of the always hillarious Toothpaste for Dinner of course.

After looking through old photos of myself and my sibs when we were kids, I have come to the conclusion that we must have worn the most ridiculous, daggy swimmers you could ever hope (not) to see.

Now I myself only saw my mother sew once, when she sewed my bridesmaid doll a dress and cape. But these definitely have a home sewn look to them. And we seemed to wear them for years.

Take me here for instance. Determined to get to the beach. And nothin', not even those baggy daggy swimmers is going to stop me. I mean mother, you could've taken in the legs a little. I bet if I keep looking I'll see one of my sisters wearing these before I got them. Probably both of them.

1

And one of my favourite photos. Emjay, the oldest, with our brother and sister. Sporting a very unfashionable blue suit with a matching home done fringe trim.

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And here she is again, what maybe a couple of years later, still wearing it.

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Move forward another couple of years and my other sister is now wearing it and Emjay has a much nicer, yet still loose fitting pair of swimmers on. As you can see I'm still wearing the same pair I had on in the beginning. Because I had penty of room to grow into.

4

OMFG. And I was right. Even though I was only half joking. Here is Min, wearing my baggy pink swimmers. I wonder if I ever owned a new pair.

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I have this vision of my mother, searching through her wardrobe every year the day before we went on our summer holidays, pulling out a bag full of atrocious old faded swimmers and handing us each a pair. Mind you it wouldn't have been a very full bag. We seemed to last through our childhoods with three of four pairs between us.

There should be alcoholic tea.

Sometimes you really need a cup of tea, but you could also do with a drink.

Some people put whiskey in tea.  But then your delicious tea would taste of whiskey.  Yuck.

Cognac, I suppose, but again, it would be ruining both a perfectly nice cup of tea and a glass of cognac.

Coffee lends itself so much more to the addition of alcohol, but coffee doesn't scratch the itch that tea does.

An evening drink that combines the oooooh of a good cup of tea and the ahhhhh of a gin and tonic.  Then my life would be complete.